Digging & Dreaming

Coming To Life

This is the time of year when the allotment and garden really start to come to life. Helped along by a little warmth and wetness seedlings are popping up all over the place. And perennial plants and shrubs that have been quiet over the winter months are coming back into their own. Suddenly the allotment is a very crowded place! Unfortunately the one thing that can be guaranteed not to grow in relation to the plants (and weeds!) is the time that I have got available to tend my plot...

Over the last couple of years my work life has changed significantly, moving from fulltime employment to working freelance and running my own small business. This means that my work hours follow a less regular pattern and take me away from home more frequently - making the time I can spend on the plot much less regular. I have tried to reflect this new routine in the way that I cultivate my plot, thinking more about perennial planting, keeping the ground covered and allowing plants to seed themselves more and find their own space. However, the challenge with this is that my plot is not presented in regimented lines and layout which is more typical of traditional allotment plots. Which can cause conversation and consternation between other plot holders, who may mistake a productive polyculture as a space that is messy and uncultivated.

Has anyone else got any examples of less traditional ways of growing veg and cultivating an allotment space? I'd love to see them if you have.

Cosmos seedlings coming along in the greenhouse

Apple blossom

Chive flowers - soon these will be cut back to make a mulch

Early Calendula - beautiful but also delicious to eat

Tiny gooseberries

Brassica flowers on last year's kale - I leave them as the bees love them

An artichoke starting to heart - this is the first time I have managed to grow them!

Looking down over the whole plot

The Days Are Stretching Out Again

On my allotment rhubarb is normally the first splash of colour each year. As if by magic the bright pink of baby stalks suddenly emerges from the cold, wet soil, tantalising everybody with hints of a warmer, brighter spring that is now just around the corner. At the same time that the rhubarb appears the days start to draw out and each evening it seems a step closer to the moment when planting, picking and weeding will be possible at the end of the day.

This appearance also means that other preparations are starting to take place on Plot 45. The broad beans and sweet peas are in pots, the garlic shoots are showing, and this week the chili seeds will be planted in the heated propagator in the kitchen at home. All of this combining to make early February a time of hope and expectation for growers like me. The full flow of summer is still a long way away but suddenly the hints of spring making their way out of the winter darkness make it clear that, once again, the time for real focus on growing is tantalisingly close.

Plot Shots #2

A cool and rainy Easter weekend when not much gardening got done. The plot has really benefitted from the damp weather with everything taking on a new vitality and colour (including the weeds). Still lots of empty beds to be planted up but the potatoes are in and the greenhouse is full of seed trays so the air of abundance and expectation is all around.

Parsnip heads showing signs of new growth

Rhubarb patch showing real signs of life and productivity

Seedlings in the greenhouse

Blackcurrant bushes

Damson blossom

Waiting for broad beans to show themselves

Dicentra spectabilis - Bleeding Heart

At this time of year Bleeding Heart (or Dicentra spectabilis) is one of my absolute favourite plants. Originating in China, it is a beautiful perennial plant with gorgeous foliage that is interspersed with graceful, arching fronds of delicate, heart shaped flowers. As well as being beautiful it is also very hardy and easy to grow. It prefers a site that is in full sun or partial shade and is tolerant of just about any soil that a garden or allotment may have to offer.

Clumps of Dicentra will happily return year after year without too much bother, but if you want to increase your stock they can easily be multiplied by taking root cuttings in spring. And this is exactly what I'm planning to do with the plant in the picture sometime soon so that I can have a bit more of this pretty and troublefree plant in my garden in future years.

Plot Shots #1

I love nosing around other people's allotments and gardens. Whether someone I know is showing me around or I'm peeping over a fence to take a look it's always fascinating to see what other people are growing and how they're growing it. On this basis I have decided that this year I am going to let all of you have a good nosey around my allotment (and sometimes my garden too!) Every week I will post a selection of pictures that will give you a good idea of what's happening on the plot. I know I already post pictures on here but they're the nice ones that support the different things I'm writing about on the site. These new Plot Shots will be different...

They will give you a warts and all impression of what's going on on Plot 45 from plants that are doing really well to weeds I can't get rid of and damage that the rabbits have done. I hope it will serve as an honest portrayal of the ups and downs of maintaining a veg plot, and will offer inspiration and commiseration in equal parts to those of you who are having a go at growing their own.

