I harvested the rest of the oca at the allotment, it seems the tubers carried on growing after the frost killed off the foliage. There were some good sized tubers with amusing shapes like pink fir potatoes, but I don't think we really want to see the two pink cat turds served up on a plate. 🌱

I cleared a bed of carrots and left the chopped tops to cover the soil over the winter, I'll add a layer of compost/manure in early spring, this video from Huw Richards has convinced me that leaving additions of soil improver until later is a good approach. #Allotment www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu6s...

These sprouts are a good size but badly infested with aphids. If I finish them off in a roasting tin with plenty of finely chopped rosemary and black pepper etc for Christmas lunch then hopefully the guests won't notice if I don't manage to remove all the bugs, good plan, eh? #AllotmentLife 🌱

I harvested the last few celeriac at the allotment, they can keep for months but these ones won't get the chance. I usually sow the seeds in March, but next year I’ll start from January (next month!), I thought that might be a way to extend the harvest period and have some ready before the Autumn. 🌱

The allotment shed “extension” project continues, now we just need a roof. The front slides up to provide a vent at the bottom and can also be removed. The salvaged polycarbonate used on the sides has cleaned up ok, but I’ll still try to find some better material for the lid. 🌱

I harvested some Oca because the frost last week had turned the foliage to mush. It’s nice to eat and looks stunning, but the yield isn’t great, these were from one plant. I’ve heard the tubers may carry on growing for a couple of weeks after the foliage dies off, I hope that’s true. #Allotment 🌱

I started preparing beds at the allotment for next spring by chopping down the phacelia/mustard green manure. I'll leave it weighed down on the surface to rot down a bit and then bury it under 2-3cm of well-rotted horse manure, I find this works well and it's "no dig friendly". #AllotmentLife 🌱

Huzzah! For the first time in four years my autumn/winter leeks haven’t been wrecked by Allium Leaf Miner, I netted them for a bit longer than usual, starting September. I mostly grow early leeks to harvest before the second ALM hatch and had thought about giving up on the later ones. #Allotment 🌱

A quick harvest of rooty stuff from the allotment today, now quickly off home for some spicy parsnip soup and this evening, because I've got to try harder to convince OH of the benefits of celeriac, it's going to be celeriac and parsnip rösti. #AllotmentLife

Instead of paying for a speaker who actually knows what they’re talking about, my gardening club wants me to give a talk about our allotment. I thought I'd cover: 1. initial plot preparation 2. looking after the soil/dig methods 3. how we grow/what we grow. It'll be fine, won't it? 😬

A nice late autumn harvest from the allotment today, celeriac, carrots, radicchio, kohlrabi and cav nero. Off home now to find out whether the radicchio (the spotty one in the middle) is something I ever want to grow again, I’ve heard mixed reviews. #AllotmentLife 🌱

Time for an allotment infrastructure project, I've started building a little lean-to greenhouse on the end of our shed. In keeping with my principles, only donated or salvaged materials are to be used. Also in keeping with my principles, I'm making it up as I go along, so far, so good. 🌱

Allotment cabbage reveal! The red cabbage looks better than last year’s at this stage, I'm not sure about the Chinese cabbage (new variety this year), there's still time, but so far it's nowhere near the 800g heart per plant that Huw Richards claims in his book "The Self-Sufficiency Garden".🌱

First celeriac of the season! I’m looking forward to this, it should be big enough for two or three dishes. #Allotment 🌱

Four of the best dahlias I grew from seed this year. The upper two are from Chiltern Seeds mixed varieties; the lower two were from Bishop's Children seeds, it's not often that you get flowers of those that aren't dark red. #FlowersOnFriday

Good things coming in threes, here are one of each of the carrots we're growing this year. From left to right, Chantenay Red Cored, Volcano F1 & Autumn King. Wedge shaped Chantenay Red Cored is our go to variety for growing on heavy clay, but Autumn King also looks good for heavy soil. #Allotment 🌱

A selection of vegetables from the allotment, beetroot in two colours, kohlrabi and carrots were freshly-harvested; potatoes, red onions and shallots were taken from the shed, while the self-seeded calendula in front of the shed was almost glowing in the fading light. #AllotmentLife🌱

A bit of colour and a bit of heat from today's brief allotment visit, just what we need as it begins to get darker. #allotmentlife 🌱

Beautiful foliage with delicate flowers on Oca growing in a new bed on allotment 2. Some say it's good to grow potatoes on new ground, but Oca may be good for this, the foliage is really dense, shading weeds & unlike potatoes, the wireworm you get on new ground doesn't seem to spoil the tubers. 🌱

A second harvest of the Volcano F1 carrots looks even better than the first, these five together weigh more than 1kg. It's true that the top few cm of the bed is loose mulch, but most of the length of these had grown down into the harder layer of clay. #allotment 🌱

Could this be the year our celeriac finally edges past 2kg?They're swelling up nicely and should continue to do so for a while, this one was sown a bit earlier than usual (February instead of March), that seems to have helped. #Allotment 🌱

Garlic planting day at the allotment, 60 cloves Solent Wight & Rhapsody Wight that I'd saved were planted amongst the White Mustard green manure. I also thought I'd try a few of my Zebrune Shallots, they're not one of the varieties recommended for overwintering so we'll see how that goes. 🤞🌱

I finally got round to harvesting my Caledonian Rose maincrop potatoes today, it's a good yield from a 3 sq m bed but they're well scabby due to the drought, so jacket potatoes are unlikely to be on the menu. #allotmentlife 🌱

At one end of the bed, lovely looking Radicchio (completely unscathed), at the other end Napa Cabbage (shredded), if even the slugs won't eat the Radicchio then I'm not so confident about its suitability for human consumption. #allotmentlife 🌱

