December sun

A bright morning meant the first proper trip to the plot today for some time. Lately I've only been visiting for half an hour at lunchtime, picking some of the indefatigable rocket and pulling out a few weeds. But today I was able to sow some Aquadulce Claudia broad beans. Why do broad beans come in such industrial quantities? I have enough left for a sizeable sowing in December 2010. I also pulled up the last of the beetroot and a solitary carrot that managed to come to something like maturity - it's still only about 3 inches long.

I also managed to clear a strip of the still overgrown end of the plot. The ground is matted with nettle roots, although they do come out when you pull hard. The plan is to keep scraping away at this work on fine days until it's all cleared.

The winter crops seem to be doing OK. The garlic and shallots have all sprouted, and the purple sprouting broccoli looks vigorous - although there is no sign of any flowers as yet. I must check whether it needs any especial care at this stage; it's too late to space out the plants properly. The chard plants are growing healthily and look very tasty. The winter mustard and cavolo nero seem all right, but not hugely vigorous - the cavolo nero in particular is still fairly small compared to the leaves I get in my vegetable box. Maybe it's still a bit early. The Texel greens are fairly spindly and unappetising despite their vitamin C content.

I'm happier with the fennel, winter radish and turnip which all seem to be doing pretty well - the turnips are fattening up nicely, and the fennel is showing the start of tiny bulbs at ground level. Of the two rhubarbs, one (the Timperley Early) has started to put out shoots, so is clearly at home and will find itself in a crumble before too long. The rocket, endive and mizuna are still going strong despite the frost - I picked the last of the pak choi, however, since it looked a bit sorry for itself after two cold mornings in succession.

Gales and greens

I haven't done much at the allotment lately, hence the lack of posts. The recent gales tipped over my store-box, filled the lid with rainwater, and also shredded the last of the black plastic that has hopefully been suppressing the weeds. This is clearly a Sign that I should get on with clearing the last third of the site. Thankfully the nettles are dying back now, which will make it easier.

Some planting has been done - garlic and shallots have gone in, and I'm clearing bits of space for the broad beans. The various winter vegetables that I planted in August and September are doing well; the turnips and winter radish look healthy, and a good number of fennel plants have come up and each has the tiny beginnings of a fennel bulb in sight. The cavolo nero is about four inches high now, and the mustard greens will be edible fairly soon I think. The purple sprouting broccoli is about three feet high and shading the texel greens for half the day; understandably, they have not put on much growth. The chard plants look established and are growing well.

I also put in two rhubarb crowns, which smelled extraordinarily sweet and tart. Following the planting instructions was a bit of a worry - setting them in the soil so all the growing buds were sitting on the soil rather than under it proved to be impossible, so I've just hoped for the best. "Crown" is something of a misnomer - these were like an ill-wrought cow's hoof made of driftwood.

I'm still picking lots of salad - mizuna, chicory and rocket are all still producing - and have spotted that the dill has self-seeded here and there. I may pot the little plants up and bring them home out of the wind.

Bad planning

We are having a bit of a hungry gap at the moment. Well, there is still plenty of salad and beetroot, but most of the crops in the ground are not ready to harvest yet, and the courgettes are really almost over. And frankly, a girl can get tired of salad and beetroot. Clearly, I should have sown stuff earlier in the year to tide me over, although I'm not sure where I would have put it.

Last weekend I put in the raised bed that will house the raspberry plants, eventually. This means that about two-thirds of the plot is now Under Cultivation; I am quietly proud. I have a large collection of empty compost bags that will be covering the bare soil between the latest beds very soon. Unfortunately the last third of the plot is the part infested with nettles - digging this over and putting in raised beds is my long-term Autumn job.

One of my particular successes this year has been the endive ('Bianca Riccia da Taglio' Salad Endive (Chicorium endivia) from www.realseeds.co.uk). It's very tasty as well as growing in pretty, frilly rosettes; slightly bitter, like radicchio, but softer to eat and very pleasant in salads. Also, the slugs don't seem to fancy it. The Pe Tsai has also done rather well despite the depredations of the gastropods.

