Strawberries, Hyacinths and More Potatoes

Second Early Potatoes

I planted out my second earlies last week, again 6” deep and 15” apart in all directions. I used variety Vivaldi, a new one on me, which is known as the Weight Watcher’s potato because it is lower in calories than most, and also “the butterless bake” because of its creamy texture.

Hyacinths

I planted a pack of hyacinths in the orchard in the autumn, and they have started flowering this week. So I cut some, well most actually, and made a nice display on the kitchen table. I think I will dig the bulbs up after they have died back, and next year grow them in pots rather than cutting. 8 plants go a lot further in pots than they do in a vase.

Greenhouse Potatoes

The potatoes I have growing in bags and tubs in the greenhouse have started showing, and once they start they really shoot up, an inch or more a day. So I brought a couple of barrowfulls of compost over and poured it in, until the tops were just covered. I have started watering them as well, a canful shared between the 7 containers every other day.

Strawberries

My strawberry bed at the Orchard gave us absolutely nothing last year, largely, I suspect, because I forgot to net them and grateful birds ate them all instead.  This year I have vowed to do better.

I dug out a strip about 15” wide in front of the greenhouse a couple of weeks ago, and this week I transplanted some baby strawberry plants to their new home. These came from runners sent out by their Orchard parents, which I rooted in last summer. I puddled them in, especially necessary in the this unseasonably hot weather, about 15” apart in 2 staggered rows.

Early Peas, more Shallots, and frost in the Greenhouse

Frost

It wasn’t damping off! How stupid I am. I tend to forget that, whatever the forecast says, the temperature is 2 or 3 degrees colder at the allotment – we are in a frost pocket near the river. Stupid!!  The damage to my seedlings was frost, nothing else. I was seduced by the sunny weather and brought them down to the greenhouse far too early.  First the brassicas and then the tomatoes. What was I thinking!!

It was Peter in the allotment next door, who helped my penny drop - he grows his ultra-early potatoes in his greenhouse border and they had their tops nipped off by the frost too.

I have started a new batch of everything in the propagator and will keep the caulis and cabbages in the shelter of the conservatory until they are much more sturdy, and the tomatoes until well into the spring. I used cauliflower igloo this time – they produce smaller heads.

First-Early Peas

I prepared the pea bed a while back by laying planks along the middle and then erecting a short netting support fence along the middle of each half. This week the first peas, meteor, were already a couple of inches high in their modules and were ready to put out. These are a round-seeded variety - less sweet but more hardy than the later, wrinkle-seeded varieties. Surprisingly about a quarter of the seedlings had failed, even though I pre-sprouted them in my bean sprouter first. Nevertheless I still had enough for my row. I planted them next to one of the  fences and immediately leant strips of netting over them to protect against the birds.

Shallots

The shallots I put out in modules a few weeks ago are now growing strongly. Even though they were not all showing above, when I lifted them from their modules, there was a thick mass of roots filling the bottom of the modules. So I put them out with the rest that I planted earlier.

I have to say that already there is little difference between those that I planted in December directly in the soil, and those that I started in modules. The autumn-planted ones are slightly further ahead. I expect the rest to catch up, but we shall see.

Recipe: Caldo Verde

Uses: kale, onions, potatoes, garlic, beans and, oh yes, more kale!

Caldo Verde is effectively a kale soup, and is a recipe to use exactly this time of year, when the last of the kale is starting to send up seed shoots and will soon be spoiled. It is actually a Portuguese peasant dish, but with a bit of tinkering it can become a very tasty soup. I make and freeze several batches this time of year.

Firstly gently fry some thinly sliced chorizo, (or any spicy sausage), with diced onion and garlic, in a wide bottomed saucepan. (I always try to work with the chorizo fat as much as possible, adding little or no oil.) Then add a couple of pints of stock, some potatoes and some cooked beans, cannelini or haricot work well.

When the potatoes are cooked, throw in several handfuls of deveined kale, as much as you think the soup can absorb. Do this bit by bit, as the volume of kale decreases dramatically once it boils.

Rhubarb, Fartichokes, Damping Off and Daffodils

The First Rhubarb

About 12 years ago I bought a couple of rhubarb plants from the garden centre.  Over the years I have divided them 2 or 3 times and now I have a bed of 10 or so plants at the Orchard.  I don’t remember whether I bought the original plant with this in mind, but I have come to realize that my plants are unbelievably early.  This week, on 18^th March, I had my first rhubarb crumble of the season! And the stalks I pulled, unforced, were thicker than my thumb! Delicious!

