An Alternative Fruit Patch

The bottom end of our allotment has never been very productive - unless you count couchgrass and nettles. When we first dug it over the soil was very dry and fully of woody matter and old roots, not to mention half an ancient greenhouse, in small pieces. It's also in the shade of an elder tree and next door's little shed for part of the day.

We grew outdoor tomatoes down here and they very quickly succumbed to disease. We grew artichokes here and they all died. We grew raspberries here, and even they didn't do well! The couchgrass seems to move in here faster than anywhere else but nothing else seems to thrive.

Last year we moved our compost bins to this area - it seemed a better use of land that won't easily grow crops, and it would help to stamp out some of the grass and nettles that kept invading. But that still left our overgrown raspberry patch to deal with. Half the raspberries had died and the rest were swamped in a jungle of grass.

We took out the old raspberry plants and dug the bed over three times to get rid of every last grass root we could find. Then we laid a new weedproof-fabric-and-woodchip path down one side of it, dug a trench along the top where it meets the next (derelict) plot, and put a border of weedproof fabric along the end of the plot too, so it should be much harder for new roots to find their way in.

I was keen to keep the area as permanent planting, since our three main rotation beds are working nicely now and perennial planting has benefits for the soil and wildlife as well as my workload! But I wanted to try some new fruits; I do like raspberries but I'm not a fan of the other usual berries and currants people tend to grow on allotments, and I fancied trying some new things I'd been hearing about. So our new fruit patch will feature... Japanese wineberries, Chilean guavas, and Cape gooseberries!

Botanist James Wong famously promotes a number of unusual crops, and his book 'Homegrown Revolution' encourages gardeners to ditch some of the 'old-fashioned' stuff we've been growing for generations but that is actually quite tricky in our climate (aubergines and cauliflowers, for example) in favour of more exotic crops that actually grow very easily here. I have only just bought the book this week, but the above fruits all feature in it - and I'm rather tempted by one or two others he recommends too - perhaps another year!

EDIT: Whoops, the Japanese wineberry isn't in the book - I think I heard about it in a conversation about unusual crops which centred around the book and assumed it was.

Japanese wineberry is similar to raspberry but with striking red stems and lime-green leaves, and the fruits are surrounded by a spiny calyx that means birds don't usually go for them. It can handle a little bit of shade, so the shed shadow shouldn't bother it. I'm not really sure what its growing habit is going to be like - I'm kind of expecting it to be like a bramble! - but I am well prepared to train it up some canes if need be...

Chilean guavas are small berries that ripen in the winter on a rather attractive evergreen bush. I bought these plants nearly a year ago when I saw them on sale and they have been waiting patiently in pots at home until now! (I have two more in large containers at home too, from which I got just a few berries last year, though I think I picked them before they were ripe!)

Cape gooseberries (or Inca berries, or golden berries) are perhaps better known, and sometimes seen served at wedding receptions and posh restaurants, usually with smoked meats. The fruits are similar to tomatilloes, but sweet and golden yellow, and come in a papery husk. They're grown as an annual in this country, so it's not exactly permanent planting, but it also means I can change my mind easily and try a cocktail kiwi or something here next year instead if I like... I've sown the Cape gooseberry seeds at home (no seedlings yet...) and I'll plant them out here in June or so.

I'm not really sure how big these plants get so that's all I'm putting in for now, but I hope my alternative fruit patch will fill up some more in time. For the moment I've put in some biennial flowers too - foxgloves and wallflowers I had in pots at home - and I might just put in some perennial achillea or summer bulbs or something... The biennials should have been planted out in autumn really so I'm not sure how they'll get on, but the part-shaded spot behind the shed must be about perfect for foxgloves so I hope they will self-seed there and I'll keep a small patch of them going.

I'm very glad this troublesome corner is under control again, and I hope the trenched and covered edges will help it to stay that way!

Very Berry

Yesterday we tasted the very first of our sweet and juicy raspberries, planted last year.

There are only a few at the moment - I'm hoping they'll hold on a few days so I can get a decent handful together for a dessert...

