Tips
You are currently browsing the articles from 5 rods matching the category Tips.
I don’t mean to spoil what is left of the summer by raising the spectre of the cold, damp, dark, depressing months to come, but it is time to start thinking ahead and preparing the ground for what will fill the spaces left by the potatoes, courgettes, corn and so on once they’ve all been pulled up, harvested and gone.
Of course, to be sure of having plants to fill these spaces, the preparation needs to have started some months ago when the seed should have been sown in modules. In spite of my best intentions, however, I have once again not managed to produce my own brassica or leek seedlings and am in danger of having an empty plot over the winter months and an empty larder next spring.
Am I despairing? Certainly not. All is not lost. I have not got this far in life without discovering that there are few disasters that can’t be repaired by going shopping and if you happen to find yourself in the same boat as me then read on and rejoice.
There are plenty of safety nets out there for allotmenteers as unskilled or disorganised as me, or for those who have recently taken on plots and need plants quickly to fill recently cultivated beds. Delfland Nurseries caters for those of us who try to be organic by providing plug plants and seedlings all year round, and at reasonable prices (no, I’m not on commission). True, it will always be cheaper to grow your brassicas from seed yourself, but at £1.50 for 5 cabbages, they’re still pretty reasonable. Alternatively, Dobies are tried and tested (though not, I think organic) and seem to get good results - we had some lovely over-wintering onions from them last year.
So, a plot full of healthy, thriving vegetables with minumum effort. What more could you want?
Written by Pumpkinsouper on August 16th, 2006 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on Tips.
My first attempt at plaiting garlic. The second one is better, you’ll have to turst me on that.
The instructions on how to do it were given to me by a fellow allotmenteer.
Instructions here
Written by exmonkey on July 5th, 2006 with 2 comments.
Read more articles on Tips.
This from a Flickr friend….
Since ethylene helps with ripening you might want to put these next to some bananas, maybe in a paper bag.
I have pasted some info on ripening green maters below:
red tomato pigments, lycopene and carotene, are not produced above 29 degrees C nor lycopene below 10 degrees C
Extended exposure to cool temperatures interferes with ripening and flavor development
Store mature green tomatoes at 10 to 21 degrees C. Once fruit is fully ripe, it can be stored at 7 to 10 degrees C with a relative humidity of 90 – 95%.
Ripening enzymes are destroyed by cold temperatures whether in the garden or in a refrigerator
Ripen tomatoes in well-ventilated, open cardboard boxes at room temperature checking them every few days to eliminate those that may have spoiled. Mature green tomatoes will ripen in 14 days at 21 degrees C and 28 days at 10 degrees C.
Written by exmonkey on July 5th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Tips.
Taking on an allotment can be a daunting thing. All that space, often overgrown and neglected to start with, can seem impossibly huge once you’re responsible for taming it. Many people working full time or who have young families struggle to visit often enough and for long enough for them to be able to see results quickly. It’s easy to lose heart.
A really good way of making a visible difference quickly is to enlist the help of a group of friends. A large posse will get more done in one afternoon than you could manage on your own over the entire growing season. Needless to say, they need to be very good friends and you should be prepared to bribe reward them for their efforts.
Having very recently inflicted just this kind of activity on my own pals, I’d like to pass on the following tips for an enjoyable and productive day:
- Book a date well in advance so that your friends have lots of notice and space in their diaries and you will end up with more personnel. Long term planning does mean that you will be gambling with the weather, so choose a relatively summery time of year, cross your fingers and suggest people bring waterproofs just in case.
- Keep your workers happy - take plenty of supplies of food and drink. think carefully about whether alcohol is worth having during or after the event. Only you know which will better motivate your crew.
- If possible, plan the day around a particular project such as erecting a shed or greenhouse, building raised beds or rotovating the plot. People will enjoy the day much more if they can see that this is a big job that you would have struggled with on your own, and there will be a real sense of achievement when the job is done.
- That said, try to have a range of smaller tasks and activities available that people can do if they start to get bored. Your team is more likely to stay around for longer if they are kept interested.
- Finally, don’t take it too seriously. Have a laugh, take photos, tell jokes, get covered in mud. It’s not just about getting work done, it’s also about having fun.
Written by Pumpkinsouper on May 29th, 2006 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on Tips.
We harvested our first crop of salad last week and I have to say that it was incredibly good. However, even after soaking it very well in a deep bowl of water I came close to ingesting a slug on two occasions. I’m thinking that next time I will soak the salad in lightly salted water to see what happens. I think I would prefer to keep the slugs off the plants completely rather than run the risk of eating one, so I went looking for tips in my handy Trade Secrets book.
How to keep the slugs at bay:
:: Open a Slug Pub. I think we all know about sinking a container half filled with beer in the ground.
:: Smear Vaseline around the edge of puts so the slugs can’t climb over and attack the plants
:: Scatter crushed eggshells around young plants so that slugs can’t crawl to them
:: Ash, hawthorn twigs and holly leaves scattered around will stop slugs crawling to your plants
:: After having greased the edge of your pots, don’t place them too close to the wall or the slugs will just climb up and leap in
:: Smear lettuce or cabbage leaves with lard and leave them lying around. When they are covered with slugs, just throw them away
:: Encourage frogs onto your allotment or keep a couple in your greenhouse
I’m not sure if any of these will work but they would be worth a try. Feel free to add any more suggestions.
Written by stephen007 on May 26th, 2006 with 5 comments.
Read more articles on Tips.
This morning, I managed to clear a bit of bind weed & horse tail infested plot to sow some parsley and coriander seeds.
Both parsley and coriander prefer slightly shadey positions, so they have been sown at the back of the plot in front of the jerusalem artichokes.
The parsley cost me £1.50 from the garden center - the coriander seeds, however, cost 90p from Sainsburys. Someone told me that many of the seeds in spice refils you can get from supermarkets will germinate, so at a 1/4 the price by weight, I thought I’d give it a go.
Last year I sucessfully grew some sweet peppers from the seeds of a Sainsburys ‘taste the difference’ range red pepper and I have my fingers crossed after putting some onion squash seeds in pots obtained from a squash I bought last year at the farmer’s market.
Written by exmonkey on May 22nd, 2006 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on General and Tips.
If there are any abandoned or overgrown plots in your allotments, have a look around them to see what you find. Apart from the ubiquitous stingy nettles and blackberry you might find something more interesting. A quick scout around ours turned up some horseradish and sweet cicely, both of which are edible. It’s important to identify the plant correctly as some poisonous plants look very like edible varieties. There are a number of books to help with identification but I recently bought the very useful Food for Free by Richard Mabey. As well as helping to identify the plants, it also gives a bit of history and, in some cases, help on how to prepare them.
It makes sense to ensure that the plot really is abandoned so that you don’t get accused of invading someone else’s patch.
Written by stephen007 on May 19th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Tips.
feedburner