The latest batch of seeds, sown rather hopefully in September, have all put in an appearance - the turnips and winter radish are looking especially vigorous and have now been thinned. Cavolo nero and red mustard are also looking good after this week's rain. The fennel has come up with less vigour, but I don't really need hundreds of fennel bulbs. I put in Texel greens yesterday, (young plants from www.organicplants.co.uk), a vegetable I've never seen, let alone eaten. Apparently it is high in Vitamin C; comforting to know that scurvy will be averted this winter, provided the Texel greens thrive.

Last-minutism

In the last couple of weeks, I've done some rather hopeful last-minute seed sowing, with an eye to some autumn and winter crops. Possibly it was rather too optimistic, but September has been very mild so far, and I'm banking on Brighton having a longish growing season. Anyway, cavolo nero, mustard greens, turnips, fennel and winter radish have all gone in; the last three are already showing signs of life, although I think something has been digging up the bed housing the cavolo nero.

I've also planted some little chard plants, which will hopefully keep us in greens over the winter, and have garlic to sow somewhere. The runner beans have finally finished, and the bed is cleared and sown with green manure - I plan for that bed to house the asparagus plants. The courgettes are still producing; we've now eaten all the sweetcorn and a bit of the beetroot, partly thanks to this wonderful pie recipe. Carrots have been an utter failure; out of two rows I got one adolescent carrot that had been pre-enjoyed by some underground creature. The mizuna, rocket and endive continue to do well, and the aged lettuces sown in the spring are now producing crunchy, slightly bitter, radicchio-like leaves - very tasty.

I dug over the space for the next raised bed at the weekend, and discovered that a strange lump in the plot, covered with black plastic until now, seems to be where a former compost heap was - anyway it is full of lovely rich friable compost. Half of that will fill the putative raspberry bed.

Colour has come to the plot, too, in the shape of a few cyclamen plants and some chrysanthemums, and I've done a few spring bulbs as well.

Bolted

Yellow flowers everywhere on the pe tsai and cime di rapa, which has developed woody, inedible trunks. The leaves are still good, we just can't eat it fast enough.

A gale last month left the bean wigwams sagging and askew, and today I took down the worst one - surely the beans must nearly be over now? We've eaten about half a kilo a week for the last four weeks, and I've frozen about two kilos for winter nourishment. The gale also snapped off the flowering spikes of the sweetcorn, but the cobs seem to be fattening well enough without them. The courgette plants are still producing, although they look to be coming to the end of the season now.

I've been clearing more plot, and have planted the apple tree and gooseberry bush, and put in the beginnings of a lavender hedge beside them, and some cyclamen and chrysanthemums for a bit of autumn and winter colour. Another raised bed has gone in, and there is one more to do; one for some optimistic winter seeds, and one for raspberry plants. I have a lot of clearing of the existing beds to do, too, to make room for winter crops.

Trimming and tidying

I spent a couple of hours this morning trimming the verges - easily my least favourite job - weeding, picking and watering everything. The courgettes continue to thrive; I picked six today, and have picked as many during the week. Here they are a few days ago, with the corn just coming into flower. The corn cobs are more evident now which means that I can look forward to eating Yotam Ottolenghi's sweetcorn polenta during the next couple of weeks. The courgette harvest has been roasted, served with pasta, stir-fried and, for lunch today, made into soup seasoned with a couple of sprigs of lemon thyme and the last pickings from the dill, which is going to seed.

The runner beans are cropping regularly now, and there are lots of tiny beans left on the plants. I grew too many plants, really, having stuck a couple of seeds in at the base of each pole where my home-grown plants had failed, and now the effect is rather jungly, and one of the wigwams has started to sag. There are two cucumbers coming to maturity, still rather spiky and I think not quite ripe yet - they look a bit pale. Remarkably, there are also a few tiny green tomatoes on one of the plants, but no likelihood of a glut to manage.

The cima di rape was a great success - delicious stir-fried with some chilli flakes - and there is another row maturing. Also nearly ready are the first rows of beetroot. The chard and sorrel plants are still giving regular harvests, and the mizuna is doing well if a little gnawed by visiting gastropods. The carrots, however, are a definite failure - about six plants growing from two rows of seed. Never mind, it's not like carrots are expensive, is it?

