A Touch of Sunshine

Sunshine! That rare commodity this summer.   Isn’t it amazing how a little sunshine lifts your mood?   Been trying to sow my brassicas but beaten each time by a) slugs nipping off the seedlings as they emerge b) pigeons stripping the tender leaves before I get chance to fleece them (okay that is my fault not the pigeons) c) just the lack of warmth/light.  But ever hopeful sowed another batch and placed them in the safety of our cold greenhouse and.....well we’ll see what happens.     However the under-gardener bought some plant plugs from a seed company, I have a suspicion he doubts my ability to grow brassicas, my grandson visited recently and to him fell the honour of planting them out and checking them today they seem to be holding their own against all comers.

Shame about the sweet peas though, with all the bad weather recently they certainly have taken a battering but they have put on a fantastic show growing up and over my arch.  I had visions of rows  of sweet peas just like those in the Sutton Seeds trial beds – rows half the length of a football no a rugby pitch (well  this is Cornwall the home of rugby) . 



best drying bean ever!



Mine were neatly entwined with the beans

District Nurse            and              Ryders Blue Coco,

good dried or fresh

Think next year I’ll just put beans on the arch and plant the sweet peas somewhere else. 

Looking at my lavender today filled me with shame!   They are in desperate need of a prune but have lost my shears........I am sure there is a gremlin on our plots cause everytime I put something down it seems to disappear.   I realise that my dotage is fast catching me up; the under-gardener is nodding his head frantically here, but I am sure it’s not just that at least I hope not.  

Junior Gardener's area

What pleasantly surprised us when taking on new tenants is how many young families showed an interest in having a plot with us and in total we now have 39 children under 12 on board. A trip to the allotment site is not every child's wish for a good day out but we think we found the answer to the visit not just being a learning experience by having a dedicated safe area where a bit of steam can be let off and an opportunity to make new friends offered.

The very far corner was sown with decent grass seed with the helpful Fullwood children the first year we opened, then a wendy house, many toys, plastic and rubber of course were gradually added. The area is mown weekly and the whole patch is something that we are proud of and very well used by the juniors. In fact one parent told me that their children beg to come to the allotment nowadays instead of having to be persuaded to go.

The committee keep the toys in good order, anything broken or split is removed and we freshen up the choice available usually with donations from far and wide. 2 years ago we were visited by Camilla from the Eden project, who liked what we were doing, donated a lot of rugs and cushions some of which now sit in the wendy house and the small tent which was put up this week for the school summer holidays to give a bit more interest.

Being fenced in on the 2 outside boundaries by the 7' deer fence means the children are perfectly safe and an option for parents to sit and watch the very young is possible by sitting at the adjacent picnic table and having lunch or tea with them.

We've had some negativity with one person's view that children are there to learn, NOT play but in my experience of bringing up 5 girls and a boy (only 2 mine!) a mixture of the two really works and if a child is bombarded with information, they soon get very bored. We intend keeping this feature as it does work and is very popular.

What weather?????

Can the weather not make up it's mind?   Woke up this morning and it's pouring down come lunchtime the sun was shining .......so hotfooted it up the plot and armed with a joblist a mile long, string for tying up plants blown apart by the strong winds and an enthusiastic grandson ready to do battle! What a stange season we're having, lost all but one of my cucumber plants to voles, slugs have decimated my Kohl Rabi and have had to cover all the brassicas due to the colony of pigeons resident on our site.  

My grandson admirably disposed of the slugs found on site today (I don't feel I can divulge the gorey details here though) wish he was here more  often I might stand a fighting chance then!  

 Mind you the plots are looking good despite the weather and attack from 'wee beasties', had a good crop of blackcurrants and whitecurrants.   Put those with the redcurrants from my garden and I see lots of Summer Puddings in the coming weeks.   Trying some new squashes this year, Jumbo Pink Banana, looking good amongst the sweetcorn and climbing beans. Anyone else tried this variety?  Would appreciate some info about them if possible.   I decided to try the '3 sisters' method of growing these 3 crops, not that space is an issue but I thought it might protect the sweetcorn from the strong winds and retain moisture in the ground......not that that's been an issue this year. 

  Sweet peas have done well but put to shame by the flower display on Penny's plot, amazing show of cornflowers!.     Considering the weather and taking on a new piece of ground she produced a stack of flowers for her daughter's wedding next weekend.   Standing back looking at my plot and the others on the site I feel that we've done some good work there, okay we've had some failures but all in all they look pretty good and I've seen many people leave the site with armfuls of produce..........a lot more than some people further up country have harvested.   But hey we are gardeners and  therefore never satisfied we just have to plan for next year and pray for sunshine!

Not a total disaster.

After spending a busy working morning on my plot, I realised that this very wet season hasn't been a total write off when I added up what had been successful this season. Carrots and parsnips, squashes and courgette family too had been a waste of time BUT I harvested all my broad beans as they were showing signs of rot so thought I'd get what I could out of them. Surprisingly, most of the pods had usable beans even if some of the pod was black, ended up with a good amount.  Runner beans had now reached the top of the canes even if they haven't filled out as much as usual so quite optimistic with them as plenty of blossom, just hope they pollinate with a bee shortage this year.
The raspberries are bearing a huge crop ripening nicely and all currant bushes are simarly laden. This will make up for the disappointment of the strawberries rotting before ripe, not helped by their extra large leaves shielding light and air. I removed a lot of these a couple of weeks ago when I realised what the problem was but too late as the ground was saturated already and with no sun to dry, they'd had it.
Potato blight hit us a month earlier than usual but a blight resistant variety is performing well and hasn't been affected yet so hopeful with them. They are Sarpo Mira and JBA potatoes say they are as blight resistant as one can get so we believe them.
All in all, although a lot of our group have been very disappointed with the way the season has gone, there are still good reasons why we should persevere with our love of grow your own, win some lose some?

