It’s been gorgeous weather on a Bank Holiday for a change, and I hope you managed to spend as much time in your allotment or garden as I have.

Since I’m now the allotment site secretary, I was able to get advance notice of which plots on the site were becoming vacant, and I have bagged myself what I think is called a “project.”

The pictures don’t really do this allotment justice, as it is three times the size of our existing allotment!

Although it looks overgrown, it has many things going for it. It is right in the far back corner of the allotment site, and has an entrance which is off a separate avenue from the rest of the allotments on that row, so it is like walking into a ‘secret garden!’

This allotment was rented by an old gentleman for many years, who used to grow prize winning flowers on it year after year. This is why he has a fabulous old style glasshouse on the plot, which will be one of the first things that we restore, as since it is about three times of my greenhouse at home, it will a fabulous place for growing all my chillies.
Unfortunately the last person to sign the lease for the plot last year planted one tripod of beans and then buggered off.

So although it looks overgrown and derelict, with a little bit of elbow grease and patience, it will be up and running again in no time.

Since there is a lot of weeds on the plot that’s a good indication that the ground is still fertile, and amongst the undergrowth there are some fabulous fruit bushes, and also a raised her bed, so we’ll have to be careful when we’re chopping back around them. Also, since it is on the border of the allotment site there’s a line of mature fruit trees including apple, pear and cherry.

One of the first jobs on the new plot is to build an asparagus bed, as someone has given me six asparagus crowns, and I want to get them settled in as soon as possible.

However, in order to make it a little realistic, we have set ourselves six to nine months to get the new plot back to how it should be, as we’re keeping on our existing plot until March next year as we’ve already paid the rent for this year.

Our current allotment is doing very well, as you can see from the rows of garlic at the bottom of the picture, which continue out of shot to the bottom and to the left of the picture. I’m growing Tuscany Wight, Early Purple Wight, Lautrec Wight, Iberian Wight, Chesnok Wight, Albigensian Wight, Elephant Garlic and Solent Wight. ( I like garlic!)

Also out of shot is the frame of my polytunnel which was a casualty in the high winds at the end of last year, and since it was a ‘cheap and cheerful’ one the frame was a little bent of shape. However, in the best allotment tradition of ‘make do and mend’ it’ll be repaired with some gas pipe or similar. We also got down to the plot before the cover blew away, and miraculously it hadn’t torn, so that’s a job for next week.

I’ve also planted the rest of the potatoes, and also some peas and mangetout. I’m waiting to plant out the runner, broad and borlotti bean seedlings that are currently sitting in my greenhouse at home, as I’m sure we’re going to get a cold snap at some point and I don’t want to lose them.

However, the greenhouse is getting full with sweetcorn, rainbow chard, squash, broccoli, tomatoes, chillies, endive and melons all vying for the limited space in there! All the more reason to rebuild the polytunnel and get the glasshouse on the new plot restored.

As it’s getting towards the time of year when people think about planting potatoes, I thought I’d post my thoughts about how to get the best crop of home grown potatoes.

Before planting your potatoes, the ground will benefit from having some manure or compost dug into the soil. This will have two benefits, as firstly potatoes like to be fed, and also it will help the general texture and structure of your soil.

The big benefit of growing potatoes must be the taste and you have a choice of over 400 varieties to choose from. A few hundred more than you will ever find in the shops! So you need to decide what you want to grow. First of all, ask other growers in your area what they do well with and like. Different varieties will grow better in some areas than others.

There are various sites on the internet where you can get an idea of what types are best for what and you can often buy small packs of 10 seed potatoes so you can try different types and find what you like.

Do not just try and plant potatoes from the supermarket. More often than not you will be wasting your time and missing an opportunity to taste something really special for your efforts. They may well have been treated to stop them growing anyway.

First Early, Second Early and Maincrop Potatoes

These terms often sound mysterious but they’re not really. All the terms refer to is the time it takes from planting to getting a crop. First earlies are usually ready in around ten weeks, second earlies in around 13 weeks and maincrop after about 20 weeks.

Maincrop types tend to store better but they are at more risk of getting blight than the faster types, which are usually harvested before the blight periods begin.

Chitting Potatoes

There is no mystery to this process. All it means is that when you get your seed potatoes you put them in a cool but frost free place where they get some light but not direct sunlight. A north facing window is ideal in a frost free shed.

Each seed potato has a more rounded, blunt end that has a number of ‘eyes’. Stand the tubers with the blunt end uppermost in trays or old egg boxes, with plenty of natural light.

The potatoes will then grow short stubby shoots, which will get them off to a fast start when planted out. Some people suggest rubbing off all but three shoots to help get larger potatoes with the maincrops. There is some evidence that chitting doesn’t help greatly with maincrop potatoes but it certainly can’t hurt to chit them.

Frost

Frost is a big enemy so you need to keep an eye on the weather. Usually mid-March is about the right time to plant your earlies and you plant the maincrop a few weeks later. If after planting the leaves, also called haulm, start to show through and frost threatens you need to protect the plants. You can do this by pulling earth over the haulm from the side or covering with fleece.

