For the Love of Gardening

Posted on May 12, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

I am often asked what it is I love about gardening. Why I spend my spare time ankle-deep in nettles, (don’t get me started on all the nettle stings I’ve had in the past week), why I go out in the rain and wind to pull weeds or plant seeds. I never quite know how to answer. The truth is, there are a million reasons why I garden. Far too many for me to even begin to articulate. But, if I had to give one solid reason, it would be this: I love gardening because, every time I go to my plot, I see something new. Something I’ve never seen before, something exciting or unusual or amazing. Whether its a hare or a pheasant on the plot, a new plant growing, the birds signing in the trees or a neighbouring plot with a great new feature, there’s always something that creates wonder. I don’t think I’ve ever been to the allotment without being amazed by something. It is an education like no other. I guess that’s why I continue to garden, why I go out in the cold and wet, even when my crops fail and the weather infuriates, there’s always a reason to keep going.

This morning nature surprised me again. I went to the plot for a very quick visit, it was wet and miserable and it wasn’t too easy to drag myself out there. I simply wanted to plant my celeriac which was given to me by my dad who grew it from seed. I instantly noticed how much has grown in the past week, the plot was looking green and pretty, but I always think it looks nicer in the rain.

I was inspecting my thriving rhubarb, when I noticed a huge mushroom growing on the path in the shade of the rhubarb leaves. Now, I am not a fan of mushrooms or fungi, but this was fantastic. It was very large and pretty, with a spongy texture, I’d never seen one like it before. I have since been informed that it looks like a morel, which are quite hard to find and very popular and supposedly delicious (I never thought I’d use the word delicious to describe a mushroom). It was a bit decayed though so I didn’t pick it, I left it there to continue on its fascinating life cycle.

Morel

The mushroom isn’t the only thing to have shot up virtually overnight however. My peas have started to germinate, as have my broad beans. In my root beds there are beetroot seedlings and radishes and I think there might be parsnips but its difficult to differentiate them from the weeds. My fruit bushes have all taken a growth spurt, my blueberries, gooseberries and blackberries all have foliage now and my raspberries are flying up at an alarming rate.

Pea

Raspberries

The thing I was most pleased to see however, was my asparagus bed. Last year, I planted a few crowns in the hope I’d get some but they didn’t take too well and I wasn’t quite sure if they’d come back. Dave has been telling me for months to give up and plant something else but lo and behold, there’s some very small spears of asparagus beginning to come above ground. It’ll still be another year or two before we can even think about harvesting any but it’s good to know they’re there.

Asparagus

There’s still a lot to be planted out, it’s still quite early in the season; and despite the bad weather, the garden continues to grow. I continue to grow with it.

If I’ve learned nothing else in the past year it’s this: life will always find a way, even when you’ve had no hand in it and that is why there will always be a million reasons for a gardener to keep gardening.

Blue Beds, Blue Hands

Posted on April 22, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

It’s amazing the difference one weekend of hard work can make in the garden. Last week, I was beginning to panic at the lack of progress on the plot this year, I’m at least three weeks behind with my planting and the place was looking very bare and brown and boring. Something needed to be done.

My new herb garden

The sun was mostly shining this weekend, with the exception of some lovely rain showers and the temperatures are finally up after what was the coldest March on record. Last week I dug up the terrible wasted area outside the shed, this weekend, I used the space to create a small herb garden. I planted rosemary, sage, lemon thyme, French tarragon (avoid planting Russian tarragon if you can, it has very little flavour), chives, lavender plus some echinacea, chamomile and bergamot. I also have some mint and lemon balm (bee balm) from last year and after saying I was not going to plant borage this year, I found a borage plant growing under my artichokes, it obviously wants to grow so I might as well let it. I’m also going to add some parsley, basil, coriander and caraway later in the year. It looks a bit bare at the moment but should be a lovely addition to the plot once it’s established.

The shed area, big difference from the mound of weeds and rubble that was here two weeks ago. I love that you can see a neighbouring plot in the background with its lovely neat drills.

