The annual seed swap

We had our annual seed swap and I think it was the best one so far.  There seemed to be more people than usual, it may have actually helped that the weather was totally rubbish & no one wanted to be out in their allotment!

There is a big write-up on one of the main organiser's blog here if you want to read more about it.

Manx music for us all

Chocolate & Bacon, you say?!

Chocolate Bacon & Beer!

my raffle winnings

Got some potatoes & fartichokes

26 Aug 2012 - Our first ever Artichoke!

Here's today's crop - a hellava lot of garlic, some turnips, rainbow spinach, 4 raspberries, 2 plums and our first ever globe artichoke!

We nibbled on the raspberries while trying to work out what to do with the artichoke!

 Two bags of cut turnip for the freezer, one for soups, the other for steaming.

Unfortunately, it looks like we've missed out on using the middle leaves for a salad, but the outer ones look okay (to us beginners, anyway).









Mike sets to with cutting the tips off, and we just put it in the oven with some oil and the potatoes.

(We did find a really cool recipe, but it looked a bit much for our first attempt!)

....and not much left, it was great!

23 Aug 2012 - mostly tidy and check up

One path needed to be covered up, we managed to get hold of some offcuts of carpet - weeded then black plastic bags, then the carpet - that should do the business!

Happy bee day!

Here's how the carrots and scorzonera are doing - we use the Bushy's beer glasses from TT's gone past - with the bottoms cut off, to protect from predators (looks like it's working!)

The turnips are doing fine, check out the size of this one!  As you can see the leaves are quite tasty, but at least they keep away from the veg.

Here's how the Jerusalem artichoke and sweetcorn are doing.  Our corn is a bit behind others at the allotment, but still, we've got 10 plants and 3 ears showing!

Very happy with that because we never even got the seeds to take at the old plot!

29 July 2012 - protection from bunnies

Mike did some protection work at the weekend - he's put a lot of thought into it and when we do the weeding, just pull the posts out because the netting is attached to the posts, and not the boards.  He also made sure that they were only half bed sizes so that one person could do it without getting all tangled!  How cool is that!

carrots growing nicely

2 July 2012 - Croppage!

Some blackcurrants ready to pick, and lots more to come - we even got there before the birds!

A few raspberries are ready too - we've protected them against from the birds now.

The comfrey is growing like mad, will come in very handy later on as compost, but for now, we'll leave it to the bumblebees!

 Rhubarb wine soon - must go and get all the equipment (and instructions!)

Mike having a quick break, showing off our first turnip - we're slowly going to thin them out, by eating one at a time!

Now that the strawberry bed has been weeded (the grass tried to move in) we've got fruits!

 In this bed we've got the turnips, a few carrots, 2 corn and all 4 jerusalem artichokes (which the bunnies have taken a wee bit more notice of than I would've liked)

The first bed of potatoes is doing well - we've got 4 varieties in here (and you can just see the plastic bottle and toilet roll crops in the background!)

Here's what we took home - looks like it could be summer fruit pudding and turnip for tea then!

25 June 2012 - new growth

Pumpkin (possibly)

My brother very nicely got me some seeds for Christmas, I had planned to have a whole bed of my favourite pumpkins, but so far, all that's come up is the ornamental gourds!  Well, at least I've got something, but how do I get them to be ornamental?  I'm guessing I've got to get the seeds out, but you never see holes in the ones in posh shops.....Time to learn a new dark art!

ornamental gourds

I lost the label, so the plant in the root-trainer pot is possibly a pumpkin, marrow, melon or courgette!  You can see how well the roots grow in these pots (they split in half for easy access and reuse).

before....with weeds

after

Here's the "leaves" bed - at the front is brussel sprouts, then further back (in toilet rolls) is some cauliflower (plants & seeds), brocolli plants, amaranthus calaloo seeds, cos lettuce seeds and rainbow spinach plants.  Between the rows is leeks.
  

Purple brussel sprout

Turnips & Nasturtium

Corn & Jerusalem Artichokes

Globe Artichokes

We've got some fruit coming through - and plans to start making rhubarb wine!

Gooseberries

Cape Gooseberries

Redcurrants

Raspberries

Rhubarb v boot!

Plums

 

resident

relaxing after some hard work

30 May 2012 - seedling successes

Today was all about a big clear out of a patch of grass that was getting more and more out of control, or so I thought.  It ended up being much more exciting than that!

I planted out 5 spaghetti squash and gave them their own "greenhouse" as an experiment to see if this will work better than growing them on the windowsill and transplanting out, or if it doesn't make any difference either way.

I dug in some horse manure a few weeks ago and turned over a few times, when the seedlings get bigger, I'll put straw round to stop the squash from rotting.

before

Then I set about clearing the grass, it was harder than I thought it would be and found 5 tyres underneath it all!  I did get it finished, but got a little distracted by frogs, butterflies and weeding round seedlings when I got bored!

after

The seedlings were doing really well, we've got a variety of things showing up in all beds. 

brocolli

sprouts

photo 1

photo 1 - from far left:
Jerusalem artichokes
Sweetcorn
Purple haze carrots
Salsify
Nasturtium
Turnip
Scorzonera

photo 2

photo 2 - from far left
Brocolli (close up above)
Cauliflower
Parsley
Nasturtium
Brussel sprouts

Then there were my distractions, chatting to the neighbour with the pond, seemed like a good idea to find frogs!  A butterfly exploriing the strawberries also took my fancy and the creme de la creme was the surprise on the way home, but I'm gunna have to put that on the next blog because I think there are enough photos on the one now!