Voila les oignons

Madame et Monsiuer, voila les oignons de Bladon (les rouge et les blanc) et les shallots aussi.

That's about as far as my French stretches, and that's probably totally incorrect so back to English for the rest of the post. A theme is developing here. I write the blog post while Emily cooks dinner.

Photo54: A barrow full of onions and shallots. Freshly harvested from our plot.

Tonight we will be coating (and then eating) pasta with a lovely roasted vegetable sauce. Red onions, yellow courgettes and shallots from our allotment will be accompanied by Grandad's prize tomatoes. A few cloves of garlic from Waitrose and we'll be on to a winner. It is already smelling fantastic. My future wife is doing a grand job!

Emily headed out to see Alex for lunch today and left me doing manly things with power tools in the shed. I've finally got around to installing a 'potting shelf'. This will hopefully come into its own next year when we start to propagate seeds but for now it makes a rather fine space to dry out the onions. An added bonus of the shelf is the creation of some great new storage space (spot the patio chairs tucked nicely underneath).

Photo55: Onions galore. Occupying pride of place on the new potting shelf in the shed.

Photo 56: Trimmed and drying out together. The reds and the whites.

One final thought for the week. I can't decide whether purple french beans are magical or a tad disappointing. When cooked they turn green - now that's magic. However, when they are on your plate you can't tell the difference between them and their green cousins - that's disappointing!

Bladon veggie curry

Since my last post the allotment has blossomed with vegetables ripening nicely.

Tonight is the night for our first home grown vegetable curry. Yellow courgettes, green french beans, purple french beans and runner beans along with a white onion and a fist full of potatoes will make a lovely meal.

Whilst harvesting our beans a rabbit was spotted investigating next doors cabbages. I asked if he was called Peter but before answering he skipped away happily into the evening. There was a small blue jacket lying on the ground so I guess he'll be back for that sometime soon.

Photo51: The raw produce. How lovely they look.

Photo52: Rearranged into an underwater scene with the courgette taking on the role of a yellow submarine entangled in french bean seaweed - a little imagination required for this one.

Photo 52: Ready for the pan (important note - the red pepper is an impostor from Waitrose).

Right, I'm off to investigate the lovely curry smells coming up from the kitchen. Glass of beer required I think. Mange tout, mange tout!

PS - I'm now the proud 'carer' for a Stihl petrol strimmer which Emily's grandpa has let me borrow on semi-permanant loan. Most fun - the untended allotment next door didn't stand a chance.

Four lady slow worms, two cats and brassicas galore!

In order to fill the remaining planting area we had to resort to buying seedlings from the local garden centre in Yarnton. Purple sprouting broccoli, savoy cabbages, kohlrabi, curly kale, purple cauliflower and parsnips are all now in residence.

The brassicas are camping out in our three tent like tunnels to guard against the pigeons and cabbage whites. Ging Gang Goolie... and all that!

Photo 47: Any more tunnels and we'd almost be in France.

The compost heap is a hive of activity with four lady and one gentleman slow worm in residence. They seem to be making a rather comfortable home under the Axminster.

Photo 48: Our harem of 4 lady slow worms! We've only seen one boy so far. He must be a happy chap!

As the wildlife on and around the allotment thrives we've also been graced with the presence of two local cats this week. One young and adventurous kitten and a more wise and laid back ginger chap.

Photo 49: Cat number one, the Ginger one.

Photo 50: Cat number 2, Explorer cat.

Tattytastic!

It's been a while since my last post but things have been busy on the allotment (and in the garden) as Emily mentioned.

We've added two vegetable tunnels this week which are now full of brassicas of various types (purple cauliflowers, curly kale and savoy cabbages). Whilst Emily was busy planting those I put three rows of parsnips in, they will eventually be turned into a nice soup no doubt.

The peas we planted earlier in the year were particularly popular with the allotment's resident pigeons so I've constructed a new frame for them to grow up built of chicken wire. Hopefully with an extra layer of wire around the seedling we can protect them and keep the pesky pigeons at bay until they are mature enough to look after themselves.

Photo 44: Tunnels and Chicken Wire - all a cunning ploy to keep the dastardly butterfly and pigeon population away from our veggies.

The strawberries continue to produce with another large bowlful taken from the garden yesterday. Enough for two desserts and one Emily working from home day. More still to come!

Photo 45: More strawberries.

This evening was a momentous occasion. After the frost earlier in the year which damaged the potato plants we were unsure what to expect when we went to harvest our first crop. Happily I can report two plants gave us plenty to eat for our dinner this evening. You can't beat a nice freshly dug boiled potato with melted butter, salt and pepper. Delicious!!!

Photo 46: Our first crop of potatoes.

