Sunday On The Allotment - 6 Oct - Clearing and Crops

At last - the arrival of some decent allotmenting weather in Cornwall  - and I hope - elsewhere.

I headed out in the sunshine to my plot beneath the Penwith Hills.

Lots to do - one key "lesson learned" from last year is that time and effort invested in October and November - before the worst of the weather closes in - pays dividends in the Spring.

As ever - one of the main jobs today was clearing weeds. I have a number of beds that need clearing for Autumn sowing. But I'm a great believer in prioritisation - so today I focussed on my Autumn and Winter Crops.

Clearing the other beds can come later - I've got carrots, spinach, cabbages and leeks that I hope to be harvesting between now and Christmas - and beyond.

Once I'd weeded my Winter cabbages they were looking pretty good.

I've been growing them under a net cloche to protect them from pests.

The threat from butterflies and caterpillars has now passed. But our perennial allotment pests - bunny rabbits - remain.

So the cabbages are now safely back under cover.

My leeks were not looking so good.

Partly due to my neglect - I haven't done anything since they went into the ground in June.

They were choked with weeds - mainly chickweed - and soaking wet - as the weeds were blocking airflow through the crop.

Once weeded - they were still looking a bit sorry for themselves - and like spring onions in size.

But I firmed them back into the soil and replaced the cloche - hopefully they will dry out and grow on.

As ever - we will see.

Finally I gathered in my crops for the day. The last of the cucumbers and the first of the Autumn carrots.

Plus some Pumpkins - which I'd hoped to grown on through October to Halloween. But when I tried weeding - they all just fell off the plant - so ready for harvest.

Sunday On The Allotment - 29 Sep - Autumn Crops

Out to my St Ives allotment this morning to get more work done - despite the mizzly conditions.

Autumn has most definitely arrived in Cornwall.

The Summer plants are starting to fade - although there are still some good crops to be harvested.

I've deliberately left some of my French Beans - particularly the Borlotti variety Firetongue - to grow on to produce beans for drying.

I had a glut of beans last month - so harvested the pods - filled the freezer - and left the rest on the plants.

These are now harvested - podded - and on a tray in the kitchen to dry for storage.

I've also harvested a good crop of Perpetual Spinach - sown in June and grown under a net cloche.

That is all now cooked and in the freezer - looking forward to some nice Autumn meals.

The plants are still looking good - so I'm hoping for further crops.

Now is the time to start thinking ahead towards next years sowing, planting and - hopefully - harvesting.

Last Autumn I sowed Green Manure - Caliente Mustard in my cleared beds - which provided ground cover to exclude weeds. It also protected the soil and reduced the amount of nutrients washed away by the Winter rains.

This worked well - so I'm doing the same this year. I weeded, hoed and raked the bed to level it.

Then simply scattered the seed and trod it in. Should germinate in a couple of weeks.

In late winter I'll cur it down - then either dig it in or add to the compost bin.

All in all a satisfying and enjoyable weekend on the allotment.

And some lovely crops to eat !

More news coming soon.

St Ives Allotment - Summer Crops

After a slow start to the growing season - due to the exceptionally cold Spring weather - things are now looking pretty good on my plot.

Lots of plants starting to come through. Potatoes are lifted and stored - soon I'll have more crops.

Enjoy the pics - click on each to enlarge.

The first cucumbers are appearing - ready for first picking in a week or two I think.

Some courgettes already picked (and converted into ratatouille) - more - probably lots more - on the way.

Carrots - variety Autumn King - coming on well for an October / November harvest.

Pumpkins starting to swell out - hopefully will be ripe and ready for Halloween.

French Beans - variety Blauhilde - flowering nicely.

I also have Firetongue Borlotti Beans growing - slightly behind but flower buds appearing.

Looking forward to the harvest - must start emptying the freezer !

Storing Potatoes

The Potato Harvest is coming in - and unlike last year I've got a really good yield.

So time to get them safely into storage - so that we can enjoy them over the coming weeks. Also - one of the reasons why I grow stuff - to save money - as we can cross spuds of the shopping list - hopefully until Christmas at the earliest.

The potential problem with potatoes is that they may sprout, turn green or rot in storage - so its worth taking a few steps to keep them in good condition.

Step 1 - get them dried out - preferably in full sunlight.

