The Organic question at least.

I’ve been somewhat troubled down the plot recently.

For example, what is it with the blackflies this year? I whipped my broad beans out really early, in fact almost before I’d had the first crop, because the flies were depressing me, but now the runner beans have got it bad. Since when have runner beans suffered with black fly?

I’ve tried soapy water but they appear to be sticking two fingers up at me.

Then there are the tomatoes. Watering is a bit of an issue at the moment. I just can’t get to the plot more than twice a week and that is just not enough for under cover, grow bag enclosed tomatoes. I went last week and had to perform assorted resuscitation techniques on some very withered plants and then went to the garden centre in search of life support machines for neglected crops.

I came back with a battery operated timer system, which, so far so good, seems to be performing the necessary miracles. Its linked up to my sprinkler system and saturates the greenhouse for 30 minutes every 24 hours. Perfect antidote to my neglect but also provides the ideal conditions for proliferation of Phytophthora infestans or Blight of the dreaded variety.

I’m going through the same thought process as allotment blogger who is wondering whether to go for a prophylactic spray with copper or sit still and remain principled.

I’m not sure how I feel about copper, it may well be your everyday sort of metal but how does it sit on a plateful of lettuce and tomato? It brings to mind plaques, fatty tangles and early onset dementia. Possibly best avoided.

Maybe bugs and fungi aren’t all that troublesome after all. I have a feeling that I may have ingested a pea complete with maggot on the plot this evening and to be fair, it was rather delish! Now if only I could stop picturing the pulsing grub I could remain fine and principled.

These peas that I mention were the much anticipated 10ft telegraph poles (or some such) and have proven to be a big let down. 4 plants out of maybe 50 seeds, sown on 3 separate occasions, grew to the giddy heights of 3 ft and produced merely a garnish of greenery for todays tea.

It might have been somewhat more impressive than a garnish if it had not been for the holes, and creepy crawlies emanating from said holes.

I don’t want to say too much for fear of Lynn reading this after I’ve fed her but the only gigantic thing about these peas were the maggots feeding upon it. I’ve never seen the like before. I had to squash one before relegating it to the bin and the effects were “medical” to put it politely.

I’ve always gone for the maxim: “one for me, one for the pigeons, another for the grubs, slugs and others”. Unfortunately the latter are having more than their fair share and I also have a few more mouths to feed.

Which leads me back to the original question, to be or not to be?

More pondering required.

This monster flew into the path of our barbeque a couple of weekends ago. Here he is, positioning himself nicely to go on the spit roast.

We were in an area of South West London where sightings of stag beetles aren’t that infrequent. Apparently there was a tract of ancient woodland nearby and as we all know stag beetles particularly like their ancient bits of decayed wood.

I reported the siting on the the “What’s in my back yard” WIMBY Tool and then headed over to the The Stag Beetle Project to see if there was anything I could do to encourage the big monsters on to my plot.
The advice seems to focus on:

• building a loggery of discarded hardwood somewhere on the plot
• checking ponds for floundering bugs around their flying season, May - June

According to the WIMBY tool, there have been no recorded sitings of stag beetles around my allotment site since 1998!

I better start collecting logs now.

We’re only getting alternate weekends down on the plot at the moment, so it’s a great blessing when we manage to coincide with the good weather, although after 5 hours of meddling in the mud and sun this Saturday I was fit to drop. Good job we had an extended weekend to recover.

I spent most of those hours pottering in the greenhouse we resurrected on our last visit. It’s just about hanging on in there but looks like a very well worn teddy, complete with stitching and bandages - I don’t think I’ll manage to squeeze another season out of the plastic covering.

I banked all the sides up (inside and out) with old and new grow bags to try and protect it from the ravages of the wind and then set to, planting 15 assorted tomato plants and experimenting with an array of self-watering gadgetry and fancy supports.

The first watering system I tried out was the “Growtube” but my bottle reservoir just evacuated its contents within the space of about 45 seconds and resulted in most of the contents of the grow bag spewing over the sides. I was reasonably happy with the alternative bottle attachment you can see in the right hand side of this photo. It at least held the water for the 5 hours I was watching it. So long as it hasn’t got a permanent blockage I shall be happy.

While I was sweltering under the polythene, Lynn was out in the open, constructing stuff that actually has some sturdiness about it.

The plot won’t know what hit it.

We now have a bean support system that doesn’t look as though it will crack under the weight of the first two pods, a peculiarly creative broad bean “thingy” and a stretch of wind break that will offer further protection to the rapidly decaying greenhouse.

I’m feeling quite happy with the plot at the moment. We seem to have got on top of the situation and set ourselves up for a good growing season.