One final and rather exciting thing to note took place on our walk past the allotment on Wednesday evening. A barn owl carrying a mouse or shrew (difficult to tell as it was wriggling) flew silently and low over the hedgerow and off into the woods. A great way to round off any day (I guess the mouse wasn't too happy though). Hopefully we'll be honoured with the owl's presence again soon.

Strawberry Rob

Rob's been out picking strawberries in the rain. As much as he likes strawberries I think it's because he wanted to test out his new jacket which arrived today..

Photo 43: Strawberry Rob!

Our first harvests!

Although we haven't been allotmenteering much of late, back in the garden we have been nurturing salad crops whilst waiting for other seedlings to grow large enough to transplant.

The lettuce, rocket and radishes we sowed before we went on holiday are providing us with our first home grown salads of the year. Although aiming for successional sowing, I was late in sowing a second crop so there will be a gap before the next ones are ready.

Photo 35: Our first radishes.

Photo 36: Buttercrunch and Lizzy lettuces.

On Saturday we trundled up to the allotment with the pea, bean, pumpkin, courgette and sweetcorn seedlings we sowed a few weeks ago. There were weeds to pull before we could start with the planting. Even though the weeds appreciate the rain as much as the gardeners do, it always surprises me how few weeds there are to pull. Two people and half an hour later and the plot was looking much tidier.

Photo 37: Rob building pyramids for the beans

We have been using the compost Rob dug out of the compost bin in the garden last month to dig into the planting holes for the seedlings. And it appears that it's not just the seedlings that like our compost - slow worms do to!

We have at least two slow worms in our compost heaps - a beautiful bronze one and a paler silvery beige one. After further investigation I think we have a male and a female!

Photo 38: The bronze coloured tail of a sprightly female slow worm.

Photo 39: A much more lethargic male slow worm.

Hopefully we will get some better photos before the end of the summer.

We have had mixed success at the allotment. The potatoes have recovered from frost bite and are starting to flower and some of the beans we planted early have recovered too and are a couple of feet tall. But much of fruit is really suffering in the dry weather. It is such a long way from the water tap that they are having to manage on the little rainfall and irregular watering we do. Unfortunately that has resulted in a 50% success rate so far

Photo 40: Tatties in flower.

Photo 41: A runner bean.

Photo 42: Our very unhappy autumn raspberry bush, which I feel very guilty about.

Photo 43: On a positive note, Falstaff, our espalier apple tree, has 12 apples! As he's still small I removed most of the buds so he can concentrate on growing. But last year I only left 3 so 12 seems like a glut :)

A house full of Martins

Whilst not strictly speaking allotment related, I wanted to record that our House Martins returned yesterday. They built a nest last summer in a little nook between our house and next door, just outside our bedroom window. Hopefully we will wake to the chatter of little Martins soon!

Good news, and bad news

We arrived home yesterday after a lovely, relaxing holiday in Skye. The sun was shining on seven of the nine days we were there, which combined with a beautiful cottage, made it a perfect getaway.

While we were away my exam results were published. The RHS have been very frustrating. The results were due to be published on Friday 29th April, but the day before they issued a notice saying that they would be delayed until the following Tuesday. At 4pm on the Tuesday they published a note saying that they were having technical difficulties and finally I got my results at 10am on the Wednesday.

I passed all four - two with commendations! I'm relieved and very pleased. You may remember there was one in particular that I was worried about - I passed it with quite a good margin but got a lower mark in one of the others!

So that's the good news. We had been trying not to worry about the allotment while we were away. The evening before we left we worked till dusk, covering up all the emerging potatoes, sowing seeds and taking a risk by planting out some young beans, courgettes and pumpkins - if they made it through we would have had a nice early crop.

Whilst the beautiful sunshine in Skye helped make our holiday so wonderful, we were very concerned about the lack of rain in Oxfordshire. We arrived home to discover from our neighbours that the potatoes and other young plants had wilted last week. Feeling rather gloomy, we went to the allotment and discovered that a frost had not only caught us out but lots of our neighbours too.

I'm rather upset about the potatoes. I hadn't really expected the beans or courgettes to survive neglected for two weeks, but had nothing to loose by trying. They will be easily and quickly replaced by new plants. But the effort we put into choosing, chitting, and carefully planting the potatoes cannot be replicated this year. The quick growing earlies have been most affected - Orla and Sharps Express. Thankfully the rather slow to emerge Pentland Javelin's and the maincrops Arran Victory and Fir Apple are not too damaged so hopefully there will still be some potatoes to unearth later in the summer.

The seeds we sowed before we left have not germinated with much success, most likely because of the dry soil and we put them in and the lack of water thereafter. But again, there is plenty of time to sow some more.

Lesson learnt - no more holidays in late April!

