Category Archives: Uncategorized

petal'spottedpreserve, Uncategorized

#12days of Christmas #petalspottedpreserve

Microfibre Petal Tea Towel £4.50
Petal Apron £13
Petal Mug £7
Petal Canvas Bag £4.50

With the 12 days of Christmas now underway, remember you can still can get lots of Petal’s Potted Preserve goodies. Whilst they may not be delivered by Santa Claus, the goodies are still available. 12 days of Christmas does go up to and including the 6th of January. The day that the three wise men got to deliver their own special gifts.

You can find full details on the page titled “petal’s merchandise’.

There is also a competition being carried out by the lovely Michael Perry; Petal will be participating. More details to follow!

 

grapevine, overwintering alliums, Taking stock, Uncategorized

December on the Plot

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Have finally taken a wander down to the plot, having spent a little time away from the plot with real life.  There wasn’t a particular task in mind, but I did take my secateurs with me as I remembered that the roses probably needed pruning.  I also wanted to have a look at any possible damage that the recent storms may have done to the plot. I was worrying about the grapevines as they were already in something of a bad shape. Turns out there wasn’t too much damage, the plot is soggy more than anything.

IMG_6581

The Garlic Farm Garlic is coming on in leaps and bounds. Unlike previous years where I have had numerous varieties of garlic; this year has a much smaller range. The garlic farm garlic is in raised beds and is starting to come through. I have in the past, worried about the garlic not doing very much. I have learned that it is important to just be patient and let the garlic do what it has to. The seed garlic has been pretty much left to it’s own devices, and beyond planting, I have worried very little about it.

I had taken my gloves and sacaeuters for the roses and autumnal raspberries. I didn’t get as far as the raspberries, I will have to look at those after Christmas. What I did do, was wander around the roses and prune what I could. However, some of the roses are still blooming. As you can see, William Shakespeare 200o has a handful of blooms that will hopefully unfurl in the coming days. I am somewhat surprised really to see the roses blooming still.

There are three roses bushes on the plot, that are something out of Grimm’s fairy tales. Sprawling, prickly bushes, that I planted when they were nothing by twigs some years ago. They weren’t expensive, each one was exactly £1 from a poundshop, funnily enough. These are rose bushes that have grown like triffids compared to the rather delicate tea roses. They are also rather vicious, if you look at the stem of one of the roses.

I didn’t always have three. To start of with, I had two. I must have pruned one, and left a stem. It founded itself wedged into the clay, and rooted. So today, I had a thought. A scientific question, really. If I pruned off the two bushes, and kept some of the cuttings, might I end up with bonus bushes. This may or may not work. I had pruned the stems at an angle, and a lot of the material is actually budding. So I have wedged a few cuttings into the clay. Clay that was otherwise bare and where a rose bush might not be a bad idea. I have no idea what these roses are, other than being being, and from Holland. I do remember the labels being in dutch. (I might have to learn a little, just to understand the plant talk)

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IMG_6584

The grapevines have been looking rather sorry for a long time. I have been battling to support them all the way through the summer, and anticipated that they might have keeled over entirely with the stormy weather that we recently experienced. However, they don’t look too bad. The windy weather has stripped them of their foliage, but this was probably causing them to bank over anyway. The next task for these will most likely to be create a more robust frame for them to clamber over next year. Though I am not too sure whether I am supposed to prune them again. I did prune them last year, and kept two main branches for each vine. That did appear to help the growth of leaves and the amount of fruit that cropped.

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Heritage seed garlic from Marshalls is starting to push through the clay. You’ll have to look very closely, but the shoots are just about visible. In comparison to the seed garlic in the raised bed, this is in open ground. I was worried that it might have been eaten up by the soil as we have had quite bit of rain. However it does appear to have been a little more resilient than I had thought. Rather looking forward to seeing how this goes.

Taking stock, Uncategorized

Summer Sunday

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This year hasn’t all been doom and gloom. It may not have been the most successful of growing seasons, but there have been successes nonetheless.

lady balfour
Pink fir apple

Potatoes were rather prolific this year. I think this was more down to the varieties used and the lessons learned from previous experiences rather than anything more. The raised beds were filled with a combination of well rotted farmyard manure and leaf mold, with the seeds then sunk into this organic material. Pink Fir apple had to be the most abundant of the crops, with the strangest of shapes being formed. It was very difficult not to harvest them, with chuckling. Over the harvest period, we harvested buckets and buckets of potatoes. Lady Balfour and International Kidney were the next most productive.  These three are definitely on the list for next year because of how successful they were.

fruit bounty
orange habanero
pumpkin chilies
bit orangey but nearly
on the turn
Plot plums

The fact that my tomato crop was really very poor this year, rather bugs me. Last year I remember having so many green tomatoes, I was struggling to keep up with the chutney processes and ripening them. So imagine by disdain that this year, we didn’t have many at tall. The vines were slow cropping, with not many fruit. Whilst the weather was a bit of a downer, the variety of the tomatoes is probably also significant as well. There were heritage varieties, and I knew that some of these would be somewhat slower in their development; but I did expect something of a decent crop.