Some of the plants are looking a bit stressed, with yellowing or shrivelled leaves, and I'm not sure what's wrong. I forgot to take a picture... And we were disappointed to find a few of the canes mysteriously disappeared over winter! Hopefully I can transplant a few shoots or something to fill the spaces.

Ooh, what's that bug on the bottom-right of the raspberry? I didn't see that when I was taking it. I'm a bit paranoid about raspberry beetles but I don't think this is one. Looks mean though!

On a berry-related note, I have to show you the size of our 'Lucy' strawberries - they're so impressive and gorgeous!

On the other end of the scale, check out these wild strawberries! They grow like weeds in our garden - Mum hates them! But it's a shame to see them go to waste - I think I'll have to pick them and make use of them...

Summer Sights, and the River Ver

We rushed to the allotment early this morning to beat the heat, and got loads and loads of weeding done and the patch dug for the everlasting cauliflowers, which I will plant out at the next opportunity. When the weeds are clear the plot really looks pretty good - this is definitely our best year so far.

The asparagus ferns are looking really lush now, with the petunias flowering beneath. The ferns are covered in tiny flowers and it's pretty funny watching the huge bumblebees trying to get inside them!

The swedes look like they're doing well down there.

The runner bean flowers are opening.

The leeks are weed-free again and thriving.

We were surprised to find a few raspberries appearing on our new raspberry canes! I thought we wouldn't get any fruit until next year!

And we have our first sunflower, albeit a very small one.

I can't wait to try these summer crookneck squash. You eat them like courgettes, but they are supposed to have an even better flavour. Anyone else tried them?

As you can see, the plot is looking good - even... dare I say it... tidy and organised!

We took a slightly different route home today, just out of curiosity. The river Ver runs along one side of our allotment site, and we followed it. The path runs most of the way through town, along a strip of woodland between streets and back gardens, and it was rather pleasant. I can't believe I've lived here 30 years, had my allotment for four, and I've never been along here before!

The Ver is not a big or impressive river these days - it's only a few inches deep in many places - but it's our river and we like it. I guess it must have been much more significant once upon a time, when people first settled here and the Roman city was built and so on. It still makes itself known from time to time in no uncertain terms when it reverts to its original course and floods the allotments!

Not all of the river is hidden away - here it flows under a main road and we walk past this pretty scene all the time. At the moment there are mounds and mounds of water forget-me-nots on the bank.

And look what else was hiding in the reeds right by the edge of the road!

At this point we would have rejoined our usual route home, but we decided to keep walking along the river into the park. These are more familiar scenes; I love walking in the park and am so lucky to have it on my doorstep!

The lake was man-made in the early thirties, and the Ver carefully routed along one side of it (on the right of the picture).

There are dozens of varieties of ducks and geese here - and when we come here regularly enough it's lovely to see them raising their new families each year! Last spring and summer I made a point of walking through nearly every day, and became quite familiar with each little clan and where it lived and how it was doing.

On the way out of the park is this octagonal pub, reputed to be the oldest pub in Britain, although there are other contenders. We were going to stop for lunch but decided to save our money for this evening... That's a whole nother blog...

The wording on this sign outside always makes me giggle!

Splosh!

I have taken the plunge. The courgettes - two Black Beauty and two Summer Crookneck Squash - are now planted out on the plot.

The other squashes will follow just as soon as we can get the last bed dug. They are covered in buds and raring to go!

Yesterday I also weeded the swedes, and constructed this rather nifty cage to keep the pigeons off. Sadly it won't keep the flea beetles off, and the poor things are looking rather nibbled.

We got the raspberries weeded too, with a little help from a friend. Nice to see they're putting on some good growth. Today I'm going to plant out the rest of the sunflowers between them, I think. I'll put some nasturtiums here too, as ground cover.

The pond is still looking a nasty shade of green, although the new plants are settling in nicely and the water violet is spreading already.