This afternoon we fixed the potatoes best we could and did some weeding (not too much given two weeks away - clearly weeds don't like droughts either). I will catch up with all the sowing this week and let you know how I get on.

Pyramids and Compost

Another glorious sunny weekend presented a great opportunity to get out to do a little allotmenteering. Having not been up there through the week we were apprehensive about what we might find. Expecting an invasion of weeds we were pleasantly surprised to only have remove a few of the critters.

All the hard work digging over and pulling out the roots earlier in the year seems to have paid off. The remaining weeds* seem to be left over crop from the previous occupier of the allotment. Emily had to take on a few rather obese parsnips and some rogue tatties.

A strimming session today to remove the heads from the dandelions before they went to seed will hopefully also help no end in the war against weeds. There is something strangely satisfying about the sight of lots of decapitated dandelions and the thought that they have been defeated before spreading their seed across our lovingly tended plot.

Anyway, on to more exciting things. The Orla and Sharpe's Express potatoes briefly put in an appearance. They are back underground for a while as we covered them in compost and a good helping of soil. Cruel to be kind is apparently the name of the game in propagating your own food. Cover them up and get more spuds later.

Photo 28: Orla Potato, a first showing.

I planted our main crop potatoes today, Arran Victory and Pink Fir Apple (a salad potato). That's the 2011 potato crop in. Bring on the mash!

Photo 29: Planting the main crop potatoes. Bladon church in the background.

While Emily headed into Oxford for lunch with Alex I decided to investigate how much compost was in the composter in the back garden. After being fed for 3 years on vegetable peelings and autumn leaves from Blenheim I was hopeful of some black gold. I was not disappointed.

Photo 30: The black gold of the garden - a nice (square) pile of well rotted compost.

The compost uncovered a little history with readily identifiable layers which defined the summer and autumnal additions. Almost a geological seam. If we'd left it a few more thousand years and we may have ended up with some coal for the fire. You don't get a lot for three years worth of composting effort but I'm sure the vegetables will appreciate it.

Back to the allotment, Emily built three bean pyramids and planted the purple and green French beans. They were bedded down on a fresh layer of Bladon compost so we are expecting prolific growth in the coming weeks.

Photo 31: Oxford has it's Spires, now Bladon has it's very own pyramids. Much better than those you find in Egypt as these will have beans growing up them.

Photo 32: Emily planting the beans and securing them to the pyramids (just in case they try to escape).

Back from the allotment Emily planted up the salad in one of the beds in the back garden. Radish, spring onions, rocket and two varieties of lettuce (Buttercrunch and Lizzy).

The end of a productive day was rewarded with a beer and the taking of a few random photos in the back garden. At the end of last summer we found a conker sprouting in one of the beds. We potted him up and allowed him to overwinter in the shed. We are happy to report that he survived the cold and frosty winter months and is doing well. More on this little chap as he progresses through the summer.

Photo 33: Our Horse Chestnut. From small conkers...

Photo 34: Need I say more. Reward for hard work = a nice cold beer.

*Weed - A plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.

From little seeds...

They're never going to be mighty oaks, but my beans are looking very healthy and happy. I planted the seeds in an electric propagator (a birthday present from Bob and Pam) one Sunday a month ago and now look at them:

Photo 19: French beans and peas in the garden

The electric propagator has an amazing effect. Here are some more French bean seeds planted three days ago:

Photo 20: French bean seedlings yesterday afternoon

Photo 21: And the same two seedlings (the tall ones in the centre) this evening, 24 hours later

We didn't go to the allotment this weekend, or at least not to do any work (we've been visiting a couple of evenings a week to check everything out). Instead we dug over some flower beds for my grandparents on Saturday and on Sunday we dug out the bed at the bottom of the wall in the garden. It was filled with all the usual rubble left by builders and also Japanese knotweed, which we carefully removed as much as possible. 

Photo 22: Rob removing a large lump of concrete

We are going to spend some time at the allotment this weekend, planting the main crop potatoes, the beans and peas, and sowing carrots, parsnips and beetroot. In the meantime, here are some photos from the house and garden which I hope you like.

Photo 23: Pumpkin seed in the propagator

Photo 24: One of six tomato seedlings which I'm really pleased with

Photo 25: Another French bean seedling

Photo 26: Strawberry flowers in the garden

Photo 27: Falstaff, our apple tree, in blossom

Mash, Chips, Roast, Boiled or Jackets?

After a weekend off last week we headed up to the allotment today in anticipation of a bit of weeding before planting our selection of 'early' spuds.

All was well on the weed front in the beds but our cunning plan not to dig over the paths and put stones over them to suppress the weeds had failed miserably. We spent a few hours lifting the paths and digging out the weedy culprits - mainly buttercups. All done now though so hopefully we are in a better position to manage our weeds through the growing season.

