Allotments 4 All

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Bright and sunny this morning so had a walk around the garden and took these pictures;

As many of you will know I gave up my allotments just over a year ago (Dec 2018)  and started altering my garden at home to produce a few edible crops but still keep it mainly as an ornamental garden.

I had a bit of an indifferent year that is; some stuff I grew did very well,  whereas other stuff was very poor in particular my Tomatoes.

But pleased to say I learned quite a lot (even at my age) so I will be making a few alterations to my  growing techniques this year.


As I was walking I took a few photos with my mobile phone camera hence the poorish quality of the photos

Pics 1 & 2 Shows my last stick of Sprouts having grown around a dozen plants most of which performed quite well as you can see!

Pic 3 The last of my Leeks which I grew in a container as you can see. The results were not too good but at least they were flavoursome. This year I won't cram as many into the container as I think this will improve the size and quality.

Pics 4 & 5 I grew two lots of Carrots this year. The early crop (Sweet Candle) produced plenty of Carrots but they were quite small but very tasty! Again I put this down to growing them too close together.
(So another lesson learned) The late crop (Eskimo)that you can see here were grown in soil in a coldframe an performed quite well!.

Pic 6: Last year I grew my Garlic in a container and it didn't grow much bigger than the saved cloves I planted This year I have bought some new stock.....fingers crossed....at least they seem OK at the moment!

Pics 7 & 8 is how my 8 x 6 greenhouse that I fetched up from the allotment is doing. I have loads of perennial plants on the go that I will be using when I have another go at  setting up my garden to contain more edible plants. I am not quite sure what I will be doing as yet but I do have a few ideas in mind so at least it will occupy my time in 2020.

Pic 9 is a sample of the edible stuff I harvested this morning which I thought was quite good for the middle of January!

So I guess Sunday dinner plate will be quite full!

Click on pics to enlarge!

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OH harvested our first oca from the polytunnel this morning.   It looks good and I love the colour but can only fined one recipe for cooking it - baked whole with some duck fat, orange and honey.

Anyone else grown this?  Will you grow it again?  How did you cook it?

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I have grown Sarpo Mira for a number of years and have always been pleased with the crop.   Someone recommended that I should try Sarpo Axona as they are better still - better taste, bigger crop and has the same resistance to disease.   Has anyone else grown Sarpo Axona?

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To miserable to go out so I watched the Farmers Country Showdown. Imagine my surprise when my next door plot holder popped up on the screen talking about his wood carving.