Broad beans

I sowed two pans of saved broad bean seeds.  I am altering the planning in the bean and pea bed a little so that I can plant in sequence.  The beans will go in next to the supports for the climbing French beans.  I have started to put up the climbing French bean supports already, although I still need to finish the double digging in this area.

I also sowed Lathyrus latifolius, perennial sweet peas.  I have never grown these before so it will be a new adventure.

The celery and celeriac have not germinated yet.  They take a lot longer than the tomato seeds.

Clearing the ground for next year

Before starting to clear the pea and bean bed, I wanted to plant out all of the tulip bulbs I had.  I have quite a few now and they needed quite a bit of room.  I am going to plant the curbits and cucumbers when the tulips have gone over.  This means that I will not be tempted to put anything else in this area.  I have planted them between the new broad beans.  The broad beans will not produce anything significant this late in the year but they will provide some extra green manure and cover the ground for a while.

I put pigeon manure sparingly along the line and hoed it in.  Afterwards, I used the cultivator and finally the rake to smooth the line.  A fairly deep drill was taken out so that the tulips could sit at the bottom and be covered by a good depth of soil.  Before setting the bulbs in, I watered the drill with comfrey liquid.  Three rows of tulips were planted and then the ground was raked carefully so that I didn't pull any of the bulbs out of the ground.

I hoed the rest of the bed because there was some weed germination and afterwards the bed did look really good.

I then went up and washed some pots and trays to put away for the winter.  I am trying to empty the storeshed so that I can store the sweet pea and runner bean canes in there.  The pots and trays are just taking up room unnecessarily.

I used one of the trays to put the Cannellini and Bortolini beans in when I harvested them.  I thought that I would only do a few because shelling beans is a seriously boring job.  However, I got through them all and got a full seed tray of beans.  Not a great deal but sufficient for me.  Some of the beans had rotted in their shells so I had to discard them but not too many.  I took the plants out and left them on the side to dig in later.  I then took down the climbing French bean supports.  These beans did not do very well this year and I will make a bit more of an effort to grow them well next year.

It does not seem as though I had done very much but it got dark about 5:30 and I had to leave it there or garden in the dark.

I am learning the Latin names of some common evergreen shrubs.

Prunus laurocerasus
Acuba japonica
Fatsia japonica
Skimmia japonica
Prunus laurocerasus 'Otto Luyken'
Ilex  aquifolium
Mahonia x media 'Charity'
Vibernum davidii
Elaeagnus pungens 'Maculata'
Berberis darwinii

At least four of which I have in my garden.  None of which I particularly like.  Prunus laurocerasus does make a good hedge and screens off unsightly fences and sheds as do a number of the others.

Next job on the allotment is to clear the pea and bean bed, dig it over and plant green manure on it. Clear out the store shed a bit more and wash some of the pots and trays. Actually all the unwashed trays are in the shed at home so it will only be the pots and there are enough of them!

Planting the onions and lettuce.

I got up to the allotment early so that I would have some time to do the planting.  I decided to put the lettuce in first.  To do this I needed to move the tarpaulin.  I took off all the slabs and just slid it across the soil so that it was out of the way.  The line was put in four feet from the track way.

Lettuce do not need to be very far apart when you first put them in.  If you put them six inches apart along the line then you can thin them out as you take them to eat.  This gives more room for the others to get bigger.  So, I used the green trowel with the scale on the blade to measure between plants and to dig the holes.

I put some comfrey liquid into the watering can and filled it with tap water.  I have emptied the water butts now so I cannot use rain water any more. A three to four inch hole was dug for each of the lettuces and a little mychorrhizal fungi was added before the lettuce plant was carefully dropped in.  I do not drag the soil back into the hole with the trowel.  Rather, I water the soil around the hole so that soil is washed onto the roots.

This does several things.  It puddles water around the plant and this means that they rarely wilt.  It washes soil onto the roots so there are no gaps or air pockets and it fills the holes so that a cursory hoe around the row means that the holes are completely filled.

But for about three seedlings I got two rows out of the lettuce.  I had already watered the Nemaslug nematodes onto this area so I am hoping that they will be free of slugs for most of their lives.  The tarpaulin was pulled back next to the lettuce and the slabs returned to keep it from blowing about.  I will make sure that there are also some beer traps to make sure that no slugs get to the lettuce.

I moved over to the other side of this bed to plant the onions.  I wanted to be as far away from the hedges along the trackway as I could because Phytomyza gymnostoma    shelters in hedges.  I doubt whether it will make a difference but I wanted to give it a go and see what would happen.

The onions were planted more or less like the lettuce and then given an additional watering of comfrey liquid.  As a further precaution against Phytomyza gymnostoma , I put a three plastic cloches over the lines of onions.  I will leave them there until I crop the onions because I don't think that the onions will mind.   I will remove the cloches to weed between the onions but put them back as soon as I have finished.  

I planted three double rows and I think that this will be sufficient.  I still had some left over in the sectioned trays and rather than waste them I will use them in salads for spring onions.