Conspicuous consumption

No posts for a while - I was on holiday, and since then have been doing more eating of the produce than gardening. Sadly no photos exist of the triumph and then collapse of the mange-tout - my pea sticks proved woefully inadequate support. However, the mange-tout were not badly affected and produced an immense crop during July.

The runner beans are in flower and tiny beans are starting to set now; the cima di rape came up incredibly quickly and, unfortunately, flowered incredibly quickly too. I suspect it will still taste good. The Pe Tsai is doing well and the first row will be ready in the next few days. The first row of beetroot is looking good, but I doubt I will get carrots into double figures. At the end of that bed are another couple of rows of beetroot, more cima di rape and a row of endive for the winter.

The tomatoes are failing to flourish, but the courgettes are producing really well, and there are two tiny spiky cucumbers on one of the plants. Another patch of mixed salad leaves has been sown to hopefully keep a homegrown supply into September.

On Sunday I dug up the mange tout plants and put in purple sprouting broccoli and early white broccoli. Not my own plants, sadly, which were scoffed by something while in the back garden at home, but I'm sure I'll be glad of them over the winter. The next job is to net them to keep the birds off, and to keep an eye out for caterpillars.

I also spotted a new resident - a common lizard. S/he was basking in the sun on Sunday, and we met again yesterday when I lifted the carpet off the compost heap. I'll try to get a picture, but as s/he is well camouflaged against the compost and can move like greased lightning, I'm not hopeful.

Seeds and stones

I've been up to the plot most days this week to water, as it has been extremely warm and very dry. Everything seems to be living, and the seed I sowed last weekend is already coming up. The courgettes have established themselves well and started to flower, and I have some tiny runner beans on a dwarf bean variety, which produced pretty lilac flowers. The two sweetcorn plants have grown sturdy and are now about a foot tall, and the mange tout seem to be six inches higher every time I visit.

I finally filled the last raised bed with compost today, having first attempted to rake out all the stones. I got the larger stones (and bits of crockery, and broken glass) out but I'm not sure how carrot-friendly the bed will be. I can live with funny-shaped carrots, however, and sowed two rows of Early Nantes, and two rows of Boltardy beetroot. The squash plants have also gone in.

It was Hanover Day today, the annual street festival for the area of Brighton I live in, and a lovely plant stall provided me with sorrel and ruby chard for the plot, and thyme, flat leaf parsley and Greek basil for home. Very excited about the sorrel, which is delicious and very hard to track down in greengrocers.

After midsummer

A long visit on Sunday full of hard work on a hot hillside.

I harvested all the broad beans, pulled up the plants and filled the space with tomato and cucumber plants kindly donated by a friend. Several pak choi plants came up as well to make room for yet more tomatoes.

I got lots of seed recently from the Real Seed Catalogue, inspired by a reference to cima di rapa in the Guardian, and most of it bore the instruction to sow after midsummer, for an allegedly cooler growing period to reduce the chance of bolting. I'm not sure this is very likely, with temperatures this week forecast to be in the high twenties. However, I sowed more pak choi, mizuna and some Pe Tsai or Chinese winter cabbage. I must get some chard seed sown somewhere too. Another round of lettuce and rocket seeds went in in various odd corners. I then discovered that the marker pen for plant labels has gone astray, so will need to try to remember tonight where I put everything.

The mange tout, doing well, now have twiggy sticks to scramble over, and some of the beans and one courgette plant are in flower. I also thinned and re-spaced the leek plants - I hope they make it through the dry weather. At home there are still squash plants waiting to go in, and next weekend I really must sow carrots and beets.

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of providing picnic food based on my own horticultural efforts: potato salad with homegrown dill and chives, and a tian of pak choi and broad beans. Highly satisfying.

A visitor

I was away over the weekend, so have made a couple of quick visits this week to water and pick things. The broad beans have been excellent; I left the mizuna too long before picking, however, and it's a bit leathery. The pak choi and tatsoi are very tasty and I've ordered more seed to sow for a September crop.

I've had a visitor at the plot, one that has dug three holes in the unplanted end of the courgette bed. Going by the size of the holes, I'm inclined to think it was a fox. There is still a lot of scrubby land at the top end of the site that might house some foxes, despite the best efforts of the men labouring up there in orange "community payback" jerkins.