I had been meaning to treat the wood on my raised beds for a while but kept putting it off. I decided this weekend that I should get around to doing it as the beds were looking a bit worse for wear after the winter. I toyed with the idea of getting a natural colour wood stain but I eventually chose a bright blue, I wanted to give the plot a bit of personality and thought blue would be nice and bright during the lean months when there’s little colour in the garden. It took me hours to do but it was well worth the effort, I’m hoping to add some more blue later, maybe a blue gate. Though maybe next time I’ll wear gloves, my hands were an almighty blue mess when I was done.

Blue Beds

Blue Hands

Having painted the beds, I spread a mountain of bark mulch along the paths, these had just been muck and weeds before so I was very eager to do something with them. It really makes a difference to the plot.

I’m planning on using the empty bed in the left foreground as a hotbed.

The entrance to the plot, definitely an improvement

I planted very little at the weekend, just some beetroot and radishes. Next week I need to get my peas and beans planted before it gets too late. Despite all my hard work, there’s still a huge mess to deal with next weekend, one whole end of the plot needs to be dug as it’s where the legumes are to be planted. It has been started but it’s a big job. It’s the embarrassing messy end of the plot and it must be conquered, especially now; no point in having pretty raised beds and a big pile wasted ground beside them.

Also, there’s not much point in having pretty beds with no veggies so this week I’m going to do some serios planting, excited!!

Spring Clean

Posted on April 13, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

This morning, I went out to the plot with the intentions to plant and dig and weed and do those things which we as gardeners are meant to do, but I took one look at the plot and decided before I could reasonably do any of that, I needed to clean up my act. Amongst all my weeds and muck, raised beds and shed, there’s an awful lot of dirt, and I don’t mean muck (we all know there’s plenty of muck) I mean rubbish. Flyaway netting, torn remnants of weed control fabric, shards of bamboo, even old cloches, just rubbish. The allotment was never going to start looking nice if I didn’t deal with all that rubbish first, so I got into cleaning mode and began to tackle the messy parts of the garden.

Underneath it's nice exterior, plot p26 had a dirty underbelly, like the gotham city of allotments.

Underneath it’s nice exterior, plot p26 had a dirty, seedy underbelly, it was like the Gotham City of allotments. Only the work of a superhero like Batman could weed out the grime and corruption.

You may remember I made a new years resolution to clean my shed. Well, I did it! Three months later but I finally did it, and boy was there a lot of mess in there. I threw out empty compost bags, plenty of torn netting, old bits of fleece, broken pots, empty water bottles, I found a pair of socks in there (seriously, no idea where they came from). My shed has been returned to it’s former glory, though it is in dire need of some prettying up. New mission: pretty up the shed.

I also decided to tackle the terribly wasted area outside the shed. Last year, most of my effort went in to my raised beds, installing fencing, getting the shed and of course getting to grips with growing my own food. Quite a lot of space on the plot went unused, particularly the area outside the shed, which is fairly big and has a lot of potential. I’d guess it’s about ten square metres of my plot which was just grass, rubble and weeds. So, I got out my shovel, and started to dig. It took me the best part of two hours but I turned over all the soil and raked it out to make it even, there had been a slope down toward the shed which was driving me mad. I sectioned off half of this area and began to work the soil and marked a layout for a small herb garden. The rest I covered with weed control fabric, I’m hoping to get either gravel or some paving stones to make a patio but I can’t decide which.

My future herb garden, a work in progress.

I decided I needed a break from manual labour and so, I sat on the edge of one of the beds and planted my parsnip seeds. I had manured the soil pretty well last year and covered it for winter and what a difference it made. The soil in the bed was soft and fine, a far cry from what it had been last year. I planted three short rows of “Gladiator” parsnips, a variety I had to grow after tasting some last year and falling in love.

The weather took a bad turn after a few hours so I decided to call it a day, not before I had a little look around the plot. There’s life beginning to creep in again, the cold days are getting very slightly warmer and there’s more light in the sky during the daytime hours. My artichokes are growing back after the winter as are my raspberry canes, which last August, I thought had died. There are buds on my blueberry and gooseberry canes, the garlic seems to have finally started growing and my onions are beginning to sprout.

