Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

We have had sooooo much snow over the last couple of days which has settled comfortablyon the overwintering onions in the back garden. The soil is pretty much just compost so it is ok to dig this time of year, although it would be if i had anything to take out! We put some rhubarb in in the back bed which we got from my Auntie - in - law last weekend…i’m by no means an expert on it and didn’t get chance to do any reading over Christmas, but i will!

I have decided after much deliberation, and careful observation of the plot, not to keep the new allotment, and just to help my friend with his. We had a bonfire/fireworks night last Saturday at his allotment, and wandered down to check the state of mine.

It was boggy to say the least, and we had hardly has any rain! Myself and The Mrs. have decided that we should concentrate our efforts in the back garden on a few vegetables and do them well. I think the issue last year was that we tried to grow too many different things and didn’t really give anything a proper go.

So the plan for next year is:

Bed 1: Onions - just loads of lovely heat treated sets to go with the Japanese ones we’ve got in at the moment.

Bed 2: Carrots (2/3) and Parsnips (1/3) - we eat these the most of anything i think so it makes sense to grow more of them than anything else. They will be staggered over time to enable a continuous crop.

Bed 3: Courgette (at one end), Squash (at the bottom) and Sweetcorn (up high) - a good use of space i think…need to get over not being able to grow many sweetcorn plants due to slug attack!

Bed 4: Peas, Cauliflowers and Swedes - A bit of a mixed bed throughout the year but i think we’ve had enough of caterpillar infested broccoli plants. With such a small amount of space, it makes sense to grow stuff we know will survive.

Buckets - Potatoes - loads of em!

Down the allotment there will be a lot more sweetcorn, loads of onions and some beetroot among other things which i keep being told i should try!

It seems i have a dilemma… I phoned the ‘allotment lady’ yesterday to put my name down on the plot we are helping out with, and by, chance asked if there were any derelict plots that no one else would take on.

She said ‘Yes.’

‘Brilliant,’ I replied. ‘Can i have it? For free, as it is derelict?’

‘You are 100th on the list Mr. Vegmonkey, there are 100 people before you. We have plans to put loads of topsoil on the plot as it is lower than the rest, and gets very waterlogged.’

‘I understand that Mrs Allotment Lady, but if no one else wants it i can save you the trouble and cost.’

‘Ok, you can have it.’

So we’ve got a plot. I’m sure other people have got to this stage with it too, but i like to think i can do better. Instinct says don’t bother, but there’s a bigger, more naggy part that has more of a vision! I haven’t got a picture to post but here’s a brief run down.

Positives

1. A full size plot. About 6m across and a good 25m long. That’s a big estimate. It’s a really decent size.

2. There is a wheelbarrow! Yey! Also, there are lots of slabs that can be used for paths.

3. There are two hazel trees, one on either side, which i am eying for bean canes!

4. There is not too much waste on the site and it is not really overgrown. I can strim then burn what is there and rotavate the soil using my mates rotavator.

5. I can drive up to the plot…access is excellent, and it is right by the compost toilet. It is also a 10 minute walk or 5 minute drive from home.

6. There may be some drainage work being done near the plot in the future by the council.

7. It would mean I could grow things like Potatoes, beans and squash without the restriction of space in the back garden. The plot in the garden could then be used solely for little stuff like carrots, parsnips, leaves etc

Negatives

1. The plot is low down…it is waterlogged. It has had 6 raised beds on it which have rotted. It needs a lot of topsoil putting on it, which i don’t have (have put an advert on freecycle)

2. The plot has a lot of waste wood on it, in a large pile.

3. It is right by the compost toilet (this has to go in both!).

4. Do i have the time?

So there we are. It is obvious the positives far outweigh the negatives, but the biggest negative is huge. How can i grow anything on the plot if it is waterlogged. Hmmmm….

Any opinions or experience welcome!

A friend of mine recently asked if we wanted to help with his allotment as he has been really busy with his landscape gardening business and he’d had a call from the local allotment officer questioning the amount of very tall weeds!

So the Mrs. and I agreed to help him out with it. So far all that has meant has been a load of weeding, digging over the potato bed to discover the gold beneath and planting a load of Japanese Senshyu Onions. We are off down on Saturday to have a bit of a bonfire i think, but no firm plans as yet.

It nice to have a bit more space to expand into, and things like squash and courgettes will probably remain at the clay soiled lottie from now on, with the excellent soil at home being used more for things like carrots and parsnips.

We’ve been happily eating purple sprouting broccoli, cabbage and brussel sprouts this last month, regularly. We can see our veg plot clearly from the back garden and, just recently, i have started to see changes in the shape of the plants. At first i thought it was some of the leaves dying back, but on closer inspection we have an infestation.

This happened last year, so i bought a moderately expensive enviromesh sheet and some metal poles to cover the brassicas, which the beasties love so much. I took this off last month as i thought all the butterflies has disappeared, but it seems they hadn’t.

