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July 4, 2014

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Courgettes – A Guest Post from Plot 22

The allotment has been a real haven for me over the last year. I’m sure I’m not alone in benefiting from the communal and restorative properties of time outside growing. At our allotment site we have a community plot, Plot 22, which offers people just that. So I asked Emma, who runs the project, to write a guest post.

PLOT 22 is an allotment garden project that offers people who may not otherwise have access to a garden the chance to enjoy and participate in creating a peaceful, abundant and edible oasis in the middle of our busy city.

I think of courgettes as cheerful generous friends! They are easy to grow and so gallopingly bountiful it can be hard to keep up with them. That said, the planting out stage is their most vulnerable but those that make it through and survive the slugs have a prickly and reassuring sturdiness. New fruits seem to double in size over night. And for us, gardening and cooking collectively on site at PLOT 22 this ensures a feast several days a week in the summer months. This month we are dining out on a variety gifted to us by another allotment holder: a yellow courgette that produces sweet round fruits. Happily the slugs didn’t decimate these plants as they did some of our own courgettes grown from seed. This may have been because we planted these yellow ones in raised beds, waist high, certainly out of the eye line of slugs, or more likely their scent detectors.

Courgettes are most definitely a vegetable made for cooking outside. There’s very little preparation required and no need for saucepans at all! We’ve had delicate raw ribbons in our salads, using a potato peeler – easier with the long variety than the round sort, marinated multi-coloured courgette and halloumi kebabs grilled on the BBQ, and thick, colourful slices seared on the hot bars and dropped straight into fresh herby, garlicky dressing to soak up all the flavours. Next week we’ll try a recipe shared by a Japanese friend: grating the juicy pulp into spelt flour then mixed with a dash of oil to make thick green pancakes, cooked quickly in a skillet on the fire they are a treat I’ve been looking forward to for months!

It is true that you can have too much of a good thing. Sometimes a courgette’s generosity can seem like a burden of responsibility – how to make use of all this sudden vegetable goodness before they turn into the size of baseball bats? I’ve often found bags of these oversized beauties left on my doorstep by other gardeners, clearly overwhelmed by their mighty bounty. But that’s the beauty of gluts – there’s so much to go around. It reminds us how abundant Nature is and brings out the generous friend in us!

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July 1, 2014

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allotment, plotupdate

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July at Plot 4

June has been a really warm month down here on the south coast. We’ve had slightly above temperatures, with occasional heavy downpours. All in all, perfect growing weather. As a result the allotment has flourished, with the crops just about outgrowing the weeds.

The good weather has meant there has been much to harvest. The broad beans have been a roaring success, with literally bagfuls being picked and eaten over the last few weeks. Whilst the original overwintered crop has just finished, the spring sown bean are about to be ready to pick; so we’ll be enjoying these sweet and tasty beans well into July. The strawberries have also been excellent, with a really good harvest of big berries. They too have begun to reach the end, but as they finished the summer raspberries have ripened and are providing us with a great crop. Salads are hard to get germinating when its so hot, but those which had grown have been giving us a constant alternative to the hermetically sealed bags of overpriced salad in the supermarkets.

Over the last few weeks I have been sowing more Swiss chard, as well as some Florence fennel. Hopefully they can get going and provide us with a good crop into the autumn. There’s still time to sow more peas and dwarf beans, so once the potatoes are dug, I’ll put a row or two of each for a late summer crop of fresh peas and beans. This is the month I start to think about the winter, so I’ll be rifling through the seed box and working out which of the brassicas I can sown now to give me a crop when the days are colder and shorter. For a quick fix, I’ll also be sowing some more radishes. They’re so quick to germinate and swell, and they add an amazing heat and crunch to any salad.

The ongoing jobs of watering and weeding will continue this month. I’m trying to be smart with the watering; only watering those plants that really need it, and making sure that they don’t go from drought to flood too much. In terms of the tomatoes, this consistency is crucial to ensure that the fruits don’t split or become diseased. The pumpkins, squashes, cucumbers, beans and indeed tomatoes, all need tying in to their supports as their tendrils and shoots grow in the summer’s heat. This year I’m trying to control the pumpkin and squash growth by training them up a step ladder and around an old parasol frame. The plan is to tie them in every so often, so I can let the plants become big without them taking over the whole allotment!