The chillies were interesting. Again, a range of hot chillies and super hot chillies. All sown a few days after Christmas, to have a productive summer crop. A little hit and miss, but we did get some chillies. The plums that you see were kindly donated by a plot neighbour and have made the basis of a few jams and jellies.

Blueberries: darrow and blue jay
Pops and Beans being beamed
a nice enough harvest
garlic!
preserve pots
all of the garlic
red and black currants
one ripened cayene

The blueberries are still sat in the freezer, waiting to be used. Their fate was to be gin, but I haven’t got that far. Did make blueberry gin last year, and very nice it was  too.  One of the better crops this year was garlic. There is nothing nicer than home grown garlic; it has a distinctly different taste and flavour compared to the the sort that you would buy from the supermarket.Last year, redcurrants and gooseberries were planted on the plot. This year, we had a crop-a small crop-from both of these. The currants ended up being jammed, as did the gooseberries.  Both with home grown chillies, too.

chopped up gooseberries
more soft fruit, but wait, we have raspberries!
william shakespeare 2000
roses
Cauliflower under net
Taking stock, Uncategorized

The autumn/winter slump

avenue of roses
the arch

Summer feels really far away. both looking back on the growing season and the next growing season. So much so,  my current feeling is as though I have somewhat hit a slump. The weather has not helped, it has been wet, windy and wild; but this is not unusual as we arrive at the tail end of the year.  This has been compounded somewhat by real life being wonderfully busy. School work, Petal, and training on a Saturday for a helpline, have all meant that the allotment has been somewhat on the back burner. Attending a Christmas Fair last week with a whole host of Petal goodies (see the merchandise page) was also an interesting experience. Interesting in that there were a lot of learning points! Overall, the last twelve weeks have been incredibly busy, and now is the time to take a moment and slow down a little. It was harder this year, to write the NABLOPOMO posts as well. I have always enjoyed writing these, but this year this was a little more difficult than I had anticipated.

I guess what I really need to do, is to stop. Pause, and take stock of what is going on with my universe. Don’t worry, I am not about to abandon the plot and blog. No plans to that all. What I need is a rest, and to be honest, the plot is usually part of that process. I have in the past, taken a moment during school work Sunday or marking coursework; to take a walk down to the plot and potter.

The pottering would then involve doing  a few things here and there and refreshing that way. The frequency of doing that, has be somewhat reduced lately. And I can feel it, in being slight zoned out and tired. Though colouring has helped!  I have a number of gardening themed colouring books that I have been using and they have somewhat reduced the allotment withdrawal symptoms. You do find yourself looking at the pictures and thinking about what the drawings might look like if they were really on your allotment plot.

Here we are in the Advent period. The garlic is all in, the poly tunnel has been tidied in a fashion. The grapevines could probably benefit from some structural engineering, and be defoliate. The roses and raspberries will also need pruning. I have yet to window shop trees. My peach and cherry trees failed to do anything on the plot, and I would like to replace them so that they sit alongside the other trees on the plot. There are certainly jobs to do, there is a maze of strawberry runners to untangle!

Having miserable weather really does make going to the allotment harder. As I leave, I am told to not bring in any mud, for one. It will take small steps to get back into the swing of things. Christmas and the festive period is the optimum time to relax, take stock and try to refocus with the new year.

This also means that with the days after Christmas, I shall sow chillies. This is the pattern that I have had for a couple of years now. So I will select the seeds that I want, and make a decision about next years experiments. The new growing season will arrive very quickly.

Here’s to getting back to the plot, and making the most of the down time.

NaBloPoMo, Uncategorized

#NABLOPOMO: Browncoat braves comic con

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browncoat

I’ve never been to a comic con, I’ve never wandered around the city of Birmingham in a costume. I did yesterday. I did, and I was brown coat. I like the Whedon-verse, Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Serenity have been watched over and over for years. There are lines from the shows that I know backwards. The highs, the lows, the tears and the tantrums, are an anthem to my youth.

A very dear friend of mine saw that Comic Con was coming to town, and asked if I fancied joining her. Yeah, sure, I would love to, I said. There was kicker, though. We’d be in Cosplay. There would be costumes. My friend went as the female version of The Pied Piper, so there were high standards.

I would be dressing up. What would be simpler than being a brown coat. Thank fully, I wasn’t the only cosplayer, there were quite a few there. I wasn’t the only brown coat either, I am sure there were a couple of them floating around.

