My Tiny Plot

I bought these fennel plants at the local farmers market. I paid a pound for a pot with around 5 plants in it. I’ve never grown Fennel before so when I got them home I separated them and grew them on individually ready to be planted out. I have four left (gave one to my next door neighbour for feeding our cats when we went away – plants are handy presents!). However, I found out recently that, like Rocket, Fennel is susceptible to bolting, especially if it’s sown early in the year. Therefore it’s best to wait until May/June to sow to ensure that your plants will bulb up. With that in mind I’ve bought some fennel seed and will be sowing it this week just incase this lot goes skyward.

Don’t be tempted to water peas and beans too much, even in this dry weather. You’ll end up with a plant that is all leaf and no pea (or bean) if you’re not careful. Same goes for carrots. Instead, start watering them when the pods start to form.

If, like me you have baked, lumpy, unworkable soil right now (too much sun and not enough rain) then you’ll love this tip. To get that lovely, crumbly tilth that all the seed packets talk about just water the patch of earth you need to work thoroughly. Let it soak in for 20 minutes and you’ll be able to rake it over to a fine texture in no time. And what’s more you can sow your seeds without needing to water them!

While reading the ‘Kitchen Gardens of Heligan’ I made an amazing discovery. It seems that the popular idea that carrots like sandy soil is a myth. They don’t! They just like soil that doesn’t have any stones in it and generally sandy soils are devoid of stones hence the begining of the myth. So, if you can afford a small army of boys to pick out all the stones in your soil (as the Victorians did) or you fancy doing it yourself then you can practically grow carrots anywhere.

My early potatoes (Robinta) are flowering. It’s time to start watering them to ensure a healthy crop of decent sized potatoes, as apposed to mini marbles. We haven’t had any rain here (South West) for over a week and yesterday was so hot I had to wait until 6pm to do any work whatsoever. Watering potatoes is hard work in this weather too, since they are such a large crop. Especially for those of us on allotments that don’t allow hosepipes. Just one row of potatoes took five watering cans full. Where’s the under-gardener when you need him eh? Just as well that the other varieties are not flowering yet (Pink Fir Apple and Maris Bard) otherwise there would be no time for other jobs.

This is a photo of the lettuce patch at my new plot, mttp. The view is pretty amazing from here and I like to sit and watch the horse in the field every now and again. In a bid to save space I have planted small lettuce seedlings in between the larger lettuce. You might just about be able to see them in the photo. The idea is that when the larger lettuce are ready for harvest and have been pulled up the small seedings will be growing well and will fill the gaps made by the larger ones. I have sowed some new seed in the propagator so that I can start the whole cycle again once they are big enough.