Allotment - Asparagus

Well after 12 months of talking about it I finally planted some Asparagus crowns in the allotment. They have been in the shed for the last year so not even sure that they will grow but If you don't try you don't get. I have been amazed by nature in the past so wanted to give them a chance before chucking them on the compost heap.


They require a deep well draining and finely prepared location with no large rocks / stones in the soil. I made a trench approx 10 inches deep across my raised bed. and loosened up the soil a little on the base. The trench only has to be a spades width across. 

The crowns (I have 4) are then placed on top of the loosened soil at a distance of of 18 inches of 1.5 feet apart. Spread out the 'tails' a little so they are evenly separated. The books say to only replace approx 3 inches of soil initially and once shoots appear to add more as you go but I chose to ignore the conventional wisdom and covered them completely. So now to wait and see. I believe it can take up to two months for the shoots to appear so now to play the waiting game. 

Allotment - Leeks

Had some mixed results last year with the Leeks so will be giving them a better go of it this year (hopefully). My problem last year was sowing time, I don't think I sowed the leeks early enough meaning I was always playing catch up. That said we still have a decent crop that we are eating at the moment so I wont complain too much, some are on the thin side but the majority are of a good size, this year though we will try and do better.


I managed to sow the leeks on the 31st March this year, compared to late April last year I have given them an extra 4 weeks to establish. We want around 18 decent size plants by June time for planting out so I sowed around double that to have a good chance. They are fairly straightforward to sow, I used 6 deep plastic pots and filled them 3/4 of the way to the top with good quality all purpose compost. Make sure to compact it a little. Then I sprinkled around 6-8 seeds evenly on top of the compost. and then another fine layer of compost to cover the seeds. 


That is pretty much it. I would be expecting germination in about 3 weeks as they are outside but it could take longer. To allow a little protection from the wind I made a small 'greenhouse' just out of some timber and plastic I had lying around. It is well ventilated so it wont get overly hot in there but I am hoping it will keep the worst of the wind out at least. 


Picture below (far right) shows the wee greenhouse I made. It's not fancy but hoping it will do a job.

Picture of leeks to follow....

Allotment - Summary March 2012

March is the first real month of work in the allotment. It the time to get everything ready for a busy month of sowing in April. 

In my allotment there is no manure available in the Autumn so had to wait until March before I could dig it into the soil, this is far from ideal as it doesn't give the manure much time to be broken down but its better than nothing. 

Jobs completed in March:

• Dug over all beds, removed weeds and any remaining vegetation, scrub from last year (of which there was a lot). 
• Added manure and dug in to beds (except areas where Parsnips / Carrots will be planted.
• Harvested last of the Parsnips still in the ground.
• Harvested some of the remaining Leeks.
• Sowed First Early Potatoes.
• Sowed spring Garlic.
• Sowed Shallots.
• Sowed Parsnips.
• Planted 6 Strawberry plants.
• Added top cover of compost to overwintering onions / garlic.
• Prepared grow bags / plastic containers for sowing / planting. 
• Prepared mini greenhouse for sowing seeds under protection.
• Cleaned out shed as everything just got chucked in at end of last season.

See image - overview of the plot

Allotment - Shallots

This is our first year attempting to grow shallots so will see how they go. 


You buy shallots in sets similar to onion sets, basically baby shallots. These are planted in rows approx 8-12 inches apart in rows 18 inches apart. We just got enough for a single row of 15 in total. Each shallot set should grow to form approx 4-8 shallots each so we should have plenty assuming they all grow well that is.


We used the same method as with the garlic, made a small hole with a dibber, filled it with compost and pushed the shallot into the compost so that just the tip was visible. Thats pretty much it. Hopefully the compost will provide plenty of organic matter for the set to feed on. 


You have to keep an eye on the shallots in the weeks after planing as the birds seems to quite like to pull them out of the soil thinking they are worms, if you see a shallot has been pulled up, then just pop it back into place. 

Allotment - Parsnips

Parsnips have a reputation as a difficult crop to grow, maybe we were just very lucky last year but we got a very decent crop of Parsnips with what seemed like a simple enough care plan.


Last year I sowed parsnips in 2 different ways. One was the conventional way of sowing thinly approx 1 inch deep into finely prepared soil in rows approx 12 inches apart (Some books advise to double the row distance to 24 inches). 


The other way was to use a dibber to create a conical shaped hole approx 6-8 inches deep to the same spacing as above. These holes are then backfilled with compost and compressed gently. Once all these holes are prepared you can then go back and make a small hole say an inch deep on top of the compost and drop in 1-2 parsnip seeds in each (2 is a good idea as parsnips have a notoriously poor germination record). Backfill the hole a little and job done. 