Damping Off

I really am rubbish at seedlings. The plague that swept thropugh my brassica seedlings a couple of days ago has now attacked my tomatoes. When I went down yesterday I noticed that they too had withered and keeled over. There were a few survivors, so I moved them away from the casualties, but I don’t hold out much hope.

I have to study the causes of this and try to avoid it. 2 ideas come to mind. The first is my garden hygiene. When I make my own wine I am scupulouus about sterilizing everything to prevent tainting from unwanted bacteria, moulds or yeasts. Yet with my seedlings I have been simply washing the old pots out in hot soapy water. So I will try rinsing them in a sterilizing solution from now on and see if that helps. 

The second is how I water. While the seedlings are small and fragile, I will try watering them from below rtather than above, i.e. resting the trays/pots for 10 minutes in water then leaving them to drain. (With tomato blight, which too is a mould, I have avoided it in my greenhouse by not splashing water on the leaves. Hopefully the approach will work with other moulds too.)

Any suggestions from anyone out there in Blogland much appreciated!

Jerusalem Artichokes

My Jerusalem Artichokes arrived this week and I put them out straight away, about 15” apart, in a bed next to the seakale at the Orchard. I have 4 left which I will put out at the Allotment at one end of this year’s potato beds. (I am going to start establishing some of the perennials from the Orchard at the Allotment, as a precaution for if and when the site is no more.)

Artichokes are not perennials, but I will be treating them as such because it is so difficult to find every single tuber when you harvest. And if part of a rotation these missed tubers will then send up shoots in the middle of what ever replaces them. Artichokes make a good screen or windbreak – it is said they store up the wind to give back later, hence their nickname “fartichokes”.

Daffodils

When we took on the Orchard there were lots of daffs coming up around the edges. And each year , without any attention at all, they come up again like clockwork. So this week I have collected my first bunch for the kitchen table. I noticed too that some hyacinths were already flowering , and some chunky tulip leaves had already pushed through in the flower bed.

Potatoes, Broad Beans, Onions, and Dying Seedlings

Broad Beans

A couple of days ago I sowed another bed of broad beans. I used an unopened packet I bought over a year ago as well as some saved seed from 2 years ago. The variety was Masterpiece Green Longpod. This bed will follow on from the bed of Aquadulce Claudia I sowed last autumn and which are already over a foot high.

Last year I tried one of Bob Flowerdew’s ideas on companion planting and threw a broad bean seed in the planting hole with each maincrop potato. The idea is that the first growth shields the young potatoes from late frosts, and then the roots break down releasing nitrogen to the soil which the potatoes use when they are swelling.  I did get a good crop of both spuds and beans, but I don’t think the idea works as intended. Even after harvesting the beans, the plants were still growing, and I don’t think the timing for the release of nutrients to the soil was right. Also I didn’t really trust the slight protection offered by the beans against the frost. But my main concern was spotting the beans amidst the foliage and actually managing to harvest at the right time. All in all I am not sure what I actually gained, and have decided not to do it again this year.

Onions

The sets arrived this week and yesterday we put them in. I used a greater spacing than last year, in order to allow me to easily hoe across the beds. So we put in 2 bags about 6” apart in transverse rows 10” apart. These were Hercules, an F1 variety which seems to tick most of the boxes. I have never succeeded well with my onions, which is why I moved them in my rotation to grow in the recently manured soil vacated by last year’s spuds. But I want to give them all the help I can, so this year I chose this, a more expensive, variety.

I also received a pack of Snowball, a mild, white, onion. (I remember eating something similar while on holiday in Portugal a few years ago, and finding them delicious.).  I had expected to fit these into the onion bed as well,  but as I had no room left, I had to look elsewhere. Initially I thought of the bed which contains garlic & shallots. However these should be lifted by early July and their place taken by climbing peas or beans. Spring-sown onion sets are unlikely to be ready for lifting before late July or early August. So I sowed a couple of rows of  Spring Onions Ishaguru next to the shallots instead and thought again.  

In the end I fitted half the pack in the bed where the leeks had been, (not ideal to follow one allium with another, however). The rest I put in at the end of the Field Bean bed, There were a few gaps in the rows, and by transplanting from one end into the gaps, I had just enough room to put in the rest of the Snowball.

First Early Potatoes

When I pulled back the black plastic covering the bed destined to receive my First Early Potatoes, I could see that the worms had not yet managed to dig in all the manure for me. So I lightly forked it in and raked it over. Then I put out my first early spuds Accord, 12-15” apart in all directions. As usual I used a bulb planter for this, drawing out a core of soil, placing the tuber in about 6" deep, and replacing the soil.