A bollywood brown coat. You couldn’t make it up.

NaBloPoMo, Taking stock, Uncategorized

#NABLOPOMO: Thinking about next year on the plot

basket full of blooms
seed box
the floral trug

I really should think about what to sow and grow next year. Reflect on the squashes, chillies and other vegetables that might find themselves being played with on the plot.

We are getting closer to the festive period-the first of December marks the start of Advent, so I will wait til then to feel festive-and that means sowing chillies days after the turkey has been eaten and left overs dealt with. The first thing that I want to sow and grow, I do need to think about what varieties of chillies I would like to have. From cayennes, to habaneros and super hots, there are a number in the seed box.

In the coming weeks, I shall rifle through the seed box and see what the state play is.

NaBloPoMo, paperback, petal'spottedpreserve, Taking stock, Uncategorized

#NABLOPOMO: Petal Power

 

Petal gets everywhere
Don’t be mug…
Thompson and Morgan’s Michael Perry, the illustrious planthunter

 

I awoke this morning to read that Petal had landed in California. California is thousands of miles away from Birmingham, England so you can imagine the feeling.

She is also on her way to Massachusetts, with copies of the book.

Petal has found herself to now exist in a number of guises. She is now also occupied with Thompson and Morgan’s illustrious plant hunter Michael Perry. She’s in good hands there, there’s not a lot that one of the UK’s top 20 Horticulturalists doesn’t know about gardening.

Not only is Petal national, she has now gone international too. I think she is yet to land in Wales though, or make her way to Eire. There may have to be a map of Petal’s progress at some point.

There is one more item to be revealed and added to the range, but more on that in the future.

(For all questions about the  goodies, get in touch with horticultural ‘obbit via FB and twitter)

NaBloPoMo, Taking stock, Uncategorized

#NABLOPOMO: Three years down the line

 

 

the floral trug
seed box
the end produc
mama and the trug
inside the poly tunnrl
roses in the floral trug
roses
mama and jelly mxture
experiments
falstaff
Petal!!!!!
The plot….all of it
re-boiling
Pops and Beans being beamed

WordPress has just informed me that the blog has been running now for three years. I feel that is a really nice milestone, the blog is now officially a toddler.

Growing has been going on a little longer. However three years ago, I decided to make a more formal. more public record of what I had experienced and what I had learned. Initially, I started to record, but this developed to become more about sharing and allowing readers to get a deeper awareness of what was happening on the plot.

I am fortunate, in that I have a lot of help with the plot. From the gallery you will see that both my parents do have an involvement in one way or another.  Mum does all the digging, and then also helps with the preserving experiments. Dad is the engineering and structural advice, as well as the leaf mold gatherer who lugs along compost as well.

 

goodies!

There has been a great deal of progress. Both with the cultivation on the plot, and also beyond in developing a brand and writing a book. The book, builds on the experiences that are documented on the blog and also contains Mum’s recipes. You can rest assured, that she sat next to me and dictated them all whilst I listened and typed.

When I first took on the allotment, I had no idea how much I would learn, and what the journey ahead of me would be. Since then, so much has happened, it is still very difficult to fully understand it all. I still enjoy the plot, and feel very passionate about. Having an allotment is not necessarily a conventional hobby, and there are still many people with a view that I should perhaps occupy my time with something more interesting and socially defined as being acceptable.

I have no plans to leave it, so I guess that I should really carry on….

NaBloPoMo, Uncategorized

#NABLOPOMO: An apology!

A profuse one. This time last year, writing for NABLOPOMO was a really good experience. I did my best to post daily, trying to find something new for people to read. This year is more challenging. It has become more difficult to write and then post blogs that will be interesting, engaging and allow the reader to take away something away from them.

That does not mean that I am giving up, not at all. I am just going to try alternative strategies to keep going. Hopefully, I shall come up with something to make up for the lost days.

Sorry for missing a few days, but normal service will be resumed shortly.

NaBloPoMo, Uncategorized

#NABLOPOMO: The Chillies…no, not the band

cayennes awaiting their fate
one ripened cayene

 

Even then, the chillies in question are purple.

This year, for the first time, I had a purple chilli in the poly tunnel. Along wit the Dorset naga, these were bought from Seas Spring Seeds at the Edible Garden show in March. We have come along way since then, and the two plants are still in the poly tunnel.

I have had a purple chilli before, albeit a rainbow chilli. The fruit changed from purple to an assortment of bright, vibrant colours. This particular plant had fruit that started off purple and then ripened to a lovely shade of red that we normally associate with a cayenne. It was a productive plant, and there were a number of fruit produced. I do like to sow and grow chillies, they have always been a presence in my growing adventures.

Next years chillies adventures are likely to start days after the Christmas celebrations occur, so I will be looking into my seedbox to choose what will sown.