The challenge now will be to keep on top of the watering and find enough space, that hasn’t already been colonised by the ubiquitous onion sets, to grow actual food. I’ve got 12 squash seedlings in the greenhouse but have no clue of where to put them, perhaps I need to get myself on the waiting list for a second, dedicated, squash plot.

Most of this months pictures were the result of one weekend’s endeavours.

A two pronged assault during a sunny break in the middle of the month proved to be an excellent opportunity for pulling the plot together.

Weeds were pulled, beans were planted and my resident constructionist re-built last years rather poorly looking greenhouse. The plot looks like a growing environment once again!

Here’s an almost wordless month in pictures update. I’m so far behind that I’m cramming 3 months into one mosaic and as I didn’t seem to make it to the plot much in those first 3 months, there isn’t a lot to say.

As you know from previous posts, spring has been creeping up and catching me all out of sorts on the plot. My digging and general pottering time has been a little curtailed this year and as a result all my horticultural efforts seem to be taking me further and further away from award winning standards. The weeds grow at rates at least double that of my hoeing cadence and the slugs procreate at unfathomable speeds.

I’ve never managed to impress my mother with my tidy standards, and by that I mean that dust has been known to settle in my flat, so it is no real surprise that my plot has begun to look a little run down with the neglect. Baler twine and discarded fleece has built up in piles next to multiple hacked apart plastic bottles and although I’m sure they will all be vitally important one day it is actually beginning to drag down the general ambience.

Fortunately I had the foresight to drag Lynn down on the plot on Saturday, her vaguely OCD tendancies resulted in a whirlwind cleaning session, in which plastic and mucky stuff could not be saved. Old compost bags were stuffed with debris and then I introduced her to the hoe…… these are fabulous tools for lovers of all things tidy. While I can get easily fed up and leave a bed only half weeded, Lynn refused to allow us to leave the plot until the entire area had been weeded and had passed “certain standards”.

All that took more than 4 hours and my back was breaking at the end of it, but then the results were rather pleasing.

I like tidy people, they are very welcome on my plot.

We couldn’t walk so well for the next few days but I slept well til yesterday when I started to panic again. Surely to goodness I should have had my leeks in by now? And what about the PSB?
I took an emergency day off work and managed to squeeze the grand total of 30 minutes on the plot. It was quite a successful 30 mins though.

I got in a row of leeks, purple sprouting broccoli, mixed lettuce and some early nantes carrots. We’d also had the lawnmower out for the first time this year and I was able to apply a layer of hot steamy grass clippings to my potato ridges.

I would have layered my trenches with the grassy mulch had they been available last week but I’m pretty sure they’ll work just as effectively from above. My Dad’s neighbouring plot holder grows the most enormous vegetables and his secret seems to be the application of copious amounts of grass.

Funny that Soilman should choose to leave a comment on my blog about the folly of early planting and specifically mention that parsnips don’t need to be planted yet. Before receiving the comment I’d been building myself into a crescendo of dithery panic.

We were on the plot this weekend getting in an urgent planting of spuds and a sowing of summer cabbages before the sociable Easter flurry comes upon us. I set up a mobile hotline with my Dad who was also on his plot and expected him to keep me informed of what he was planting. He mentioned ridiculous things like runner beans (he’ll be lucky!) but failed to inform me about parsnips which very clearly need planting now.

He slipped the surreptitious sowing, subtely into the conversation a few days later.

Soilman’s comment didn’t come through in time to calm me down, and anyway, Lynn had already been out on an emergency parsnip sourcing exercise and successfully provided me with some fresh tender and true seed.

So straight out of work yesterday I took a bit of a detour and managed to plant two rows of parsnips in the twilight. I’m looking forward to the clock change so I can sow my way along a semi-straight drill in daylight.

Also managed to pick another bucket of purple sprouting broccoli so the journey turned out to be quite worthwhile.

Absolutely stunning spring morning, shamefully wasted away in bed, and then followed by an afternoon trip to the plot, accompanied by a flurry of soggy hail - my favourite.

I’ve slipped into my usual March panic. The year is galloping along and I feel as though I must be behind. Surely I should have seeds bursting from the ground by now. As it is I haven’t even got round to sorting my seed packs into planting order.

If I bothered to check out last years progress I’d probably remind myself that there isn’t really much advantage to be gained from planting early. The carrots never germinate and all late sown seeds come into there own in late April/early May. I’ve still got that white rabbit panic though: “I’m late , I’m late”.

The purple sprouting broccoli has sprouted at last, the pigeon netting did the trick and I managed to pick a whole buckets worth of the delicious treats.