BALGA Allotment News | Baldock Allotment Association

May 16, 2017September 18, 2019

Starting from Scratch – A Year in the Life of a New Plot

In this series of articles we follow Yvonne and Steve during their first year as allotmenteers showing you what can be achieved with a bit of effort and hard graft.

New tenants, Yvonne and Steve took on their plot in mid April 2017. They had no previous allotment experience other than going to their father’s allotment with him when little. They chose a half plot on the Clothall Road site. The plot hadn’t been worked for many years, although a recent tenant had dug out outlines of beds.

The plot had been strimmed in readiness for letting by site rep, Martin Luker, but some weeds still remained.

Keen to get started, they made good progress very quickly and had dug over several beds within a couple of weeks.

A quick visit to the members’ shop and they were able to plant seed potatoes and onion sets and start some seeds off at home.

A week or so later and more beds were dug and a base laid for the shed, both of which were picked up for free after searching online.

Within a month, amazingly they had dug over the whole plot.

And were excited to see the first signs of growth as their seed potatoes made an appearance.

Yvonne and Steve have worked really hard over the month to get the initial digging completed. They have also followed sage advice and planted a little too so they can see signs of growth; a reward for all their hard work.

In the next instalment we’ll see what plans Steve has for the shed!

May 11, 2017August 16, 2020

Excess Seedlings

One of the worst faults of a gardener is sowing too many seeds and then not being able to throw any surplus seedlings away. We just can’t bring ourselves to do it, can we?

Well worry not! If members have an excess seedlings they’ve grown, they can now bring them down to the Members’ Shop before it opens on a Sunday where they can be sold to raise funds for the association.
Or maybe some of your seedlings have failed this year and you are looking to plug the gap at a good price?
Don’t forget the shop is open every Sunday from 10am to 12 noon until the end of November.

On a similar note, if it’s plants you are after, the Baldock Horti Soc have a stall at the Baldock Street Fair this coming Saturday where they are selling plants to raise funds; there may be even some veg plants available!

April 30, 2017May 25, 2017

Rhubarb and Vanilla Crumble

This is a recipe I’ve been tweaking ever since I pulled my first rhubarb stalks a few weeks ago. I’ve previously made rhubarb and vanilla jam, which was wonderfully mellow to taste and I was hoping to recreate the flavour in a crumble.

If you have a go, let me know if the sweetness needs amending. Mine was a bit tart still, although the flavours were much more mellow the following day.
Joanna Kent

Ingredients

1lb Rhubarb
4oz Caster sugar
1 Vanilla pod

For the crumble
4oz Plain flour
2oz Butter or margarine
3oz Caster sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 190 deg C (375deg F / gas mark 5)
Wash rhubarb stalks and cut into 1″ pieces. Place rhubarb chunks into an ovenproof dish and cover with the caster sugar.
Cut vanilla pod in half and scrap out the seeds and place in the dish together with the halved vanilla pod.
Stir the contents to ensure all the rhubarb pieces are covered in sugar.
Cover dish with foil. Place in the oven and roast rhubarb for approx. 20 – 30 mins until rhubarb is soft. Remove vanilla pod from dish.
Sieve flour into a bowl and rub in butter or margarine until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in caster sugar.
Pour crumble mix over the roasted fruit.
Cook in oven for approx. 30 mins until crumble top is golden.
Enjoy with custard, cream or ice cream.

April 11, 2017

What’s in Season – Rhubarb

No allotment is complete without rhubarb; indeed almost every plot seems to have a crown sprouting in a corner! One of the exciting things about rhubarb is seeing it starting to regrow in early spring.

Rhubarb is a relatively easy crop to grow as it needs little attention other than a good covering of manure over the winter to feed the crown whilst it is dormant.

Like any perennial crop, newly planted crowns should not be harvested in the first year and sparingly in the second. Thereafter stalks can be harvested by twisting and pulling at the base, taking care not to damage the crown.

Stalks can be harvested until June in most cases, so long as the plant isn’t over harvested.

March 27, 2017March 22, 2019

What’s in Season – Purple Sprouting Broccoli

By the time March comes around allotment folk are starting to reach the hunger gap, that time when the harvests of last year’s season are dwindling and the promise of this year’s harvest is some time off still.

Enter purple sprouting broccoli!

This delicious brassica needs a long growing season but it rewards you with wonderful tender stems with small floret heads and I much prefer it to regular broccoli (calabrese). It is often sold as a ‘luxury’ vegetable in supermarkets, attracting a luxury price tag!

The seeds are sown in late spring and once growing the plants need little attention other than perhaps staking and protection from the dreaded cabbage white butterfly.

When it is harvest time, usually in March, harvest the main floret head first as this will encourage more side shoots and therefore more floret stems! Cut the stems regularly to encourage more to harvest.

Not seen so often is white sprouting broccoli which has a more delicate flavour.

March 18, 2017

To Chit or Not to Chit?

Traditionally, seed potatoes are always chitted before being planted out but more recently, growers have queried whether this is necessary.

