Curly Kale

Finally started planting out the kale - it seems quite late in the year! Same as last year I've surrounded the base of the plants with crushed eggshell (to deter slugs) and covered the whole area with netting (to deter cabbage white butterflies) which seemed to work well. Last year we did have some problems …

Storm Hector Strikes!

Despite it being June, the whole of the North of England, Ireland and Scotland have been under a severe weather warning today. Last night I battened down the hatches as best as I could by securing the cold frame lid, closing up the plastic greenhouse and trying to weight down the front of the greenhouse …

June magic

June is working its magic and we've got baby round courgettes growing and in the greenhouse the aubergines are about to start flowering I think!

Sourdough

So, not technically from the plot but I'm having a go go at making sourdough from scratch and as it's such a lengthy process I wanted capture all the steps and be able to look back on how it goes. From reading around online the main steps are: Make a sourdough starter Use the starter …

Beer Traps

Three days in and the beer Traps are definitely working!

End of May update

Things have been ticking over on the plot through May. I've also just reached the stage where I sat down to sow seeds and realised I only had kale left to do. In a way that's great because I was starting the logistics of getting everything sown at different times, and potted on, and moved …

Beans and peas

I started some pea and runner bean seeds indoors early this year in the hope of getting an early crop. That plan's been somewhat scuppered by all the snow and cold weather. The young plants had started to take over the bedroom windowsill and the beans were getting so entwined I thought I'd had enough …

Potatoes are away

8 hours on the allotment over this weekend and we've got 3 beds weeded, dug over and planted up with potatoes! After trying just a few potatoes last year to see how they went and really loving them we've gone for a whole bed each of colleen (1st early), Osprey (2nd early) and Picasso (main …

The rhubarb lives!!!

As I mentioned, I was worried at the end of last year that the rhubarb might have died. The leaves died down and the stems that were left went really black and soggy. But it's back and growing well and there seem to be a lot more crowns than last year so it must be …

Final proper harvest from 2017

We didn't really plant anything to overwinter in 2017 other than leeks (and the kale that's still going strong since the summer) and today we've decided their time has come! The leeks never really reached their full potential and all stayed quite weedy looking. I have a suspicion that was because I left them growing …