French beans planted out
Peas sown in situ
New brick border made
PSB potted on in greenhouse
Last year broccoli stems bashed
Courgettes sown
Showing posts with label courgettes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label courgettes. Show all posts
A big weekend
A great weekend for edinburgh - the main crop spuds got planted! I mean, both Edinburgh teams got through to the Scottish Cup for the first time since 1896... On saturday I was all set to spend the afternoon, listening to the Dons trump the Hibees. Colin from The Fruitmarket installation team had called earlier in the day asking if I wanted any wood as they were taking down a wall - I never need to be asked twice... By 1pm I had a stash of batons, and some 10 roller trays which were also outside in the skip - so I'm settling down, turn the radio on to find it was a 12.15 kick off, and that the Dons were already out. Maybe it was best not to have listened!
Instead I go to work building some strawberry beds. I've always found strawberries to take up a lot of room, for fairly limited returns, but a special request from Maggie and the boys, a load of spare plants for Goad next door and the challenge to build up meant that by five I'd engineered a truly allotment response... wasn't even thought of at daybreak!
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| planting the spuds |
- the spuds(Main crops, earlies in sat 7th april)
- beetroot (Cioggia and Bolthardy)
- lots of flowers and under cover:
- the leeks (Musselburgh)
- courgettes
- calabrase
- cauliflower
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| Planting flowers |
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| Can you dig it? |
Strange brew
Having spent the summer at various dinners, do's and barbeques - in festivals, fields and parks up and down the country, there's one thing that keeps the world turning - booze. No matter how severe the recession gets, people will always drink. So in lieu of starting my own microbrewery (ideally on small Hebridian island - "Do you want a Canna beer?") I borrowed Phil's demijohn, plucked a kg of gooseberries and blackcurrants, and paid a visit to the wonderful Edina Homebrew shop just off Easter Road, who helped explain the whole really very simple process.
So after two weeks bubbling away in the corner of the kitchen, I've racked (siphoned off the good stuff into a new demijohn, whilst leaving the old sediment) the wine and in another couple of weeks they'll be ready for bottling - then another six months. A slow way to get six bottles of wine, especially when as my dear wife reminded me they're down the road in the Co-op for £4 a pop, but she's kinda missing the point!
Meanwhile down at the allotment - the onions and shallots were pulled at the start of the month and purple sprouting broccoli and nero kale transplanted in.
Courgettes continue to come at the rate of knots. The broad beans have one last picking in them and winter sowing of cauliflower and winter leaves have been made.
Pulled my first kohl rabi, but having had it in a pork stew last night, lets just call it a turnip!!
Next up - the brambles and raspberries!
So after two weeks bubbling away in the corner of the kitchen, I've racked (siphoned off the good stuff into a new demijohn, whilst leaving the old sediment) the wine and in another couple of weeks they'll be ready for bottling - then another six months. A slow way to get six bottles of wine, especially when as my dear wife reminded me they're down the road in the Co-op for £4 a pop, but she's kinda missing the point!
Meanwhile down at the allotment - the onions and shallots were pulled at the start of the month and purple sprouting broccoli and nero kale transplanted in.
Courgettes continue to come at the rate of knots. The broad beans have one last picking in them and winter sowing of cauliflower and winter leaves have been made.
Pulled my first kohl rabi, but having had it in a pork stew last night, lets just call it a turnip!!
Next up - the brambles and raspberries!
Catching up
Part and parcel of tending the allotment, is the feeling that you're never quite caught up with nature - there's always something to be done and always something that doesn't get done. This used to cause me bother, however its best to be easy-ozy, that's one of the nice things about it - a place where you go in with one idea of what you're going to do, and then promptly you get stuck into something else - no lists, no boss and no worries... bit like your holidays...
Returned after two weeks camping on the Small Isles, the beautiful islands of Canna, Rum and Muck - all unique and very different from each other- lots of fresh food - from shellfish for Jimi's big birthday bash from Sandy's boat, whopping vegetables from the Greenshed, rabbit pie at the Gille Brighde on Canna, newly dug Craigentinny spuds and even a couple of mighty seafish, wrestled from the sea by Col and myself and cooked on the fire.