So here I go... Plot Shots #1 - I hope you enjoy it.

Spring daffs in the flowerbed

Broad beans sprouting

Irises

Tangy, tasty sorrell

Ever reliable rhubarb

Garlic

Favourite Spring flowers - Tulips

Sweet peas in the greenhouse

Salad Boxes for the Garden

Even though we grow lots and lots of food on the allotment we still like to grow some in the back garden too. In particular salad crops and herbs that are perishable so are best grown close to the kitchen so that they can be eaten fresh. In fact, one of the first things that I ever grew that started to get me hooked on growing was a trough of salad leaves in my backyard. You only need to grow them once to understand how easy they are and how much money you can save by growing your own.

This weekend Jo decided that he'd have a go of making some new planters for the garden to add to the old ones we've got that struggled to fit in all the salad we wanted to grow last year. This is the design that he came up with this time which I really like because of the multi-levels that he's created. I thinking of have lettuce leaves in the bottom layer and cascading beans and tomatoes coming down from the top layer - a really handsome combination I'm sure you'll agree? We just need to stain them now to protect the wood and add a plastic liner to plant into (we normally use old compost sacks and staple them inside). Then the only thing left to do is to plant them up and wait eagerly until they are providing gorgeous fresh salad all through the summer. I promise I'll share a picture when they're planted up to let you know how they get on.

By the way, if you look carefully you can see one of the first planters that Jo made for me propped up in the back of this picture. This one is nearly seven years old now showing how long they can last if you give them a little tlc and maintenance every winter.

It's All In The Planning

This is the time of year when many people are taking on an allotment for the first time. Or if they're not totally new to it, embarking upon their first full year as a plot holder. At my allotments we've got lots of now people taking on plots. The slightly sad thing about this is that experience tells us that a percentage of these people will also quit their plot in their first year. For some of them that is because keeping an allotment is much harder work than they imagined and when they give it a go they realise it isn't for them. However, for others, it is with heavy heart that they give up their plot because they haven't been able to keep on top of the work or because they've floundered, not quite sure what they should be doing or not doing to get their own little patch of green up and running. So, on this basis, here is my advice for all of you who are new, or nearly new, to allotment growing this year:

• Read about crop rotation and decide how you are going to rotate your planting, preferably using a four year rotation if you can. This may seem pretty indepth thinking at this early stage but good early planning and soil care will help you get the best out of your plot in the long run.
• Make a list of what you want to plant and work out where and when you will be planting it. For my plot this plan is quite complicated because I insist upon growing lots of obscure cultivars. It doesn't need to be if you are sensbile enough to grow a smaller selection of crops which is probably wise whilst you are finding your feed! Good planning at the start of the season will make sure you get the best out of growing by planting each different plant at just the right time.
• Don't panic if you don't manage to cultivate the whole plot in your first year. So long as you keep it clean and tidy and don't let the weeds run away with you it'll be fine. And if you cultivate a small area and manage to grow something you really love to eat, that first allotment grown meal or snack should be tasty enough to inspire you to grow bigger and better each year.
• Grow things that you really want to eat - especially if you only have a small space! Potatoes and onions are cheap to buy so concentrate your efforts on growing more unusual crops that you know you will enjoy growing and that you can't buy on your local market. I do grow onions and spuds if I can fit them in, but only unusual varieties. And I would much rather fill my space with things like sweetcorn, pumpkins, tomatillos... the list could go on to include anything that we love eating but can't easily buy.
• Invest in a good book to help you on your way. I would recommend Joy Larkom's Grow Your Own Vegetables which has been an absolute bible for us. Or Monty Don's The Complete Gardener which is beautifully written, full of glorious pictures and also includes loads of information on growing flowers and other non-edible plants.
• Keep on visiting blogs like this to find out what other people are growing or get involved in online communities like UK Veg Gardeners. The online growing and gardening community is now very large and active and is a great place to share ideas, find solutions to problems and learn directly from other growers who have a little more experience than you.

Happy growing to all the new growers out there in 2012. Here's to a productive and tasty year ahead.

