I've been a terribly tardy blogger - I admit it, but what with work, holidays, more work and more holidays, it's been a squeeze to keep on top of things at the allotment, and given the choice of keeping order among the veg or writing about it, I think I chose wisely since we sat down to our first fully-homegrown meal tonight.

I've had lots of help (thanks to Michelle my onions have remained amazingly weed-free and Sue did wonders with the parsnips.  My father spent an incredibly hot afternoon strimming the paths, and everything in the tunnel would of course be dead if it wasn't for the fabulous diligence of my marvelous mother in law and her regular watering).

How things looked in July 

Mrs H filling her collection of vessels with water.  Note  the short grass, thanks to my dad. ( It doesn't look like that now!)

In July our pickings looked like this:

July was hot hot hot and we ate everything raw from the allotment in salads.

Carrots continued to be a fabulous crop and I grated them in salads with various lettuce leaves, onions, sliced baby courgette and tender broad beans.  I made a minty dressing - a summer twist on a classic vinaigrette and didn't cook anything for weeks.

Broad beans - what a surprise!  I didn't think I really liked them but planned to throw them in soups and stews because I'd heard they were easy to grow.  In fact they were a fantastic crop - absolutely delicious when small and tender served raw.  I think I planted them out at just the right time too (February) because no one else seems to have had such a successful crop.

The yellow courgettes appeared more forthcoming than the green ones, and some of my turks cap squashes were starting to form.

The cabbages were looking a lot healthier than they are now in fact.  This is probably due to the long hot summer being great for cabbage white butterflies.  The caterpillars are now turning the few cabbages I have to lace.

The runner beans were slow-growing but I was hopeful they would take off  with water and sunshine.

The sweetcorn was forming cobs...

The peppers were starting to flower and the tomatoes were beginning to fruit.

The new addition of a grape vine had settled into the polytunnel climate. 

Outside the potatoes were looking good, and I harvested the three I'd planted in a compost bin which had turned into enough spuds to feed six of us. The shallots and onions were looking healthy and the few red onions that decided to go to seed and started forming flowers I picked quickly and ate them in salads.  

We harvested Sue's garlic which had separated successfully into nice fat cloves, and by the beginning of August, we'd finished the broad beans and just left a few in their pods to grow next year.

I'm going to write about this month (August) in my next blog which will come hot on the heels of this one because I don't want to bore myself or anyone with too much information... I'll just leave with a cliffhanger - not only did we eat our first allotment-only meal tonight, we also sampled a vegetable like nothing any of us had ever tasted before - it was truly amazing and on it's own made gardening for food totally worth it... what could it be????

To be continued...

It's all about weeds... and carrots.

What a horror of chaotic awfulness awaited me when I finally made it over to the plot after far too long today.  Having worked through most of the great weather and had more pressing things to to do like tax returns recently, I found the weeds were trying to take control of the situation in the polytunnel and outside it.

The pepper plants had disappeared beneath a blanket of weeds, the onions were indiscernible from the grass  and the parsnips were lost.

The weed piles just grew and grew today as I reacquainted myself with my veg.

Five knackering hours later I had managed to reacquaint myself with my veg. Inside the tunnel I found my rocket was in full flower, the spinach had finished it's life of lusciousness and developed brown spots on the leaves, the parsley had called it a day finally and gone to seed, and my chard was tough but tasty and now needed cooking to appreciate.

Brown spots on spinach leaves... time to seed some more
(3 weeks ago would have been preferable but better
late than never)

The good news is the tomatoes are looking good - pinching them out  between the stems has paid off and once weeded they are not crazily overgrown bushes, I can still walk between them with care and I was thrilled to see not only heaps of flowers but my first two pea-sized baby tomatoes.  The varieties got a bit confused since I was rubbish at labeling them, but at least one has hefty double petaled flowers which I'm presuming are going to turn into fabulous lumpy beef tomatoes.

Little darlin's!  First tomatoes appearing.  These I think are
cherries toms - orange and sweet.

The sweetcorn is strong and above knee height, the peppers are slow-growing but bushing out and healthy enough, but the real success story so far this year has got to be the carrots.  What total beauties they are.  I'm still thinning them out and the thinnings are mainly straight, decent sized and oh so tasty. I've pretty much thinned them so that the remainder I can leave in to grow into big healthy chaps.

Sweetcorn...

Peppers...

And these are just the thinnings... 

When I'd finally revealed my parsnips I set about taking the advice of Ed Hughes, my experienced parsnip-growing friend, who told me I must be utterly ruthless and thin them out to six inches apart.  He reckons if I do this I'll end up with parsnips as broad as a strongbow can! (the nearest example to hand at the time).

Looking forward to my super-fat
parsnips.  Brutally thinned to become the size of
a beer can!

The onions were next, and my hands are sore from being a human hoe as I tore the weeds from the poor strangled plants.  Disappointingly, they're not swelling wonderfully, not the ones I planted from sets or less surprisingly the ones I grew from seed.  Unlike the onions Sue planted in November which I thought would never survive - they are big and fat and look like they'll turn into prize-winners!

