Vegging Out at Chelsea Flower Show

The sky’s the limit when it comes to growing fruit and veg, if B & Q’s nine metre high ‘edible tower’ at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show is anything to go by.  With a living wall of sage, camomile and thyme, window boxes of tomatoes and nasturtiums and  solar panels and a wind turbine, it certainly ticks all the ‘green’ boxes.   But with the average show garden costing around £180,000, it’s not for everyone!  Just as well then that B & Q has launched the Vertical Wall planter which will set you back just £10 (solar panels and wind turbine not included!)

Fellow allotmenteer Cleve West surprised the judges with his flowering parsnips in the Daily Telegraph garden,  but they were obviously suitably impressed as they awarded him Best in Show.  Well deserved, in my opinion, as the planting was beautiful.  I can’t wait to get my hands on Dianthus cruentus before the garden centre shelves are cleared.

During the Second World War, the Ministry of Food, developed a cartoon character called Dr. Carrot as part of an educational campaign to encourage people to eat healthily during rationing.  Depicted carrying a medicine bag brimming over with Vitamin A, it showed just how nutritious this home grown veg really is.  Good to see him getting another outing at Chelsea along with Potato Pete. Mustard Communications has also brought him back to life for a PR campaign for the British Carrot Growers' Association http://www.britishcarrots.co.uk/

Can’t understand why Bunny Guinness’s Kitchen Garden for the show’s main sponsor M & G Investments only got a Silver Gilt.  I think she was robbed.  Here’s hoping she gets the people’s vote.

An idea to steal from the floristry marquee were retro handbags being used as hanging baskets.  Making an appearance down on my allotment soon.  A little beyond my capabilities was this South Pacific dress. Such a work of art!

Spring is Sprung

There is something so satisfying about planting out the first seedlings of the year.  Especially ones I have sown myself and carefully nurtured in the greenhouse.  I guess it’s all about renewal, optimism and generally looking forward to the summer.  But whatever, it certainly does gladden the soul.

First in the ground was rocket.  I’ve had variable success with this in the past as it often tends to bolt.  So this year I’m hoping to fare a little better by choosing a shady spot.  Next in was lettuce, a beautiful green and red ruffled variety (I’ll tell you the name when I pop down tomorrow).  I hadn’t really thinned them out as I should have done and so had to prise the roots carefully apart before planting.  They did look a bit battered as they flopped sulking onto the soil, but lettuce always seems to be one of my most successful crops, so here’s hoping they revive.  I have to confess I always scatter a good handful of slug pellets when the seedlings first go in, otherwise they just get razed to the ground – the slugs love those soft tender leaves. But once they’ve got going after a couple of weeks,  they tend to leave them alone (apart from this and the very occasional spray, I am almost organic, honest!).

I managed to prise Tony, my partner, away from his desk for a couple of hours ( I know it’s Easter, but he is a bit of a workaholic), to put up the bean poles for the runner beans.  Men are just so tidy when it comes to allotments, everything in dead straight lines and all the poles crossing at the exact same point.  I used to think my random haphazard planting was much more romantic, but now I too have become a bit of a fan for symmetry – a great contrast when edged by my blousy flower borders.  Unfortunately,  we then misread the seed packet and planted half the row with French beans instead of runners  – spent ages scrabbling away in the soil trying to find the seeds so I could discard them and put in runners instead (I usually plant the seeds straight into ground as they come up so quickly and they have such big distinctive leaves, you are never going to mistake these for weeds). Runner beans are our No. 1 favourite crop – they never fail to give us bucket loads of produce from July right through to October.   I had already started five French climbing beans plants off in the greenhouse & Tony erected a smart little wigwam for these.     

Another big job for the weekend was to fill up some of the raised beds with top soil, because I have to confess  there isn’t a lot that’s ‘raised’ about them.  Very flat, I’d say.  The eight bags we lugged up the path did a terrific job for one of the beds – but there’s another four to go. Maybe a long term project! 

Feeling very hot, dirty but satisfied, I started putting away my tools, when Jo, my neighbour but one, strolled by with the comment “beans in April, bit optimistic aren’t you.”  Of, course, beans shouldn’t really go in until the end of May, especially the very tender French beans!  I know this.  What had I been thinking!  I’d been persuaded by this gorgeous heatwave that summer had truly arrived.  But last year we had frosts right up until the first week of June.  So if you are reading this blog, please do as I say, not as I do!  The rocket and lettuce will be fine, but leave the beans for another month to be safe.  Fingers crossed mine survive. 

A bad month for....

It’s been a bad month for rhubarb, strawberries, spinach and parsley.  My partner Tony has just been diagnosed with kidney stones and these are all at the top of his ‘Not to Eat’ list from the doctor.

Not only am I left with an abundance of forced rhubarb and the problem with what to do with it all, but also the vague disquiet that the many years of serving up rhubarb crumbles and compotes may in some way have contributed to Tony’s quite agonising condition.  And although I can still enjoy  these dishes,  it’s somehow not quite  the same.  I used to feel quite virtuous about not only enjoying the fruits of my labour, but also eating healthily as well, but if it is having the opposite effect, I somehow feel cheated.   

I don’t have to start digging up the allotment beds quite just yet though.  The doctors have taken samples and are currently analysing exactly what the kidney stones are made of.  So maybe there is another cause.  In the meantime, my office colleagues are enjoying rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb..... 

Robin Red Breast

They say that robins are a gardener’s best friend and it certainly seems to be the case on our allotment as there’s always one to keep me company while I’m weeding.  They are on the look-out for worms and insects, of course, studying the soil intently for any fat offering as I fork the soil over, flying in so close when they see one that their wings almost brush my face.  I often think it’s not just the food they’re after, but a bit of a game as well. 