The runner and french beans are climbing the poles now, and the seeds I sowed directly into the ground have put up leaves too. Still no flowers on the potatoes. The mange tout are doing well, and I need to take some twigs up for them later this week. I plan to plant the carrots and beetroot seed at the weekend, put some more salad seed in odd corners, and do some weeding.

Fruits and labours

Two visits this weekend, plus a few during the week, have got the allotment to a point where I can almost feel pleased with it. All the raised bed kits are in, there is black plastic or weed suppressing fabric down everywhere, and some of it is even covered in bark chippings. The area round the six small beds actually looks quite nice.


I ran out of weed control fabric and was forced to improvise with flattened-out bark and compost bags, which did most of the rest of the site. There was much hard work scraping weeds off a patch of ground that I fear I have cleared twice already. The weeds were mainly nettles, thistles and dandelions; a couple of very unwelcome bits of bindweed; and the ubiquitous scarlet pimpernel, speedwell and the purple flower that I think is some sort of vetch.

The courgette plants are in, although they need staking, and I also planted the two tiny corn plants and the chili plant that was a birthday present. The courgette plants looked thoroughly collapsed in Sunday's heat but have reasonably good roots, so I think will be all right. I have limited hope of sweetcorn from two plants, however.

I cut some pak choi and mizuna; most of the pak choi has bolted in the hot weather. I also picked broad beans and made the unpleasant discovery of blackfly on the broad beans, so took internet advice and sprayed with soapy water. The beans are settling in well now and some are even climbing the poles, and there are lots of mange tout seedlings.
Still no flowers on the potatoes, however, and some variety of beast had been at my one ripe strawberry. The final bed is for sowing carrots and beetroot. I went mad yesterday evening on a seed website and now have lots of green leafy things I can sow for an autumn or winter harvest; there are also 24 purple sprouting broccoli seedlings at home, some of which will have to be given away if they all make it.

Neither damn'd nor elusive

Extensive research (thirty seconds on Google Images) has helped me identify the tiny red wildflowers on my plot. They are, rather pleasingly, scarlet pimpernel, pictured left. Unlike their namesake, they are easy to find due to ubiquity.

I've made several visits this week, mostly to water everything as it has been hot and dry. I also weeded the leek bed; there are a handful of leeks that will need augmenting with some bought plants. The broad beans are continuing to develop pods. I have a few strawberries, now sitting on a mulch of straw. The potatoes look like they are developing flower buds, and the salad greens all look fairly healthy. Only the French and runner beans still look feeble. We are forecast a wet weekend, so perhaps that might help. The mange tout are just starting to grow; I hope the slugs don't feast on them over the weekend. Definite signs of growth from the lollo rosso and mesclun, too.

There's been an outbreak of friendliness and encouragement from my neighbours, too, although still no sign of previously virtuous Mr Next Door; the grass is now waist high at the end of his plot, and the rest of it is thick with rather pretty wildflowers.

How many beans make five?

Here is my first harvest, a handful of tiny broad beans. Each pod is about three inches long, with the beans about a third of an inch in size. I should have let them grow, but couldn't resist sampling a few. The pods smelled wonderfully fresh and green, and the beans were delicious even in a homeopathic dose.

Over the weekend I watered, weeded, put down weed control fabric between the raised beds, and dug out around half of the patch for the next raised bed. Making a quick visit after work today I was encouraged by a neighbour who informed me that I was doing really well. It doesn't entirely feel like it, with half of the patch covered in black plastic. But the potatoes still look healthy, the salad is doing well with rocket, lollo rosso and mesclun all coming up, and about six of the climbing bean plants seem to have taken.

It was my birthday yesterday and I did well for plants: a gooseberry bush, a habanero chilli plant, and some basil, now protected by a copper ring on the garden table. The courgette plants are doing well, I think I can put the corn in soon, but I think I'll have to buy some plants to get tomatoes this year - the seedlings are still only an inch or so long.

Little and often ...