This post is contributing to The Garden Share Collective; an international group of bloggers who share their vegetable patches, container gardens and the herbs they grow on their window sills.

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June 29, 2014

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allotment, How to, information

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How to train tomatoes

Whilst tomatoes should have been planted out by now, you can still get them from nurseries and garden centres, ready grown and ready to nurture to cropping. The smell of fresh tomatoes, let alone the unbeatable taste of fruits picked from the vine, makes growing them well worth it.

Once your tomato plants have grown to about a foot in height, support them with a cane or stick at their side which you can use to tie them into as they grow. It’s importance to tie the. plants to a cane before they have a chance to drop, as this encourages them to grow up and produce more fruiting spurs. As they grow, pinch out all side shoots of your cordon tomatoes, but you can leave the bush types well alone to fill out. Once cordons have formed six or so fruiting trusses you should pinch out the tops. In reality I tend to let them hit the roof of the greenhouse, then pinch out the tips.

I under-plant my tomatoes with basil, as basil and tomato go together. It makes it easy to make a basil and tomato salad, but also has a preventative effect on aphids. Companion planting with French marigolds – tagetes – also works as the aphids will be repelled by their smell. Watering is crucial for consistently good fruits. Before the flowers have formed, water once a week or so and feed once a fortnight. Once the flowers and fruit have formed, water twice a week and feed once a week. What tomatoes don’t like is inconsistent watering, this tends to lead to splits and problems with bottom rot. Like children, they appreciate a routine and will repay you when they are looked after in a consistent way.

Once ready ripe, keep picking, this will help to extend the harvest as long as possible. It also means you can use them in a range of delicious recipes. Check out some tomato recipes here.

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June 18, 2014

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allotment, Wellbeing

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Growing Out of Trouble

Like Monty Don, in his book ‘Growing Out of Trouble’, it seems the “earth keeps me sane“. I’ve come to recognise that I need to be outside some of the time each week to maintain my mental health. It’s been something that I have realised over the last year. Whether it be going for a weekend walk with the family, an afternoon at the allotment, or just an evening stroll to the seafront. If I’m feeling low, one way I can help myself is to get outside.

As a teacher I always thought that I had done well to avoid an office based job, with its connotations of stuffiness and a lack of natural light. After all, my classroom was blessed with large windows down one side, and a beautiful village green beyond them. Yet, I still spent much of my time inside, and evenings at home were usually spent working in front of the computer. In many ways this was not too far away from the office based job I prided my self in avoiding. Now I have time to go to the allotment, I can enjoy the space and fresh air of the plot, and it undoubtedly has had a positive effect on my mood. Growing things just adds to this positivity and feeling of wellbeing; again Monty Don sums it up brilliantly when he says

“we all get – and feel – better for being outside and growing things … Looking after something else always results in looking after a part of ourselves“.

He’s right, nurturing plants does fulfil something in people, allowing them to recognise what they need to do to flourish, as well as what the plants need.

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June 15, 2014

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allotment, recipe

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Early Summer Minestrone

Home grown veg, no matter how small or misshapen, are a world away from those bought from the supermarket. It has that something special, it’s been cared for by you, it’s got soul. Over the year homegrown veg can provide you with so many fresh and vibrant tastes; from the earliest of peas and beans, to the sugary sweetcorn of late summer, to the pumpkins and roots of autumn.

This soup is like taking a seasonal look at the plot. It’s a vehicle for the fabulously mixed flavours of the allotment this month (or any month actually). At its base is a great chicken stock and a softened soffritto (the classic Italian soup and sauce base); but apart from that the soup is about using what is available. As such a recipe is not what you need to make this, all you need to do is go to the garden and pick what is in season. The soup benefits from the freshest of vegetables, balanced with a good source of carbs. In huge spirit of adding what you have in season, then this should be potatoes or dried beans. I often use broken pasta or some of the tiny pasta shapes like orzo, combined with small dice potatoes and cannellini or a similar bean.

