We had a very distinguished visitor on 16 January - my old friend Matthew who is an organic farmer in Hungary! Readers will appreciate that I was more than a little nervous on conducting such a notable visitor to the plot. Frankly, most of our visitors know Bog All about growing veg so one can get away with wittering nonsense about blight and green manure. Not with this one. He pronounced himself impressed with our garlic harvest, offered helpful apple tree pruning advice and cautioned against the over-use of our Magic Veg Juice on actual crops, though we should slosh it all over comfrey. He thought the mystery brassica was indeed broccoli and that the yellow leaves were just a natural part of what happens. Anyway, we passed inspection and that is the main thing though it was of course lovely to see him too.
Lots done at the plot this weekend. That is because for once it was neither freezing nor raining. That doesn't mean to say that it was not cold - it was - but that it was not freezing. And the sun was shining and we had a picnic lunch. You could almost imagine that spring... What am I doing?! It is winter and we are now officially in recession. We must not imagine the green shoots just yet. It is the longest we have spent on the plot for what seems like months.
The comfrey which looks dead and thus able to be moved was dug up and put to one 
side. It will be planted on the bank. We then dug the green manure into that area including where the extra potatoes had grown last year. We originally wanted to create a very raised bed for the carrots in that space, so that they can grow straight and true, However, the soil did not seem over stony so we thought we would have an extra normal bed at the end and look elsewhere for the carrot bed. We now have to think about what to put there before doing anything else in the way of soil improvement. It is now Bed 6.
The carrot bed eventually was agreed to be situated between the side of the pallet compost shelter and what will be the side of Bed 5 (corn, courgettes, peas etc). It is not huge but will be sufficient, provided that there 
is enough height to it in which to put the non-stony soil. N has made a good start in constructing the sides from an old chest. It is now officially known as Bed 7.
On the advice of our Hungarian visitor, we decided to dig in the green manure on bed 5, leaving the cabbages and kale intact. The plants are not entirely broken up so there is scope for spreading it about further once the crops have been eaten. I also discover a whole bag of manure so we should be OK, as this bed will definitely need feeding up for the greedy crops that will be on it.
Although we have committed to a special carrot bed, I still sow a few seeds of Amsterdam Forcing early carrots in Bed 1 out of curiosity. There is no reason why we cannot grow carrots in both and see how they do. A word about potatoes - we have now got our seed potatoes - 20 each of Arran Pilot (which we loved last year, Lady Balfour (a second early) and Sarpo Mira (maincrop and related to Sarpo Axona that we had last year). They are chitting away, although - would you believe it - our kittens have hidden the labels so we cannot have full confidence in which set of potatoes are which, apart from Arran Pilot which is pretty distinctive. The curse of the broccoli continues.
Because it was so nice and sunny, we had a good old shed sort out and put up the new calendar. Tools and equipment were taken home to be given the annual Jeyes Fluid baptism and sharpening (OMG Jeyes is probably not organic - aaarrggghh!). We see that Jan and Pat are doing the same in their new shed as they prepare for life on their new plot.
The next day our long unused digging muscles are aching. But we forget the pain as we take part in the Allotment Association winter drinks event based at the communal shed. Sunshine, a hearty fire and mulled wine - who could ask for anything more (other than smoke not getting in the eyes)?
Well, not really, as it turns out. Having consulted a few books and YouTube, and armed with a fresh pair of secateurs, we went up to see about winter pruning our apple trees. You think you know a tree, just because you walk past it frequently, or because you planted it, or because you've eaten its fruit. But until this afternoon, I actually would have been hard pressed (apple banter) to sketch an outline of either of our trees' set of main branches. And they're both a lot smaller than I would have guessed this morning. (Although most of the trees on YouTube were quite large.)The goal of Beginner's Pruning is at least four-fold. First, to clear space so that (the eventual) buds and apples get plenty of light and air (nobody likes, for example, a cramped crotch). This includes removing growth heading downward, or across the middle of the tree or across other branches. Second, to promote subsequent growth (you tend to cut back the previous year's growth by two-thirds, which seems harsh, but makes the plant try all the harder). Third, to remove dead or diseased material.The trees, then, with the simpler first. Our, Cox, though not yet really growing in the desired 'vase' shape, is a vigorous little fella. We felt informed enough to trim here and there (always cutting back to the upward-facing bud). The Scrumptious, however, doesn't really have the shape we're familiar with from online videos. It's been growing well, but with its branches shooting up rather than out. Almost as if it was intended to be trained as an espalier, with its branches pinned out along horizontal lines. Hmmm. We withheld the secateurs until next weekend, by whic time we will have borrowed (yet) another book with pruning advice.