We used to get wild parakeets here as well, which looked really surreal when you looked up and saw them sitting in the cherry tree.  I still spot the occasional one in Richmond, but I haven’t seen any on the allotment for a couple of years now.  I think maybe the last two cold winters might have cut their numbers.  There are a range of theories about the arrival of parakeets to Surrey – some say they escaped from a container at Heathrow airport; that they were released from aviaries damaged during the great storm of 1987 and that Jimi Hendrix brought them to the area to make a film.  Whatever the theory, it would be nice to see them back here again as they certainly add a bit of exotica to the borders!

The soil is full of worms today and the robin gets his fill.  So I guess this means the soil is in reasonable condition, but it is very heavy clay and after the rain of the weekend is terribly hard to weed – you have to bend down to prise out the weeds one by one from the huge claggy clods of earth.  According to perceived garden wisdom, I guess I shouldn’t be treading on the earth at all, but it’s so hard to weed a big bed by standing on a board.  I’m still working in lime across the plot and will leave it for a month and then add some compost.  Hopefully this will improve the soil a little more and generate better veg this year. The rhubarb doesn’t need any help though, it’s doing wonders.  Picked another four stalks today – made a mistake last weekend as I thought it was so tender that it wouldn’t need any sugar.  How wrong was that!

I also sowed a few more seeds – beetroot, celeriac and rocket. I promised myself I wouldn’t sow so much this year but would take the easier route and buy plugs from the garden centre, but I think I’m a bit addicted!  Well, I guess there’s worse things to get addicted to....

Despite the cold, it really does feel like spring is on its way at last.  The daffodils are out, the pear trees are coming into bud and the garlic is throwing up fresh green shoots (the garlic bulbs I planted before Christmas are well on the way, despite some animal digging them up every now and again, which I then put back, and the ones I planted in February are not far behind).

I picked my first rhubarb of the season today.  I put a forcing pot over it in December, and there’s now masses of long pink stems, so much more tender than the stuff you get the rest of the year.  It’s so pretty, you could almost put it in a vase, but perhaps a crumble is a better idea!  Last year’s spinach is coming up again – picked a handful which we had for supper later that night – delicious. The leeks are not so good, full of little worms which have made holes in the stems, but if I chop finely and pick through the leaves, should be ok for soup as long as I boil it well (if bugs put you off, you’d be hard pressed to eat much from this site!).

The soil on my plot is very heavy and acid – the fruit does well but have had less success with brassicas and potatoes, so today I added some lime to the beds to see if that will help.  I was very worried about using it as the gardening books make it sound such a dangerous substance, so was pleasantly surprised when I found it in granules at the gardening centre, which didn’t require a face mask and all the other paraphernalia, but was very careful to measure out exact quantities per square yard.  

Also made a start on sowing some seeds in the greenhouse  – sweet peas, leeks, Cos lettuce and Merveille de Quatre Saisons Lettuce.  I usually sow the sweet peas in the autumn but was caught out by how quickly winter descended.  But I usually find them one of the easiest plants to grow and an autumn sowing usually comes on too quickly anyway.  We don’t have any electricity on the site, so I shall have to keep my fingers crossed for the sunshine to continue and hopefully a little more warmth.  Roll on spring, the bluebells should be out soon....

Where There’s Muck there’s Money?

I’m on a mission – a green mission.  I’m going to find out if you really can save nearly £1,400 a year by growing your own.

According to a survey carried out by The National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners the average allotment holder spends £202 a year renting their plot and sowing crops, producing 1,642lb of produce a year, worth £1,564. Average hours worked totalled 203 (although this did include relaxation and chatting with neighbours).

Well, I don’t think I’m a slacker when it comes to tending my plot and after 15 years I like to think I know more or less what I am doing, but a saving of £26 a week on your weekly  fruit and veg shopping bill? They must be having a laugh surely……

Some crops like courgettes and runner beans have given me buckets of wonderful produce all summer through, but  others like the gooseberry bushes and strawberry plants are often  stripped bare by the mice before I get a look in, and what about those long winter months when I’m hard pushed to harvest anything more than a few leeks and herbs....

Don’t get me wrong, I love my allotment, with a passion, but it’s not about the money. It’s about the joy of gardening, growing the freshest, tastiest produce imaginable, rediscovering the seasons, getting lots of healthy exercise, fresh air and sunshine (it beats going to the gym any day), and feeling at one with nature (as long as that nature doesn’t munch on my crops!). And it’s great to experiment, even though the lemon grass and capers were total disasters.

This survey from the NSALG it just one in a glut of similar stories perpetuating the myth that you just have to scatter a few seeds, and the Garden of Eden is yours.  This causes such disappointment when people do finally get to the top of the waiting list and take on their first allotment.  They just aren’t prepared for the hard work that awaits, nor the constant battle with the elements. Which is why the first year on an allotment can come as a bit of a shock and why so many people just get overwhelmed and give up.

But I am curious to put the NSALG’s survey to the test, so for 2011 I’ve decided to weigh and price everything I produce on my allotment plot from January through to December as well as keeping a running tally of all outgoings and hours worked.  To be honest, I’ve always had a hankering to do this, but just never got round to it. Maybe I’ll be surprised by the results.  I’ll also keep a diary of the joys and pitfalls of growing your own, charting the different jobs across the seasons, what’s been a success and what hasn’t, our annual open day with The National Gardens Scheme on 15 August, as well as sharing some of my favourite fruit and veg recipes.