Another five cauliflower plants had to come out this morning, following the two I removed last week. I still have about 15 plants left, so I’m hoping hard that they’ll escape the horrible disease. It seems that our allotment plot is riddled with club root, and I will have to review my planting choices next year to include more F1 hybrids with club root resistance, or give brassicas a break completely.
On a more positive note, the F1 Kilaxy cabbages that I planted (in the same bed as those pesky cauliflowers) have grown extremely well and are nearing eating point.
Written by The Little Green House on July 18th, 2006 with no comments.
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The harvest is in full swing now. The courgettes especially, they seem to double in size every night.
Written by exmonkey on July 13th, 2006 with 12 comments.
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Most allotmenteers probably have one vegetable appearing regularly in their cropping hall of shame. You know, a particular crop that year after year stubbornly refuses to give results in spite of the hand-wringing, pleading and tender care that is heaped upon it.
My own particular bete-noir (or would that be a legume-noir?) is the courgette. Courgettes are famed for being so productive that even the most ardent ratatouille lovers have been known to stand outside their houses grabbing passers-by and begging them to take the spares off their hands. But not mine. While others are overwhelmed with a glut and are exploring ever more outlandish recipes (chocolate courgette cheesecake, anyone?), I have resolutely fruitless plants. I think in four or five years of courgette planting I must have harvested a total of four or five courgettes - and even my maths tells me that’s a pretty poor number of courgettes per year.
But no more. This could be the year that I break the cycle - look what I’ve got:
That’s at least three (three! Count em!) on the way. I couldn’t be more proud.
Written by Pumpkinsouper on July 7th, 2006 with 6 comments.
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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.
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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.
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The first of the tomatoes. I wanted to see if they will ripen off the vine, so these got an early chop.
The new potatoes are somewhat abundant at the moment, which may become a problem as we cannot eat them fast enough. I think I’m right in thinking that you can’t store first earlies - so any nice potato (vegetarian) recipes will be gladly accepted.
Written by exmonkey on July 4th, 2006 with 2 comments.
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We are starting to get to the point where there is something to eat from the allotment every day. Today we picked a lettuce, some sugarsnap peas, a carrot and some salad onions for our salad tonight, some strawberries for our pudding, and a carrier bag full of redcurrants to make into redcurrant sorbet for tomorrow night’s pudding.I’d better get planning my food preserving and storing because it won’t be long before the allotment is chucking out more that we can consume on a daily basis. Peak Veg!
Written by The Little Green House on July 3rd, 2006 with 2 comments.
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This carrot was meant for last night’s salad, but I think it had other ideas!
Written by The Little Green House on June 29th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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I am so disappointed. My garlic crop has got rust, again! It happened at around the same time last year, and despite rotating the crops, we’ve got it again. My initial thought was that I should pull out all the garlic before the rust spreads to the onions and leeks in the same bed. Then I thought, to hell with good intentions and organic gardening, I’ll be damned if I let these beautiful plants fall foul to this fungus. Off I went to a local garden centre. The manager told me that there wasn’t an organic fungicide that I could use and recommended Dithane 945. I bought it and took it home.
The symbol on the back of the packaging tells me that this product is dangerous for the environment. How can I even consider using it? I’m glad I have the receipt still, I’m going to return it tomorrow. Then I’ll go back down to the allotment, pull up the garlic and bring it home to hang up on the fence to dry in the sun. Small garlic is better than no garlic at all. No garlic is worth d
Written by The Little Green House on June 28th, 2006 with 5 comments.
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The first of the first earlies. The fast is over!
We had our first ‘full’ allotment meal; Broad beans and boiled new potatoes tossed in butter and flat leafed parsley.
That small bag (you only dig earlies up when you want to use them) was two plants worth.
Written by exmonkey on June 25th, 2006 with no comments.
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