January 2010 Allotment Update (or" 'ere we goo agin bor!")

I thought I had better start with a fresh sheet this year! An attempt by myself to re-cap on 2 years of growing veg on my allotment was never going to get done, so I have decided to start again from scratch.

And where better to start than January.

With a very small exception, all my Cacti and Lithops in the Greenhouse are dead. The temperatures dropped down so low here in the last period of bad weather that I stood NO (0) chance of heating the greenhouse sufficiently to prevent the temperature dropping to well below freezing. My heater is simply not good enough, and considering the fuel consumption of 1 greenhouse heater, I was not prepared to spend the additional cash on another heater and its associated fuel costs. The Cacti were one victim of the 'Recession'

So I hoped for the best....and lost.

I will try again if I can wire the greenhouse up to the mains. Then I will buy a Fan Heater.

I cleaned it out and then fumigated it with a sulphur candle.

I had been trying (or meaning) to get into the Greenhouse to get some seeds in pots from New Years Day, but this didn't happen, for one reason or the other, till Sunday 24th January.

I have sown 20 seeds of Broad Bean 'Aquadulce Claudia' in small pots with poly bags over the top, and placed them on Daniel's windowsill (south facing). This will give me a reasonable amount of beans that will crop first, earlier than the maincrop.

I also sowed 5 seeds each of the following Chilli variety. 'Ring of Fire', 'Long Habanero','Birds Eye', 'Caribbean Red', 'Khorika' (a mild big one, like a sweet pepper taste), 'Orange Habanero', and 'Naga Morich' (which is apparently one of the hottest buggers around!), and good old 'Peter Pepper', which did throw some oddly penis shaped peppers, but not quite what I was expecting considering all the hype.

I have had such success with chilli's in the greenhouse I am going into production for James' shop to see if I can get the cost of the seeds and compo and pots back.

I also sowed a tray of 'Ailsa Craig' onions, to see if I could grow some show quality onions from seed. I will let you know how I get on.

The seed potatoes are ordered, but this year I have stuck to a few well known varieties, as last year there were too many varieties, leading to too many small spuds that did not keep. I chose from last years most successful types, and adjusted things a bit, and this year chose 'Desiree', 'Rooster' (both maincrop) , 'Home Guard' first earlies and a couple of other types that I can't remember. I will list those when they come in.

I also need to get some 'Mayan Twilight' seed spuds from T&Morgan. They make lurvely chips.

I have bought my onion sets. I got 100 'Sturon', 25 'Red Baron', 50 'Stuttgarter', 50 'Red Sun' shallots and 50 'Golden Gourmet' shallots. That should give me enough onions!

I also bought another rake of seeds....I have stacks of different things to try, and only so much time and space to grow it all!!! I won't list the seeds. It would get tedious.

The land itself is still too wet to work, but if I get a warm weekend, and my bad ankle sorts itself out I will start tidying up.

The Allotment is in 3 separate plots. Plot 1 is 1/2 of a full plot I share with James next door. This has my Asparagus (which needs cutting back and weeding, and tidying), my Strawberry beds (ditto), my Raspberry canes (ditto) and my Jerusalem Artichoke bed (ditto). Thats the first 4 things that need to be done URGENTLY before everything starts to grow again. A week of warm weather, and the sap will start to move!

Plot 1 also has space to grow annual crops, and last year had my Brassica Cage (which is still there with my Kale 'Nero De Toscana' (still growing and edible) my Cabbages 'Kiloton' (frozen through and sadly inedible, but I only lost 5), and my remaining stands of Brussel Sprouts 'Trafalgar' (which did not form very big sprouts due to the lack of water on the allotment site, which has thankfully now been sorted).

It also grew 1/2 of my onions (which we still have some of) my Garlic (which is still OK) and a courgette plant 'One Ball' (round yellow courgettes).

After sorting out the Perennial crops listed above, and when we have eaten the Kake and Brussells, the plan will be to strip that cage down and rotovate the plot over. It will then be where I will grow my Runner beans, French Beans, Butternuts and Marrows/Courgettes and Pumpkins. This plot has obviously not all been mucked (except where the onions were) as it had standing Brassicas in when I needed to muck, but Beans and Squashes can have beds of compost and muck dug in below them just before planting.

Plot 2 has got Sammy's herb patch (needs weeding), my Leeks (excellent) and my Autumn Garlic, which appears to have survived the snow. When the Leeks come up I will use this as my Bumble Bee patch. The rest of the plot will be used as my Brassica / Carrott / Parsnip / Onion plot.

Plot 3 (the newest plot) will be solely for spuds.

Simples!