I hoed the area between the onion cloches and the tarpaulin because there were lots of weed seedlings germinating from the compost I put on this bed in March.

I really needed to hoe between the sweet peas as well.  Weed seedlings were starting to grow here as well.  I was going to water the sweet peas but ran out of time.

The newly planted Early Onward seedlings have settled in really well and are growing away now.  The swedes, salsify, scorzonera, rocket, spinach, Boltardy beetroot, carrots, and parsnips have all germinated.  The potatoes are also showing through the soil and I will have to hoe them up to prevent the foliage being scorched if there is a frost.

I hoed around the broad beans which are  flowering profusely.  I will get a crop off these plants in the next few weeks.

The winter cauliflower head was quite large now and I thought that I would take it home.  I also picked a few rhubarb stems as well.

Just as I was going to the car, I started to talk to one of the allotmenteers  about the skip that the allotment society had provided.  I said that although the committee had cleared off the glass on the allotment too far they had not removed the old bath.  We went down to the allotment too far to see if the bath was a cast iron one or a plastic one.  It was plastic so we decided to carry it to the skip.  The problem was that it was full of soil.  Turning it over and emptying it was a job for two strong men.  However, we had to do it instead and it was a great effort.

Carrying it over to the skip was easy in comparison.

Then I went home.

An Allotment too far?

The soil temperature was 15^oC today.

 I'm not too sure whether this new allotment is an allotment too far.  I took out another two trenches and filled them with weeds and compost. There is a great deal of mare's tail in the soil and I have found the roots three spits down in the subsoil.  I am not going to try and get them all out.  This is a long term project.

One of the old blokes came over and asked what I was going to use the new allotment for.  That is a good question.  Really I produce far too much on my other allotment so why I need this I don't know.  It is a challenge and it will get me fit.  Or do me a mischief...

I will also probably use it to put fruit on.  I have a few blackcurrant cuttings that have rooted and they would do fine on this ground.  I have cleared quite a bit by slicing off weed turfs and putting them in the trench. I have covered these with some compost and then some shredded branches.

The problem is that this is taking up a lot of my time and I wanted to get on on my clean allotment.  After it got to about three o'clock, I decided enough was enough and went to plant the rest of the broad bean plants.  I have got two rows out of them and they should fruit in a couple of months so that I can take them out and plant the brassicas.

Now that the soil has warmed up - 15^oC today, I have put in three rows of parsnips in the bottom bed.  Going on the surplus I had this year this will be plenty.  I watered them in with some comfrey liquid.  It was last years comfrey so I am not too sure how potent it is.  It will not do them any harm in any case.

The strawberries got a good weeding and they also had some comfrey liquid too.  I wanted to give the garlic and the winter cauliflowers some but I ran out of time.  Being very tired after digging deep trenches, I decided that I would go home and have a good cup of tea.

Next time, remember to take a flask of tea with you.

I took a cursory look in the greenhouse when I got home.  Most of the brassicas I sowed have come through which means that I will have to prick them out and that means that I will have to plant out all the sweet pea seedlings because otherwise I will not have room in the greenhouse.

A dark and dismal January day.

Garlic and broad beans seem to be surviving well but it is still very early days.  We still have one more week of January to go and there is forecast some more cold weather.

Two lines of garlic were planted in October last year and now about 6 inches tall.  They have been planted with inoculated charcoal and mychorrhizal fungi.  The frost tends to bring the charcoal to the surface but I don't think you can see it particularly well on this photograph. 

These are the broad beans that have germinated.  There are big gaps in the row as there was last year but I expect them to germinate as soon as the weather warms a little more.  You can see the difference between this soil and the soil in the onion and garlic bed.  The soil from this area was totally replaced by the council due to contamination.

The new soil was from an organic farm but had a very large proportion of stone in it.  Four allotment holders had their soil replaced completely while I only had the bottom bed of my allotment replaced.  You can see that even with a great deal of stone taken off, there is still a lot in this soil.  The other thing you can see is the charcoal that I used last year under the Onward peas.  I found the inoculated charcoal very effective especially on this poorer soil.

I have raised up the level of the soil using a mixture of turf, weeds, leaves and compost.  This has helped to drain this soil.  It was full of large lumps of clay and needed a great deal of working before it would grow anything substaintial.  I am hoping that the broad beans will add a little nitrogen to the soil here because I want to grown roots after the broad beans have fruited.  The rhubarb is in the background and is just starting to bud.  However,  I don't expect it to start growing substantially for another couple of months. 

This cyclamen is growing at the side of the sweet pea and runner bean bed.  I have added a lot of gravel to this area and the cyclamen seem to be enjoying it.  Some of the other bulbs are beginning to show now.

The soil in this bed is particularly fertile having a lot of organic matter added to it. It has been sieved thoroughly.  Most of the stones on this bed are 1/4 inch or less.  If you look carefully at this soil you can just see the charcoal that has been added.