20 July 2008 - Elm Grove Allotment Open Day

The scarecrows were made by Shepperton Brownies.

An annual event which is designed to give members of the public an opportunity to see a working allotment. They are able to wander around the site freely and chat with allotment holders about their plots and the produce that they grow. Everyone is welcome, the young and the old and it is a fun day out, especially for children, many of whom may not even realise where carrots, potatoes and beans come from! The trading hut was open and some lovely cakes and biscuits were served up and it managed to stay dry... always a bonus!

July 2008 - a pile of .... dodgy manure

Thankfully we escaped this but many people's crops were ruined.

1 July 2008

Planted more carrots, dug up the radish and beetroot bed that hadn't been successful replanted the bed with more beetroot, pak choi, butterhead lettuce, oakleaf lettuce, rocket, mooli, spring onions, and baby carrots (Amsterdam).

5 July 2008

Shallots harvested (dried in sun and pickled) and bed replanted with: turnips, chicory, swede. Planted marigolds and sowed nasturtium seeds at the ends of rows. Transplanted more tomatoes and mange tout.

12 July 2008

Planted cabbages.

20 July 2008



Potatoes needed feeding (hence the yellow leaves) but they are still tasting good, which is the main thing! We are continuing to get a good crop of mangetout and chard,the strawberries are still fruiting, the melons are in flower and our very first courgettes are appearing.

A bumper crop of dwarf green beans (we hadn't realised they were growing until we inspected below the leaves!)and the fennel is ready to harvest. It went very nicely with a lovely bit of white fish:



26 July 2008

By the end of July we had dug up most of the maincrop potatoes so replanted the area with leeks for the Winter, turnips, chicory and swede. We also put in some more potatoes and black French beans in the hope that we may get some late ones. We were still picking beans, courgettes, strawberries, fennel, rhubarb (ahh that longed for rhubarb crumble!) and we dug up the remaining Anya salad potatoes.

And so our late Summer allotment plan was looking more like this (click to enlarge):

Recipes - Moonblush tomatoes

Preheat your oven to 220C.

Halve your cherry tomatoes (or leave whole if very small) and put them cut side up on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt, sugar, thyme/basil/oregano (or a combination of all) and drizzle with olive oil.

Put the baking sheet in the oven and immediately turn off the oven. Leave the tomatoes in the oven overnight or for a day without opening the door.

Store in a jar in the fridge (covering with a little olive oil if necessary).

Use with fish, salads, chicken, pasta dishes or with a plate of antipasti.

June 2008... first signs of Summer?

7 June 2008

Courgettes (long yellow, pale green round and patty pans), sweetcorn , melons (under polytunnel) and butternut squash planted. Seeds were sown in the greenhouse earlier in March.

14 June 2008

● Beetroot has been unsuccessful because the mares tail has completely taken over

● Radishes need more thinning and have been left too long

● Broad beans have been ravaged by blackfly once again and are beyond salvage. We have removed the plants and will use the space to plant more salad leaves instead

● Onions and shallots both progressing well

● First signs of asparagus - but we will have to be patient as it will take 2 years too establish before we can pick our first spears

Not a good start to the Summer!

● Fennel - thinned out and transplanted

● Peas and mangetout now have a frame and some netting to climb up

● Chard is starting to appear - must keep well watered and weeded!

● French marigolds planted near the carrots to further deter the carrot fly

● small tomato plants from the greenhouse at home have been transplanted and have some stakes to rest against

21 June 2008

Our first crops of potatoes (Anya) and mangetout! The plants have flowered yet though the potatoes should get bigger.

May 2008 - Getting there... slowly

The month started off with weeding, weeding and yet more weeding! It really didn't take us long to realise the benefits of the black weed-stop sheeting - not only in keeping the soil warm but also in saving hours of back-breaking weeding.

5 May - 11 May 2008

Bank Holiday week and a week off work - yipee! And... the sun was out ALL week so it was a very productive time at the allotment.

● EXTREME weeding to remove mare's tail - we were keen to keep on top of it.

● we made a netted tunnel for salad leaves and will put a polytunnel next to it to grow melons and butternut squash

● carrots sown but will need to cover with fleece to deter the dreaded carrot fly. Also discovered a handy tip to plant some chives alongside as those pesky flies apparently don't like the smell of them.

● dug up another bed so we can plant up this year. We don't want to waste valuable growing space.

● the raspberries now have supports and wires to help them grow

● the paths have been strimmed and the whole plot is generally looking spick and span

● planted artichokes, asparagus, horseradish, garlic, parsley, chard (Bright Lights), peas, salad leaves and French beans (Ferrari, a dwarf variety).... mmmm I am getting hungry just writing this!

So our first planting plan was looking something like this(click to enlarge):


17 May 2008

The rains have arrived so this was a very quick visit to check on the recent planting frenzy! We managed to weed in between the showers and boy were we grateful for our little green shed! Shallots are coming along very nicely and there are signs of beetroot, fennel and leeks. Amazingly, the radishes are almost ready - they will be our very FIRST crops.

24 May 2008

We picked our first strawberries today! Very sweet although clearly our little feathered friends agree so we will have to invest in some netting (and maybe in the future even think about a fruit cage). Our fennel is starting to emerge but will need to be thinned out and respaced. Salad leaves have bolted (tut tut, not enough watering!)so we will have to plant some more. The blackfly on our broad beans is treatable with a good ol' spray and we will have to keep a close eye on them.

April 2008: Less of the growing, more of the digging

We took on half size plot 38A at Elm Grove Allotments in Walton-on-Thames on Friday, 4 April 2008. The allotments are just 5 minutes walk from our house so we are very lucky just to be able to pop over there and can be often seen strolling down the road with our wheelbarrow laden with tools and produce! I hope we don't look too much like ragamuffins in our grubby garb!

When we took over the plot it needed some serious digging over and tidying up.



We spent our first Saturday fixing the shed window, digging the ground (the soil was better than in our own garden!), starting on turning over the grassy paths within the plot to provide a larger growing area and generally tidying up.



We were SO eager to get planting as everyone else seemed to have already started on sowing for the season ahead but... the very next day it snowed!



So we had to wait until the ground had thawed out before we could even continue digging, working manure through the soil and planting!

Potatoes (Anya), red onions, shallots and the rescued and relocated raspberries were the first things we planted in the newly dug-over ground.

We were very lucky that our plot came with a water butt and a shed, invaluable to store tools, seeds etc and just to have somewhere to shelter when the wind blows or the rain falls. Sadly it seemed to do this rather a lot in our first year!

Saturday 12 April

We managed to rescue quite a number of raspberry canes that had been left abandoned to grow underneath a grassy/weedy area and we moved these alongside the strawberry plants we had planted. Eager to get crops into the ground, we also planted white onions, sowed leek seeds and broad beans. Any grassy areas we weren't using straightaway we covered with weed-stop material to minimise those pesky weeds.

Saturday 19 April

We received our very first gifts from fellow plot holders, ... some crowns of rhubarb which we planted right away, dreaming of a nice bowlful of rhubarb crumble as we did so and some pea plants. We also sowed beetroot (Chioggia), radish, fennel (Florence) and mangetout.

Sunday 27 April

Mare's tail EVERYWHERE - at first we had thought they were asparagus shoots which the previous plot holders had planted but sadly we were so wrong. We carefully weeded around the onions and shallots and dug over the empty beds and covered with weed-stop sheeting to deter the weeds.

We also planted some redcurrant, blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes in the fruit bed.