Carrots

Later than planned, I put in some short rows of carrots under the cloches which have been in place for several weeks now, 1 cloche each for Parmes and Zian.

I'm Rubbish at Seedlings!

I finished building another length of staging for the greenhouse out of wood and aluminium this week and transferred some of my seedlings there from the conservatory. Unfortunately the brassicas are not looking too healthy, probably because I accidentally watered them with the wrong rose on the can and flooded & flattened them.  I will have to start another batch off as soon as the propagator is free.

Fortunately the tomatoes seem unaffected by their unintended power shower.

Chitting Potatoes

The potatoes arrived through the post this week.  I mmediately put them out to chit. I use egg boxes for this. It is said you should place them “rose end uppermost” but I often have trouble working out which is the rose end. So I have put them with what I hope is the rose end up, and will check regularly to see if any are upside down. They need to be in a frost-free place, light, but preferably not in direct sunlight. So I put them on the sill on the windowless side of the conservatory.

I chose varieties with these criteria in mind. Firstly, with the earlier spuds, flavour, rather than yield is all important. Also I like a waxy texture.  With later varieties, I want blight-resistance and high yield.  The varieties I have chosen are as follows:

 (i)  Accord  This is the first time I have tried Accord, which is a first early. It is said to be  very waxy (which I like – who needs to mash new potatoes) and high-yielding.

 (ii) Vivaldi Another new one on me. Vivaldi is a 2nd early and nicknamed “the weight-watcher’s potato” as it has fewer calories than many and has a creamy flesh which doesn’t need butter added to improve the flavour.

(iii) Charlotte  I love the flavour of Charlotte and have grown it in the past as a 2^nd early. This year I want to use it as a salad potato.

(iv) Kifli   Kifli is an early maincrop. I tried it for the first time last year. Even though it is a maincrop, it has a distinctive “new potato” flavour, which we loved. In addition it has some blight resistance. I am using my own once-saved seed.

(v) Sarpo Mira  This is a storage maincrop potato which I have grown for several years now. The flavour is just average, and the shape can be strange, but it has fantastic blight resistance. The first year I grew them, the blight hit the allotments in August and swept through like a bushfire. Everyone around me cut their spuds down as tradition recommends, digging the tubers up a couple of weeks later. They did get a crop, but suffered smaller yields. I cut down half of my Sarpos, and had similar small yields. The rest, however, I left to grow on. It was noticeable that very few of the leaves showed signs of blight. Those that did I simply plucked off and put in the incinerator.  When I dug the spuds up in October, there was a superb crop of large, undamaged potatoes.  I have been saving my own seed of Sarpo Mira but one or two of the spuds from last year’s twice-saved seed showed signs of spraing, a discoloration caused by virus, so I bought fresh this year.

(v) Sarpo Axona  Another storage maincrop. This is the first year I have tried Axona. They reputedly have the same blight resistance as Mira, but a more regular shape.

(vi) Cara  One of the traditional storage varieties, nicknamed “the allotmenteer’s friend, because of its high yields, great taste,  and some blight-resistance.

In theory it is not necessary to chit maincrop potatoes. However, all my varieties are very late, so I think it is a good idea to get them going before putting them into the ground, to give them enough time to produce a decent crop.

What’s happening now?

Potatoes

The beds for next year’s potatoes are still resting under their duvet of manure, covered by a bedspread of black plastic. Peeking underneath I see that the worms have not pulled it all into the soil yet. I may well have to fork the rest in myself.

I would like to be already chitting some potato tubers by now, but they haven’t arrived from my supplier yet, so I will just have to be patient.

I have planted 6 bags of first early potatoes in compost in the greenhouse. (These are from saved seed.) Hopefully these should give the first new spuds of the year sometime in May.

Leeks

The last of the old leeks are hanging on in one bed. I got a far better crop than ever before last year  by planting them after the first early spuds, so I will do that again.  There was a gap at one end of the bed where I sowed some overwintering salad onions in the autumn, and they too are doing well.

The new leeks I sowed last week have come through and I have moved them to the window sill. At the moment however the germination seems to have been patchy. I may well sow another tray in a week or so unless more start showing.

Onions

The autumn-sown onion sets are growing strongly. I hand-weeded between them this week. I am still undecided whether to top dress them with an organic fertilizer. They may well  have enough nutrients from the compost that went in for last year’s potatoes, but I don’t know. Maybe the answer is the top-dress part of the bed and then compare.

