Annual Review (part 2).

Picking up where I left off yesterday, the next crop for the annual appraisal treatment is the strawberries-

Strawberries: 9 out of 10.
I had a lovely harvest of fat, sweet, delicious strawberries last Summer. They went down very well at home and also with a pedestrian blackbird which is often seen walking around the allotment site. Presumably it is too full of allotment produce to take off or perhaps it has a strawberry tucked under each wing. The strawberries also surprised me with a small late crop in the Autumn long after I thought they had finished for the year. I hope that the Autumn crop hasn't upset their biological clocks for production this year. The Strawberry plants have sent out a few off-shoots which have grown in my pathways. I will dig these up and re-plant them when I get round to the long overdue job of weeding the strawberry bed.

Rhubarb: 7 out of 10
The rhubarb bed, like the asparagus bed, is still in the early years of a long term project and so last year I took care to harvest conservatively so as to give the plants the best chance to get themselves well established ready to produce masses of crumble fodder for years to come.

My main criticism of the rhubarb last year was that some of the stalks were a little on the thin side. I put this down to a failure on my part to adequately feed the soil. I have sought to remedy this over the Winter by spreading a layer of compost over them along with a good barrow load and a half of manure. I feared the worst at the end of March. Where other plot-holders had good early growth of thick red stems and luscious green leaves I had nothing more than a pile of dung and a huge thistle.

My neighbour Rick took pity on me. His rampant rhubarb was on the march and was threatening to occupy a vast area of his plot. He fought it back with the flashing blade of his spade and presented me with a huge chunk of root which was sprouting some healthy looking stalks. Within a week of planting Rick's rhubarb, in a spot next to the greenhouse, my own rhubarb bed dragged itself out of hibernation and it is now shooting proudly and relentlessly skywards as if to mock me for ever doubting it.

Carrots: 6 out of 10
I had mixed results with carrots last year. I found that the above ground appearance of the carrot gives no reliable indication as to what you can expect to find growing underground. It was often the case that I would take a firm hold of a large bushy green carrot top expecting to tug and tease a long length of orange root out of the ground only to find that the masses of verdant bush were attached to nothing more than a two inch tiddler which resembled a well worn Ikea pencil. On other occasions I would take hold of a weak looking carrot top with the intention of thinning it out from the row only to find a fully grown, perfectly shaped carrot attached.

Late on in the season some of the carrots were attacked by carrot fly grubs but the carrots had grown so large as to still leave a decent edible portion for me even after the blackened carrot fly tainted area had been excised.

I will persevere with carrots this year, not least because they are a vital ingredient in my beetroot chutney. I have already sown three rows of carrots in a manure free raised bed and I will sow more over the coming weeks. At the moment the carrot-fly protection consists of a fleece tunnel over the carrots and a row of onions surrounding the bed but when I get some time I intend to construct a raised screen to protect the bed from carrot-fly attack.

Onions: 8 out of 10
Red onions and yellow onions grown from sets did reasonably well last year. This year I have already planted a couple of hundred sets in one of the raised beds. This is in addition to those which I have planted in the carrot bed. I still have some others to squeeze in somewhere. Learning from mistakes made in previous years I have planted the rows of onions a little further apart than is suggested on the packet. By doing this I will, hopefully, have left enough room between the rows to allow me to reach weeds with my narrow headed hoe without disturbing the onions, even when the onions have grown nice and fat.

To be continued...

Late Crop.

I spent this afternoon on the plot working on routine traditional November tasks such as dismantling the pea frames and the bean frame and generally tidying up the plot ready for Winter, oh and picking strawberries! I thought I'd picked the last of the strawberries for this year way back in July but the warm and sunny October weather has produced a surprise small crop of strawberries which were very tasty.

Bed Time

As promised in my previous blog entry (and as requested by Nina) here are a couple of photos of the vines which I planted on Good Friday. I have planted 9 Rondo vines on the allotment and I have another one to grow against a South facing garden wall at home. The vines have been imported from Germany by Winegrowers Supplies of Somerset and have come with their own plant passport which I am told I must retain. I don't know why; perhaps the vines are planning a trip abroad. The vines are grafted onto rootstock and are coated in wax. When the buds grow they will burst through the wax coating (hopefully).

The third photograph shows the three small raised beds which I have made. There are strawberries in the middle one and the others are awaiting rhubarb and asparagus.

The good news today is that the contractor has made a start on constructing the large raised beds on the site. There are about 90 beds to be built. He seems to have made some good progress today and the weather forecast for the rest of the week appears ok and so I am optimistic that by the weekend I will have three large raised beds in which to plant my onions and garlic. I should also be able to transplant a few items from my desparately overcrowded coldframe and get cracking with some direct sowing of the various seeds for the numerous varieties of salad leaf which I seem to have accumulated.

I spent yesterday afternoon disentagling the greenhouse which resembled a large christmas cracker wire puzzle. I am pleased to report that it has gone back together quite nicely. After replacing the previously loose-fitting nuts with new ones and hammering out a few kinks in the aluminium struts it seems to be significantly less flimsy than it was the first time I put it up. Once I have anchored it down to a firm base I will set about glazing it. I have not yet decided upon the best type of base to construct for my needs but my initial thoughts are that I will need to raise the height of the greenhouse by a good few inches to reduce the risk of me smashing my head through the glazed roof; I am tall and quite clumsy.

Rhubarb rhubarb!

Last week I noticed some tasty looking rhubarb stalks appearing on a few allotment plots which reminded me that the three crowns of Timperley Early Rhubarb which I had ordered from Kings in January, for delivery in March, had not arrived and so were now Timperley Late.

I 'phoned Kings. They apologised for overlooking my rhubarb order and promised to dispatch it straight away. At the weekend a parcel of funny looking rhubarb arrived from Kings. I am not a botanist but I examined the evidence and concluded that the specimens they had sent to me were in fact 12 strawberry plants (Cambridge Favourite Variety) and not rhubarb.  I reached this conclusion after reading the leaflet which arrived with the parcel which gave instructions for planting and care of strawberries. The plants were also held together with a tag which was labelled "Cambridge Favourite Strawberry".

After the Bank Holiday weekend I 'phoned Kings again. They apologised for the cock-up and told me to keep the strawberry plants. They will arrange for their wholesaler to send some rhubarb out to me as soon as possible. I have rushed home from work each night this week eager to see if the rhubarb has arrived. Unfortunately the only rhubarb which has been delivered to me has been in the form of letters, leaflets and news-letters from the local parliamentary general election candidates.

I did a bit of work on the plot over the Easter weekend. The vines were planted on Good Friday. I will post some photos when I get a minute. I have also built three small raised beds, one of which now accommodates 12 strawberry plants. The other two small beds will be for rhubarb and asparagus (or possibly pumpkins). I am still waiting for the contractor to construct the three large raised beds which were promised weeks ago and I have not yet set about seeing what can be salvaged from the tangled mess which was previously my greenhouse frame.

Yes we have no strawberries.

A parcel of seeds arrived from Kings this morning. The potatoes, asparagus and rhubarb will be coming later but today I received everything else on the list apart from the strawberry seeds. They say they are unable to supply the Temptation Strawberry seeds and have sent a credit note for £1.25 to use against my next order. Fern will be disappointed. I wasn't going to bother with strawberries but she persuaded me to let her have a small patch on the plot to grow some for herself. I'll take her to the garden centre so that she can choose her own packet.