Out In The Cold

On our allotment most of our plants begin their lives in the greenhouse because we've found this the best way to have any chance of winning the battle against slugs. As with any plants that have been started off inside there needs to be some degree of consideration to how their transfer is made into the big, wide world outside.

Surprisingly when plants first go outside it can be wind that poses the greatest threat to them rather than cold. So protecting them from wind in the first couple of days is one of the best things you can do to ensure they continue to grow on as strong and sturdy as they can. We're lucky enough to have a cold frame alongside our greenhouse which is the perfect holding area for plants before they are finally planted in their final home in the beds on the allotment. The frame is suitably sheltered but also gets weathered enough to acclimatise the plants to the outside world.

The broad beans you can see in the picture will spend a couple of days like this in the cold frame with no extra protection from the elements. After this I will lift them onto the path in their pots for a couple of days to get them used to the wind, though still putting them back in the frame at night. It is only after this that they will finally be planted out onto the plot.This may all sound like a lot of effort for a crop of broad beans but it's really worth investing the time as you are much more likely to have a strong and healthy plant, which will crop better, if it is properly introduced to its new surroundings.

What if you haven't got a cold frame? Well, any sheltered corner will do as an alternative - though you may need to bring the plants back inside for the first couple of nights if you don't have the option to cover them up like you do with a coldframe.

And just in case this post has inspired you to make your own coldframe... here's a suggestion of how to do it courtesy of Permaculture Magazine.

Fantastic Mr Fox

Okay... I admit it... This isn't the most inspiring picture that I have ever posted on this blog but I've posted it because the dullness of the image is no reflection of the great drama and tension that it represents.

The picture is taken right at the top of my allotment where there is a fence to separate our plots from the neighbouring park. If you squint carefully at the middle of the image you should be just about able to make out a neatly dug hole going under the fence. When I first spotted this my gut instinct was to block it back up - we've had problems with rabbits on our plot in the past so I suspected they may be using the hole as a way of getting in and out of the allotments. However, the other morning footprints on a freshly raked bed on my plot suggested otherwise... Instead of the distinctive prints of a rabbit there were the prints of an adult fox with, what looked like, the prints of a litter of fox cubs playing alongside her. It is these prints and nothing else that have saved the hole under the fence for now...

As I mentioned before, we have had problems with rabbits in the past. They are an absolute nuisance and cause terrible chaos on any veg plot. This is why the hint that foxes are around is great news. The best way to deter Bugs Bunny and his pals is to have a resident fox patrolling your site and making sure no unwelcome bunnies help themselves to your hard grown crops. So for now the hole under the fence is safe and I've got everything crossed that the foxes will decide to stick around, keeping the rabbits at bay.

Sorrel - A Spring Super Food

As soon as spring was in the air I knew it was only a matter of time before sorrel reappeared on the allotment. It isn't the most handsome plant by any means but it's always a welcome sight because it's the first salad crop that starts growing after the winter. In fact, it's actually tough enough to cope with the frosts that we can still experience into late spring / early summer making it a real winner as a reliable early leafy green.

Sorrel is a green leaf vegetable native to Europe. It is also called common sorrel or spinach dock, and is actually considered less a vegetable and more an herb in some cultures. In appearance sorrel greatly resembles spinach and in taste sorrel can range from comparable to the kiwifruit in young leaves, to a more acidic tasting older leaf. As sorrel ages it tends to grow more acidic due to the presence of oxalic acid, which actually gets stronger and tastes more prominent.

Young sorrel may be harvested to use in salads, soups or stews giving an amazingly zingy taste wherever you use it. If you are planning on using sorrel in salads, it’s a good idea to stick with small tender leaves that have the fruitier and less acidic taste. Young sorrel leaves are also excellent when lightly cooked, similar to the taste of cooked chard or spinach. For soups and stews, older sorrel can be used because it adds tang and flavor to the dish.

From a nutritional standpoint sorrel has high levels of vitamins A nd C. It also contrains moderate levels of calcium, potassium and magnesium meaning it packs a big nutritional punch for a little leaf. However, it is worth noting that it contains very high levels of oxalic acid meaning it may not be suitable for people with kidney problems or rheumatism. And when you first start eating it try it in small doses - it's got a laxative effect if you eat too much of it!