Another harvest of cav nero leaves from the allotment for tonight's dinner, they're absolutely pristine with no trace of whitefly or aphids thanks to the deployment of our tailored heavy duty fine mesh cover, I'll change it for standard bird netting to allow more light through at some point soon. 🌱

Plot second anniversary post 🎉 In September 2023 we took on the abandoned plot next to our first one, we cleared weeds, dug out and rebuilt beds and remade paths. Yesterday I planted up a new strawberry bed with plants raised from runners, the view is from shed at the top end. #allotment 🌱

Dahlias looking good in the late afternoon sun with a new allotment cat visiting, this is always the danger if you plant catmint.🌱

We had a slight ground frost in S Cambs (UK) today, note the crispy leaves on this dahlia, other flakey stuff was also damaged. We had a really late ground frost on the 23rd May this year, so we basically only had three frost free months which makes our climate sound colder than it is! #allotment 🌱

We’re away for a while so I picked these tomatoes to ripen at home, there are 6kg in the box with plenty left on the plants and we've already had about 15kg. Considering the price of fancy tomatoes they're potentially a valuable crop, sad that most just end up as fancy passata though. #allotment 🌱

Today at the allotment I picked some nice things, deadheaded flowers and chose some good cloves from the garlic stored in the shed to plant next month, but mostly I just sat drinking coffee and enjoying the view because it's that time of year where there's a bit less to do and I for one am glad. 🌱

More autumn/winter veg, here's our kale at the allotment, it's been grown under ultrafine mesh as usual, so no aphids or white fly & we don't really need to wash it. The cav nero we're growing is cobra F1, it's alleged to have narrower leaf ribs than standard cav nero which would be handy if true.🌱

Some "Czar" runner beans from the allotment to use as butter beans in a salad tonight, we harvest these regularly rather than letting the entire crop dry out, they only have to be boiled for a few minutes from fresh and they're probably tastier than if they've been dried. 🌱

Autumn/winter allotment veg round up: probably my best brussels sprouts plant ever, red cabbage starting to heart up, plenty of carrots (so much easier to get going from a late summer sowing than in spring), finally a test bed of three different parsnip varieties to see which grows best on clay. 🌱

A colourful bed of phacelia, mustard and buckwheat full of bumblebees on a sunny day. Since we got more growing space we don't have to cultivate quite so intensively and we were able to relax and sow green manure in this bed after the climbing peas instead of carrots. #Allotment 🌱

Celeriac and red cabbage growing at the allotment with clover as a living mulch to avoid bare soil, When I cut the clover down there are spiders and beetles moving around and the clover leaves have been nibbled by slugs, maybe they're acting as a decoy for the veg, hopefully all good signs. 🤞🌱

This is how it looks in our kitchen most days now, tomatoes coming in thick and fast from the #allotment, this is the kind of glut that we enjoy. 🌱

Some views from and of the seating area behind our shed, it’s mostly flowers, only a few nice looking vegetables are allowed to be seen when we're having a break, absolutely no potatoes, brassicas, pallets, netting or mesh, that stuff is all down the other end of the allotment! 🌱

Some of the big tomatoes are ripening at the allotment, not all colours are available yet, but these orange and green ones make a plate that tastes as good as it looks. The orange one is Gourmansun, the green one is Emerald Brocade. 🌱 @snnybnny.bsky.social

The sweetcorn fortress has held again as expected and the score so far is Tony 3, badgers 0. There are badgers about at the moment, they’re digging deep holes in the wood chip paths every night, they must be finding it difficult to find worms to eat because it’s so dry. #Allotment 🌱

I just can't help myself, I've been eating way too many of these plums, I can't make my mind whether they taste better warm straight off the tree or cold out of the fridge.

Onion harvest completed, the brown onions and round red onions came from one 3 sq m bed, the shallots (top left) & the long red onions (top right) were from four rows in another bed. This is why I like to grow onions from seed. There will now be no more onion-themed posts until 2026. #Allotment 🌱

I harvested the first of our Bulgarian Giant early leeks, they're a bit small and later than usual because of seed compost issues. I like to grow early leeks, it's a good way of getting some harvested before the allium leaf miner hatch in September. #Allotment 🌱

Cooking tonight, second early potatoes and chard, I have a theory that chard could be the UK's most composted allotment veg due to a lack of good recipes, but Croatian "Blitva" with plenty of garlic and olive oil is an excellent way to use up chard along with potatoes.🌱 @nicamsterdam.bsky.social

Here are some of the big tomatoes we're looking forward to, some have even been tied up to make sure the trusses don't break, I think the size is due to a particularly potent (judging by the smell at least) batch of comfrey feed, varieties in ALT. @snnybnny.bsky.social. #Allotment 🌱

The first part of the onion harvest, they were grown from seed sown in modules in February, looks like quite a good yield from a small area (about 1.2 sq m). The tops were chopped up to mulch the bed, the onions will dry and keep just fine in the box kept in the allotment shed.🌱

Looks like high time to deploy some sweetcorn defences at the allotment, so I’ve activated the badger shield. 🌱

This is one of the most striking tomatoes I've ever seen, I hope it tastes as good as it looks. It's a new green variety called "Emerald Brocade" that I'm growing at the allotment for the first time. 🌱

We're still finding nice things to grow, new favourites from last year were Bon Bon squash, Gourmansun tomatoes and Bulgarian Giant leeks, from this year Kamarzyn broad beans. On the other hand, seeds binned after one try include Aztec Broccoli, leaf Amaranth, Kalettes & Gigantes beans. #Allotment 🌱

Clearly three different types of apple to be seen now on the Red Delicious apple tree at the allotment, so you're really going to have to concede that my grafting has worked 😁. (Red Delicious was sent by mistake, I'm trying to change it to other actually edible varieties). 🌱