I lifted mine the evening before a day forecast to be hot and sunny - and was rewarded with a nice morning as predicted.

I spread the spuds out on a tray set out in the sunniest part of the garden and left them for a few hours.

Step 2 - remove any tubers that are damaged - either with "fork damage" - inevitable when lifting the crop - slug damage or anything else.

There is a danger that these will be susceptible to rot and spread this to their neighbours. Keep them for consumption in the next few days.

Step 3 - Transfer the potatoes to hessian sacks - then store somewhere dry and dark - mine are in the garage.

They should then store ok for a few months - but do keep checking the sacks regularly. If one potato starts to rot this can quickly spread to the others - potentially ruining a whole sackful.

Sunday On The Allotment - Winter Cabbages

Out to the allotment on a lovely warm sunny summer morning in St Ives Cornwall.

Today's main job - planting out my Winter Cabbages - raised from seed and nurtured in the greenhouse for the last two months.

I'm trying two winter-hardy varieties - Tundra and January King. It will be nice to have something growing on the plot through Autumn - and something to look forward to for Christmas and beyond.

The seed packet for Tundra showed some huge healthy looking cabbages growing away covered in snow and sheets of ice.

Conditions like that are rare in Cornwall - so I have high hopes for my little plants.

But - as ever - we'll see. I'll post progress reports here.

Before planting I added a bit of my home-made compost to each hole, watered.

I then popped each plant in - pleased to see good root development - and watered again.

Finally - I covered the row with a net cloche - to provide some protection from pests - including butterflies, pigeons and rabbits.

My summer planting is now pretty much done. So I can sit back and enjoy for a bit - and look forward to the next harvests. Coming soon - Courgettes, Cucumbers and French Beans.

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Harvesting Potatoes

Potato harvest time has arrived - long awaited and anticipated since I started preparing the ground last October.

I planted two varieties this year - Charlotte First Early and Wilja Second Early. Chosen because they are two varieties that I like to eat and taste great. Also chosen because I wanted to avoid the worst ravages of potato blight by harvesting early - so I avoided maincrop varieties.



My plot and our allotment site as a whole seems to suffer badly from blight. I'm not sure why - we get plenty of wind - maybe its the damp Cornish weather.

I lifted the last of the Charlotte potatoes a couple of weeks go - so this week it was the Wilja. After looking really good for weeks they were struck by blight about 10 days ago - and it spread fast. I cut off all the foliage and binned it. Blighted potato haulms should not be composted as this risks spreading the disease and storing it up for next year.

I was really pleased with both the yield and the size of the spuds - enough to keep us supplied in the kitchen for several weeks. Also a surplus to share with our neighbours - which is something that I enjoy.

Two beds cleared - one more to go - then I can move on to preparing the beds for the next crop. Under my crop rotation system they will be sown with peas and beans - starting with Broad Beans sown in October.

Sunday On The Allotment - 17 Mar - Peas

A lovely sunny morning in West Cornwall - so off again to my plot out in the hills.

Its starting to feel as if Spring really is on the way - and for the first time in ages there were quite a few of my fellow allotmenteers out on the site.

As you can see - my fleece cloches have not survived Winter very well at all - in fact they are completely trashed.

Not sure if they've been attacked by pigeons or other wildlife.

More likely its the ravages of wind and weather - our allotment site is very exposed ......

Sunday On The Allotment - 10 Mar - Potato Planting

Despite a freezing cold morning in West Cornwall - I was determined to get out to my plot today - after an absence of two weeks.

After a lovely sunny day yesterday Winter has bitten back - with some force.

Spring is approaching - and I wanted to get my first couple of rows of seed potatoes into the ground.


As mentioned in my previous post - Potato Preparation - I manured the potato plots last year and cleared the ground ready for planting a couple of weeks ago. The soil is looking really good - and hopefully fertile ! ......

Sunday On The Allotment - 24 Feb - Potato Preparation

At last - a week without rain ! I took advantage of the good weather and headed out to my allotment for the first visit of the year.

This may sound a bit neglectful - but the rain has hardly stopped for the last few weeks. With the ground saturated there was little that I could usefully do out there. Plus - I spent a lot of time in the Autumn preparing my plot for the Spring - and this is now paying off.


As I conducted my customary inspection of the plot things were looking fairly good ......