Getting on reluctantly with the Swindon allotment

I went rather reluctantly down the Swindon allotment this afternoon.

After the pleasure of the beautiful surroundings and heavenly soil of the Lechlade one, my heart wasn't really in it. But I managed to build up a bit of enthusiasm while I worked, though it didn't help having two men from the Salvation Army on the allotment next door. Not that they spoke to me, but I didn't feel relaxed with them around. One of them was an old hand, and he was telling his new helper all about the plot. In fact, they spent most of the time talking, and very little time working.

I put in the two rows of Stuttgarter onions that I bought this morning, then decided to fill up the space down the bottom with the seeds I had left. So I put in another row of parsnips interspersed with radish, a row of beetroot, and about three-quarters of a row of Maestro carrots, finishing off the row with cut-and-come-again lettuce. I prepared the ground in the same way as I did that at Lechlade, but surface weeding only. It is too late to waste time digging: everything has to go in, and fast.

I started digging over the weedy patch up the top,

but the soil is so heavy and wet compared with that at Lechlade, I gave up after two rows, wondering what I was achieving by simply turning it over. I wish Nobby had rotovated that bit too, but I can't go on asking him for favours.

It's quite amazing how far you can make seed stretch when you try. I got two rows out of a 60p packet of beetroot seed. I must go to Wilkinson for more seeds next week.

When I was looking for the owner of the chickens that escaped I talked to a man who offered me a whole box full of seed potatoes (Charlotte). So now I can plant loads both here and at Lechlade, and won't have to buy any more earlies, though I might buy some more maincrops for Lechlade, something different from the Desirees.

Potatoes

There are still seed potatoes and onion sets in Argyll Street Garden Centre. I managed to get a couple of rows each of International Kidney (Jersey Royals) and Desiree and a row of Stuttgarter onion sets for £2.65.

I made a good start on my Lechlade allotment today...

...though it doesn't look it from the photos. I put in a double row of broad beans in front of the runner bean poles. They are longpods which should go in in November, and were saved either last year or the year before, so it will be a big bonus if they come up and I get a good crop off them.

 

Further down, I put in a row of onions (Sturon, I think). The beans and onions were put in ground which had not been dug, just cleared of surface weeds. Broad beans and onions like hard ground, so do sprouts and purple sprouting, so I will save some hard ground for them too.

 

 

 

Down the bottom, I put in my two remaining Jersey Royals, which are to be treasured like golden eggs. On the same line, I put in two very short rows of cut-and-come-again lettuce and radish. Eventually, I shall put my pumpkins and butternut squash or maybe some nasturtiums down that end so that they can scramble all over the pile of rubbish down the end and hide it. There's time for a catch-crop of lettuce and radish meanwhile.

 

The soil is beautiful and black and light and crumbly, but it is full of stones and of bits of pottery and broken clay pipes and glass. Spadey tried parsnips in there last year, but they came to nothing at all. Parsnips don't like even the tiniest stones: even sharp sand added to the soil makes them grow all forked and gnarly. My soil in Swindon is great for parsnips, so I'll grow them there. It is useful to have two types of soil to choose from: this will be good for onions, I should think.

 

 

Onions

These are my onions drying. I have harvested them already, though it seems ridiculously early. I was going to leave them in a bit longer, but Joe 2 told me to take them up or they would split (that was after Joe #1 had told me the same thing, only Joe #2 said it more persuasively and in better English). Joe #2 is the one with the gammy leg. I thought he had polio, but someone told me he damaged it in a motorbike accident.

I want to put some onions in the show this year, and learnt from last year that you have to peel off the outer layers so that the top layer is unbroken, and you must do this before they dry. But I think I may have gone too far with the peeling, as they all look very bald and white.

I also didn't know where to dry them. I put them on the path at home to start with, then in my mini-greenhouse, but was afraid someone might steal them. Then I came across these two racks at the car boot sale yesterday, and they seem to be ideal. Last year's onions (of which I still have a few left) dried out very nicely in that corner, in a hessian bag inside a wooden box. But this time I am trying to make sure that at least three come out near-perfect for the show. I wish I had a book on how to present things for the show, because I'm making it up as I go along.

Harvest

The harvest is in full swing at the moment, with not a spare moment, and far too much for one person to eat. This is just one day's haul. The plums are from Joe's tree. I picked enough, saying I would pick some more in a couple of days' time and make jam, because I was going to London the next day. But Joe picked another bucket-full and gave them to me, saying I could make jam when I got back. When I got back, most of them were rotten, so I had to chuck them away. For jam, fruit needs to be freshly picked. These plums aren't like commercial plums - they go off within hours.

The tomatoes are from Joe too. The peas, runner beans, French beans, onions and cucumber are from my allotment. I have so many beans now I don't know what to do with them. I tried freezing them, but they became completely inedible - a mushy, tasteless mess - so I threw all the ones I'd frozen away. I've tried freezing some without blanching them, as Angelina suggested (she indicated slicing them in four, then added, "then mette in freezee"). The peas, on the other hand, taste fine after being frozen. These are Onward peas - I don't know when I sowed them: it was late, though, and the result was a brilliant crop without a single weevil.