Returned on the weekend to a very green patch - everything has spent the last fortnight, both hot and wet, bolting upwards and outwards...
Forked the onion roots out, so that they can dry over the next two weeks
Dug the third row of spuds - the Dunbar Rovers - good sized tubers with lovely firm, buttery flesh
Pink Fir Apple spuds are stretching to almost chest height!
First pickings of broad beans
First pickings of loganberries
First picking of blackcurrants and gooseberries, shielded under netting - think I'm gonna make wine with these
French beans now two inches and reaching for support
Fennel and Kohl Rabi well established and coming on
Lots of courgettes, currently about 2 - 4 inches long...
Even saw a frog for the first time on the plot in over six years!
Returned after two weeks camping on the Small Isles, the beautiful islands of Canna, Rum and Muck - all unique and very different from each other- lots of fresh food - from shellfish for Jimi's big birthday bash from Sandy's boat, whopping vegetables from the Greenshed, rabbit pie at the Gille Brighde on Canna, newly dug Craigentinny spuds and even a couple of mighty seafish, wrestled from the sea by Col and myself and cooked on the fire.
Returned on the weekend to a very green patch - everything has spent the last fortnight, both hot and wet, bolting upwards and outwards...
Forked the onion roots out, so that they can dry over the next two weeks
Dug the third row of spuds - the Dunbar Rovers - good sized tubers with lovely firm, buttery flesh
Pink Fir Apple spuds are stretching to almost chest height!
First pickings of broad beans
First pickings of loganberries
First picking of blackcurrants and gooseberries, shielded under netting - think I'm gonna make wine with these
French beans now two inches and reaching for support
Fennel and Kohl Rabi well established and coming on
Lots of courgettes, currently about 2 - 4 inches long...
Even saw a frog for the first time on the plot in over six years!
Earth shifting
A big week in scotland, culminating today...
1. Wit's inside the tartan box, you ask?
Spuds of course!! ...Having missed my self-imposed deadline of Easter, got the main crop spuds in last sunday - Pink Fir Apples and Maris Peers - the earlies already showing their appreciation for the incredibly warm, sunny spell we been having for the past month... The ground had capped due to the warm spell and as a result was the diggin was like breakin rocks in the Sinai desert!
2. The brassicas are also responding to the warmth...
Potted them on on Monday, along with the courgettes. Maggie noted last night the particular lush green colour of the fresh grass, and fresh leaves as appear and reach out, which lasts around three weeks at this time...
the courgettes' colour is just like that...
I've always said that one of the best places to be with a hangover is inside a green pepper... thats also like that.
3. Having got there too late last year, made it to Newhailes Nursery this week, a gem of a place near the Honest Toun, Musselburgh, to get my tomatoes.
Why is it that I consider buying plug plants cheating, yet its okay to get tomato plants ready started?
Partly because they're are such a rip-off - I saw six being sold in B&Q for £3 - thats 50p a plant - you can get a fully grown lettuce for 89p! Instead of aiding the big guys cashing in on people interest in growing, go to those who have been there for the duration... and who will continue to be!
4. So finally today - the culmination day for seeds planted long ago - the lettuces are out ready to be doused!
Here's to the coming thunder and lightning - scotland's saying bring it on!
1. Wit's inside the tartan box, you ask? 
2. The brassicas are also responding to the warmth... Potted them on on Monday, along with the courgettes. Maggie noted last night the particular lush green colour of the fresh grass, and fresh leaves as appear and reach out, which lasts around three weeks at this time...
the courgettes' colour is just like that...
I've always said that one of the best places to be with a hangover is inside a green pepper... thats also like that.
3. Having got there too late last year, made it to Newhailes Nursery this week, a gem of a place near the Honest Toun, Musselburgh, to get my tomatoes.Why is it that I consider buying plug plants cheating, yet its okay to get tomato plants ready started?
Partly because they're are such a rip-off - I saw six being sold in B&Q for £3 - thats 50p a plant - you can get a fully grown lettuce for 89p! Instead of aiding the big guys cashing in on people interest in growing, go to those who have been there for the duration... and who will continue to be!