Garlic

Right now, the king of the plot is my rhubarb. I finally picked some today. It was defenitely the highlight of my gardening year so far.

Rhubarb

This should make a nice crumble

What The Fliuch?

Posted on March 29, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

View from my window on Tuesday

The weather this week has been almost unbearable, at least it has been for gardeners. We’ve had cold, some freezing cold, sunshine cold, snow cold, wet cold, a little-bit-less-cold-than-yesterday cold, then back to snow cold. Today is the 29th of March and it is currently 3 degrees celcius outside. Three! This time last year we were experiencing a bit of an unusual hot spell, I was at the plot every day in a t-shirt; so this year I’m getting very frustrated at the lack of gardening. Somebody may have to restrain me before I eat all of the easter eggs in Ireland in an act of despair.

I have done, literally, no gardening since I planted my onions two weeks ago. Even my seedlings on my windowsills won’t grow as there’s no light in the sky. Last weekend the rain was absolutely torrential, constant rain causing floods country wide and making every one very miserable. There were dark grey clouds for six consecutive days. This week, it has been mostly snow, rain, sleet, some rain, some snow, more rain. Today is thankfully a bit drier. It’s a long weekend this weekend, I do have to work tomorrow but have a half day. I will be visiting the plot come hell or high water (likelihood of high water is great). Or even snow. At least I have these bad boys to keep me warm.

The warmest mittens in existence (possibly)

For those of you wondering about my title, “Fliuch” is gaelic for wet. And yes, it rhymes with the F word.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig

Posted on March 17, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

Happy St Patricks day from a cold, wet and snowy Dublin. Today is our national holiday and I suppose we are lucky that it is celebrated all over the world but there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here in Dublin, the weather might be terrible but that won’t dampen our spirits (especially if those spirits are whiskeys, vodkas or rums). I tend to avoid the city centre on Paddys day, the parade is great for the kids but I’m not a huge fan of the crowds of drunken idiots. I had planned to spend the day on my plot but the weather is far from being gardening friendly, it’s cold and wet with heavy snow and sleet showers.

St Patricks Day is traditionally the day to plant your first earlies but I’m not growing spuds this year. I did visit the plot yesterday morning in the glorious sunshine (I’m beginning to see why we call it “March many weathers”).

Whiter than white “Snowball” onion set

It was bright and warm yesterday morning, the sky was blue and I spent a few hours on the plot, getting my soil ready for my onions. I planted two types of onion and some shallots. I planted some Red Barons, which I had great success with last year, I also planted some shallots, a variety called red sun which have lovely pink flesh and are slow to bolt. I planted a variety of white onions called Snowball which are lovely pure white onions with a mild flavour. I also have some 50 Stuttgarter sets to plant later this week. I realised after planting my onions that I had no netting to protect them from the pesky birds, who love plucking onion sets out of the soil, so I covered them with some fleece which I had. I’m glad I did now, while onions don’t mind the cold, the frosts can force onion sets out of the ground.

Onions ready for planting

All wrapped up

The plot still looks very bare and messy, it’s going to take some serious hard work to get it the way I want it. Good thing I love getting out and digging because there’s plenty of it to do over the coming weeks.

I hope you all have a great Paddys Day and don’t get too drunk, if you were planning on planting your spuds today, maybe hold off for a few days or you’ll freeze your hands off.

Lá Féile Pádraig Shona Daoibh.

A March Miracle

Posted on March 3, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

Yesterday, something miraculous happened. I woke up early (yes, on a Saturday, I was as surprised as you are) and the sun was pouring through the window. For a moment I thought I was dreaming, until I looked out the window and there it was, high in the sky, yellow as the daffodils outside my door and I realised, spring is finally here.

I’ve been stuck in a winter rut. I haven’t been able to find the motivation to get up and go out to the plot in the cold and dig and weed and freeze my bottom off. The sunshine was like the flick of a switch, my mood instantly changed. I was all of a sudden itching to go to the plot, plant some seeds, do some digging and get some much needed fresh air.

