MY WEEK : 39 ( 9TH OCTOBER )

Hello all once again and welcome to this week's update from my allotments. Most of the week has been very wet so not much has been done towards clearing and weeding the ground inside my new tunnel frame however with a few dry spells I have managed to get some jobs done around the allotments.


This week I have launched a service where by you can purchase some of my Sweet Pea seeds which I use to grow my exhibition Cordon grown plants, they are an excellent mix of Spencer Cultivars and are renowned for their good form, colours and most of all scent. They are usually sold at £1.00 for 10 seeds of a named variety, I am supplying them at £1.00 for 20 mixed (c 25 in pk) with cultural instructions supplied so that more of you may experience the beauty and scents that I enjoy every Summer. Thankyou for the requests by some of my websites visitors which gave me the idea of doing this, I hope that you enjoy them.


Elsewhere on the allotments the Spray Chrysanthemums are still doing very well as you can tell from this vase of them shows, they have provided an excellent show of blooms from late June, one of my neighbouring plotholders, Graham, who I supplied cuttings to in the Spring has requested that I try and get some other colours and also some Late flowering incurve Chrysanthemums to add to my collection for next year, I will endeavour to source them from the same nursery that I obtained my original stock plants from.



This week I harvested the first of my Leeks, Swedes and also some Parsnips, Celery and Carrots. I think that a nice Stew or Casserole is the order of the day, this year I tried transplanting the Leeks slightly deeper than I have in previous years and it seems to have resulted in my Leeks having longer white stems so I think that I will be doing this from now on. The Swedes are a bit on the small side but are large enough for a meal, this I yhink was due to a lack of water during the hot Summer, so I will have to ensure that in drier conditions I make sure they receive a good watering , also at the start of the season due to not being covered they were attacked by the Pigeons which obviously did not help.



The Swiss Chard are still producing an abundance of delicious leaves, they can be cooked and eaten as a substitute for Spinach, they do not run to seed as easily as Spinach does and they have been cropping all season long which is excellent value for your money, in my view they are vastly underated as a vegetable at the moment , with the changes in our climate they may become the preferred choice.



During the last week or so I have received an email from one of my overseas website visitors, a lady called Maryann from New York, she asked for cooking/recipe ideas for the young leaves from Brussel Sprout plants as shown in this photograph, they can be cooked and eaten in the same way as for Spring Greens, my favourite way of eating them is to shred the leaves and stir fry them with strips of Smoked Back Bacon and a little butter or olive oil if you prefer, really delicious!!

This week with the unsettled weather it has been an ideal time for me to do some jobs in my Fruit Cage. The Gooseberry Cordons that I planted at the beginning of the season have established really well, they crop on the previous years growth so to ensure a good harvest next season I pruned the side shoots down to about 3 buds, hopefuly this will encourage the higher yield and also make harvesting the crop a much less painful operation than if I had a traditional bush as the varieties that I have are not thornless.

The Raspberry canes that I have are a variety called Malling Jewel and they are a Summer fruiting variety, this means that they produce the fruits on the previous season's growth or canes. Now that they have finished cropping this year I needed to prune out the old canes and just leave the new ones ready for next Summer. If you prefer you can have Autumn cropping varieties such as Autumn Bliss which crop on the currents seasons growth, this does also mean that they are easier to look after as all that you do when they finish cropping is cut them down to just above ground level and then as they grow the new canes just tie them in to their supporting wires and wait for them to produce their fruits.



Back at the beginning of the Spring I pruned my dessert grapevine back at home and as an experiment I used the prunings as cuttings and inserted them into a spare piece of ground at the allotments, this has resulted in 7 new grapevines which will enable me to have a complete row of them accross one of my plots in the next year or two, I am however under strict instructions from the OH that there will be no winemaking operations allowed at home so I will have to stick to eating them or juicing them.


Whilst having my weekly walk around the allotment site to check on peoples progress or not, I was reminded by this sign on a plotholders allotment of the great sense of humour than can be found amongst us allotmenteers, another great one that I saw was ' COST A LOTTIE ' another example of 2 overgrown jungles transformed into a Cottage/ Kitchen Garden Oasis well done Malcolm & Pauline.



Well that is it I'm afraid for this week, as you can see the cropping and harvesting maybe slowing down but there is still plenty going on at the allotments, thankyou all once again for your messages and questions, I'm only too glad to help with anything if I can, see you next week thanks Steve.