Planting Potatoes

To plant you can just make a hole with a trowel or you can draw a trench (take a draw hoe and scrape a trench). You want it to be about 100mm deep. Handle your chitted tubers with care, gently setting them into the trench with the shoots pointing upwards, being careful not to break the shoots. Cover the potatoes lightly with soil.

If you have a comfrey patch try and get a cut of comfrey leaves, let them wilt for a day and just place them on the bottom of your trench, covering with a little soil. Comfrey will quickly rot down to provide fertiliser and it is almost perfect for potatoes and tomatoes.

Your first and second early potatoes should be planted about 300mm apart in rows about 600mm apart. The maincrop, being the heaviest cropper, need a bit more space so plant them about 400mm apart in rows 750mm apart.

Earthing Up Potatoes

As the plants grow you need to draw the earth from the sides of your rows over the plants. The potato tubers (that’s what we call the actual potato you eat) tend to grow towards the surface and if light gets to them they will go green. You do not want to eat green potatoes as they may give you upset stomach, so “earthing up” as this is called will cover these tubers and increase your crop.

It won’t hurt the plants when you cover some of the leaves by earthing up or slow down growth. You need to do this at regular intervals and by the end of the season each plant will have a small mound around it about 15cm (6in) high.

I mentioned they are greedy feeders and an additional dose of fertiliser after a month or so when they plants are established will really help. You can use specifically formulated potato fertiliser or an organic fertiliser such as fish, blood and bone. Good results can be had from using a liquid comfrey feed because the liquid is immediately available.

In dry weather keep them well watered. They produce a lot of crop and need their water. If the water supply is irregular the yield will be reduced and the potatoes can be cracked from uneven growth.

Harvesting

Your home-grown potatoes should be ready for lifting from June until September, depending on the varieties and the growing conditions. Earlies can be lifted and eaten as soon as they’re ready. This will be when above-ground growth is still green, and usually as soon as the flowers open.

Second and maincrop varieties can be kept in the ground much longer, until September, even though above-ground growth may well be looking past its best.

Two weeks before you lift the crop, cut the growth off at ground level. This should give the skins of the potatoes sufficient time to toughen up, making them far less prone to damage from lifting and easier to store.

Growing Potatoes In Containers

Some people question the wisdom of growing potatoes in a small garden as they take up quite a lot of space and potatoes can be bought incredibly cheaply in the supermarkets. However, once you have tasted organic freshly harvested potatoes from your own garden you will understand.

Even if you don’t even have a garden per se, just a backyard or patio area, it is possible to grow a usable crop of potatoes in containers such as old dustbins, large terracotta pots, a barrel, or even a large bag. And, it could not be easier to do.

Take for example an old dustbin or bucket. Drill 10 or 15 drainage holes in the bottom so that it does not become waterlogged. Fill the bottom of the bin with 5-10cm of crocks (old broken pots etc), and then add another 15cm of good potting compost. Put five seed potatoes on top with the sprouts pointing upwards. Cover the potatoes with more of the potting compost until they are just buried, and then water well. As the green foliage grows upwards add more compost. It does not matter if the leaves are covered as they will soon grow up through the compost again. If the compost is not very rich then add some fertilizer – for example chicken pellet fertilizer or well rotted manure to nourish the potatoes. Adding comfrey liquid or a foliar feed with extracts of seaweed every couple of weeks will also help.

The only things you really need to watch out for is that the leaves of the potatoes receive enough sunlight and enough water. If the container is very deep then no sunlight will ever hit the foliage and the potatoes will not do well. In this case either fill the container with a lot of compost before putting in the potatoes therefore raising the height at which they are planted, or reduce the height of the container. Compost in a container will dry out far faster than a vegetable plot so it is essential to keep an eye out. However, over-watered potatoes can have black or hollow centres, and potatoes which were irregularly watered end up knobbly.

So, whatever size garden you have, you can grow your own potatoes. I can guarantee that once you’ve tasted your own home grown spuds, you’ll never get them from a supermarket again!

Time for a little bit of a catch up I think, since I have been a bit stingy with blog updates recently!

I was a little worried about Gladys, one of our ex-battery chickens for a while, as she seemed to be very much out of sorts, and would not stand up for more than a few seconds at a time. We had to lift her in and out of the nest box and place her near the food, and we were dreading the day when she stopped eating.

Then one day we went down to open them up, and after the other three had come down the ramp at Mach 3 to head towards the food, Gladys then announced herself in a flurry of squawks and feathers as if to announce “I’m back!”

She’s now barging the other three out of the way at the feed, and instead of being very scrawny, is growing all of her feathers, and giving the others a run for their money!

All of the chillies are benefiting from having more room in my new polytunnel and have put on a massive growth spurt and are producing bucketloads of chilies. It’s good that I discovered the trick of how to freeze them last year, as I’m going to need to do the same this year.