Chitting encourages the eyes on seed potatoes to start sprouting, thus giving them a head start for when they are planted out. Placing the tubers in a frost free place with plenty of light such as a window sill will cause the eyes to start sprouting. Each tuber has a more rounded, blunt end where most of the eyes are to be found. Place your tubers upright in a seed tray, or even an egg box, and wait for nature to work its magic. Within a matter of weeks, you can see the eyes sprouting. Once the tuber has two or three good-sized chits about ½” long, it can be planted out providing the ground is frost-free. Rub off any extra chits so that the growth is concentrated on those chits. If there is a danger of frost, ensure any growth is earthed up and covered to protect it.

First early potatoes particularly benefit from being chitted so they can be lifted within 10 to 12 weeks of being planted out, usually in June or July. There is some argument as to whether main crop seed potatoes benefit as they have a longer growing season. Potatoes will sprout and grow whether they are chitted or not. There is a theory though that chitting seed potatoes will increase the yield from each tuber by directing the plant’s energy into two or three shoots. Equally important, however, is preparation of the ground by adding plenty of well rotted manure, blood fish and bone or even chicken pellets.

For most vegetable gardeners, it’s that eagerness to get the growing season started, that means they will chit their seed potatoes.

March 8, 2017February 24, 2020

Why be an Organic Gardener?

One of the main reasons people take on allotments is to grow their own veg organically so they know where their food has come from and more importantly, what has gone on it. Phil Charsley tells us why he grows organic veg on his plot.

‘I have grown organically on my plot for many years. My main reason for doing so is because I don’t like the idea of spray residues on or in my food!
The most important principle of organic growing is being friends with nature. This means attracting certain predators onto your plot to help you in the battle against the bits of nature you don’t want on your plot. Ladybirds and hoverflies are typical examples of these friends and the more you can attract, the merrier!
Hoverflies breed in stagnant water but you don’t need much to attract them. A 2 litre plastic bottle propped up somewhere and filled with water and rotting vegetation or woodchips will do the job. It’s best put in a corner of your plot and forgotten about as the larvae aren’t very pretty!
Ladybirds will look after themselves and lay eggs which hatch into grubs with an enormous appetite for aphids. Don’t forget, if you find them over-wintering somewhere, leave them alone as they will continue their work next year.

I belong to Garden Organic and am also a member of their Heritage Seed Library. For a small fee I get to choose six packets of heritage seeds each year. If I like the varieties, I save seed so I can continue growing them. Heritage seeds remain true to type unlike F1 varieties. The other advantage of heritage seeds is that they were bred at a time when there were no pest or disease sprays, so they can survive pests and diseases. They have also survived because they taste good. Indeed they are enjoying a renaissance at the moment.

If you have any questions about organic growing or seed saving, take a look at the Garden Organic website, or send me an email and I will try to answer it.’
Phil

February 7, 2017June 28, 2019

Best Kept Allotment Presentations

The winners of last year’s Best Kept Allotment Competition were presented with their awards at the AGM last month.

First up and congratulations to Ken Robbins, who won the Best Kept Allotment on the North Road Site. Ken also won the Frank Conway Cup for Best Overall Newcomer.

And secondly, John Johnson, who won the Best Kept Allotment on the Clothall Road site. John was also awarded the Basil Bryant Cup for the Best Allotment Overall.

The awards were kindly awarded by local councillor, Michael Muir. Both winners also won a £25 voucher to spend at the allotment shop.

Well done gentlemen!

February 3, 2017June 28, 2019

Potato blight

I used to think that potato blight was only of relevance to a study of Irish History. This is very far from the truth, it was a problem throughout Europe, parts of Germany were badly hit as was the Isle of Man and parts of Northern England. But above all the virus is still active to this day.
There is more than one form of blight. The one that seems to be a regular visitor to Baldock allotments is not the one that caused the potato famines, it is “Late Potato Blight” that also attacks tomatoes. The “Late” is a confusion it may well have been Late where it was named, but it’s not late in Baldock.
This is the scenario: you are congratulating yourself on the perfect potato crop, then one day you breeze into the allotment, the first reaction is “what low life let his rhinoceros roll in my potato patch”. The tops have collapsed, the leaves are shrivelling. If you don’t intervene now the blight will find it’s way into the tubers and they will rot and you will have lost the crop. The remedy is to remove the diseased foliage as soon as possible and burn it, don’t put it on the compost. Tomatoes fare even worse than potatoes the lost yield can be of the order of 60%..
There was a move in 2015 by the commercial potato growers to get a ban on amateurs growing the crop. The measure didn’t get very far, not a great vote winner, but it does illustrate the seriousness of the issue.
Bordeaux mixture is recommended as a preventative, it is available from the shop. We have a small stock. It has now been banned. There are substitutes available but are they as effective who knows?
Such were the problems last year both on the Clothall Common and North Road sites that the General Committee have added blight resistant varieties to the range offered.

February 2, 2017June 28, 2019

Gardening magazines

Did you know we have a box of gardening magazines at the shed? They are there for members to borrow, read and return at their leisure.
If you have any old ones you no longer need, feel free to drop them off in exchange.

Please note however that as space is always at a premium BALGA reserves the right to periodically dispose of any magazines in the box to keep the shed tidy.