Page 59 - ALG Issue 1 2017

Then in late August
Kristy spotted some
brown marks on our
potato foliage. We had
blight! I think it seemed
worse because of what
you learnt about it at school with regards to the potato famine. We checked with Allan and did as the books said and cut all the foliage off and left them for three weeks
for the potatoes to harden. Three weeks later I returned with another favourite too; grandad’s potato fork. It was around 4’8”
as I assume the handle had snapped and he had repaired it with a long length of soil pipe, bolted, yes bolted, and not screwed at each end! Some earlier crops of potatoes had shown signs of wireworm which we had seen, so with trepidation we lifted them. Beautiful red potatoes where brought to the surface. Some didn’t seem right but Kristy identi ed it as scab, something that would peel out. From that one row, we cropped
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for a plug spanner and the original plug, for some reason, that I had kept.
I took out the new plug and it was completely choked up (worn piston rings) but by replacing it with that original plug, it only took half a pull and it was off again, stronger than ever.
With the plot newly tillered, it was time
to start planting. We did try some sweet peppers under eece in April but they died pretty quickly due to our heaviest frosts of the winter coming at that time! Cauli owers went in fairly quickly that we had brought on at home, followed by potatoes (obviously Desiree!) onions, garlic, leeks and carrots.
Later on, the brassicas went in, cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli and kale, along with turnips and swede. The nal seeds to go in were beetroot, tomatoes, petit pois and runner beans.
Watering in the evenings didn’t seem a chore. It is such a peaceful site and it was nice to see things ourish. Birds and slugs seemed to be the issues though, as the caulis got decimated. We hung CDs as bird scarers but Kristy was reluctant to use slug pellet in case it harmed any other wildlife. Allan put us on to Ferric phosphate based pellets instead and we haven’t looked back.
It was July when things started to give us a real allotment experience. The disease of rust took on our alliums and ea beetle on the turnips. We sprayed the turnips but the rust really set in on the garlic. We left them as long as we could before lifting. Later in July and into early August we started to
harvest. Runner beans up to 12” were one of the highlights but everything we put in had done something bar the earlier mentioned peppers and some lettuce (that did nothing!). The carrots were a little disappointing with only a few coming out so we planted some more. One day we had potatoes, cauli ower, turnips, beans and garlic at once. The onions were dried and made some excellent cheese and onion sandwiches for those hard harvesting days although can you really call them hard with so much pleasure taken in the crops?
31lb! The blight did take over the tomatoes as well but we saved what we could.
Since then, we have found that carrot
y has had a pop at our carrots, although they were in between the onions and garlic throughout the summer.
With these diseases, it may put some off but I think some of it can be put down to the weather this year. Maybe with a little more research, we could have grown resistant varieties but for me, it was about getting some of those varieties that held memories
It is such a peaceful site and it was nice to see things ourish
of my time with grandad. A very old copy of Dr
Hesseyons vegetable guide has been a real help, covering everything from spacing to diseases. Allan has also been a real
help for some of the items we didn’t know existed but suited our needs.
I feel that this will be a long relationship, almost nding this hobby as a seed that had laid dormant until taking the step of trying
it for myself. I call it a hobby, but is more a lifestyle as it needs regular attention. There’s still the winter to come with those brassicas waiting to be harvested, but it’s nice to have them there rather than sitting with a bare plot with nothing to do.
Success is never far away with a little hard work but I think grandad was the greatest inspiration.
Jon Staple, Turners Allotments
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