You will need (serves 4)
3 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to serve
1 onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 carrots, cut into fine dice
2 sticks of celery, cut into fine dice
Seasonal vegetables of your choice (at the moment a couple of handfuls of fresh peas and broad beans, 3 large leaves of Swiss chard, shredded, but any veg works)
1.5l good quality chicken stock
1 potato, cut into 2cm dice
100g cooked and drained haricot beans (or whatever bean you have)
150g pasta (I’ve used broken bits of pasta, but orzo or another small pasta is great too)
Grated parmesan and a few mint or basil leaves, to serve

Heat the oil in a heavy-based pan and add the onion and garlic, softening for 5 minutes, before adding the carrot and celery and softening further. Add the rest of the seasonal vegetables in order of cooking time (peas won’t take as long as courgette for example) and allow to soften slightly. Stir in the potato, stir for a moment, then add the stock, the cannellini beans and pasta. Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes until the potato and pasta are cooked. Season to taste, drizzle with some olive oil, a grating of parmesan and some torn mint leaves.

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June 11, 2014

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How to grow French Beans

Prone to late frosts, cold winds and slugs, now is the time to grow French beans. I planted out my climbing bean Cornetti Meraviglia di Venezia last week, but only sowed Dwarf French bean Boby Bianco in situ in the last few days. The dwarf varieties work well, allowing a bumper crop without the need for supports. They also are the best to grow if you want to extend the season and grow under cover. Beans are best sown into moist soil that is rich in organic matter, a few centimetres deep and initially under cloches. To get a succession of crops, sow every month or so until late summer. As the plants develop and get flowers, make sure that you water regularly, as this will encourage more flowers and thus more beans. A mulch of organic matter around the base of the plants helps to retain the moisture and also gives a nutritional boost to the plants. You can also use a tomato feed (or something similar like comfrey or nettle ‘tea’) to help encourage the development of more pods.

Pick the beans regularly to keep them producing. They are at their best when their slim pods hide the beans seeds perfectly, and the flesh snaps crisply. If you’re unable to devour all the beans available when they’re at their best, just blanch in boiling water for a minute or so and open-freeze, before transferring to freezer bags. They cook brilliantly from frozen when needed.

Beans also do a great job of improving the soil even after their harvest. They enrich the soil by fixing nitrogen in nodules of bacteria on their roots. To capture this nutritional boost, cut off the stems of the plants at ground level when they have finished cropping, leaving the roots to enrich the soil.

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June 8, 2014

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allotment, The Macro Allotment

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The Macro Allotment

In June, as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them. ~Aldo Leopold

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June 1, 2014

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June at Plot 4

May, of all the months, seems to fly by. I don’t know what it is, but it always seem to be a month that happens; before you even realise your in it. In terms of the allotment, it’s the month when everything grows. Everything including the weeds. In fact, I’m sure the weeds grow quicker. Still, there are benefits to this growth spurt; flowers emerge, bulbs swell and fruit forms.

Finally the allotment has started to offer us a reliable harvest. The broad beans that I planted way back in October/November have done brilliantly, perhaps aided by the mild winter. We’ve been picking them for a couple of weeks now and we’ve still got lots to go and another row or two developing. Those spring sowings are not quite doing as well as the overwintered variety, but hopefully the warm weather of June will help bring them on and even allow us a cheeky final sowing! Salad leaves have been doing well, although the leaves I sowed in the greenhouse were decimated by extreme heat one day (all shrivelled and crispy). The Swiss chard continues to give us a supply, as does the spinach, although both are beginning to go to seed now the weather hots up. This month has also seen me channelling my inner forager, with nettles for a risotto and elderflowers for cordial being harvested. The elderflowers in particular look like they will give a good harvest, so I must get round to making some more cordial, or even champagne and fritters. Oh yes, and we harvested the first strawberry (from the greenhouse) the other day!