Next thing to try is reducing the amount of sunlight the pond gets - that should reduce the algae. When the herb plants around the pond get bigger they will cast their shadows on the water, but for now the whole thing is rather exposed. And the frogs prefer the shade too:

So for now I have erected this rather unattractive sunshade out of a sheet of black plastic, which will shade a large portion of the pond for a large portion of the day. I don't really know if it will be enough - I've heard of people covering their whole pond with a sheet to get rid of algae - but I don't want to shade the plants too much.

And finally, I see our mysterious digger has dug another mysterious hole.

There are three like this in the strawberry bed, right where it was dug last year when there were beans here! I can't imagine what he's digging for, nor why he always digs in the same places.

A little TLC for the strawberry bed is my next task, I think. It needs a good weeding before mulching with straw and netting it for the fruiting season...

Real Raised Beds!

I hope everyone's been enjoying the sunshine! We had a great afternoon at the plot today, despite me feeling sorry for myself after a very long week: Eddie persuaded me to get out of the house, and I'm really glad we did. Some friends came along again, and we even had some entertainment...

The main task of the day was putting up our new raised beds (well, one of them,) from Harrod Horticultural.

Not a masterpiece of carpentry, but a great deal better than the shallow and flimsy ones we threw together a couple of years back, which are virtually in pieces now. We filled the bed with some topsoil from around the place and the end of last year's compost, and we'll top it off with a couple of inches of shop-bought compost, so that it will be weed-seed free and hopefully the salad veg will actually stand a chance! We bought two of these, 180cm by 60cm and 30cm high, for £85 including delivery (and with the discount code they put on all their catalogues and adverts). I haven't convinced myself it'll be worth the money yet, but when I looked at buying the raw materials and making them myself I was pretty shocked at the cost. Hopefully time will tell...

While clearing the ground for the raised beds, Eddie and Brian found this hazelnut tree coming up amongst the docks and nettles - self-seeded from the tree next-allotment! Waste not want not - we decided we'd replant it in a corner near the raspberries. I backfilled the planting hole with some of our compost and a handful of the special fertiliser we bought for the fruit trees, and trod and watered it in well.

And speaking of raspberries, we were pleased to see they're putting up new growth already.

The asparagus is coming along slowly and steadily, although we found one spear felled in the same way our broad beans had been - just chewed off at the bottom and left lying there. What does this?? I must do something about those mice...

Camera back in action - where do I start?

So. Here's what we've been up to the past few weeks.

We finally dug the bottom end of the plot - the only bit we'd never tackled so far! It was full of old tree roots, and not very nice soil, and we've had it covered in plastic for two years now while we tried to forget about it... Now it's dug over, manured with our lovely compost, and home to 30 new raspberry canes. I'm a bit worried I planted them too close together (as per usual), but time will tell. Picking the fruits could be a spiky experience!

We have planted a new strawberry bed: 9 each of three varieties for a longer harvest period. Today I popped the garlic in between the plants - it's supposed to keep some of the nasties away. I just hope it's not too late to get a decent garlic crop too...

We planted three rows of broad beans back in February, which today are just peeking their noses up into the (patchy) sun:

And we've weeded the pond. Turns out water mint is just as invasive as its landlubbing cousins; it was really difficult to extract the plant pot, and when I finally got it out there were still new mint sprigs looking at me from all corners of the pond. I spent ages trying to pick them all out without disturbing the FROGSPAWN(!) - at least they came out fairly easily.

We've dug the horseradish too, in that lower left corner. I don't know what possessed me to plant horseradish so close to the pond. I watched the whole pond shake as Eddie pulled up one of the long roots! Planning on roast beef and Yorkshire puddings this week so I can put some of what we dug up to good use! And in the top right corner is the asparagus bed, newly weeded and manured. We usually see the first asparagus shoots in the first week of April, but I get the feeling it might be a bit later this year...

And there are our baby tadpoles, taddling away. The water is pretty murky at the moment - it'll be great when the pond life gets going again and things start to clear up.

It's also good to see our miniature apple trees budding all over! We got one delicious apple last year - hopefully more this year! Alas, some mysterious fate has befallen the pear tree, which has been reduced to a dry little stump, and I don't think it's coming back :(