An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

I cannot believe I have not blogged since 31st July?! Where do the days and weeks go? Being very busy on all fronts takes up a bit of time but I have been on the plot and I have to say after such a late start we are very happy with our veg from the 'new' allotment. There is no point in back tracking so this is Mondays harvest, courgette,sweetcorn,globe artichokes and tomatoes and a few raspberries also. The 3 courgette plants had romped away producing to such an extent we were giving them away and had done all we could with them.The plants had grown to ginormous size at this point and then stopped producing. I cut back all of the huge old leaves, leaving only the newer ones at the top of the plant, fed them with the Comfrey tea and lo and behold they are now producing again at a much slower pace I might add, each plant now has two fruits and some new flowers. The courgette bed after being stripped, you can see how much they grow in length from the base! The leeks a...

 We have learned over the years its a mistake to sow everything together as you end up with a glut of different veg and if it is a hot summer as this one has been (so far) then you don't want to be cooking every day to use up the veg. I had some of these seeds which are Sutton's Speedy veg they are ready to harvest in 10 weeks from sowing which would take us to the end of Sept and into Oct therefore  utilising  the ground as much as possible and for those of us paying for allotments that is the bottom line. The first early spuds, a lovely variety called Premier has just vacated its space so I have followed up with planting out my leeks and also sowed these veg varieties in any spare space. Baby beets,turnips and carrots.They are picked and used small so are tender and tasty as we can vouch for the carrots which we have been using in another bed already!  Thinnings of an earlier sowing of the Speedy baby veg and sugar snap peas with the Premier e...

I paid a quick visit to the plot today, mainly to take a photo of anything which would be edible for our Christmas dinner for inclusion on Matron's Christmas Food blog. I took the top pic of our brussel sprouts which are to grace our plates on the big day, only when I got home and uploaded the pic did I see the the tell tale marks of poachers who are trying to deprive us of our dinner!It entails another trip to the plot to 'save the sprouts'! Our herbs are waiting to be picked, the rosemary bush has really taken off and is putting on good growth. If we get severe frosts like last year I will have to remember to cover it as a lot of rosemary became frost victims last year. Thyme and parsley for the stuffing behind the parsley, the parsley is also being nibbled I think! I cut back all of the stalks on the rhubarb a few weeks ago and covered the crowns with plenty of manure, I was very surprised to see new growth springing up today. I recovered the crowns after taking the phot...

I have not been to the allotment for over a week because of torrential rain every day and I have not been able to get on to the blog because Blogger is so slow!I am not sure if it is Blogger or my Internet provider is at fault, I tried up loading photos but they took so long I just gave up.The new header pic was done last week and took nearly 20 mins to upload, which is why I am on here on Sun morning hoping nobody else is online yet! Our leeks have settled in at last and are looking a little more healthy and whatever was nibbling on them has stopped. I cleared the bean bed leaving the roots in the ground to rot down to provide nitrogen.The Lollo Rosso is not alone a splash of autumn colour but a tasty addition to our salads. The strawberry bed was cleared of all old leaves and debris, the near row was 3 year old plants and were pulled up.Some of them had a second flush of strawberries so I left them but with the wet weather the slugs got to them first so now this side is completely cl...

We seem to be getting every second day dry with some sunshine then a day of continuous rain.I spent most of Tues on the plot tidying up and doing some serious weeding! Photo is of an Iris, I bought a pack of summer flowering bulbs in Lidl some time back but so far they have been all Irises. Kathryn had dug over some of the potato bed which had been vacated and I put in the winter leeks. These were in a tray at home and I have to say they are the smallest leeks I have ever planted out, hopefully they will come on now they are in their permanent bed. The Lazy Housewife bean has recovered from its hen ordeal and there are 2 pods on it so far, I am not going to use them but save them for next year's seed. They were given to me by Matron when she visited Cork last year, I did see on her blog that they should be left to dry on the plant to prevent mould. Peas, sadly neglected by us!I should have put more raffia up the poles as they grew as they had twined around each other for support.T...

The first day of Spring really did feel like Spring!There was some frost during the night but the morning/day was sunny and mild. It was also the first day of the new season on the allotments so I went out to take stock after the long cold winter.The turnips took me by surprise as there was not a vestige of green foliage left!They look OK otherwise, behind them are the skeletal stalks of the Brussels sprouts,stripped bare by the pigeons no doubt! The leeks survived the extreme frost apart from some damage to the outer leaves. I took some home with me after taking the photo, a couple went to D.Aisling and I added a couple to a pot of leek and potato soup. Rhubarb poking through the mulch, 2 of the plants had new growth visible but I covered them over once I had taken the photo as frost could do damage to this tender growth now as we are not out of the woods where frost is concerned yet. The day was so nice I persuaded myself to get stuck in with some digging. I was surprised the ground ...

I got some photos of the awards winners at last! The basket of mouthwatering veg was a prop brought by the photographer and not grown by me, he also brought spades ,gloves etc. All of the award winners, this is the first year of the awards so we are all inaugural winners!There was an award for novice gardeners,community gardens, allotment providers and experienced gardeners.Each category had 3 winners, receiving certificates and medals with the outright winner in each receiving a cheque also! I am no longer at home in the mornings so the computer is only accessed in the evening when I have time and having a Spanish student who spends the evening on the computer has seriously curtailed my time online!I will be back to sole use of the computer after this week as he is returning home so I will have time to visit everybody again. Gardening has also been curtailed due to the cold and frosty weather some parts of the country actually had snow yesterday! Leeks and turnips are being used and s...

I have not spent much time on the plot in the last couple of weeks due mainly to the weather conditions but yesterday was sunny and not too cold so I was able to do some clearing of beds.I dug all of the carrots ,a bit late probably as there is some worm or slug damage to a lot of them . I also cleared all of the sprouts as they seem to be early this year and I was afraid they would be past their best for the Christmas dinner! I spent last evening blanching and freezing the sprouts and some of the carrots with another session of carrots this morning.I must do an inventory of what is actually in the freezer for the winter. I pulled 2 leeks as D.Aisling is making pots of Leek and potato soup at the moment. The leek bed with the cleared carrot bed in the foreground. The beds further down were cleared by Kathryn and Gemma and covered with manure for the winter.It all looked a bit bleak yesterday. The blackcurrant bush which I pruned a couple of weeks ago, I took put about a third of the ol...