Tag Archives: GYO

Taking stock

Horticultural ‘Obbit at the Edible Garden Show 2015

EGS

Well, I went!

I booked my ticket a fortnight ago, having established that I would be away from work. I would have a few days off, and why not revisit The Edible Garden Show at Alexandra Palace in London. The ticket was reasonably priced, you would pay a lot more than the £16 to visit a tourist attraction in the Capital and especially on the first day.I queued, post full English breakfast, as did a few hundred others, having arrived before the 11 am opening. No one told me, about the steep hill from the Alexandra Palace train station. I huffed and puffed up the hill, to see the view over the city in the very crisp weather. It wasn’t sunny, as the world and his wife had just viewed an eclipse. The other event, that was happening that day.

The plan, was to not spend any money. This was an exercise in window shopping. Perhaps learn something too.

dnaga

And that partly went by the way side. I made chilli based purchases, more on this later, but I didn’t come back to Brum laden with goodies. I didn’t fancy carting them all back, for one.

It was a nice day out, and having arrived early, I had a lot of time to walk around. Window shop, at first, what was around, work out what I wanted to see in the Expert’s theatre. As I got there, James Wong was running late and there were people already waiting. I kept walking around. There were a few schools there, kids and teachers, waiting for winners of Lunch growing scheme. I had empathy towards my slightly harassed looking colleagues, and the excitable kids.

I did spend a fair bit of time sitting in the Expert’s theatre, watching and listening.  I heard Pippa Greenwood, talk about veg, another chap talk about the factors that influence the vegetable patch. Last but not least, there was a question and answer session with the contestants of the Big allotment challenge. Was lovely to meet and speak with both Rob and Rekha. No, I didn’t swoon over Rob, and there were no screaming hoards that I had fight off to have a chat with him. Yes, I was surprised by that too.

This is not my first visit to an Edible Garden show. I made a visit to the show when it was at Stoneleigh. The show at Alexandra Palace felt different. It felt smaller for one, as though there was less there. I think I saw two seed companies. As well as a couple of equipment people. There was the experts theatre, and make/eat demos. Had I not left for the train, I would have stayed for the jam making bit.

It did feel very different to Stoneleigh, though I did go on the saturday that year. A lot less to look at, less hustle and bustle. Didn’t see alot on preserving fruit and veg, I think that would have been useful. There wasn’t anything there for me, that would have made me want to spend my money on goodies. Other than the two baby chillies. I feel that the show has lost a certain something. It just didn’t feel like a show, about edible gardens. There were poly tunnel people, greenhouse and shed people. Even furniture people. But something was lacking. A spark of something,

But I went, and even spent a fiver.

Fruit trees, Planting out

Tree-ly Delightful

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With the school term ended, I had a mission today. To not only sow sunflowers for the Psychology Sunflower challenge but to also sink two additional fruit trees. These were a doyenne du Comice pear tree, and a Moorpark Apricot tree. I am still expecting a Czar plum tree.

The Moor Park Apricot, is an experiment, the same way at the Rochester peach tree. But the pear and plum are to help support the two other pear and plum trees. The plum tree has flowered and fruited before, but not since. The Pear tree however, has flowered but never fruited. I am not sure of any of my plot neighbours having a pear tree, so that is important as having another pear tree helps pollination. There are huge great big plum trees-been there a good fifty years-further down the allotment site.

In all honesty, I have been wondering how far bumble bees can fly from one flower to another. Do they fly in feet, metres, miles? In time there will be flowers to help them fly around easily.

The full list of fruit trees on the plot is as follows:

  • Worcester Pearmain
  • Rochester peach
  • Moor Park Apricot
  • Falstaff apple
  • Braeburn apple
  • Victoria plum
  • Doyenne du Comice pear
  • Concord pear
  • Sylvia Cherry
  • Czar plum-still expected
Soft fruit

Blueberry budding

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darrow_blueberry

There are three blueberries in pots on the plot. What you see above is the Darrow variety, the others are blue jay and bluecrop. The blue crop was the youngest, I think, as well as the smallest. I’m surprised that there are quite few buds on this already. My concern had been that the frost would nip at them, but they do seem to be fairly robust.

