It is with great sadness we report the death of John Gray on 13 March, aged 90. Baldock born and bred John was involved in several community activities, not least our association for over 40 years as a plotholder throughout that time at North Road site and serving on the rota at the Members’ Shop. John’s wife Pat, with much support from him, has been greatly involved in Baldock Horticultural Society as a Chair and Show Secretary. Pat remains an Associate Member of BALGA.
Flowers sent to John Gray’s family from BALGA
John’s funeral was at towns St Mary’s church on 9 April and with only family flowers requested, the family have invited donations in his memory, to be divided between the Alzheimer’s Society and our association, such was his affection for it. A card and flowers on behalf of BALGA have been delivered to Pat in recognition of all that John did for us.
The Kings Seeds orders arrived in late December. All individual member orders are collated by some of the committee into one big order which is placed with Kings Seeds under their allotment association seed scheme. When the seed packets arrive they need laying out and checking to make sure the order is correct; no mean feat as the images show!
The seed packets are then sorted so that each individual member’s order is filled. Members can then collect their orders from the chairman.
Being able to take advantage of the Kings Seeds scheme is one of the benefits of being a member of BALGA; the prices of the seeds are considerably less than you would find in a garden centre and are also lower than Kings Seeds regular seed catalogue. Members can easily save the cost of their annual membership through their seed orders alone.
Membership to BALGA is open to all; you don’t have to have an allotment to be a member of the association. We usually place a second bulk order after our AGM each year so any new or existing members who haven’t placed an order yet can still do so. Catalogues will be available for collection at the AGM on 20 January.
The last few remaining daffodils bulbs left unsold from the members’ shop were planted around the notice board and in the raised beds at our North Road Site in December. Hopefully they will make a lovely display of colour in the spring!
We planted the daffodils about 4 inches deep, or double the size of the bulb, and about 4 inches apart. Daffodils can stand some crowding, but it’s best to keep them at least 3 inches apart. Planting daffodils too shallow will cause floppy stems that will break in the wind and too deep will cause the bulb to not flower or surface.
Planting daffodils at North Road
We will show you the flowering bulbs in Spring and I’m sure they will brighten the allotment site up.
BALGA decorated and exhibited a Christmas Tree at the annual Christmas Tree Festival in St Mary’s Church, Baldock.
Every year local schools and community organisations fill the church with festive trees and Nativity scenes. We called our Christmas tree ‘The Growing Tree’. It was decorated with fruit and vegetables, some of which had been grown on our allotments in Baldock.
The church committee wrote a card that said “our Christmas tree was inspirational and it was admired by many.” We left some leaflets out for the public to take and were pleased a fair number was taken.
Thank you to the members that donated vegetables and fruit for us to use and to St Mary’s Church for allowing us to exhibit our tree.
Summer may be winding down and we may be enjoying bountiful harvests, but now is the time to start thinking of the next growing season and this means the planting of autumn onion and shallot sets and garlic.
The members’ shop took delivery of the autumn sets a couple of weeks ago and this year we have available:
Onion sets (60p per 200g) :
Radar
Shakespeare
Tornado
Shallots (80p per 250g) :
Golden Gourmet
Red Sun
Shallot sets
Garlic (70p per head)
Thermidrome White
Carousel Pink
Garlic
You can also sow broad beans in the autumn and Broad Bean Aquadulce is the ideal variety for growing over the winter months. There are packs of 200g for £1 available in the shop.
This year we are also trialing the sale of assorted narcissus and tulip bulbs. The narcissus are available for 90p per 500g and there are five varieties of tulip available; the price for these being £2 for 10 bulbs.
Tulip bulbs
The members’ shop is open every Sunday until the end of November.
If you fancy serving new potatoes up with your Christmas dinner, now is a good time to plant seed potatoes, and even more so as our remaining seed potato stock is now half price at only 50p per kilo!
There is no need to chit the seed potatoes because they will grow rapidly in the warm soil. They will be ready from September/October but you can leave them in the ground until Christmas Day. Make sure you earth up in October after the first frosts to protect them from any further hard frosts. I tried it last year with great success and I know Mick (Chairman) does it each year. It’s a great way to enjoy fresh potatoes on Christmas day!
Why not try a blight resistant variety such as Setanta. It is blight resistant, high yielding, has good drought tolerance and is ideal for roasting and mashing. The table below shows our available varieties.
Seed potatoes are currently half price at £0.50 per kg. You may have pulled up onions and garlic and this a great way to fill the empty space.
Did you know you can register with a website called Blightwatch and it will send you alerts when weather conditions increase the chance of blight on your crops? You can choose up to ten postcode areas to cover the surrounding areas and registration is free.
