Progress on plot 2

Today MM and I dug up the last of the potatoes. Yields are very poor compared to last year, we had home grown potatoes June til the following March, we ll struggle to make Christmas this year. Even tho MM brought 25% more seed potatoes than 2011.
The rain, blight and lack of Sun i suppose are to blame. to

Blogging from my new phone

Just testing out my new

phone. Oven roasted tomatoes

Lots and lots of tomatoes

Our tomato harvest

Time

With changing jobs, time in the garden has decreased, which is very sad.
Anytime spent in the garden at the moment is mostly spent watering,
As the tomatoes are coming along great.

With lots and lots of food, finding the time to eat it all, is also differcult.
Everybody I know could have as many courgettes as they like,
We would not go short.

Blight got to our main crop potatoes, MM & SM cut the tops off, hopefully
Underneath there will be some unaffected potatoes to store for the winter.

All the onions, shallots and garlic are drying in this lovely weather.

Oh and roasted beet root is amazing.

Photos to follow in a few days?

84 leeks

Planted out 84 leeks today.......... just another 100 or so to go.

Food!

We are finally getting some food, pulled some rather large garlic today,
along with some shallots, and of course new potatoes!
It looks like we re going to get it all at once!

It is pretty hard to tell when some things are ready to harvest,
still very much being a beginner, when there is no local wisdom
around I do feel rather lame.
So I normally google it or re read my Monty Dom book.

GOLDEN NUGGETS

MM pulled up a few of the early potatoes yesterday........ and the crop is GOOD.
each root has plenty of good sized potatoes.
Now we have FOOD!
Courgettes are hit & miss, some are happy, some are very unhappy!
so far 3 courgettes to eat, more to come soon, fingers crossed.

The only problem I don't think we can do much about is the amount of slugs.
Theres millions of them!

Sloe gin!

Just two bottles of 2 year old sloe gin

at least one of them is 5 litres!!!

I would happily tell you the recipe but killing over the internet is 

labour intensive.

If you want to make something like this then just do it.

You will need-

A bottle

Sloe berries

Gin 

Sugar

TBH you can 

prick

shake

wait

taste

use vodka

But really, time is all you need.

Get a clean bottle, add up to 50% berries

add sugar ( you could measure the amount, then you ll know for next year what you like)

I normally add enough sugar so that it CANNOT all dissolve on day one

about enough to cover most of the fruit

add gin (quality of the gin is your choice, as your going to be drinking it!)

I have used gordons, tanqueray & bombay before

but I ve also used Sains-A-boras own label.

Now most people say you must shake everyday for a week

some say 2 weeks 

others say something else.

Lets be honest, I ve forgotten plenty of things

so I definately forgot to shake it every day!

All I will say on shaking is after a few months the berries will start to 

break down, I wouldn't shake at that point.

Also some people use the berries after filtering the gin out, 

I don't because they taste like crap, just try them, you'll enjoy the gin all the more.

I have made sloe gin for the last 3/4 years with a friend CC 

he is master picker & co-gin buyer

so he will probably get the small bottle, well I have to do all the shaking 

(but like I said, sometimes I forget)

If you are gin, berry & sugar plentiful, why not make

a royale batch

go heavy on the berries & sugar

maybe even use some molasses or muscovado sugar.

If you do one home made thing this year 

make friends with a damson tree, 

it works with vodka

and only takes 2-3 months............ 

it easy & tastes great.

I m not saying sloe isn't worth the time, damsons just works a lot faster!

enjoy 

Self watering tomato planter

This tomato seems to be the happiest!

Plenty of flowers

Still early days, but looks like the container works!

New Potatoes!

Just showing off a bit..........

We planted 4 potatoes in march

3 were the same variety, 1 was different.

One potato bust into action

As you can see, 3 were much slower

The '3' started to catch up

Until the '3' got much bigger than the '1'

The plant closest to the camera was the first 

to show & seems to have given up!

One of the '3' starting to flower

The '3' have completely taken over, 

Time to have a look to see if we have 

any food?

SM dives in to harvest the spuds!

Now we know the '1' plant was an early

& the '3' are main crop Desiree

So we have finally got some food

'1' down '3' to go

I am hoping there is a few more at the bottom of the container

I ll have a good dig around in a few days, if not 

I might steal a few red potatoes from under one of the other plants! 

The main reason for this was to see the if & how of growing potatoes in containers, 

we'll maybe use this method to grow potatoes for xmas?

Hairy little fruits

 After waiting quite a while for the Kiwi to spring into action, we finally have fruits, which are
coming along a treat.

Late Feb buds explode with the sunny weather

It starts to grow quickly

I was suppose to plant it outside, I never got around to it

Regular watering & feeds, it seems happy enough inside 

 Hopefully we will plant it outside next year, maybe so it can grow over a

arbour or trellis?

Self watering tomato planter

I ve had a go at making my own self watering container for tomatoes, it's a experiment which I m hoping will save me some time, and maybe give me a bigger crop?
I did a lot of research on the web, but I was very unsure what to use as the wick between water reservoir and the soil, I ve gone for strips of an old work Tshirt ( it was a cotton polo shirt, if your wondering). I couldn't accept that using a soil based wick could be good for the plant, as it would constantly be soaking wet.
So the tomato plant was potted up over a week ago, all seems well ( so now I brave enough to tell the world)

I have been watering from the top to start with, but from now on it'll be watered down the pipe, and fingers crossed the tomato will help its self.

Paddy fields?

The allotment site has a slight decline.

We have two allotments, number 1 being on the slightly higher ground.

But number two is just a bit lower, so the bottom row off allotments

are suffering with a lot of standing water.

This photo ( excuse the finger) is of the plot next to mine, ours is not 

too bad, as we had rotovated just before the rains came, 

so the soil depth is still quite high.

Lots of standing water all around the bottom of the allotment site, 

7 hours after it had stopped raining.

The good news is when we do manage to get our main crop potatoes in, this is 

where they'll be going, they should like the extra water this allotment will give them.

BUTTS

We now have well over 2500 litres of rain water in our water butts, which is great news.
If I had been asked 4 weeks ago when we finished putting both of the EMPTY 1000 litre IBC
in there final position, if we would get them filled, I would have said
"not before christmas"
but here we are, there full!

Now for some sunshine?

1000 litre IBC on allotment 2 

Radish

Something is eating the radish leaves?

SUNSHINE

What a difference a day makes............... with just a few hours of sunshine today.
Basil, chillies & sweet peppers all germinated today, the sweet peppers
have taken nearly 30 days to show.

I am very happy about the lettuce which I spent a bit of time in to
planting the seeds, as they are so bloody small.
I used a pencil which I dipped in water to pick up individual
seeds.

We are still waiting to plant the main crop potatoes, finger crossed for a bit of fair weather.