All three are in large pots, that have been filled with ericacaeous-how ever you spell it-compost. I did water them in with rain water when they were first potted in. Luckily we have had some rain since to keep them watered.

project othello, Soft fruit

Raspberries getting a wriggle on

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There are a number of different raspberry varieties that are on the plot. We have:

  • tulameen
  • glen cova
  • malling jewel
  • autumn bliss
  • polka
  • fall gold

Most are part of the all season collection that were planted last year. However, the autumn bliss, polka and fall gold are the varieties that specifically fruit as the autumn draws in. The all season collection was sunk last year, with the autumn bliss and polka varieties sunk last summer. The autumn bliss were the surprise quick croppers in autumn, having been rescued from a garden centre, and the polka were actually kindly donated by a friend and colleague.  The autumn bliss canes were cut down as suggested, so we shall see how these develop.

Pottering around today, I was looking to see if there was any sign of life in the large number of raspberry canes. Lo and Behold, the fall gold are showing green buds. This is somewhat surprising as the canes were only sunk recently. In comparison, the earlier planted canes of the all season collection are somewhat behind. They have rooted, there is resistance if you try and tug at the canes. However, the buds are only just forming at the knobbly bits of the canes.

overwintering alliums

Garlic update March 2015

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It’s been a long time since I wrote about the garlic that was planted during the autumn last year. You can find that post here where I planted it.

The varieties are:

  • Early Purple wight
  • Lautrec Wight
  • Elephant garlic
  • Provence Wight

Generally, I will plug it in, and then pretty much leave it alone. Such is the beauty of planting garlic, other than feeding during the spring and weeding from time to time, I have observed that not much else is needed. In the past, I have grew it both in open ground and also in raised beds. In my experience, planting and growing in raised beds has produced a bigger and better crop compared to growing in the open ground.

So far so good, I will  have to feed these in the coming weeks. At this moment, the need to weed isn’t too bad. There is nice green foliage that has some way to go before it is shows that the bulbs are mature. The full maturity is indicated when the foliage becomes raffia like and pale, it also keels over in some cases.

Experimental Chillies and be;;s, tomatoes

potting up the plants: Chillies and toms

After what has been an intense week, things are getting back to normal. I have found myself some compost, and got around to potting things up.  The tomatoes were looking as though they were ready to bend and break, so needed to be potted up as matter of urgency. So putting down some newspaper-i did it before my mum instructed me to, and I even hoovered up after-I set about potting up.

I’m not very good at potting up, as you may have garnered. I even managed to decapitate one of the true black brandywine seedlings. To be fair it had already started to keel over a the soil point in having grown leggy. There was no hope for it anyway. Therefore, potting up is something of a delicate operation. I had to concentrate, so pops got a bit worried when I was walking around wearing a scowl and looking rather unhappy. That would be my concentration face.

The tomatoes were planted deep into new pots, right up to or close to their baby leaves. There are still another dozen or so baby tomatoes that are still at their baby leaf stage. But these were starting to send out their second or third set of proper leaves. They still have some time yet before they are move. I daresay that they will probably be potted up once more before they get planted into the poly.

Then, then we have the chillies. You  have heard a fair bit of them lately. But they too needed potting up to varying levels. They are all incredibly leafy, and healthy looking. I did have a mild panic when earlier this week, a couple of the specimens were a bit wrinkly and dehydrated. So had to have a lot of water poured into their gravel tray. I rather like my chilli babies, and will be heartbroken if they keel over. Most of them now look a little more respectable having graduated from their yogurt pots and into the 7 cm pots. The habaneros were also potted up, they are sending out leaf pairs three and four, even though they are smaller in size compared to the rest of their cohort. I think that is trend for habaneros, as the other varieties are growing at a much speedier rate. I also had not realised quite how many Hungarian Hot wax chillies I had sown. There a number of Aji Limo, together with few cayenne babies.

Experimental Chillies and be;;s, tomatoes

Chillies and toms: To be potted on

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Due to a very close family bereavement, the last week has been somewhat non horticultural. Haven’t been able to wander down to the plot to have a look. I did however, have to do some emergency potting up last week, and the task remains to pot up the rest. There was an emergency pot up of cayenne and the five aji limos. I think I have a serrano baby to pot up as well, so will have to get some MPC and start potting up. As you can see, some of them and lolling to one side as though they were a little bit drunk. The non-habanero chillies are flourishing, whereas the habaneros are still quite tiny, and very slow growing. The plan remains to have all of these in pots in the polytunnel.