The final bed in the allium break is also under black plastic, waiting for the spring-sown onion sets to go in towards the end of March.

Garlic & Shallots

I have one bed shared between garlic and shallots. The garlic, which I planted in the autumn, is growing strongly. However the shallots have been slow to get off the mark. If you remember, I decided to plant shallots at three different times, and compare results. Some fresh bulbs which I bought in the garden centre, went in in the autumn. Some bulbs I had saved from last year’s crop went in the week before Xmas. And the rest of the saved bulbs I planted in modules in the greenhouse last week,a la Monty Don. Well the autumn planted bulbs are just poking through the soil now, but  the Xmas bulbs are not showing yet.

Salad Veg

The last of the forcing chicory was used up a week or so back.  The lettuce that have been growing in the greenhouse and indeed outside has survived well and is starting to come back to life. I will need to transplant  some of them into the brassica bed, interplanting between the cauliflowers (or rather planting them out, leaving gaps for where the caulis are going to go).. 

According to my plan. one bed ought to be down to overwintering salad veg, such a chard, leaf beet, corn salad, land cress, etc. I did sow them in rows between some lettuces, with the intention of planting out the lettuces elsewhere leaving room for the other plants to grow on. Unfortunately, my overenthusiastic wife weeded out everything between the lettuces when I wasn’t looking. Oops! No chard, leaf beet etc this year!

The "All Year Round" lettuce I sowed last month have been transplanted into pots and transferred to the greenhouse staging. Today I sowed some "Webbs wonder" in the propagator to follow on.

Peas

I prepared the pea bed this week. Firstly I  removed the black plastic, then put some boards along the centre of the bed (to walk on), and finally unrolled a fence along the middle of each half.  My intention is to have four sowings of peas, one each in early March, April, May and June. These will each fit along one side of the fences.

The first peas I sowed were Meteor about a week ago. They are a hardy, round-seeded variety, not as sweet as the later wrinkled-seeded peas, but they do come a few weeks earlier.  I soaked the seeds overnight first, as if I were preparing beans for sprouting, then as soon as they started showing, I planted them in modules and put them on the window-sill in my conservatory.

Broad Beans 

The Aquadulce Claudia broad beans I sowed in September are now about a foot tall and looking good.

The field beans sowed in November are also showing 2 or 3 inches above the ground. They look identical to broad beans at this stage - it will be interesting to see how the mature beans differ. If used as a green manure, they should be dug in now to give nutrients back to the soil. But I am intending to use them as dried fuls mesdames instead. There are a few gaps though, where mice or weather have taken their toll. I think I will transplant from one end of the bed into the gaps and then sow some spring onions in the space. Or even use it as a holding bed for the new season’s leeks, once they need transplanting out of their trays.

I will need to sow one final bed with broad beans, a longpod variety, this next week, to provide beans to follow on from the Aquadulce.

Brassicas

The 2 beds destined for early brassicas  are still sleeping under plastic and will receive calabrese, early caulis and early cabbages once the seedlings are ready. This week the seedlings which have been growing on the conservatory window sill, started showing their first true leaves, so I transplanted them into modules and took them to the greenhouse.

Of the overwintering brassicas, the kale is looking good. I have been taking pickings once or twice a week for stir fries, braising and also the smallest leaves are great in salads. 

The brussel sprout bed has been cleared and the last of the sprouts are safely in the freezer. 

Some red cabbage I planted out in the late summer are looking good – I really had no idea what to expect as I bought them as remaindered seedlings from the garden centre when one of my intended crops failed, and just put them out hoping.

There is half a bed of sprouting broccoli that is still biding its time.

Greenhouse staging

When I bought my greenhouse I bought one staging 6 ft long. But nowadays I need more space, so I decided to make my own staging.  I  modelled it on the existing one. I bought some aluminium lengths of right-angled cross-section from B&Q (on Wednesday, so I get my over 60s discount!) and spent a days sawing and drilling and bolting until I had a staging framework ready. Next I need to buy some wood for the cross slats.

Greenhouse crops

The tomatoes, aubergines , chillis and capiscums that I sowed a few weeks ago are generally doing well.  Some of them did cook one day, when i went out and forgot to leave the conservatory door into the house open, and I lost a few, but most survived.  I planted the tomatoes out into pots this week and took them to the greenhouse. The others are growing more slowly and will need a while longer in their seedtrays.