BALGA received an email alert this morning advising that a Hutton Period Alert was affecting a nearby postcode. Visit the Blightwatch website for more information.
After a successful start to the trading year, we only have a limited amount of seed potatoes left in stock now with many varieties having already sold out. In order to clear the remaining stock we have halved the price of the seed potatoes in the members’ shop down to 50p per Kg.
There’s still time (just) to get your seed potatoes, onions and shallots planted out so why not come to the members’ shop this Sunday (10am-12pm) to take advantage of the half price seed potatoes?
We’ve also reduced the price of the remaining onion sets by 50%, down to 20p per 200g.
If you’ve just taken on an allotment, now is a good time to prepare an area and plant some seed potatoes. It’s a good way to break up the soil AND enjoy a harvest this summer.
The members’ shop is open every Sunday 10am-12pm. Click here [Link removed] to see a full list of potatoes as well as more information about each variety.
Finally, winter is beginning to recede, we can now begin to sow seeds and plant outdoors. However, we must take in to consideration the weather we had last year. With the freezing temperatures and snow from the Beast from the East! Traditionally, March is a good time to plant out your first early potatoes that have been chitting away. It’s best to do this at the end of the month but check the ground is not too wet and take in to consideration anything Mother Nature has in store for us.
Chitting potatoes!
If you have bought some onions and shallots from the members’ shop, now is a good time to plant them out. Make sure that you cover them with netting to protect your onions and shallots from the birds. I have learnt the hard way! They love to pull them out of the ground! If the ground is too wet, it might be better to plant onions or shallots in small pots or seed trays with multi-purpose compost in a greenhouse or in a cold frame to get them started.
If you have not bought your onions or shallots sets yet, we still have some in stock that you can buy any Sunday 10am-12pm at the members’ shop. Click here to find out more information on our current stock.
If you have over wintering brassicas, it’s a good time to give them a feed of sulphate of ammonia. Sulphate of ammonia is a fast-acting nitrogen fertiliser which encourages leafy growth. This is particularly useful for the brassica family as well as lettuce, spinach, rhubarb, leeks and onions. I added one handful (45g) per square metre, mixed it in to the soil and watered it.
Sulphate of ammonia is available in the members’ shop for £0.80 per kg.
Seedlings can get quite leggy if there is not enough light at this time of the year. It’s good practice to wait until mid-March to start sowing your seeds, unless you have a grow light.
In March, you can sow the following seeds outdoors:
Broad beans and peas (available in the members’ shop)
Cabbages, sprouting broccoli, cauliflower and calabrese
Leeks, onions and spring onions
Lettuces and spinach
Parsnips
Sow undercover:
Beetroot and radishes
Carrots and turnips
Cucumbers
Lettuces, oriental leaves, rocket, salad leaves
Sow indoors
Aubergines
Chillies
Tomatoes
Cauliflower Aubergine
March is a good time to prune your roses. Roses can be pruned quite hard to promote vigorous growth. You can find some good advice on how to prune your roses here. Once you have pruned your roses, give them a feed with rose fertiliser to give them a head start. We sell rose fertiliser in the shop, click here to see more information.
As the start of the new growing season approaches, we thought we’d start a new monthly round up of jobs you can do on your plot; starting with suggestions from some of the seed companies.
Whilst it is always tempting to sow seeds because the seed packet tells you to, local knowledge and keeping an eye on what Mother Nature has in store, are much better barometers for knowing what to do and when.
We’ll start this month with Marshalls Seeds’ monthly update, which you can read here. Do bear in mind all the seeds companies are giving us advice…but also trying to sell us their products! However, you can usually pick up some useful tips…and a recipe or two!
Kings Seeds’ blog post for February includes several flower-based jobs including getting your dahlias ready for re-growing if you dug them up over the winter. While Thompson & Morgan’s post is nicely split into the various categories of gardening, including jobs for your fruit garden.
If you’re looking for a useful website with lots of monthly tips and recipes, you can’t go wrong with Allotments & Gardens. See their list of jobs for February here.
Most will agree though, that veg plants like chillies, peppers and tomatoes can be started now. All these need a good amount of heat to help the seeds germinate, so a warm room or heated propagator is what’s needed. I’m about to get mine started as soon as I’ve warmed up my seed compost which has been stored outside. However, I’ve also been lucky enough to overwinter a pepper plant which is already flowering and producing fruit!
Overwintered banana pepper
Whatever you are sowing, most companies recommend you sow your seeds in a seed compost rather than multi-purpose and we have two types in stock in the members’ shop – Clover Seed Compost and Levingtons F2 Seed Compost.
