4 January 2009 - Seasons Greetings

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.