South west allotment freshly inspected

Freshly arrived in the south west of England, I took the chance to have a look at some local allotments.

Here's some of their potatoes.  No sign of the Colorado beetles which saw the end of our crop.

Below we are being shown the difference between onions and shallots.  I'm planning on trzing shallots next year (maybe the thrips won't like them).

The carpet covering the ground on the lower right was in the dining room and summer room.  It seems to work just as well at the plot.

A classic looking set of alloments.  They were all neat and beautifully presented but quite different to ours.  There's a lot more netting and covering generally and far less water collection butts. Because we don't have a water supply system at home we all collect rain water.

Also we noticed that all the plots here are being used for growing stuff.  Ours are a mixture of plain lawn for playing on to flowers/veg and barbeque space right through to the style we saw here.  Interesting.

All tidied up

We had beetroot yesterday - straight from the raised bed to the roasting tin.  Perfect.

The leeks are still putting on a magnificent show of flowers

It wasn't the plan, but the result is so cool and the bees love it.  I will try and do the same again next year.

The runner beans have reached the top of their poles and I pinched the tops out today.  I got the tip from an old-ish book from my father-in-law, "The Vegetable Graden Displayed".  I love that book.

Come on runner beans (Lady Di), I need to winner the special prize in the show later this year.

Everything is tidied up now ready for our summer break.  We're off very soon to check out allotments in south west England.

Cherry picking with the neighbours

Yesterday was great fun.  As the garlic leaves had started to go a bit yellow, I pulled the garlic up and the bulbs looked pretty good.  With a bit of help, I managed to plait them together and now they are hung up to dry in the shed.

It was also cherry harvesting time for my neighbours and in exchange for helping them with their (actually Wolgang's) ladder we got shed loads of cherries.

If you look carefully you can see a picker up the tree.

We were also lucky enough to be fed some deer which was being roasted in the wood oven inside the neighbour's shed.  The smell was one thing but the taste was even better.  It went very well with the cherries.  Dear neighbour, thanks very much.  Here's your photo', as promised:

Cucumber plant

I didn't plant any cucumber seeds this year because I wanted to pick up some baby plants at the plant swap party.  The last couple of years have offered several to choose from.  This year, of course, there were none.  So today I picked up a mini-cucumber plant from the local garden superstore.

It's a sorry looking thing, but was reduced to less than half price (€4,29 to €1,99).  The only other one in the shop looked even more pathetic.

Now I just need to carve the wisteria away from its climbing grid in the garden and take the grid with the baby cucumber to the allotment.  The stick it in next to the strawberries and see how it goes, I guess.

Leeks coming into their own.

Leeks in raised bed

 Some of the leeks look more like wading birds.  The flowers are white and pale purple.  They are so striking and architectural I wish we had them in the border at home.

Leek flowers

I am hoping that a few of m onions also go to seed.  I have been advised that you can collect the seeds and then use them as a spice when cooking (lightly fried).

Parsnip advice

Our visitors came yesterday, and despite the occasional rain we made it for the grand tour of the allotment.  Mostly they were quite impressed with what they saw, but the parsnips (or rather lack thereof) gave some concern.  None of my parsnips (Albion) have germinated and I have bought some replacement seeds.  Although I made them a beautiful trench filled with my secret compost/sand mixture (50/50), apparently I missed some vital step.

At least the peas are a triumph this year.  I'll grow Onward again another time.

Visitors and rain storm coming tonight

We have visitors from England in the area, and they are due to come round tonight.  Part of the official program will be a visit to the allotment.  There is some serious expertise within their party so I'm hoping everything will look okay.  We had well over 4 kg of currents from the three bushes i the raised bed at the weekend; these have already been jammed, and the first jars of jam shared out.  We also brought in the first crop of peas (1.5 kg from a 5m row of "onward").  The plants are still heavily laden with pods (but very short plants for some reason).  I expect another 5 kg by the end of June.

We have had a few days of hot (~27 deg) humid weather but not much rain.  The are heavy thundery showers forecast for tonight though, and I hope it holds until after the tour.

Gradual migration underway

Apple have decided that the end of iWeb and MobileMe is on the horizon, and so I need to relocate my blog.

What used to be at http://web.me.com/elliott23 will gradually move across here.

This may take some time.