The onions, rhubarb and currant bushes all seem to have settled in well to their new homes with new growth on all. The raspberry canes are still lying dormant but hopefully they will spring into life now the days are getting warmer. By the looks of the rhubarb we'll be eating crumble until it comes out of our ears soon - bonus!

Photo 13: Onions at home on the allotment.

Photo 14: Where's the custard?

So, onto the planting of spuds. After a month or so sat on the windowsill in our downstairs toilet the seed potatoes had chitted well. Today was time for them to go into the ground.

Photo 15: Chitted and ready to go. Seed potatoes of the Orla variety.

Two long trenches and a bag or two of manure later and the ground was ready. Nineteen Orla, 10 Sharpe's Express (they didn't perform last year so they've got to do better this time or they'll be letting the family name down again) and 10 Pentland Javelin are now residing 6 inches below the surface. Fingers crossed that they make a reappearance in the next few weeks.

Photo 16: In the trenches. No going over the top for these tatties.

Photo 17: Bedded in and ready to grow. Pentland Javelin potatoes coming to an allotment near you soon.

Watering in took on a new dimension with the purchase of our wheelbarrow water bag. We can now transport 80 litres at a time from the Churchyard to the allotment. No more lugging watering cans around. The risk of Emily developing arms as long as a monkey have thankfully passed.

Photo 18: The wheelbarrow water bag. Training still required but this will save a lot of hard work.

Spring is here at last!

What a cracking weekend! The weather was superb both Saturday and Sunday. Emily saw the first Yellow Brimstone butterfly of the year, a species often linked with the start of spring.

Up at the allotment we tidied off a few loose ends this weekend. Finishing the paths (Annie and David's quarry wall provided 4 1/2 barrow loads of stone) and attaching the guttering to the water catcher. All construction jobs completed for the time being!

The electric propagator is working a treat with 8 of 8 French beans, 7 of 8 Peas (one was lost to damping off disease and quickly removed) and 6 of 8 tomatoes successfully germinating. All we need now is the soil to warm up a little more and we can start the exciting job of planting out.

A major distraction on Sunday, and one we hope will be a regular was the sight of 5 buzzards soaring overhead. More news and hopefully photos of them through the summer.

An allotment is born!

The allotment has been transformed this weekend! With help from Bob and Pam (Mr and Mrs Sharpe) and Marcus, we have finished digging, built the water catcher and the compost bins, laid some more paths, planted the fruit and sowed onion sets. Here we are hard at work:

Photo 4: Marcus and Bob are digging and I'm sowing onions (the easy job :)

Rob spent most of Friday and Saturday building. First he attached a plastic corrugated roof to the old compost bin by way of a robust wooden frame that slopes backwards (he told me to write the last part!). Then he turned his attention to the new compost bins, pulling apart the wooden pallets and re-purposing them as the sides (and gates!) of the two bins.

Photo 5: Rob in action with his new 14lb fibreglass sledgehammer - doesn't he make it look light?!

Photo 6: The new compost bins under construction.

Meanwhile, Bob and Marcus finished digging over the plot. You might think that Rob looked strong and manly with the sledgehammer, but check this out... a broken spade! Bob must be even stronger as he managed to split the steel blade!!

Photo 7: The broken Yeoman (yes, fortunately it was the 2011 model we complained about last month!)

Pam and I made inroads on the paths, collecting fallen quarry stones from our neighbour's gardens. We were rather over-zealous and somewhat overfilled the wheelbarrow, making the short walk from home to the allotment take twice as long as usual. We must have looked decidedly odd as we staggered across the main road, each holding a handle of the very heavy barrow. Thankfully Marcus stepped in and wheeled the next load for us.

The last job of the day was planting the fruit that arrived last week. Along with some plants we already had in the garden and a couple of rhubarb crowns left by the previous tenant, we now have the following fruit (varieties included so I don't forget):

• Three blackcurrants ('Ben Serak', 'Ben Hope' and 'Ben Connan')
• One redcurrant ('Jonkheer van tets')
• One whitecurrant ('White Versailles')
• One gooseberry ('Invitica')
• Ten summer raspberry canes ('Malling Jewel')
• One large autumn raspberry ('Autumn Bliss')
• Eight rhubarb crowns (assorted)

Photo 8: The fruit end of the allotment, you can just about make out the raspberry canes on the far left and the "mole hills" on the right are the rhubarbs covered in manure.

Photo 9: The sheep pens (aka compost bins).

Photos 10: The finished articles!

Yesterday, we went back to the allotment to plant the rest of the onions (in total 25 red, 70 white and 15 shallots). It looked beautiful in the sunlight and we are feeling very proud.

Photo 11: Me planting shallots.

Photo 12: Our beautiful allotment!