Waark!com – A self sufficientish blog

Not an inspiring title… but plenty of fruit and veg harvested!  Several photos got lost in a transfer from my aging iPhone, but we’ve got loads of gooseberries, raspberries, couple of strawberries, cucumbers, courgettes & beetroot.

Some talk of chickens which’ll be appearing soon on our allotment.  I’ve long debated whether we should get some, but since we’re struggling with our Hockley to RALGA commute as it is, doing that wouldn’t be fair on them.  I also got talking to Andy whom I’ve seen plenty of times before but haven’t properly been introduced (Hi Andy if you’ve made it onto here).  Andy seems to be responsible for getting the RALGA mailings out on the email list but my email address was lost in translation, so fingers crossed I’ll find out about events a few days earlier than the day it’s being held!  He’s also trying to get a coop down the plot working with another friendly allotmenteer.  I’ve offered to help in anyway I can just so I can get a bit of experience with chickens, so Andy feel free to abuse my good nature in anyway you need!

Our first non-rhubarb decent harvest – so much fruit! Over 1.5 kilos of strawberries & just under a kilo of raspberries.  Plenty has been frozen for jam making etc.   We’d even got some purple sprouting broccoli, potatoes and a few more courgettes!  The beans are doing really quite well, almost up to my neck now!

Today the first sets of berries have started to ripen and ‘joy of joys’ courgettes are appearing.

No, not three sisters.  Not yet anyway.

Around some of our own home grown courgettes and a couple from the plant sale we decided to plant our sweetcorn.  In previous years we probably haven’t given our sweetcorn quite enough nutrients.  Before planting each plant, we dug in a few inches of manure and added about thirty plants.  It’s a lot for a small space, but it’s all good fun to see if it works.  This time round we’ve taken our advice from gardeners world – planting two side by side to get the most bang for buck.

We also got a few more cucumbers in and a couple of chilli plants.  Whilst I was busy setting up the chilli plants, my wife dug over the old strawberry bed and planted up with pumpkins – one of which is the mammoth variety…

Found some odd grubs in the soil when we were digging in the manure – since last year this bed had quite a bit of broccoli in it which was destroyed by pests these grubs may have been the cause.  Fortunately Mr Blackbird was happy to accept this offering and popped back later to see if he’d get any other tasty titbits.  He was out of luck as we decided to pop over to Hanningfield reservoir for an ice cream.

Three micro blogs in a day – busy times.

We decided to celebrate my passing of exams with a BBQ.  Originally it was going to be a quiet night in, but with amazing weather the BBQ was the obvious choice.

But no point having a normal BBQ – a local speciality butcher sorted me out with a set of pidgeon, bacon and spring onion sausages and venison sausages too.  We topped this off with home made burgers (Pork and apple, minted lamb and parmesan, garlic and chilli beef burgers).  Plenty of Pimms sorted out the rest of the evening!

Didn’t realise there was a plant sale down the lottie, but we managed to pick up a load of runner beans to replace the mangetout that had died in the cold frame.  We also got a couple more courgettes!

Yes they’re a pest – but then again if you disturb (read: destroy) a nest by accident and discover four baby mice which haven’t even opened their eyes, what do you do?  Since it was unlikely that the mother would come back after I had to pick them off the ground and they were covered in human smells we called the RSPCA and they were taken away.  Bizarrely I have no problems eating meat, contemplating killing and eating squirrel/rabbit, I couldn’t bring myself to remove a pest from our lives.

Ah well…

Well, it happens.  First image is of our wonderful mangetout which as you can see, is pushing up the daisies.  The second pic is the first courgette plant in the ground.  Third is the first potato, though my wife doesn’t remember planting it, so it’s more than likely a trespasser!

The final picture is the Rhubarb bed – you could be confused with earlier pics before our vast harvest this year, but it’s already recovered.  I think I read once that rhubarb grows an inch a day…

Gooseberry crop

Last year I lost almost all my crop to gooseberry saw fly.  Unknowingly, it also did for our red current bush which couldn’t take the strain and pretty much dropped dead.

Whilst late in the season (probably due to the cold weather) they are now making an appearance.

The gooseberry saw fly looks like a wasp.  The eggs hatch out late April early May and can devistate a plant almost overnight (in my experience).  If you see small holes appearing in the leaves, it’s the most likely culprit – squash (or feed to birds) any caterpillars or eggs you find.  At the end of the season disturb the soil around the roots so that birds can get in and eat the eggs.

This instructable uses hanging drinks/soda bottles (2ltrs) to make hanging pea gardens with drainage tubes which you could use to channel the excess directly back into the watering can.  Watersaving at its finest.

See it here