Thanks to Marshall Seeds who kindly send me some heritage garlic varieties; and start with with arguably the first planting for next years growing season.
In general, Heritage fruit and vegetable varieties are still very new to me. Something that I tried to do this year and am looking to carry on into the future. Garlic is no different. It is staple part of many Indian dishes, and Ma will always use the crops that we produce on the plot in her kitchen.
Over the years, I have sown and grown many different varieties. The varieties in this batch are:
Red Duke
Garlic Mikulov
Garlic Bohemian rose.
I have broken up the cloves from the bulbs. Each individual clove is then dibbed into the freshly dug over earth that we prepared last week. I say we, but in reality it was my mum digging it over and removing the weeds and grass that offended her by just growing. She doesn’t the weeds and is always trying to make the plot what she terms to be ‘tidy’, I do not know how the grass even dares, in knowing that it will be unscrupulously pulled out.
I am conscious that there is a risk of bird pulling the cloves out, so they are covered with only the tiniest bit of clove sticking out. Hopefully, they should be okay.
In the freezer, we have enough beans to keep us going a for a while. That’s a lot of curried beans between now and the start of next summer.
There was scarlet emperor running beans as well as the painted lady variety. The former being something of an allotment staple. Formed at least four out of the six wig wams that were on the plot. The other wig wams were a combination of blue lake and cobra climbing french beans as well as borlotti beans. These were what mum described as being the funny coloured bean.
The beans were sown in two batches. The first batch were sown to get the growing season started, and I somewhat ignored and underestimated their eventual yield. A couple of wig wams would probably have been sufficient, but that would have meant choosing one variety over another. A somewhat difficult choice. We like both climbing french beans and runner beans, so the scarlet emperor variety are always going to be sown. The difficulty lies in choosing between blue lake and cobra.
The borlotto beans were rather cool, if only for ma thinking they were a bit cute. I would like to look at purple climbing frenc bean if they exist. I know that they exist in the dwarf variety, but have yet to find a climbing variety.
And chutney. Runner bean chutney is meant to be nice.
That is what happened to the assortment of potatoes that the allotment plot yielded this year.
lady balfour
Pink fir apple
aloos! International kidney
There were a number of varieties that sunk on the plot, in the raised beds. We had international kidney, lady balfour, pink fir apple, kestral and red duke of york. The red duke of york were a bit hit and miss having been sunk into the earth in the poly tunnel by way of experiment. I don’t think I will be doing that again.
All the other varieties were sunk into raised beds. These were filled with either leaf mold topped off with multipurpose compost or well rotted and very crumbly farmyard manure. I did this as drainage is an issue with the heavy clay on the plot. In the past, heavy clay has basically eaten the seed potatoes in having caused them to rot due to excess water retention. With raised beds, the drainage is some what improved, and the seed potatoes like sleeping under nice organic material.
Internatioal kidney were cute and bountiful, lots of small round, creamy white potatoes. Pink Fir apple had to be the most abundant, with pounds and pounds being harvested. On average, we harvested one 10kg bucket every week. About four or five harvests were made over the duration of the harvesting period. As you can imagine that is a lot of potatoes. That was even before the lady balfour potatoes were harvested. These, thanks to the farmyard manure, were something of a whopper crop. I have grown these before, but have never harvested potatoes that half the size of a football.
All of these really were mashed, chipped, roasted and boiled. Not to mention put into stuffed chappatis. And the varieties matter. Pink fir apples do go well into stuffed chappatis. Lady balfour make for interesting, sweet flavoured chips. They do also tend to get a bit sloppy when mashed, but do hold together when roasted.
I have never found potatoes to be simple, though for many allotmenteers they are. I was gutted one year when the heavy clay caused them to rot. I learned that they needed soft friable soil. Even then, I don’t earth them as is done traditionally.
The humble spud, seemingly simple; can actually be complicated.
It’s been a whole year since I first participated in NaBloPoMo. It was a really interesting experience, sharing plot adventures to an entirely new audience. An audience who wouldn’t perhaps ordinarily be reading about the adventures of an allotment holder in Great Britain. Throughout NaBloPoMo the blog audience grew, and it was amazing to see just how far the blog was going.
In the time since, I have also participated in the April NaBloPoMO too. That was an additional learning experience, especially as the theme was ‘Grow’. Seemed apt given the nature of the blog. Plus, it was the start of the growing season, and sharing the start of the growing season was really very useful. Since then, both the November and April NaBloPoMo’s the allotment plot has changed, grown and developed a great deal. There have been the usual slug, snail and crop dramas. As well as the qualified and unqualified successes.
Securing the vines
lady balfour
prepping apples
fruit bounty
well and truly on the turn
apples and pears
Apple and Chillies
orange habanero
vased up
Blueberries: darrow and blue jay
Pops and Beans being beamed
preserve pots
garlic!
ta-dah!
one ripened cayene
cayenne and assorted soft fruit
two gin infusions
the second summer raspberries, the birdies ate the first
ta-dah!
You can see from the gallery just how it has all developed. From the tranche after tranche of runner and climbing beans-ma got fed up of freezing them-the potatoes. I really recommend Pink Fir Apple, for being such an abundant cropper. Chillies, that were hit and miss, with the tomatoes really struggling this year. There was home made ice cream, when there were lots of home grown strawberries.
Whilst there was a lot horticultural allotmenteering happening. There was also another project that started out as something of a whim at the start of the summer. I remember saying to my sisters, that I really fancied writing an ebook. Also, I had written some guest blog posts for World Radio Gardening, so this seemed something very natural to do.
me and my book
When you have one idea
and then you have another idea
So I did. I wrote that book. Over the course of the summer, between work and the plot; I wrote the book. My book. One of the NaBloPoMo prompts from last year, was whether or not one had book within. At that point, I didn’t think I could have. Writing the book really was process. From writing down chapter headings, writing in my notebook in blue ink, to listening to my mum dictate recipes. I cannot describe the feeling of words and ideas surging around in my brain and wanting to exit onto the paper. This book really wanted to be written. I would be lying if I said this was an easy process. It wasn’t. It was hard for hear about feedback, for example. It wasn’t bad feed, it was feedback to help me make the book better and from cheerleaders. Cheerleaders. These are very important people. People who have faith, inspire you, encourage you. Not the sort who huff, puff, and tell you that what you have done, isn’t worth the paper that it is printed on, or the e-ink it contains. Good people, and the feedback was important. It came from the right place.
The book was on kindle at first, and it took a while for me to pluck up the courage and then put the book into print. After all, not everyone has an e-reader. I am also a book worm, and books have always been a part of my life and my job.
What started with the book, has diversified. You all know petal, she’s the avatar, the logo, the brand that is on the logo. The figure holding carrots. She is all mine, and perfectly sums up the blog. So, putting her on a bag and a logo, seemed a good thing to do.
Beyond the plot, there has been a spot of mindfulness. The magic square project is still going, alongside the johanna Basford ‘Secret garden’ colouring book.
horticultural 'obbit 