Harvested two leeks - we're down to about 15 left in the ground, thinner and thinner, but still delicious. And a cabbage (I didn't know about the slugs until I read K's previous blog). Still have some kale upright. The various green manures are suffering from the recent frosts, but no matter because we are due shortly to dig them in.
Am pondering the best formation for a raised carrot-bed at the plot's top (by the shed), where the soil is so stony that it's near-impossible to dig. Raised beds would, at least, give us control over the soil conditions. And judging from the shapes of our carrots, they could use a soil that makes it easy to grow downward.
Work to do in the coming weeks on restoring our fence, which has suffered somewhat by being constructed by a non-fencer, and from vandals taking shortcuts through them.
As K wrote, death to slugs. Of all kinds.
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Welcome to the New Year here at the plot! We hope all our readers had a suitably festive season - we certainly did, sustained by the ongoing consumption of fresh produce from the plot. It has been quite marvellous to think that - almost - we are self-sufficient. OK, so there is not that much variety but we now appreciate the seasonal aspect of eating.
Our main staples have been kale and leeks, and we have recently had the first cabbage (though these are riddled with slugs - must do something about that). Added to which, we have been eating our store of potatoes and onions; the latter has just managed to last, though we are now down to the last 5 red ones - and there is still plenty of garlic in good condition, and 4 small butternut squash. All seems to keep very well in the garage. Not to mention the frozen veg from the summer (beans, carrots, courgettes, broccoli and the most splendid of all, peas). And the chutney which is actually quite nice and has been given as presents to special people.
We managed a visit to the plot on Christmas Day just as a courtesy to our readers. Mainly we have only been up doing the odd bit of weeding, clearing, woodchipping and preparing the beds for growing next year.
The seed audit is now complete, and we have no gaps in our provisional harvest other than kale - which we most certainly will do again, as it is a most tasty and nutritious vegetable. We shall seek runner beans from our friend Mr B.
Other events of note have been the weather - which has been uniformly unpleasant, albeit with picturesque amounts of frost and generally too 
cold to stay outside for any length of time - and an even more unpleasant spate of vandalistic attacks over a short period. This latter has been very distressing and although we have fared pretty lightly compared to our neighbours it has been annoying to say the least. Our shed was forced open but nothing taken. Measures are currently being taken and the police have been brilliant. We have to learn to be more proactive about how to protect our plots. The only positive side has been that no crops have been taken or damaged. We can only suppose that the perpetrators wouldn't recognise a vegetable anyway.
Today we went up to plant garlic. This year (just think - now we are saying this year!) we have planted around 100 cloves of Solent Wight, closer together than last time. Unfortunately we missed the autumn planting spot but this variety can be safely planted between now and March. We also sowed two large bulbs of large Solent. We have one Elephant Garlic from last year and are pondering whether to plant it in our garden. There was hard frost on the ground and ice on the water but as bed 2 had been covered after it had been composted, it wasn't too hard to break up the soil.
We have covered a good deal of the bank so as to increase our growing space. We think first earlies to begin with, followed by squash as they didn't have enough room last year.
The other crop that is still growing is the (we think) purple sprouting broccoli. It seems to be growing but afflicted with something that makes the leaves go yellow.
This year's motto = keep on growing great vegetables and defeat all slugs.
We had a very distinguished visitor on 16 January - my old friend Matthew who is an organic farmer in Hungary! Readers will appreciate that I was more than a little nervous on conducting such a notable visitor to the plot. Frankly, most of our visitors know Bog All about growing veg so one can get away with wittering nonsense about blight and green manure. Not with this one. He pronounced himself impressed with our garlic harvest, offered helpful apple tree pruning advice and cautioned against the over-use of our Magic Veg Juice on actual crops, though we should slosh it all over comfrey. He thought the mystery brassica was indeed broccoli and that the yellow leaves were just a natural part of what happens. Anyway, we passed inspection and that is the main thing though it was of course lovely to see him too.
The comfrey which looks dead and thus able to be moved was dug up and put to one 
side. It will be planted on the bank. We then dug the green manure into that area including where the extra potatoes had grown last year. We originally wanted to create a very raised bed for the carrots in that space, so that they can grow straight and true, However, the soil did not seem over stony so we thought we would have an extra normal bed at the end and look elsewhere for the carrot bed. We now have to think about what to put there before doing anything else in the way of soil improvement. It is now Bed 6.
is enough height to it in which to put the non-stony soil. N has made a good start in constructing the sides from an old chest. It is now officially known as Bed 7.
Because it was so nice and sunny, we had a good old shed sort out and put up the new calendar. Tools and equipment were taken home to be given the annual Jeyes Fluid baptism and sharpening (OMG Jeyes is probably not organic - aaarrggghh!). We see that Jan and Pat are doing the same in their new shed as they prepare for life on their new plot.
