BALGA | Baldock Allotment Association

March 18, 2019February 22, 2020

Availability of potatoes, onions and shallots 2019

After a successful few weeks of trading, we have sold out of even more varieties and have limited stock of some of our first earlies, salad potatoes and shallots. It’s not too late to buy your potatoes, onions or shallots, but as we are selling out of certain varieties, you may want to buy your favourite variety as soon as possible at the members’ shop to avoid disappointment.

We have sold out of Casablanca, but Swift is a good alternative because it produces large tubers and it’s one of the fastest maturing first early potatoes.

Setanta is a good main crop potato which you might not have tried before. It is blight resistant, high yielding, has good drought tolerance and is ideal for roasting and mashing. Why not try this as your main crop potato?

We trialled pre-packed potatoes in 2.5kg bags this year and they have proved to be very successful with nearly all the bags sold. We still have Cara, Kestrel and Setanta available in pre-packed 2.5kg bags, although the Cara and Kestrel pre-packs are nearly gone.

With all the poor weather we’ve been having, it’s a great time to buy potatoes and let them chit until you’re ready to plant them out. The members’ shop is open every Sunday 10am-12pm or click here to take advantage of our pre-order form to save time as your order will be ready for you on collection. Click here to see a full list of potatoes still available as well as more information about each variety.

March 12, 2019November 5, 2020

What to do on your plot in March

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.

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

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.

March 8, 2019February 22, 2020

Potatoes, Onions and Shallots Availability 2019

After a successful few weeks of trading, we have sold out of some varieties and we have limited stock with some of our first early potatoes. It’s not too late to buy your potatoes, onions or shallots. Order your potatoes as soon as you can to avoid disappointment, as some varieties are nearly sold out.

We have sold out of Golden Gourmet shallots, but we still have plenty of Red Sun shallots. Why don’t you try Red Sun shallots instead because they have a tasty distinctive flavour with red skin and will store for months.

We have sold out of Desiree and Setanta is a good alternative to Desiree because it’s blight resistant, high yielding, has good drought tolerance and they’re ideal for roasting and mashing.

It’s not too late if you have not bought your seed potatoes. The shop is open every Sunday 10am-12pm or click here to take advantage of our pre-order form. Click here to see a full list of available potatoes and more information about each variety.

February 24, 2019March 31, 2020

Shop Update February 2019

Come and visit our development of the shop! We have installed extra shelving to improve the display of stock and to make purchasing more efficient.

To make shopping more efficient, we have pre-weighed bags of Vermiculite Fine, Vermiculite Medium, Perlite, Growmore, Fish Blood and Bone and Pelleted Chicken Manure. We have the following volumes available pre-weighed:

Vermiculite Medium (£1.20 for 4 litres) helps retain moisture and nutrients, improve aeration and it is used to cover seeds.
Vermiculite Fine (£1.20 for 4 litres) helps retain moisture and nutrients and aids water management of a peat-based growing media.
Perlite (£0.80 for 4 litres) helps aeration and drainage for healthy root growth.
Growmore (£3.00 for 3kg or £1 for 1kg) is a good fertiliser that promotes heavy crops of fruits, vegetables and flowers.
Fish Blood and Bone (£2.10 for 3kg or £1 bag) is a traditional organic-based fertiliser. Fish Blood and Bone is good for strong growth and healthy root development. You can apply this throughout the season.
Pelleted Chicken Manure (£1.80 for 3kg or £1 bag) is organic plant food that releases nutrients slowly.

You can get your pre-weighed bags from the shop, which is open every Sunday (during the growing season) 10am-12pm. If the volume you’re looking for is not available pre-weighed, we can weigh out your chosen amount. To see a full list of our products in the shop, please click here.

February 23, 2019February 22, 2020

Potato Weekend 2019

Potato Weekend has proved very successful, with some varieties already sold out. We had an increase of members using the pre-order/click and collect service this year and this has been very successful because members’ orders were ready on arrival! Thank you to all of our members who took advantage of this and supported us on Potato Weekend.

Potato Weekend 2019

After successful trading over Potato Weekend, we have sold out of Abbot, Desiree, Charlotte, Rocket and Foremost. Setanta is a good alternative to Desiree because it’s blight resistant, high yielding, has good drought tolerance and they’re ideal for roasting and mashing. We still have the following varieties available loose at £1 per kg:

First Early Potatoes

Arran Pilot
Casablanca
Colleen
Foremost
Lady Christl
Swift

Second Early Potatoes

Kestrel (available in a pre-packed 2.5kg bag)
Wilja

Main Crop Potatoes

Cara (available in a pre-packed 2.5kg bag)
Maris Piper (available in a pre-packed 2.5kg bag)
Nicola
Picasso (available in a pre-packed 2.5kg bag)
Setanta (available in a pre-packed 2.5kg bag)
Vales Sovereign

It’s not too late if you have not bought your seed potatoes. The shop is open every Sunday 10am-12pm. Click here to see a full list of available potatoes and more information about each variety.

