Archive for August, 2005

Thanks to St Joseph’s School

August 14th, 2005

Thanks to St Joseph’s School children, teachers and parents for their letter of appreciation for the help given on their plot. The photos of the children proudly displaying their first harvest were delightful and will be displayed at the next WASHa meeting. Here’s an extract from the note:

“Thank you and all our allotment friends for your help this far. We have been up to our plot with the children and watered and harvested. the beetroot and potatoes were cooked for the children to taste and of course, peas straight from the pod! It was fantastically successful and we think the children will remember it all their lives. There is a watering rota organised until the end of summer and we will be back first week in September. The beans are in and we will harvest as we go. Parents have donated £18 towards seeds and tools for next year.”

Attention all those newcomers to the top of the high path who were hoping to use the one remaining tap on the top supply line! The stop cock has been removed and the pipeline dug up. So much for encouraging allotmenting!

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Jobs for the month (August 2005)

August 1st, 2005

  1. The planting season is drawing to an end and it’s full scale harvesting now.  Here’s a planting check list.  Your leeks, purple sprouting, and winter cabbage and cauliflower should all be transplanted out now and your Brussels should be well advanced.  They won’t be a lot of trouble but don’t neglect them.  Keep them weeded and free of pests.  These are going to see you through the winter providing fresh green veg.  Latest medical news tells us that as little as 1.5 oz of broccoli per day helps fight cancer.  We plotholders who are grandparents find our fresh veg much in demand for the youngsters.
  2. Now is the time to sow your overwintering or ‘Japanese’ onions.  Senshu is a good variety.  Sow the seeds the same way as spring onions.  The trick is to get them to germinate in the continuing dry weather.  The clay soil has dried out very quickly the summer this year.  No matter how fine and friable soil used to cover the seeds has been, it has soon formed a hard pan.  The small seed has difficulty pushing through from below and water from above just runs off.  I’ve noticed that some plotholders have started replacing the covering soil with peat.  This is proving successful.  The peat, unlike the clay soil, stays soft and crumbly.  Once the ‘Japanese’ onions get a good start, they survive winter and will be ready to eat in June.  They are the sweetest juiciest onions and can’t be bought in shops.  It’s worth hedging your bets and planting some of the sets as well.  They’ll be appearing in the gardening shops later this month.
  3. Other seeds that can go in now and survive the winter are chard and spring onions.  Why are they called spring onions?
  4. It’s potato harvesting time.  Most plotholders grow earlies only and don’t bother with maincrop for storage so their spuds are out and eaten before the slugs and blight get a hold.  However if you are harvesting maincrop for storage here are a few tips.  Choose a dry day, expose the freshly dug tubers to the sun for a few hours to let the skin toughen, inspect closely and only reserve perfect tubers for storage, then make sure the storage container is dry, porous  and free from light.
  5. Are your beans and courgettes coming to an end?  They don’t keep on producing till the first frost so remember this next year and plant for succession.  Too late now!
  6. crops last year.  What’s happened to them?
  7. Need more compost?  Use an old bottomless 44 gallon drum or similar, bring up all your household scraps, paper, cardboard, throw in all your weeds and vegetable waste, use the bags of grass cuttings Malcolm leaves near the shed and eventually you will have a drum of  – soil.  Forget all the gardening programs with their smug presenters running peat-like ‘compost’ through their fingers.  No, your drum will have what looks like normal soil in it.  It’s best to put a wire rack over the wheelbarrow as you empty the drum into it to take out the non-organic waste which even the best trained family will have thrown in.  Vacuum cleaner bags are worst!  What are they made of?  This stuff is still the best soil improver of all and costs nothing.
  8. This is the month of surplus.  Share your bounty!

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