... is this week's lesson. Cutting down the nettles and grass around the edge of the plot should have been done weeks ago, and would have taken half the time and been much less heavy work if it had been. Still, I now have long-handled shears to make it slightly easier. There was too much greenery for the compost bins, so there's now a large heap at the end of the plot.

The broad beans are still flowering but the flowers have started to wilt, so I pinched out their tops as instructed by my various reference books. Apparently you can eat these tops, so I wrapped them in paper and brought them home; I'll report back on their appeal.

The potatoes still look healthy, and the pak choi and mizuna seem to be establishing themselves, although some of the bean plants had died and the others looked feeble. I planted mange tout in the last square metre bed, scraped weeds off the spot for the next two metre bed, and covered the end of the plot with cardboard and black plastic to smother the last patch of nettles.


My neighbour, who cleared his plot so thoroughly a couple of months ago, has not been seen for a while, and a note has appeared on his shed door asking him to clear out the weeds that have appeared all over his tilled earth. Next door but one the other way, poppies and what looks like it might be ragwort have taken over another plot; pretty, but no doubt we'll all have a fine crop of poppies in a couple of months. My weeding turned up speedwell, a tiny scarlet flower similar in shape to speedwell, and what looked like a long, elongated clover, also very pretty. I need these attractive wildflowers to fill in obediently around the edges of the raised beds, rather than in the middle; an unlikely prospect.

On the way home I took a picture of my favourite plot. I really like the combination of flowers and vegetables on this allotment. Maybe in about ten years I will be able to look out on something similar.

A bed of beans

Runner, French and some indeterminate beans donated by a friend; they are all gathered round three bamboo pole wigwams. I'm not entirely certain of the wigwams' stability, but strong winds are forecast for tomorrow which should test them out.

I also earthed up the potatoes today, not entirely certain that I was doing it properly; planted out some young pak choi and mizuna; and sowed lollo rosso, rocket and mesclun in some spare corners of beds. The final job was to weed what I laughably call the leek bed without disturbing the twelve or so tiny, spindly leek seedlings. There are so few seedlings, and so much bed, that I think I need to see if I can find some onions to go in and take up some space. I did sow a strip of chives along one edge.

I remembered my camera today, but forgot the batteries. The potatoes all look healthy and bushy; the strawberries have a few more flowers; and the broad beans are in full flower now. The grass round the edge of the plot is two feet high and must be cut down next visit. I have a vague plan of planting lavender and some fruit trees along the back border of the plot, which would hopefully stop the grass and nettles from coming back with a vengeance every time it rains.

Nettles

I nipped up to the plot from work the other lunchtime, and pulled up a bushel of nettles, now lying in a heap up the desolate end next to the shed base. I can't help feeling that wrestling with nettles in office clothes and gardening gloves is just a little too eccentric, but fear that they would be four feet high by Saturday drove me to it.

In flower

Well, the broad beans are in flower, and there are about 10 flowers on the strawberry plants, so we may even get the strawberries. The potatoes are doing well - I must check on the right time for earthing up - and there are even some microscopic leek seedlings that are fighting their way through the weeds. Best of all, nobody had stolen my storage box or any of its contents.

However, the nettles are back with a vengeance, thistles and dandelions are up in the cleared bits of the patch, and the grass is growing long all round the plot. I took my shears with me to attempt to sort this out, but they are completely blunt. I did pull up a few square feet of nettles, and bear the scars on my forearms. I'm going to try to go up a couple of times during the week after work and do battle with the nettles - in any case, I forgot to bring back the shears for sharpening.

As well as scraping up weeds, I put another, 2m x 1m, raised bed in. I took the Gardener's World advice to line the bottom with cardboard to help suppress weeds. I suspect the local weeds are not to be deterred by cardboard, but it cannot hurt.

At home, the runner and French bean seeds have done well and have been potted up, and I've sowed courgette seeds. The new raised bed will be a home for these once they've been hardened off. I have my free BBC seeds to plant, too, which I ought to do today if we want any tomatoes at all. I need to find a way of covering the paths that doesn't involve financial outlay - cardboard weighed down with stones, maybe? - so that I don't need to keep weeding them.