So, off I went, Dave in tow, to put on my wellies and get to work. Unfortunately however, my wellies had been left out on my last visit, they had been caked in mud and I left them to “dry out”.

My “Dried out” wellies

After much slagging from Dave about my waterlogged wellies, we got to work. First port of call, was to move the raised bed that I grew my carrots in last year. When we first built the six raised beds, I had already planted my onions in the spot where I wanted to put one, so instead of disturbing my onions, we put the bed elsewhere for the year. It looked out of place where it was however, so we decided to move it so it was in line with the other beds. Dave dug the muck out from the edges and we lifted the bed to it’s new location. We did have a little “incident” however, and the bed is now in two pieces. With the bed moved, we had a grave-like pile of muck left behind. I’m sure the neighbours thought that Dave had met an untimely end after said “incident” with the raised bed.

I made short work of the pile of muck, I transferred some of it back into the raised bed and used the rest to fill two brand new one metre square beds which went in it’s place. These little beds might only last me a year but they’re very handy and just what I needed to fill up the now empty space. I planted my garlic in one. I know it’s about two months late but we’re still getting enough frosts for it to get the cold snap it needs to start off and maybe I’ll get some small bulbs. It was the first thing I planted on the plot this year and it gave me a thrill. Next week I’m hoping to plant my onions and shallots too.

The new beds

I also took the opportunity to use up some of the billion pine needles I have in the shed, left over from great Christmas tree Massacre of 2013.

Dave the monster

The day we took down our tree, Dave, the heartless sod, took it outside and ruthlessly hacked off all the branches with a knife. We decided to recycle the tree ourselves instead of dumping it, or doing as most people do and letting rot away in the back garden until mid-summer; we bagged up all the branches and we now have six black sacks full of pine needles and braches in the allotment shed (which I still havent gotten around to tidying). Yesterday, I used one of the bags of pine needles to create a nice mulch for my blueberry bushes, which I noticed yesterday have lovely green buds on them. Blueberries love acidic soil, and while my soild is slightly acidic already, it does no harm to help them along. Pine needles are very acidic, and are excellent for using as a mulch for blueberry plants.

Before going home for a much needed cup of tea and a pat on the back, I had a little drool over my rhubarb, it’s looking very healthy. It’s hard to resist pulling off a stalk and munching away, but in just another few short weeks, I’ll be making rhubarb crumble. Yum.

Imbolc

Posted on February 2, 2013 by FionaGrowsFood

Yesterday was the first day of February, also known as St Brigid’s Day or “Imbolc” here in Ireland. St Brigid is one of the patron saints of Ireland, her feast day marks the beginning of lambing season. In fact, the word Imbolc derives from “i mbolg” the Irish phrase for “in the belly”, which referred to sheep bearing young. Saint Brigid’s day in school was great fun because we used to spend the day making St Brigid’s crosses, a traditional cross woven from rushes or straw.

Most importantly, however, St Bridgids day marks the beginning of spring. I am rejoicing.

It’s been a long winter, dark and wet. It seemed to do nothing but rain for the past three months. The past week has seen howling winds and driving rain, some hail, thunder and sleet. I have been absent from my allotment for some time, mostly because when I do get the chance to go, mother nature laughs at me and send some sort of horrible weather upon us. I’ve been feeling at a loss, like I might never garden again.

Yesterday, however, on the first day of spring, I found myself excited again. I woke up cheerful, I began to think about the gardening year. I began to imagine lovely spring days on the plot, buying my seeds, planning the plot for the year ahead. I’m currently trying to draw up a planting plan for the year. Last year, I tried my hand at a lot of crops and this year I hope to do the same, with the difference that this year I want to concentrate on a few key crops. I hope to grow lots of lovely legumes, plenty of peas, some garden peas and sugar snaps, and I’m going to try beans, broad beans, french beans, runner beans, you name it, I want to try it. I’m also going to grow the favourites from last year again, onions, carrots and beetroot. I have decided, though, not to grow potatoes. Yes, you read that right. I’m not growing spuds in 2013. This is for many reasons, they caused me so much trouble last year for a crop I don’t really love as much as others. They take up a huge amount of space on the plot and last year they were destroyed by blight. So this year, I’m giving them a break.