Tango'd!!!

Well you know when you've been Tango'd!       Oh boy have I this year,  it must be a bad year when even the broad beans given up the ghost!   I usually get some chocolate spotting on them but this year it has decimated the crop and in fact they looked like they'd had potato blight.  This picture shows a mild case - I'm too ashamed to show you what mine actually looked like!

   Kept giving them an extra day but today decided that was it............pulled them all up and only had enough beans to make a couple of servings.    I still have beans in the freezer from last years crop.   I'm afraid the undergardener (who loves broad beans) will be disappointed  this year.  

However, as per usual, courgettes are doing well and trying a new varity this year for us Stiato D'Italia.   Nice stripey courgettes should look good in a stir fry.  Must remember to look out my courgette recipies again...........

Picked my first crop of beetroot too today, bit small but thought I'd better get them before the voles or slugs do. 

 Missed the Robins today, in fact there didn't seem to be much life in evidence on the plots - just a few hardy souls and several big fat green catapillars.   Shame my friend the Robin wasn't around he could have had a free lunch! 

Almost come to the end of the rhubarb season and have found some new recipies for using rhubarb so I'll probably put then on the cookery page later this week,   I love rhubarb pies and crumbles but with 7 mature plants I have had to find other things to do with it.   Changed two of the plants this year for Champagne Rhubarb ( used to be Pink Champagne)  had the first cutting and, after being told it was the 'bees knees' as far as taste was concerned,  wasn't too impressed with it, nice but nothing special.   Maybe it will get tastier as it matures.   Hope the weather is good on saturday - planning to turn the compost bin.  Had some good stuff last year but have been offered a pair of Newcastle bins, the undergardener has offered to make them for me bless his cotton socks!   Wonder if I'll find a family of voles like I did last year?  Had to relocate them but they didn't seem too impressed with my choice of field accomodation.  I don't mind sharing my plot with the wildlife but sometimes they just get greedy!

 As I'm writing this the sun is shining outside and the temp is soaring.............well we can all hope can't we?

Deep low pressures causing havoc

Since the last blog we have been hit by two deep low pressures causing havoc on our allotments. Gusty winds in excess of 60 mph have done a lot of damage on our site exposed to the South and South West. This is normally good for ripening fruit and growing bumper crops as we get the sun all day but this type of scenario is bad for us and according to the forecasters happens once in 50 years. Hmmm.
Molluscs are having a bumper feast as their numbers seem to have trebled to the norm and the wind damage is heartbreaking.

We take pride in being able to donate from now on until the end of the season, fruit, herbs and fresh vegetables to give a 'live' feel to the wonderful National Trust's Victorian kitchen in Lanhydrock house but this year it's not going to be so easy with everything well behind and damaged. The young lady who features on our website pages is a National Trust employee who collects whatever we have spare every 10 days or so and I have put a small pic here of our veg in situ.

It's midsummer's day in just over a week now and the evenings will start drawing in again. We have been robbed of the Summer this year, feel very sad especially for the tenants who work so hard to make their plots neat, tidy and productive.
On the plus side, our water barrels collecting rainwater off the shed roofs are full to overflowing!

Improvement must be round the corner, our site is too big to move there though.

Extreme weather problems

Although having had an allotment since 11 years old, I don't recall having such a poor, slow difficult start to the growing season. Seeds failed due to a very dry March, plants raised at home in the greenhouse/cold frame once transplanted were very slow to respond mainly due to cold nights (even a damaging frost Mid May, unusual here) and all in all a frustrating time on the plot. I worry about our 'newbies' who having been told how wonderful it is to grow your own on our very fertile site see their initial efforts not perform as they should. The tip that they would REALLY enjoy a picnic on their plot just isn't happening unless they take hot water bottles and weatherproofs. Even our seasoned allotmenteers are complaining about the weather wrecking the crops and are resowing and replanting new stock hoping they will behave properly this time.
Walking around the site yesterday, I was pleased to see that the recent rain had at last started to move seedlings of flowers and veg but I was apprehensive of the weather forecast for the next day which gave that Devon and Cornwall was going to bear the brunt of a deep low pressure storm which was 'unusual' for this time of year. Sure enough I woke to the sound of heavy rain and gusty Southerly winds which at the time of writing have become worse in the strength of wind. Good job my wife's hanging baskets are residing in the kitchen having been brought inside.
I am not looking forward to seeing the aftermath when I return to our allotment site as it was just starting to recover and now from looking at the damage to my own garden o/s the window, know that bean rows, Sweet Williams, Lupins,
Cosmos will all have suffered.

We are a tough lot and will rectify everything, with a smile of course.

On the positive side, we don't grow maincrop potatoes here due to constant mid season blight problems but yesterday we were visited by a chap who donated 50kg of maincrop Sarpo Mira for us to try. According to JBA potatoes, this are the best blight resistant tubers available so we will give them a try.