The results were fairly impressive with the parsnips planted into the compost holes far outgrowing the others. In general the were longer, wider looked generally straighter than the others. 


The major drawback with this method is it is very time consuming at sowing stage. However the results are far better so its definately worth the effort. We decided this year to plant all our parsnips in this way. A big advantage is that when making the initial hole with the dibber you manage to eliminate any stones that could damage the parsnip as it grows.


We have 2 different varieties of parsnip, F1 Countess and White Gem. We did 36 compost holes in all so 18 of each variety. Weed control is very important as parsnips do not like competition. 

Allotment - Garlic

We already have winter sown Garlic in the Ground that was planted Late Nov / Early Dec which should crop in early summer time. 


We are big garlic users in our household so decided to sow a spring planting also. Ideally you would do this Early March time but we only got around to it late March but are hopeful we got them in just on time. 


To sow garlic it couldn't be easier, you usually buy a pack of 3-4 certified garlic bulbs which have around 12 cloves each in them. All you have to do is split each clove apart from the bulb, you need to allow 6-8 inches between cloves in rows approx 18 inches apart (we made our rows a lot closer at approx 8 inches apart) and 2-3 inches deep. Conventionally all you have to do is push the clove into the soil at the above spacing and that's it. 


This is how we planted our winter garlic and they seem to be doing quite well. See image below. 

As an experiment we made a small hole in the soil with a dibber, we then filled this hole with some compost and compressed it slightly. Then we planted a clove of garlic into the compost and covered it so just the top was visible. This is the method with which we sow our carrots and parsnips and I just wanted to give it a go. It is a good way (at least I hope it is) of giving the clove a good start as it has lots of organic matter to feed on. I have not read about others doing this and there may well be a good reason for that but I said I'd give it a go. Only downside to this method is that it is time consuming. 

Allotment - First Early Potatoes

The first vegetable to be sown this year are our First Early Potatoes. We only planted 10 seed potatoes as there is just the two of us we should get a good return. Also early potatoes do not store well so we pretty much have to eat them as they are harvested. This will be the first year for us growing earlies so I am looking forward to seeing how well they do.


We planted these the usual way, dug a small trench about 6-8 inches deep and added some manure and a sprinkling of Blood Fish & Bone, a balanced fertiliser to help them along as Potatoes are a hungry crop. We placed each tuber (sprouting eye facing up) about 12 inches apart in rows approx 24 inches apart. 


Just to help protect them a little from a late frost we added some straw dense manure on top to keep the soil warm, when the plants are poking through the soil we will earth them up on top of the manure which will add additional organic matter to the potatoes. See image below. 

Allotment - March 2012 (New Beginnings)

Well its a new year (I know the year started in Jan) but in terms of the allotment March is the beginning for me this year. 


I will admit over the winter I have not been to the allotment even half as regularly as I should have been but this year I am back and armed with a plan.


The aims for 2012 are fairly straightforward:

• Improve the quality of the soil.
• Improve on the crops that grew well last year, be it size, quantity etc.
• Do not waste space on vegetables that realistically will not crop well outdoors (especially true for my allotment given its exposed location).
• Grow more typically 'Irish' vegetables. 

I like to think we learned a lot last year, I was not in truth, altogether happy with the return of vegetables we had but that was down to our own mistakes. I have learned however and this year I will be aiming for a much better return.

Half the fun is in the learning experience so I will accept it and move on. 

One mistake from last year was the crop protection from pests, we lost or had a lot of damage particularly to our turnips, cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower plants from various pests. Lesson learned: protect crops adequately

Hardening off was something that we didn't understand enough about until it was too late. We had a lovely variety of strong plants at home in a nicely controlled environment. Once they were exposed to conditions in the allotment however they (mostly) either withered and died or had severely stunted growth and failed to crop entirely or cropped miserably. Lesson learned: Start everything off in the allotment, under cloches / protection if needed but at least it will be stronger for being outdoors from the start of the year, additionally wait a little longer to sow to allow weather to heat up sufficiently. 

Compared to this time last year we are way ahead of ourselves, instead of building beds and filling them with soil in a mad panic I was turning over soil and adding manure (something I didn't get to do last year) so hopefully improving the quality of the soil.

I have also spent a few quid (£15) on a garden planning software to better help us plan what to grow, where to grow it and most importantly what to plant after it has cropped for succession growing. Last year for instance once the potatoes were dug up in August we just left the ground empty when we could have been growing something else making better use of the space available. That hopefully will not happen this year.

So I am full of beans, raring to go and almost impatient as most of the prep work is done, now all I can do is wait for April so I can start sowing.