February 3, 2019February 3, 2021

What To Do On Your Plot in February

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!

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.

January 23, 2019February 22, 2020

Compost Sunday 2019

The traditional curtain raiser to our trading season is Compost Sunday when our members’ shop is open for members to stock up on composts and kick start their growing year.

This year we have several new composts for you, including a fully peat-free compost in response to requests from members.

The full list of what is available below.

Members will note we have two types of seed compost for this year. Kings Seeds recommend growers use seed compost in their seed trays because the fertiliser in multi-purpose compost can kill seeds.

We also have a small number of Jack’s Magic left over from last year’s stock.

The shop will be open from 10am to 12 noon.

December 22, 2018January 11, 2021

Grant Success!

BALGA are delighted to announce we’ve managed to secure grant funding to replace the allotment signs at both sites.

You can read more here. [Link removed at NHDC January 2021]

The grant money will be used to purchase new noticeboards which are used for BALGA members and members of the public alike, as well as updating the old NHDC noticeboards to reflect the fact that the sites are self-managed.

BALGA would like to thank both the Baldock and District Committee of NHDC and Cllr Michael Muir for their continued support.

July 22, 2018February 19, 2019

Allotment Security

Sadly it is a fact of life that allotments all over the country are easy targets for both vandalism and theft because of the nature and location of allotment sites and often the summer months are the more likely time when such attacks occur due to the long light evenings. Security has been improved at our North Road site since last summer, not only with the addition of a higher (padlocked) gate at the main entrance but also with the repairs to the rear fencing on the site, including the addition of barbed wire.

There are two schools of thought on how best to keep any property you keep on your plot safe and secure.

Of course, not keeping any tools or items of value, particularly power tools, on your allotment is the most secure way of ensuring they are safe. If kept at your home address they are covered by your home insurance. Unfortunately, your home insurance cover does not extend to covering your tools on your allotment. If you do keep tools on your allotment, it is always a good idea to get them marked with your postcode; tool marking is something the local police offer at various events throughout the year, including our Open Day during National Allotments Week.

The first school of thought, if you have a shed on your plot, is to not lock it with a padlock thereby hoping less damage will be done to the shed if someone is trying to break in. However, that may also encourage trespassers to get in anyway.
The second school of thought is to secure your shed with a padlock or other lockable device. This may well protect the contents of your shed more but may result in more damage being done if a break in is attempted.

The golden rule in all cases of crime on allotments, be it criminal damage, theft or just nuisance damage, is to report it to the police. Without these crimes being reported, the police are unaware there is a problem. If they are aware of repeated attacks or damage, they can increase patrols in an allotment area.

Any cases of vandalism or theft can be reported by telephoning the police on the non-emergency number 101. They can also be reported online via the Herts Police website here.

May 4, 2018

The No-Dig Diary May 2018

There hasn’t been too much going on down the allotment for the last couple of months …… even been too cold for weeds and just a bit too wet to work!

In the meantime I have been puzzling over no-dig potatoes. How does that work? My initial solution was to avoid the problem by not growing potatoes this year. However the gardening fraternity are a generous lot and by April I had been asked to grow a row of spuds for a friend.
Up in Weston, the farmers also use no-dig but on a far larger scale. As it happens they are trialling no-dig potatoes this season, so of course I wanted to know how they went about it.

Translated into allotment terms, we start with some levelled ground and place our chitted potatoes on the surface at the usual spacing.

Next comes a layer of manure or compost or both.

Add manure on top of chitted seed potatoes

On top of this is a layer of straw. This will benefit from a good soaking once it’s in place.

The top layer is grass cuttings – obviously not from grass treated for weeds & moss & such like ! The grass will rot down, and whilst its doing that, it stops the straw blowing about. Thinking ahead to pigeons etc. picking through all those layers, I covered the whole lot with some pea-netting.

Apparently this method will produce potatoes that are a better shape and more regular sized that traditional cultivation. It also avoids stabbing your crop with the garden fork, because you don’t dig them up to harvest and should mean that rogue tubers don’t get left behind in the soil.

We shall see!

Annie