The plot’s looking pretty bare right now

This time of year is almost the best time for the gardener. We get to spend hours reading about seed varieties, picking our crops for the year and imagining how amazing our plots will be in the coming year. It all looks so wonderful and productive in our heads, more often than not, the outcome is far less amazing.

The best thing about the first day of spring though, is that it’s a fresh start; all of last years failures can be left where they belong and it’s time to look ahead to all the year has to bring.

Hopefully it’ll bring lots of rhubarb, I’m dying for some rhubarb!

Rhubarb won’t be long now!

iCarrot

Posted on September 9, 2012 by FionaGrowsFood

This is what it’s all about, biting into your very first ever homegrown carrot and realising, you’ll never feel the same way about carrots again. It’s the most delicious carrot I’ve ever eaten. In fact, I may just grow carrots on my plot next year and nothing else. I’m considering starting a carrot related advertising campaign to entice people to garden but I think a certain famous company which shares it’s name with another healthy food (I’ll give you a hint, it’s not an orange) might take issue with my slogan.

If you don’t see me for a while, I’m probably busy being sued

Seriously though, grow carrots. Grow them seriously, or for fun, just grow them. I planted my carrots late. In fact, I forgot to plant carrots until the second week in June and wasn’t quite sure they’d even germinate. I had very palpable fears about the carrot root fly, I’ve heard and read some scary stories. Horrible creatures that burrow into your carrots and eat them from the inside out. I’ve had Night of the Living Dead Root Fly nightmares. Plus, we haven’t had the best summer for carrots, so my hopes weren’t very high. Imagine my delight when today I decided to pick some to see how they were progressing and what I ended up with were delicious, crunchy carrots. I of course, ate one straight out of the ground, muck and all. Cue many happy and appreciative noises which I’m sure raised a few eyebrows among my neighbouring allotmenteers. Oh, and another thing, my carrots are straight, very straight, and long. Obviously the 6 hours myself and Dave spent sieving a tonne of soil (literally, a tonne) for the carrot bed paid off. All that hard work, that hot March day, breaking our backs wheelbarrowing soil to the plot, cursing ourselves, sieveing for hours, raking, raking, more raking, it was totally worth it.

Of course, the carrots aren’t the only crop we’ve harvested this September but they are definitely my favourite. We’ve also had, borlotti beans, celery, red cabbage, spinach chard, peas and of course my onions, which have been drying away in the back garden for three weeks and are nearly ready to eat. I did have to rip up my ridiculous perpetual spinach and swiss chard today as they were taller than me and had bolted, and were quite frankly, a disgrace. I might plant some more for over the winter months.

Spoils

Me with one of my red cabbages

Pretty Artichoke

September isn’t just harvest season though, there’s plenty of jobs to keep me busy in the garden. Of course there’s weeding, because, well, there’s always weeding. There’s plenty of tidying and maintenance to be done but there’s also plenty of planting. It’s time to get the garden ready for overwintering crops, winter onions, garlic, winter lettuces, spinach and of course spring cabbage. Today, I planted two blueberry plants, which are one of the things I’ve known from the start I wanted to grow. These are best planted in autumn, in acidic soil, the lower the pH the better, but around 5 is perfect. I did measure my soil pH in March and the reading was 5.5, so hopefully the bluberries will do well. It does help to aid them though, a good mulch, bark, grass cuttings, leaves, whatever you can get your hands on, and the pine needles from my christmas tree will definitely find their way to my blueberry bed.

Blueberries

September also sees the arrival of the brand new community room on site, it’s a lovely big room, with a fridge, microwave, tea and coffee and snacks, and of course, tables, inside and out, to take a well earned tea break when the work gets too tough. It’s a great way to meet fellow gardeners too, I have hopes of making a few friends here.

