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!
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 starting to reappear
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.
Rhubarb
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.
Freshly harvested rhubarb
Stalks can be harvested until June in most cases, so long as the plant isn’t over harvested.
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!
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.
Traditionally, seed potatoes are always chitted before being planted out but more recently, growers have queried whether this is necessary.
Seed potatoes chitting on a window sill
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.
Healthy growth on a Rocket seed potato
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.
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
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.