Parsnips & Celeriac

A couple of days ago I sowed parsnips indoors. I used the variety "White Gem"  Parsnips are notoriously slow to germinate, and last year I lost my entire crop underneath weeds. Unfortunately they don't like root disturbance, which makes them fang, and so the story is that they cannot be transplanted. However I am challenging that notion. Instead of pots, I used the cardboard inners of toilet rolls, filled with multipurpose compost, and sowed 3 seed in each. They are now sitting on the window sill.

 I sowed a tray of celeriac this morning and put it into the propagator. This is my first attempt at celeriac, and I understand they are very slow to get going, so I will have to be patient.

Carrots & Beetroot

3 weeks ago I placed some cloches on the ground to warm it up. Tomorrow morning I will sow some early carrots underneath. The varieties I have in mind are Parmex and Zian. Parmex is an early  stump-rooted carrot. Parmex is a bunching carrot.

I sowed some Boltardy beetroot in modules this week, 2 or 3 per module, and put them on the window-sill to germonate. This another idea of Monty Don's, to plant the modules without thinning to get a clump of small beetroot rather than fewer large ones. 

It's only when I read over what I have written that I realize quite what a busy time it has been!

Shallots & Seakale

Shallots

Following Monty Don’s advice in last year’s Gardener’s World, I have sown the last of my shallots in modules and taken them to the greenhouse.  I sowed some in the autumn, some in mid-winter, and the final batch now. All that remains is to watch what happens and judge which approach works best.

Sea Kale

Last week my wife & I prepared a new bed at the Orchard (although with the rumours in mind, with slightly less enthusiasm than normal). Although the ground appeared weedy and overgrown, there was a carpet mulch and inch or so down that I had covered the soil with 3 years ago. (It’s amazing how quickly weeds colonize the carpet when left unattended!) We pulled the carpet back to reveal excellent ssoil, virtually weed-free, decorated only by the odd rodent tunnel.  While turning it over we found a lot of tough nettle roots though. probably still viable, which took some effort to fork up. But apart from that it was in excellent shape and took just an hour or so to prepare.

I forked in som,e compost and planted out 5 seakale angers (interesting word “anger”– sometimes they are called “thongs” which conjours up far more pleasant images.). Although most of the gardening books mention seakale, it is hard to find in the garden centres or catalogues nowadays. I finally tracked down some at Marshalls Seeds.

Apparently it should be blanched and then braised like asparagus. Like asparagus too I have to wait 2 years before tasting. But it should provide something interesting during the spring hunger-gap. We’ll see.

The Future of the Orchard

I heard a scary rumour last week that the allotment site where I have he Orchard has been earmarked for development. There is a plan to build houses on the land!  I looked into it, and discovered that things are at very early stages, but the idea is definitely there. The government has asked local councils and landowners to suggest land for house-building. Our allotment site was suggested. The site is privately owned, and the owner was reportedly “surprised” that the parish council did not support his plans.

So nothing is happening at the moment. Other allotment holders I have spoken to insist that nothing will come of it, but that is just wishful thinking. Put your head in the sand, ostrich–like, and hope the problem will go away.. I am not so sure. The government want land to build houses on, and the owner of the land has put the site forward. Eventually it will happen. Maybe not next year, but I expect within the next five years.

So…..for the time being no more financial investment. (A few days after I ordered a tayberry to put in the fruit cage!)  And I think it would be prudent to make plans for the future either way.

So what can I do? Well, make better use of the existing space at the Allotment, to start with.

• There is a strip along the front of the greenhouse that would do for some strawberries.
• There is room for a 3ft wide bed in front of the chicken run where I could start off a new asparagus bed.
• There is a fairly large area by the shed where I could transplant some bushes. Maybe 6 would fit in there.
•  Maybe I could even steal 18 inches or so from the fence end of some beds for more strawberries and perennials.
•  The strip behind the greenhouse where I grow runner beans would do for some raspberry canes. I can incorporate the runners into my main rotation easily enough, losing some of the beans for drying, which are admittedly not essential. 
•  And there is a triangular shaped area in front of the compost bins where I could grow maybe 5 rhubarbs plants.

How about the 8 fruit trees I planted 15 months ago? There is no room at home – the garden there is tiny (though I have managed to squeeze in a herb bed). However we do own another house, which is rented out to students (the fruits of 7 oppressive years working in Saudi Arabia). The students are always very excited about the large garden when they move in, and then do absolutely nothing throughout the year! So why not fence off the back end of it and use it productively?

Last time I looked the garden was severely overgrown, with several fairly mature trees growing where 25 years ago there were flower beds. If I have all the trees chopped down (My woodburner will be grateful!) and cover the area with carpet, I should, within 2 years, have space to transplant my fruit trees.

It sounds like a plan!