The potting up process will also need to happen to the tomatoes. These are looking rather tall and leggy, and would benefit from a deep seat in larger pots. The tomatoes are going slower than the chillies, simply because I am being mean. I haven’t put them into direct warmth and heat, but will shortly when I run out of window sill space, so they haven’t had a sprint to start. Once potted up, I will perhaps move them to a brighter and warmer position. I have held off sowing more tomatoes, and I am pampering these somewhat and hoping that they survive.

Experimental Chillies and be;;s

Chilli Duo: Aji limo and Hungarian Hot Wax

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The Woolly Green Blog mentioned ten vegetables to sow this month. I happen to have sown the chilli pepper that was mentioned.

The Aji limo was from sea spring seeds, whilst the Hungarian Hot Wax is from seed parade.

Can’t remember the exact date these were sown, but it was early January. Of the seeds sown, these are probably the tallest, alongside the cayenne chilli pepper seedlings. I’ve not sown these successfully before, and I’m curious as to how these are going to develop. The Aji limo is a Habanero, with the Hungarian hot wax being allegedly suited to the cooler Blighty climate. The latter is also meant to be quite mild in comparison to the Aji Limo.  Both look very pretty as plants, looking at the information that is available about them.

They will all require potting up, in fact some of the cayennes are leaning a bit. However,  I am conscious of the fact that if the pot is too roomy,the plants do relax a little. They sit back and do nothing. The cayennes are starting to escape their pots, so these won’t be too far behind. It might be some time yet before they are potted into their final pots. I have deliberately not separated the seedlings out. This I feel contributes to the the growth, as the plants cramp together and work harder.  It is still very early in the growing season, so these are on the small side at the moment. Hopefully, these will continue to grow, despite the cold snap that is forecast.

tomatoes

leggy but still lovely tomatoes

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Just like the chillies, the tomato babies are growing slowly but surely. The first batch are somewhat leggy, and would most likely benefit from being potted up. This is a plan in the coming week at least. Shall be keeping an eye on them,and rotating as some have started to bend with the solar phillic tendency. Some of varieties have started to send out proper leaves, whereas others are somewhat delayed, I would rather that they did take their time at this stage, I don’t want them grow too quickly and then keel over should we have a cold snap. They are largely kept warm, but not too warm so as to be in heat all the time.

We have:

  • marmade
  • yellow stuffer
  • true blackbrandywine
  • cream sausage
  • money maker
  • cherokee purple.

Haven’t got around to sowing any additional varieties, and I’m not sure that I want to sow any more. There is finite space in the poly tunnel, which will have tomatoes sharing with chillies.

In a bit of pickle

Preserving Prep: stashing jars

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jars

Since last year’s preserving and pickling experiments, I have been on the scrounge for empty jam and sauce jars. I have been collecting them from the house kitchen, friends and colleagues. Not knowing, how many I had actually stuffed into Dad’s shed. Ma has been telling me that there were quite a few that were stashed, and I should probably want to check how many. I have been very fortunate, that a dear friend of my is currently weaning one of her lovely kids. So this has meant that I have been able to freecycle her baby food jars. Some of them have lids, some don’t. Not too worried about that, as I have been using cling film to seal in contents. Tidied up Dad’s shed and stashed nearly hundred of the baby food jars. There are about thirty other miscellaneous jars also stored there. Turns out I have quite a few, and I still want to collect more. To get me started last year, I did buy some ‘proper’ jars and these were used quite well. Even had labels on, with the figure holding carrots-you know the one, the avatar on the blog. That is my brand! Have had a look into trade marking it, so the is a firm idea of what the blog and allotment experiments are all about. (And yes, that is apparently what I look like too). A perfectly unique image, created by the same artist in residence who last year planted potatoes and tulips, remember him?

It’s not quite you know, the Del Boy traders thing yet. I know that using baby food jars is okay for small scale preserving that might be for home, family and colleagues. Less so, If this was all a small business enterprise and I was selling commercially. I know that there are rules and regulations about packaging too. All will be looked into, should this ever get off the ground as it were.

That is the dream though, to marry up Psychology, counselling, allotmenteering with preserving and pickling. One day!