Slightly disappointing onions - one is about to flower already.  What did I do wrong??

The runner beans are running, the mange tout are climbing a bit pathetically up the pea netting, but the broad beans are fantastic, and despite high winds are undamaged and I have now tied them up with string (I'm such a novice - who knew you were supposed to tie them up?  Every gardener on the planet, that's who!)

Splendid broad beans - pods appearing..

The celery I planted last year which came to nothing is lush and verdant this year, but upon spying the small, ground-hugging bushes, John, (the great gardener from whom I inherited the polytunnel) pointed out that they needed to be in tubes so that they had to grow upwards to the light and the stalks would remain white and well, celery-like.  Aha!  So that's what those lengths of drainpipe laying around the allotment are for!

So, next jobs - more weeding and hopefully soon, with a bit of nice weather I'll be harvesting stuff to feed my family.  Because that's what it's all about really.

This is what it's all about

At last I had a day off from work when the sun was shining and there was nothing more pressing than getting over to the plot and working.  And boy there was plenty to do.  It's nearly the end of May, my courgettes, squashes and cucumbers are all outgrowing their little pots, leaves yellowing and desperate to be released into the soil outside.  

First there was digging to be done, and help arrived in the surprising form of my eldest son Charlie, who heroically dug over a patch of soil in preparation for planting.  

Hooray for Charlie!  Just when I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of work to be done!

I eventually got some courgettes in the ground (I think they're courgettes... unfortunately my plant labelling was a bit of a disaster this year and I'd forgotten how similar courgettes, squashes and cucumbers look...)  My friend Ed suggested that courgettes, sweetcorn and runner beans grow very well together in the same patch, so decided to intersperse my courgettes with some left over sweetcorn plants, with the option of runner beans later.

I know at least two plants are definitely yellow courgettes.  The rest are a lucky dip!  The plan I believe in this trio of plants is that the courgettes with big leaves trap the moisture into the soil for the sweetcorn which needs plenty of moisture, while the runner beans grow up the strong sweetcorn plants.  I'm slightly worried that I didn't get the plants out to harden them off for a bit before planting out.


Meanwhile I got the rest of the leeks planted in my leek bed.  Such a long job, and so frustratingly like planting strands of hair.  I tried to leave the holes I made by the sticks and just plonk the plants into them this time, as I've been told that this is the way to do it, though the little plants looked totally lost in the holes and I find it hard to believe that they'll survive in that environment.  We'll see.  
The carrots in the tunnel are up to my knees and desperately needed thinning out and I had the absolute thrill of discovering that the thinnings were proper baby carrots!

That is SO what I'm talking about!  

My crop of baby carrots - those that didn't get eaten raw made it into the best stir fry ever

Charlie samples the first carrot of the year straight from the ground

The peace of the allotment was soon shattered by a smelly noisy lawnmower being driven by none other than Mark Hutchinson.  I couldn't complain though as the paths were so crazily overgrown, and when he'd finished roaring about the place with his machine I had to admit that the plot looked tons better and so much more organised.  

Hutchbloke with his noisy smelly power tool...

He even tackled mounds with whopping nettles growing from them

So. the potatoes are up and need earthing, or piling more soil on top of their mounds since the potatoes grow up the stalks but only underground.

The mange tout are coming along nicely but I need to find some twiggy sticks for them to grow up or put up some netting.

The parsnips are finally up - they sure have taken their time and I'd almost given up on them, but, peering between the weeds it is now possible to spot an unmistakable row of them.  The beetroot is not so clear. 

Potatoes - need earthing now

Mange tout - want something to climb up

Parsnips - just discernible among the beastly weeds

Beauty crop from my rhubarb - will stew and freeze

The tunnel.  Right hand side, closest to camera, carrots, spinach, parsley, lettuce, chard, rocket.  Left side, tomatoes, peppers, sweetcorn, cucumbers dotted about and everything heavily interspersed with healthy virile weeds!  Next job - weed the tunnel. 

I used to like buttercups...

I really did used to like them, pretty and harmless with that lovely golden glow under your chin if you truly DO like butter...
But that was before I was a gardener.  Now I hate them with a vengeance. Yesterday I noticed that I have entire paths carpeted in the flaming things, and they seem to very quickly encroach on the growing areas.  They also cling to the ground with grabby roots, and along with the knee high tough rooted nettles, I realised I was going to have to do battle with these virulent weeds.

My buttercup path...  they cling on tight with nasty grabby roots and if you dig beneath the surface of some apparently weed free soil you'll find smaller perfectly-formed versions of themselves, but white and magotty, lurking there, waiting to spring up when you think you've got em all!

My hand fork clearly showed it wasn't man enough for the job, so I decided to get another one from the ironmongers in Machynlleth.  As the choice was one for £2.50 which would probably have bent in no time or a Wilkinson Sword tough looking beast for £9.99, I found myself forking out a tenner on a little garden implement.  This gardening lark is supposed to SAVE me money!