As with last month, there’s been a lot of sowing going on. Various crops haven’t taken a liking to the heat in the greenhouse on some of the days, or my erratic watering, and have suffered as a result. So, I need to sow some more climbing beans and peas. I also want to get some dwarf beans started; they’re a family favourite, but have somehow got through the seed ordering and sowing net. Outside, there’s more rows of carrots to sow and I’ve got some great purple cauliflower to sow too. Towards the end of the month it will be time to sow Florence fennel seeds too. These delicious bulbs cost so much in the shops, so I’m hoping to grow them at the plot successfully and save myself a few quid.

A lot of the jobs for this month are related to keeping the crops growing. So weeding, watering, mulching and general maintenance of the plants will be a key job. The warm weather we’re due means it’s time to plant out the ever increasing squashes and courgettes. I’ve prepared the soil already, but will add a bit more organic matter before planting them out. Hopefully, we’ll be enjoying a plentiful supply of courgettes and winter squash well into the latter part of the year. In addition, we have discovered a big leak in our pond which means that most of the water has drained out. The newts and a few tadpoles seem to be happy enough in the remaining concentrated soup of a pond, but I think if we can reline the pond all will be a lot happier! Any ideas on a cheap way to get a suitable pond liner?

This post is contributing to The Garden Share Collective; an international group of bloggers who share their vegetable patches, container gardens and the herbs they grow on their window sills.

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May 20, 2014

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allotment

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Wheelbarrow Planter

I’m always keeping my eyes open for different containers to grow crops in. Recently I’ve come across a couple of old wheelbarrows; abandoned and rusty, they are sad versions of their former working selves. They still serve a purpose though. They can hold soil, and as the bottoms are not rusted, a few drilled holes provide the necessary drainage. One of the wheelbarrows has been turned into a strawberry planter. Where once there were bricks and gravel, now there is lush green foliage, white flowers and the little green fruit of the developing strawberries. The berries are rapidly ripening and I had visions of being able to wheel the barrow around the plot, taking the fruit to whoever fancied the delight of picking fresh strawberries. Unfortunately, the weight of the soil, and the rusty wheel didn’t allow it. We’ll just have to go to the strawberries.

The other barrow has been sown with carrots. Its added height hopefully means that the dreaded carrot fly won’t detect the roots and damage the crop. I’ve sown little spherical Parisian carrots, so the lack of depth shouldn’t be a problem, and the fact it’s a container has allowed me to use a better draining soil (lots of sand imported) than the heavy clay we usually have. Now to find another wheelbarrow and see what I can put in it.

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May 16, 2014

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allotment

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Van Gogh’s Sunflowers Can Be Yours

There’s a reason I’m sure that Vincent Van Gogh painted sunflowers. Many experts believe he suffered from bi-polar disorder, and the sunflowers he saw in the fields of Arles must have given him hope in some of his darkest times. They are certainly one of my favourite flowers to grow on the allotment; providing both colour and height, as well as being a great source of food for both insects and birds.

This year we’ve grown a range of sunflowers, from the massive (well, meant to be) Russian Giant, to much smaller red varieties. Sunflowers need full sun; perhaps as much as 6-8 hours of direct sunlight per day is needed – the more the better really. They need a well-drained location, and as they are heavy feeders, you’ll need to incorporate a load of organic matter into the soil too. I use a combination of some home made compost and a scattering of chicken manure pellets. I tend to sow seeds in a similar mix, then transplant the seedlings when they are about 15cm. Apparently, if you want gigantic sunflowers the trick is to sow them in situ (so as not to damage the tap root when planting out). I don’t tend to do this as I find the slugs and snails at the plot take a liking to the small seedlings, with disastrous consequences.

As they grow, the plants need support for the stem. This can be done by placing a cane near the stem and loosely tying the cane to the plant with string. Make sure the cane is the correct size, its easier to give a big cane to a small seedling and watch it grow, than to swap a small cane for a larger one. Sown in the next week or so, they will produce beautiful radiant flowers in August. Something to cheer up anyone’s day.

I’m also dead chuffed to be shortlisted in the FOOD category for the BIBS (Brilliance in Blogging Award). If you think I deserve to be in the final then please vote for me by clicking on the picture below. Thank you for all your support!