Community room

I did attempt to make the plot look a bit nicer today, I spread some bark mulch around the path near my fruit section of my plot but it took about 400 litres to cover a tiny area so it looks like it’ll be a while before I can do the whole plot. I also attempted a makeshift patio area. It’s not great. I had visions of a lovely decking area with potted plants and a table and chairs. In reality, I placed some planks of wood on the ground, thats about it, but it’s a start, I would put up a photo but I can’t bring myself to do it, it’s that bad.

Bark is better than weeds

September is also planning time. Get planning. It’s amazing how much a planting plan will help in the early spring.

As for carrots, if you’re not growing them, do it next year, you’ll thank me.

What’s Growing On My Plot?

Posted on August 17, 2012 by FionaGrowsFood

I’ve been getting many questions about what I’m growing on my plot and I always seem to just say, “Oh, you know, some onions, some potatoes, that kind of thing”. When, in reality, I’ve been growing quite a lot, or at least attempting to so I decided to do a blog post on exactly what is growing on plot P26 right now.

Celery. By some sort of miracle, I have grown six gorgeous, healthy celery plants, which is not the easiest thing to do in our climate. I don’t fully undertand how this happened, or why it happened to me, I just planted them on a whim to see what happened and BAM (they didn’t make that noise unfortunately), four months later I have lovely celery. It is a proud moment.

Red Cabbage. Another crop planted on a whim, when I last mentioned these, they were tiny plug plants for which I was making collars, now they are huge! Really huge, another success in my brassica section, which now as I mention it was the one type of crop I wasn’t really interested in at the beginning.

Kale. I just planted this on my last visit to the plot, it’s one of those veggies that reminds me of childhood, searching for the pennies in my colcannon on halloween night. Kale thrives in our climate so I’ve high hopes.

Purple Sprouting Brocolli. I love this plant. I had never even heard of it until two years ago when my Dad grew it on his plot. It’s an overwintering variety so won’t be ready until next spring.

Lettuce: I have a few types of lettuce growing on the plot and my favourite is definitely Lollo Rossa, a lovely red crispy loose leaf lettuce. It’s lovely in a salad and even on its own.

Swiss Chard/Perpetual Spinach. i grouped these together as they’re so similar. The leaves are delicious cooked or raw, I’ve been eating my way through them for weeks now, they’re long cropping too, so should last through the winter.

Spring Onions. I aim to always have some of these growing on the plot, they’re relatively easy to grow and so yummy, far nicer than the type you buy in the shop.

Borlotti Beans. The current pride of my plot. These gorgeous plants are a dwarf variety of borlotti bean, they have lovely red and white speckled pods and the beans inside are the same. The thing to do with these, or so I’ve read, is to let them dry on the plant and store them throughout winter for a regular supply.

Peas. So many peas. I’ve peas on the brain. Pea-brain.

Onions. My onions are ready to come up, in fact, I’m pulling them up tomorrow, there is much excitement! Watch this space.

Carrots. When I planted my carrots, I did it very late. It was mid June. I didn’t have much hope for them as not only is it a bad year for carrots in terms of the weather, but they were one of the (many) casualties of my four week absence from my plot, but lo and behold, about half germinated and it looks like I might get a few carrots this year.

Rhubarb. YUM! I lament every time I see my golrious rhubarb that I can’t eat it this year. It pains me. I can’t wait to eat mountains of it next spring.

Artichokes. These were one of the crops that I really wanted to do well and so far they’re doing great! The two plants are thriving where they are and I have a few nice hearts to pick tomorrow.

Salsify. Another crop I was eager to try and it seems to be thriving, The tall leaves almost look like a variety of grass, it’s very pretty, though it’ll be another few months before I can eat it as it’s a long cropping plant.

Strawberries. Despite having six healthy plants, I’ve had very few strawberries this year, I’m chalking it down to the weather. That being said, the few I have had were delicious so at least that’s something.

Raspberries/Redcurrant/Blackberries: I planted all of these a while back but they are only beginning to get established, It’ll most likely be next year before I see any berries.