4. So finally today - the culmination day for seeds planted long ago - the lettuces are out ready to be doused!
Here's to the coming thunder and lightning - scotland's saying bring it on!
Hugettes
Sandy, Hissy the boa Constrictor and me popped down on a sunny sunday to catch up on the courgettes progress.
After last year's haul of plum and courgette chutney thanks to my brother's Simon plums from East Belfast flat, from which he has moved from (albeit four streets up the road) and therefore no longer access to , I was left wondering a) what was I to do with more bloody courgettes and b) what's maggie going to have on her cheese sarnies for the next three months. However luckily just as the courgettes have turned into hugettes over the past fortnight, Kim and Tania's new house has a plum tree square in the back garden. To be boiled collectively next weekend...
I planted out the last of the lettuce a fortnight ago. Meanwhile the beetroots were cropped first on Sun 22 May, after a couple of rows failing to germinate early in the year. The first french beans were collected today and the kale planted out a fortnight ago after the first earlies are looking decidedly ravaged by caterpillars. Lots of blackberries, and the first inklings of the autumn raspberries!.. Hissy couldn't contain himself.
Greetingz
Greetingz friends around the world!
Another monday night - another evening with the radio tidying and doing the jobs undo from the weekend. There was a great couple of documentaries on - one about the Iraqi national football team,, who recently failed to get through to the World Cup, and then one about women in Cheyna...
Meanwhile - pulled a row of onions to make way for the leeks. The seedling were all planted at the same time but in an experiment I potted on with two different methods - in a deep pot (as I had the hunch that its the roots which get restricted and stunt growth) and in loo roll holders. My hunch proved right as the deep leeks were ready i.e pencil thick, whilst the loo rolls were drowned in their six inch hole!
Also planted out another batch of lettuce (number three?) - Romano's and lollo rosso...
Harvesting - I took in the last of the first of three rows of the broad beans so that i could make space for a final sowing of beetroot, and took the first Primo cabbage home for the freshest of coleslaw... Got the first three 5-inch courgettes, and lots of blackcurrents still coming
I hung the shallots to dry in the shed, and having got some red onions (for the coleslaw!) bent back the rest of the onions so that they can ripen. In a fortnights time will fork the roots and dry for the two weeks whilst we are in Ireland.
To do - pull the peas and get the spouting broccoli in, and pull the rest of the beans and get some Autumn King carrots in...
The Courgettes
A good sunday morning spent constructing the hot bed for the courgettes. I've raised them up because this sorner of the allotment gets wet and seems cold - so by raising up i could use the first batch of compost from home... Three should do us!
Then a good monday evening then tidying up. My favourite time on the allotment - all is quiet, no-ones around, the day is done, usually something good on the radio, and time is called by the darkness. Potted on the kale, the pumpkins, the savoys and the calabrase. Planted more mizuna and some german black turnips and beetroots, and crammed in lettuces in between the autumn cabbages as a catch drop. Also stuck in the celeriac seedlings which seem to be stalling at 1cm high in the greenhouse - hope by covering them I can nurse them to fruition in a well manured bed.
The board beans have looked rather aneamic but think this is due to warm dry weather - have doused twice in last week and they are looking heathier and greener. I've now also got a system for putting the hose in the watering can and watering from there as this means I water the roots of the plants heartily and not the whole bed lightly. This has been leading to lots of 'capping' where the thin layer of water bakes in the heat on the top and creates a hard crust which is then difficult for water to penetrate.
An update on the tatties - all going well, and the first flowers are appearing on the first earlies (see above). When these flowers start to droop then we're ready, 10 or so weeks after planting. Lots of water in the next couple of weeks should swell the tubers so i can get them out, and get the pumpkins and squahes in.
May you never
Potting on the courgettes today as they are loving the hot greenhouse. Also managed to plant marigolds for bees, kale, calabrase and savoy cabbages - and as a final attempt at herbs sprinkled basil, parsley and chives into the carrot box. This weekend last year, doing much the same - getting the shallots, red onions, beetroot, lollo rosso, peas, brussels and leeks in...
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