Problem is, i can’t get at the veg when the bed is covered, but if i take it off, stuff gets eaten! Not sure what the solution is to be honest, i thought the butterflies stopped laying when the weather got colder, but it seems the Indian Summer we have been having of late has brought them back out.

I hate to say it, but i may have to stop growing brassicas apart from the small ones such as cabbage and cauliflowers that are easily accessible, and can be kept covered throughout the year. Anyone else have an organic solution!?

I think we’re getting more produce from the garden at the moment, than we have all year. I’m starting to take finished crops out at the moment and cover the ground for Winter to stop all the weed seeds blowing in like last year and ruining the start of Spring.

The runner beans have come out…i was going to leave some pods on the plant so that they dried out and we could use the seeds next year, but the plant had been so trashed by the wind it looked unsightly. If this had been at the allotment, then maybe it would have been different, but it looked a mess!

The squash has also come out. I’d heard about Uchiki Kuri a while ago and wanted to try it. It had an amazing taste, very nutty, quite unique but the plant didn’t produce nearly enough of a crop to justify the space.  I think i’m going to attempt a little guerrilla gardening with the squash next year (planting veg in unused public spaces and harvesting it if it grows…watch this space).

On the other side of things, the Japanese Onions are growing well and we are harvesting things like Brussels Sprouts, Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Carrots (which are mostly going into tomorrow nights carrot cake!) and spinach/chard.

It’s half term next week, so i will try and get a few pics up. There might even be one of the lottie!

We’ve decided, after much discussion, to slow down on vegmonkey and the mrs. fro a while. We have so much on with other commitments at the moment (my job teaching being the main one and the mrs. is currently studying for a CIM course…a marketing qualification i’m told!) that time is really not there for a proper job to be done, and there’s nothing worse than a half-arsed blog!

There will be updates every now and again, maybe once every three weeks to a month, but nothing like as regular as the last year and a half.

We also, sort of, have taken on an allotment. It’s only three streets away from where we live, and is tendered by our good friend Mat. He got a call from some not so friendly allotment people recently who told him to sort out his weed problem! So we’ve agreed to work together on it. I got some onions in last weekend, but that’s about it for now, i think we will cover it for the winter although there was talk about trying to get some Kale in. With the garden here, and the allotment there, there may be quite a large amount of produce next year! More details to follow…

Finally, i’ve started a business to keep me entertained during the summer months when everyone is getting married and give me a little pocket money at www.bigeyephotography.co.uk. The second wedding has just gone up and i’m really happy with it…our friends seemed to be too! I just need to work out the best place in Cheltenham to advertise now…

So we aren’t disappearing, just taking a little break…i’ll update on the garden soon!

Well it’s how the Mrs does it anyway. I’m pretty crap at it if i’m honest, they end up sort of hanging off the string in no real semblance of order. I’m gonna write ‘we ‘ though cos i was there taking pictures! I’ve been meaning to post this for ages as there really isn’t a definitive guide online that i can find, so here it is!!! It’s a shame, they looked quite nice laid out on the wire rack.

We started with a piece of string that was about a metre and a half long and tied the ends together. We then hung it from the shed door so that we could easily tie the onions onto it.

The first one is the hardest. The neck needs to be wound in a figure of eight about 4 or 5 times, and then pushed down towards the bottom of the string. This will be the base of the string. Any surplus ends can be trimmed off when the string has been finished.

The second onion is wound in a figure of eight about 3 times, opposite the first one. This enables the onions to be evenly spaced around the string, rather than in one long line, and wil fit more on. I think it looks very ‘traditional’ like this, and looks great hanging off the kitchen door.

The third up to the last are the same. They need to be carefully wound round as shown below and pushed down towards the rest. Be careful not to leave any gaps as they will show up later.

I think we tied on about 25 - 30 onions onto the one string, which means they are now compact and easy to store…much better than bagging or tying them individually. The pic below show the finished onion string, tied before we trimmed all the rubbish and loose ends off, and after. I hope this has been useful, please leave a comment if it has…or even if it has not!

…and it tasted blummin’ fantastic. We put it in boiling water for about 5 minutes, took it out and ate it with a large knob of butter on our plate. The earwigs had just started to take hold, so i think we got it at just the right time!

As we were having some friends over, i decided to cook a roast dinner using as much as i could from the garden. The only thing we didn’t have was potatoes, as we’ve eaten our entire harvest! In the pic is squash, savoy cabbage, a load of spinach and ruby red chard, carrots, onions (red and white), beans, courgettes, sweet peppers and tomatoes.

We had a little turkey with it, but it was hardly spottable in the sea of veg!

The Uchiki Kuri squash hasn’t been as productive as i had hoped in the end, the two plants have only produced four biggish fruits so far, and have taken up quite a lot of space to do so. The courgettes have been so much more productive. I think next year (yep, i’m thinking about it already!) i’ll plant 4 squash plants, so they can just intertwine and grow over the whole space.

The ones we’ve had though have tasted absolutely amazing, a very unique taste, whether roasted or fried.