Turnips, Pak Choi, Mustard Greens. I’ve simply grouped these together as I just planted them last week and so are still very much in between being seeds and plants.

I also have quite a few cornflowers, sweet peas, lupins and other colourful additions and a few pots of herbs and a lovely lemon balm plant that I have to smell every time I pass it. I also have tomatoes growing at home, I keep meaning to take some photos of them but by the time I decide to, I’ve already eaten them. That’s not even mentioning all of the crops I’ve already harvested and all of the failed crops I’ve had, and trust me, there’s been many, but it’s all great fun and as I close in on the six month mark (only two weeks away), I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve accomplished so far, long may it continue.

I’ve a lot of work to do on the plot this weekend, including quite a huge amount of digging and tidying up so will hopefully have lots of news on the blog in the coming week. Happy Digging.

Midsummer Murderer

Posted on June 13, 2012 by FionaGrowsFood

I’ve had a pretty busy few weeks and I wouldn’t say that I’ve neglected my plot, but I haven’t been to it nearly as much as I would have liked either.

The weather has been pretty odd for June, a mix of horrible rainy days and milder dry days but nothing like the hot, sunny weather we had two weeks ago. It’s hard to believe that midsummer’s day is only a week away. The warm weather did however, start a growth spurt on my plot and it’s looking significantly greener than it did a few weeks ago. Most of the greenery, however, is weeds. They seem to be trying to take over the plot, within a week, they went from tiny seedlings to tall bushy weeds all over my paths and on the parts of the plot that are still unused.

I visited the plot on Sunday and spent over four hours just pulling weeds up from the paths and from the paths around the outside of my plot in an effort to stop them from spreading onto my plot. In fact, I did so much weeding that I gave myself a hoe-ing blister on the inside of my thumb, ouch!

Poppy

Beetroot, Swiss Chard and Perpetual Spinach. You can see some of the weeds on the paths here.

I did feel a little guilty tearing up some of the lovely red poppies but it had to be done. I truly felt like a murderer though, when I had to thin out my beetroot and swiss chard plants. After all my weeks of careful nurturing, I had to pull out about half of each to give the rest space to grow. It did give me a chance to have a cheeky nibble on the baby chard leaves though.

I planted out my borlotti beans which had been hardening off at home for a week and I finally planted some carrots, a bit later than I wanted but it couldn’t be helped. This weekend, I hope to plant some florence fennel and pak choi too. Unfortunately, my pumpkin plants all died, all three of them, and my courgette plant. I have literally no idea why this happened, they had been thriving before. I have heard they are very easy to grow and really prolific so god only knows why they died, it seems I am having trouble with plants that are seemingly easy to grow and no bother at all growing the trickier plants. I’m just going to chalk it down to bad luck and try again next year.

Borage. Spot the ladybird?

Apart from that, the plot is thriving, my potatoes plants are huge and my jerusalem artichokes finally showed up, after months of nothing. My rhubarb which had disappeared in the bad weather in april, is back with a vengeance and is now pretty huge. My borage grew far larger than I expected and the two plants are a lovely addition to the plot, I’ve seen lots of bees buzzing around them. My first sowing of peas are starting to really climb now and the second aren’t far behind. I also have lettuce, rocket, salsify, cabbage, onions, shallots, celery, purple sprouting broccoli, artichokes, red currants, raspberries and strawberries growing very strong, in addition to my tomatoes at home and my herbs. Not bad for the first three months of my gardening adventure.

Rhubarb

Peas, borlotti beans and early potatoes

Broccoli, celery and cabbage

It’s amazing how different the allotment looks since I started it in March, it’s difficult to get the whole plot into the pictures but you get the idea. I still have a million and one things to do, I need a gate, some proper pathways, a patio area, and lots of other bits and pieces. I’m also hoping to get some food out of it soon, that is, after all, the whole point.

Plot P26 on the 10th March 2012

Plot P26 on the 10th June 2012 – 3 months later

Fiona Grows Food

Mucking about in my garden

Category Archives: Planting