Potatoes v dandelions

I've missed a few planned allotment days, so took a day off on Monday to go up there, do some digging, make more raised beds and so on. Unfortunately the good weather took a day off too. After 20 minutes wrestling with a garden storage box in horizontal rain, I decided that digging was going to be no fun at all, and gave it up.

The potatoes are up and the broad beans are in flower - good. Less good is a patch of nettles two feet high and dandelions everywhere. Time for an industrial-strength hoe.

Gone in an instant

Well, actually it took a big lad and his father a good two hours to lay about the shed and reduce it to bite-sized portions, but it's all gone now and good riddance to it.

While they were about their labours, I planted potatoes and sowed leeks and spring onions, and cleared a bit more plot. Lifting the black plastic I found it had worked well on the grass, reduced to straw, but apparently dandelions and nettles can grow in the absence of light and water. I don't remember my lessons on photosynthesis at school covering this.

Sixes

I now, finally, have six square metres of workable plot after working from three yesterday until the sun went down. The last two raised beds have gone in - hallelujah. I also transplanted the broad beans, and lifted and replaced Bed 2 which was sticking up at an awkward angle, with daylight between one corner and the soil. One end of the plot, at least, now looks a bit more like an allotment.

My neighbour also kindly brought me six strawberry plants, which have gone into newly liberated Bed 2. Now I need to read up on what kind of treatment they like. I hope it's not too early to plant them out.

I met my other new neighbours: Janna, Vincent and their daughter Queenie. They have put me to shame by clearing three-quarters of a whole plot in two weekends, and putting in some onions already. We exchanged shed horror stories; theirs came supplied with several bottles of urine. I had wondered how bodily functions were managed at the site, and all is now clear. I have found someone to come and remove the shed and its associated rubbish later this month, and will be heartily glad to see the back of it.

Spring awakening

I went up to the plot yesterday, and put in two more raised beds. I took the spirit level this time, and made a better job of the digging, so they look a lot better than the first two - in fact I plan to transplant the surviving broad beans from bed 2, uproot the frame and dig it in again. Maybe next week when I put in the final two raised bed kits.

The soil quality, once dug over, is not bad, although riddled with dandelion roots; I need to go over each bed with a hand fork and a bucket and get as much out as I can, but even so I suspect I'll be digging up dandelions for years to come. The two broad bean plots have as many baby dandelion plants as they do broad beans. Must take a trowel with me next time I go.

The mild weather had brought out the allotmenteers in greater numbers, and since last week someone has cleared and rotavated the plot diagonally opposite to mine, which is good news for weed control. Less good news was the large bonfire of green stuff someone kindly lit 50 yards upwind of my plot, although thankfully I had nearly finished my labours at that point.

Where are the snows of yesteryear?

On their way back, apparently, so today's first job was to cover the broad beans with horticultural fleece to protect them from the Arctic weather we are braced to expect. One or two of them had succumbed to last night's frost but there are still some vigorous specimens there. They all got stakes to climb up, too.

Then it was back to scraping off the remainder of the turf, while listening to Susie Orbach on the radio pronounce that we no longer engage in productive exercise in modern society. I've now filled compost box 1, so will have to get another for the rest of the grass. I uncovered two more Strongbow cans - I think the Noughties cider revival must have started early on my plot - some broken glass and a piece of almost-composted blue carpet, which can finish its decay in the compost heap.

I seem incapable of remembering my camera when I go up there, but will try next time - when it will be time to create some more raised beds.

Bowing and scraping

I went up to the plot yesterday with the firm intention of actually doing some work, having the unexpected benefit of a still, sunny morning. It was cold up on the site, though - the puddles in the weed-suppressing black plastic were still frozen at 10 am. I spent an hour with a spade, bent down to scrape off the turf and weeds from about six square metres of plot. An hour felt like long enough for that sort of labour - I'm certainly feeling the effects this morning. Another hour will probably see the rest of the end third of the plot cleared, and ready to dig over so the raised beds can be installed.

The broad beans continue to survive, and the larger ones are showing signs of leaf buds, which is encouraging.

Praise be ...

... the broad bean seedlings have survived the extreme cold and ground frost. Well, most of them have. Hopefully the survivors will be even more vigorous and fruitful than usual.