All of the spuds have been lifted, so we have enough to feed an army. We want to have fresh spuds for Christmas Day, so we are going to plant some more in a patch of our allotment that could do with some help in being cleared, and the soil being broken up.

The sweetcorn is also teasing me as it looks like it is ready, but everytime I pull back its covering to have a peek, it is not quite there, so I have to wait another day at least before I can fire up the BBQ.

I’ve also harvested four bags full of purple top turnips which will come in useful in stews in the Autumn and Winter. Planted up some more as well, as I love them!

We’re also having the usual game of hide and seek with the courgettes, but still miss the odd one which then turns into a marrow in the blink of an eye. However searching for those means we can spot all of the pumpkins that have kicked into life that will be used in due course to make pumpkin and chorizo soup. spiced pumpkin risotto …..

Both myself and @luckylottielisa have been busy bees over the weekend.


Despite only getting our allotment plot in January, and also all the late frosts doing their best to kill anything we took the chance to plant out, we had our first major harvest from the plot this weekend.

We’d been able to pick a few peas and broad beans here and there, but this weekend, we lifted all the first and second early potatoes, and now have enough of them to feed an army! The picture above is me planting two varieties of pumpkins and some climbing courgettes in the place where they used to be.

The planned third installment of building ‘Chickenopolis’ was postponed as I had a monumental hangover, so instead I used the carcasses of some old drawers as raised beds, and planted the baby turnip seedlings.

The onions are also looking suspiciously ready, even though technically we shouldn’t be pulling them until August. They have swelled that much with the changeable weather, that we had to pull a few onions anyway to give the others more room to grow. We used them in a Shepherd’s Pie for dinner yesterday, and they weren’t bad at all!

The sweetcorn is really kicking into life now as well, so it looks as if we will have an OK crop from those as well.

What I can’t work out though is why some of the chillies in my greenhouse have decided that they want to flower, even though they are only about a foot tall!

This weekend’s plans were scuppered by the typical Bank Holiday weather, so the idea of moving all of the seedlings down to the allotment to be planted had to be put on hold for another week.

I desperately need more room in the greenhouse, but the temperature dropped like a stone everytime it rained or started to hail.

However, I would not have forgiven myself if they had been killed off by the frost that is forecast for tonight.

Spring has come late to this part of the country, as all week we have had April showers, when it’s now May. While I was down the lottie today, I had all four seasons in one hour.

It does not seem to be doing the lottie any harm though, as all the spuds are through, and everything else seems to be doing well. The downside is that the weeds have now sprung into action as well!

I’m always wanting to try something new, so I have just put in an order for some tomatillo and Papalo herb to use in salsas. Just need the space in the greenhouse now to start them off …

The lottie is taking shape, but there is still so much work to be done.

The encouraging thing is that stuff is starting to grow, so Spring has sprung by the look of things!


Beans and peas have gone in, and the onions and potatoes are having a growth spurt. No sign of the first earlies showing their faces yet, but the second earlies and maincrop are starting to show their faces.

This weekend will be spent clearing the other half of the allotment, as there are quite a lot of seedlings in the greenhouse that will need to be planted very soon. Time for another back-breaking weekend.

Never mind, it will all be worth it in the end …

Another milestone today, as the first crops were planted in our plot.

All our spuds went in – first earlies, second earlies, and maincrop. We also planted the onions – five rows of white onions, and five rows of Red Baron onions.

One of our neighbours was also kind enough to donate some pallets from where he worked, so we could build three compost bins at the top of the plot, in return for him being paid in beer.

This had two advantages. Firstly it meant we didn’t have to dig over that bit (loads of brambles and nasties,) and secondly we can now move the compost heap from where it is at the moment, so we can put a nice raised herb bed in its place.

We spent the majority of the daylight hours at the allotment this weekend to try and make a start on it.

Whilst I dug one of the beds over, Lisa did a stirling job cutting back all the brambles, and as a consequence we have gained another five feet on one side!

It is just about ready for the half a tonne of potatoes that I have chitting at the moment!

Although I ache from head to toe today, I’d much rather be down the lottie again, rather than cooped up in an office at work. Oh well, I will just have to hope the days pass quickly until the weekend again …

Hooray – it’s time to start chitting my potatoes! The garden centres and seed merchants are selling or delivering seed potatoes as from now so why not get stuck in and start yours off. I headed to the garden centre last weekend to buy mine.

I went for ones that said they had good blight resistance. I’ve never normally had problems with blight (famous last words!), but I have been warned by the other plotholders that this site has suffered in the past, so I don’t want to take any chances this year.

I’ve put my seed potatoes under the window in the potting shed – that way they are out of way of frost but have lots of light to enable then to grow nice, short, green sprouts. Make sure to look for the biggest eye and face that one towards the light. What you’re looking for is one healthy, big shoot, the rest can be rubbed off with your finger.

Good luck, chitters!