So... how much would you 'fork' out to ensure this doesn't happen again?  

What a beauty - £9.99 worth of Wilkinson Sword craftsmanship.   Wonder how long it'll take me to lose it in the garden?

On a lighter note, the first flowers have appeared on my broad beans and I was amazed to see they look a little like pale pansy flowers.

Although I spent a couple of hours fighting the buttercups today, it seems like I've hardly touched them, so tomorrow I'm going back, long sleeves and gloves at the ready to start a war on the nettles too.

First Home grown salad

It is with enormous satisfaction that I can report that tonight's tea was accompanied by salad leaves all freshly picked from the polytunnnel.

The salad consisted of mixed lettuce leaves, chard, rocket and the ubiquitous spinach. I also added chives, parsley, a few basil leaves and a sprig of coriander. Utterly scrumptious and such a fabulous feeling to be feeding my family on stuff I've grown from seed.  :)

Snow forecast? Is this some kind of joke??

Unbelievably, after a little bit of warm weather last week, temperatures have taken a serious dip, we've had rain and wind and now incredibly, in mid May, there's apparently a chance of snow!

Some stuff is coming on in leaps and bounds over the plot, mange touts are up, rocket and chard sprouting healthily and  onions and shallots looking great, while my cucumbers, sweet peas and pink banana squashes simply refuse to germinate.

This evening although it was raining, I popped over to do a bit of weeding in the tunnel, one of the pleasures of having a polytunnnel being that you can work in the dry and out of the wind.  Glad I bothered since the weeds were getting a bit over the top and the carrots seriously needed thinning out.  I couldn't resist trying to replant the carrot thinnings, and I'm sure a proper gardener would tell me I'm wasting my time, but I'm not a proper gardener so I've given them a chance.

Weeny little baby carrots... surely they'll grow into big ones if I replant them carefully....?

Planted 8 sweetcorn plants in the tunnel as they were looking lush and healthy, as well as my sweet pepper plants, which seem to have come to a growing halt since being potted on from their seed trays yonks ago.  We'll see if they have a spurt now they're in the ground.
Also got the rest of the tomatoes in the ground in the tunnel.  Am a bit mixed up as to which plants are which I have to admit, and it's the same with my courgettes and squashes, although I wrote labels, the pen wasn't permanent and has washed off entirely with watering!

Mental note to self: Next year buy a permanent marker or two.

Last I decided that since it had stopped raining I'd better get my leeks in the ground. Planted 50 of them, and have at least another 50 to go.  Used a stick to make holes, shoved the teeny plants in the holes, then gently let the soil fall back around them.

Rocket doing well

Chard looking lucious

Next time I'm going to have to plant the rest of the leeks, dig over another couple of beds ready for squashes, courgettes and green beans.

Warmth! At last!

Finally things have warmed up over the plot and my seeds are starting to germinate.

They sure have taken their time, and some are still showing no hint of life in spite of the incredible warmth in the polytunnel.

No sign of cucumbers, pink banana squashes or sweet peas, but life is springing fabulously from my turks turban squash seeds, sweetcorn and yellow courgettes.

The very first stirrings of the soil meaning the courgettes are about to spring out  of the soil.  I love it when they germinate, and squashes and cucumbers, so strong and vigorous.

First shoots of sweetcorn.  Amazing to think how vast these little seedlings will become and the fantastic fruit they will bear.

The first of  my tomatoes planted into the soil of the tunnel.  
The earliest ones I grew on my windowsill, beef tomatoes,  suffered from the cold when I first took them over and looked decidedly sickly.  Some of them have since improved but the ones my mum grew from seed which should bear little sweet cherry fruit are looking healthy and strong. 

The first of my salad leaves appearing.  I'm really going to try and keep these going all summer by resowing every fortnight.  Keeping my family in lettuce is already costing a fortune and I can't wait til we are eating salad from the allotment.

How the tunnel is looking at the moment.
Salad leaves closest to camera, last year's parsley still producing, 2 rows of spinach which I'm picking daily (spinach is in everything I cook and every salad I create at the moment!)  5 rows of carrots growing at the end nearest the door.  Just planted 4 tomato plants on the other side of the tunnel so far.  Sweetcorn to go in soon, more tomatoes and hopefully some cucumbers if they ever appear.

Leeks!
Definite job on my list - get these lovely little specimens in the ground as soon as possible.  Got a bed ready dug and waiting for them - finding the time to do anything at the moment is hard as work commitments seem to be taking over my life.

New season spinach

Today I called over to water the tunnel and see if any seeds have germinated. It was hot as hell in there but still quite damp as not really sunny.  No joy on the germination front yet, but the new spinach was ready for a delicious first picking of baby leaves. So tender and delightfully mild and just in time as last years has started to bolt. Harvested what I could from the old stuff, and, determined not to waste any I de-stalked it and threw it in a chilli. Ab fab!

The remaining old plants have gone on the compost heap.
Meanwhile, I had to photograph the incredibly lush and verdant parsley as it looks so heavenly. 
Really must harvest and freeze some soon.