Currants

Just about the entire crop of jewel-like white currants, and a few redcurrants.

Dahlia, Now Deceased

Five days ago I planted out my sunflowers and the one cactus dahlia (out of nine seeds), shown above, that germinated. By last night the dahlia had disappeared - I found the battered remnants of it nearby - I think the wind got it.

Tagged!

I’ve been tagged by Trying to Grow Things. The rules are:

Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Write six random things about yourself.
Tag six people at the end of your post linking to their blog.
Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

1. In my first year as an allotmenteer I became known as the courgette murderer for accidentally cutting through the main stem of a courgette plant

2. I used to work in Beer Youth Hostel - it does exist and is a youth hostel (in Beer, Devon)

3. I’m a coffee addict and rarely visit the plot without a flask of it

4. I lived in Finland for ten years, where I never succeeded in growing anything outdoors but picked superb mushrooms and berries in the wild for free

5. Even though I always seem to kill it, my favourite houseplant is the Maranta leuconeura ‘Kercoveana’ - the prayer or rabbit’s tracks plant

6. I’m about to move house and my new garden is set to become a major topic here on C&F, if I ever have time to blog again with all the work it’s going to involve

I am tagging:

Urban Bumpkin, The Hay Wayne, Down on the Allotment, Welsh Girl’s Allotment, and Dave’s Allotment

(Yes, I know that’s only five - couldn’t manage to post a comment on my sixth choice, Buds and Borders)

 

 

Courgettes Settling In

The broad beans have finally gone in, rather late, next to the overgrown path on the side of the plot:

Is this the most photographed artichoke in Britain? Something has been munching it and it’s looking less appetising by the minute:

Courgettes (and Squash) 2008

A month ago I planted various courgette and squash seeds into modules (in the waxing gibbous moon, supposedly good for plants with internal seed-bearing fruits). On Wednesday they looked like this:

(Defender, Tondo di Piacenza, Jemmer (yellow) and Black Beauty courgettes - the latter a new variety for us.)

And this:

(Five butternut squash and three Tromba di Albegna curly squash, grown from seeds bought in Italy.)

Yesterday evening I transferred them to the bed prepared with our own compost and left covered for a couple of months. This required some sifting out of what must have been partly-decomposed teabags and other debris, but should provide lovely rich soil to nourish the plants:

Although they’re a bit leggy after being indoors, some already have flower buds and I look forward to the first crop, late as it will be this year.

First Artichoke

I noted on 18th March 2007 that globe artichokes were the first seeds we sowed last year. After surviving a slug onslaught and a long winter, one of the two remaining plants has at last produced an artichoke, some 14 months later.

My plan to plant according to the phases of the moon is proving tricky to implement in the erratic British weather. I planted two packets of onion sets far too late in the spring on Sunday, the last day of the waning gibbous moon (supposedly the best time for root vegetables), only for them to suffer hours of torrential rain yesterday.

Here are some truly daft photos of Sturon onions:

…and Red Baron red onions:

The Charlotte potatoes are doing OK:

It looks like being a good year for fruit:

For flowers, too:

Even the palm tree in the garden is flowering, something I’ve never seen before:

Spring Progress

Still no proper internet access from home, but spring goes on and so does work at the plot. (I am fortunate enough to be able to use another computer occasionally.) As a result of not having chance to play around with the new WordPress photo uploader, some of these pics could be better placed: I will edit them later.

There is enough to report that I’ll keep it brief and in reverse chronological order. Above are the cherry tomatoes I potted up on Tuesday morning after a marathon session of cleaning and disinfecting plastic plant pots. It took hours! I only dealt with a tiny fraction of the pots in the garden and shed. I also potted up chilli plants then planted rocket and basil seed yesterday; the seeds I hope will benefit from being sown in the first quarter of the moon.

Much of the work of recent weeks has resulted in this:

Here’s a prize specimen:

Some plants we want to thrive are doing well too, especially the rhubarb, which has made a great recovery:

I’m trying to recall the dates of some of the other activities. I planted Charlotte potatoes rather late (I think it was 25 April), but in the third quarter of the lunar cycle as intended!

This one’s even wearing a smile.

One of the fruit trees that has produced nothing in the previous two seasons is now covered in blossom:

And all three cherry trees are in bloom:

The alliums I planted before Christmas survived the squirrel attack:

Here are bluebells in the woods:

With yet more dandelions next to the plot:

 

April Update

A month of problems with internet access and miserable weather is coming to an end, it seems. My chilli seedlings are making good progress, as are the cherry tomatoes, which look ready to pot on.

I’ve made several visits to the plot over the last week, mostly for the purposes of weeding and preparing the beds for the root veg to be planted this week, in the third quarter of the moon. More on all of this later, with photographs and links to websites with tips on moon planting!

Plum Blossom in the Snow

Although you can’t see it, this photo of blossom on a plum tree was taken during a snow shower yesterday.

This sudden burst of late wintry weather would be called takatalvi (back winter or the return of winter) in Finland, where I lived for a number of years, the difference being that takatalvi means snow in late April or May. So really, we shouldn’t complain, even if the cold is wreaking havoc with our planting schedules here in London. One of the expert growers of our allotment site, despairing of the weather, was taking his onion sets back home instead of planting them and doubted that his potatoes would go in on 25th March in accordance with his usual routine.

As an experiment this season, I’m trying to sow and plant according to the phases of the moon. Following the Moon Planting Guide on the Gardeners’ Calendar website, I’m using the simplest method, which is to follow the synodic calendar to determine what I sow or plant at particular times of the lunar cycle (more on this as I progress).

With this in mind I sowed seeds for three varieties of chilli - jalapeno, cayenne and mixed sweet peppers - on 13th March, and cherry tomatoes on 15th March, all indoors, in the first quarter of the current lunar cycle. The tomatoes germinated in five days and the seedlings seem to be growing well.

Now, after the full moon, would be a good time for planting root veg according to the guide, but the onion sets and Charlotte seed potatoes will have to wait until the soil warms up.

A Year of Courgettes and Fennel

Just a couple of weeks after we reached 5000 hits, C&F is one year old today. Many thanks again to our readers everywhere.

By coincidence, today has seen the greatest number of visitors by miles since we began (158 and counting). My referrer stats suggest a reason for this: we are now available in translation-engine Spanish.

I don’t speak Spanish but somehow doubt that “blackfly o chomped por babosas” is very idiomatic.

If this all sounds unlikely, see below for a screenshot of our article about “Big rábanos”…

Hola to any Spanish-speaking visitors!