2016 - The View from the Plot

So I think it can safely be said 2016 was an interesting year on the plot. Weather-wise it took a long time to get going with several of my 'early' sowings of carrots and beetroot either not germinating, or getting eaten by the dreaded slug patrol. Yep, thanks to last winter being a mild one, there were plenty of the pesky things around all looking for a tasty morsel to munch on, however small!

Saying that though, things did improve. There wasn't a late frost like 2015 and the summer was quite long and warm in the end.

As my son had finished working on our new half plot as part of his DofE, I've been slowly digging it over. It has been a slow job as I try and keep on top of my half of the plot at the same time but I think I'm gradually getting there. This half of the plot will be mainly for fruit, with a few veg which need a bit of space like squash.

The new half plot - early 2016

I'll remember 2016 as the year of the trials. I was lucky enough to take part in a seed trial of heritage veg from Rob Smith of the Big Allotment Challenge and also got to try some new varieties of sweet potatoes as well as growing oca and yacon courtesy of Pat Fitzgerald of Fitzgerald Nurseries in Ireland.

Oca

Yacon

I think my favourite seed from Rob's trial was what was called Chill B, which turned out to be a fish pepper chilli. I loved the variegated leaves on this one so I'll definitely be growing that again.

Fish Pepper Chilli aka Chilli B

I've set up a new blog for my sweet potato growing adventures. You can read more about it here. I'm up to 7 different varieties now! As for the oca and yacon. My yacon were a disaster but I'm hoping I've saved the tubers to try again this year. Likewise, it wasn't a good year for oca, so I might have another go at growing those this year too as they are quite low maintenance.

Successes and failures this year? The sweet potatoes were much better this year and there were gluts of raspberries and runner beans as usual, despite losing some of the plants early on. We also got to harvest out first asparagus spears this year! Failure again was my sweetcorn; that's two years in a row now so not sure what is going wrong. I think I need to help them a bit more soil quality-wise adding blood, fish and bone etc. Fingers crossed for a better harvest this year!

The plot in early summer

Preserving successes included an excellent strawberry jam this year and a raspberry and vanilla syrup that is to die for when added to a glass of cava! It's my new favourite tipple.

The other main success on the plot this year was the scoring of some paving slabs for free and a nearly new shed, which was moved across five plots with the help of some willing volunteers on the site. Allotment folk are lovely!

The new shed in position

Both half plots - December 2016

I think this year I need to try and do a monthly update on the plot as it's not easy to sum it all up in one post. Well that's my allotment New Year's resolution sorted!

Joanna

The Sweet Potato Queen

This is a bit of a tongue in cheek title I have acquired on twitter as a few friends have followed my attempts to grow my own slips from sweet potatoes. 

Whilst they are called potatoes, sweet potatoes are from a different plant family than your regular spud; the ipomoea family. They have a vine like quality that spreads over the ground while the roots form long tubers below the surface. And as they are from a different family, you don't grow them from a seed potato but rather from slips. Slips are new plants that are grown from a tuber

However, experiments with friends have shown you can't use just any old tuber as many commercial tubers have been treated with a chemical called budnip which prevents any growth from sprouting on them. 

I grew sweet potatoes last year from some slips I bought from Marshalls Seeds and had a reasonable harvest from five plants; and they were delicious! Mellow, smooth and sweet to the taste. 

Having watched some videos on YouTube, at the end of January I placed a couple of my homegrown tubers into two jars of water 

A couple of weeks later the first few signs of growth sprouting 

And gradually more and more growth, mainly shots but also a few roots 

When the growth is ideally about 6" long you simply break off the slip 

Placing the slip in water again encourages root growth 

The slips then need to be potted up before being planted out after the risk of frost has passed

It will be interesting to see what kind of harvest I get from these homegrown slips. It's certainly been satisfying growing my own as they are expensive to buy online at approx £10 for five slips. I probably grew about 18 slips from those two tubers but what was noticeable was the slips were gradually smaller and less strong, so maybe a note to myself in the future to take a maximum of four or five slips per tuber. 

I'll hopefully be planting my slips out on the allotment in the next couple of weeks and will post an update later in the year. 

My Musings on The Big Allotment Challenge

So the second series of The Big Allotment Challenge has just ended on bbc2 and I enjoyed watching very much. 

I enjoyed watching the first series too. 

It's a TV programme. It's a competition. Yet people are still moaning about the grow challenge being about growing perfect veg. Yet if you belong to any horticultural society or exhibit vegetables at a village show, that's the sort of thing you are expected to enter and the veg has to satisfy all the entry requirements to be in with a chance of winning. 

Yes all of us who grow vegetables are growing them for the taste and so we know exactly what has gone into producing that parsnip or whatever. We don't care what they look like. Nothing beats homegrown. 

But are you telling me you don't get excited or a certain amount of pride when you dig up a perfectly straight carrot or grow a massive cabbage?

I like that the TV company listened to comments after the first series. There was more factual information about growing each vegetable or flower and I think I preferred the one gardener per plot format. 

I'm gradually getting converted to growing more flowers and already know I want to make a Christmas wreath for my front door this year. 

The eat challenges were a bit more inventive in the latest series too, which is great as was using the veg or fruit that they had grown. 

I've heard on the grapevine (twitter) that a third series hasn't been commissioned which is a real shame when you think how much crap there is on television these days. Surely a programme that promotes growing your own and preserving and healthier living and exercising as a result, is something that should be welcomed with open arms? People say it's a poor imitation of the Great British Bake Off, but how many series did that take before it became the massive success it is today?

I really hope the beeb reconsider. 

And finally I'm delighted to see that my fave Rob won, and feeling smug that we followed each other on twitter before he became famous! Well done that man!