Blackcurrants (Image Wikimedia Commons)

Last night was spent making up some blackcurrant sorbet as well as preparing to make blackcurrant jelly…

One of the other allotment holders has a number of blackcurrant bushes on one of their plots, and they very kindly offered to let us pick some blackcurrants from their bushes - they said they’d already taken huge numbers home, made jam, frozen them …. and there were still loads left on the plants (there still is now and we took a couple of kilos!).

Decided to make blackcurrant jelly rather than jam, given the number of tiny seeds in blackcurrants. Ended up grabbing a recipe from the Internet as my preserves and jams books doesn’t have blackcurrant jelly - mostly its knowing how much water and sugar to add for the type of fruit. Well, I left that dripping through the jelly bag overnight and now have a bowl of very finely sieved blackcurrent juice ready for the second stage (incidentally, I found that at the local supermarket, the “jam” sugar with added pectin was about 2/3rds the cost of normal granualted sugar, I’m sure jam sugar is normally considerably morse expensive!).

Also mixed up a batch of sorbet - we’ve had an ice cream maker for ages, but it can’t have been used for at least 5 years I guess (since we moved to the West Midlands at least…). Having prepared the sugar/syrup solution and cooled it, I found the drive link was missing from the ice cream maker, which then involved searching all the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen, all to no avail! I did however discover that the drive on our old food processor (which is still in the garage) was very similar in shape, so with the application of a hammer, screwdriver and a Stanley blade, I refashioned the drive so it fitted … and hey presto, 40 mins later, enough churning to transfer it to the freezer. We haven’t yet tried out the sorbet, so I don’t know if 40 mins was long enough or if the ice crystals will be too large and we’ll get a gritty sorbet… At least I don’t have to go with the manual option of freeze, blend, freeze, blend, freeze, blend ….. I think I’ll try and get the proper drive for the ice cream maker - looks like Partmaster have the drive and paddle available.

Image from Wikimedia Commons, by Aconcagua.

Charlotte potato harvest

Harvested the Charlotte second early spuds - the tops had all died down, and given the weather we thought it would be a good idea to avoid blight! We got a pretty good crop from the eight or so seed potatoes that went in. Some of them towards the one end seem to have been attacked by some type of tiny worm, but mostly a healthy crop! At least a couple of kilos anyway. Hopefully the Pink Fir Apple and King Edwards will be doing just as well for later in the year!

A number of the courgette plants had also produced some rather large fruit again, so I guess some of those will be going to people at work!

Close-up of cut broccoli heads

The second batch of broccoli seems to be coming along nicely - looks like we might actually be around to harvest this crop! Took a couple of heads which were well formed, though there’s a number which will be ready in the next week or so!

The sweetcorn seems to be coming along nicely, its a good couple of feet tall now (seems bigger than most people’s on the allotment site!), and it looks like it might be starting to produce corn, maybe if we’re lucky and get some sun!

All the peas seems to have been eaten by the pigeons whilst trying to grow the first couple of cm above the soil and its a bit late in the year to be sowing now, better protection needed next time I think!

The sturon onions seem to be coming along nicely, though the red baron seem less well. I also harvested most of the shallots, there’s just one variety left in now which probably need a couple more weeks. I planted some of the gizelle shallots at home, but had pretty bad crop failure with those - they seems to have rotted in the last few weeks, and clearly some of the ones at the allotment were going that way as well, so removal was needed. I did get a pretty good crop of shallots, though none are particularly big.

In the spaces where the spuds and shallots came out from, I’ve already done some replanting - on Saturday we had to go to Telford to DHL International to collect a parcel, so we came back via Bridgnorth. One of the stalls on the market there was selling plug-plants of cut-and-come-again lettuce and wild rocket for a couple of quid each, so we thought it worth a punt along with a butternut squash plant… no doubt the slugs will have a go at them, but hopefully there’ll be some left for us!

And finally, I ordered some stuff from Suttons this week - 2nd main crop potatoes, which should be ready September - December as well as some over-winter varieties of onion which should be ready July next year. Last of all, I upgraded WordPress to 2.6 this morning, and it seems to have some changes to image handling, mostly for the better I think, though I’ll have to see how the post formats in the end!

In the overall race, the Hull & Humber came second, beaten by just a few points by New York. In third place was Glasgow.

The race consists of 10 yachts, each one sponsored by a City. The crew is mostly members of the public (no previous experience required!) who can be either “Round the Worlders” or “Leggers” - the overall race is split into 7 legs, with each leg consisting of a number of races between ports. Points are calculated based on positions in each race, with deductions for any equipment that is replaced.

Technically the overall race finished at midnight on Saturday morning with a “first past the post” elastic race just a few miles outside of Liverpool. Basically towards the end of the final race there were a number of markers which could be added or removed as needed to ensure the boats mostly arrived on time…

We arrived around 10am into Liverpool by train, having found there’s a Merseyrail (Underground) link from Lime Street to James Street, just a few minutes walk from the Albert Dock. Given that the yachts were still a few miles outside of Liverpool, there was a final race (not counted towards the overall race) called the Mersey Dash -  a number of markers bringing the yachts to the finish line at the Albert Dock. Basically the race was to get the boats to the Canning Half Tide dock in time for the tidal level to allow them to safely enter.

After watching the arrival of the yachts, we moved round to the Canning Half Tide dock, where they paraded in in overall race order, led by the host boat Liverpool08.

During the Dash and movement to the Half Tide dock, we were “entertained” by the sports reporter from BBC Radio Merseyside, and whilst he did have interviews with members of the crew, some of music was rather cheesy! (And I still don’t get the relevance of some of the tracks chosen for the arrival of each yacht, which were presumably meant to be representational in some way!)… So there was much waving and cheering from the crowd as each yacht arrived.

Eventually, the 10 yachts made it into the dock do that the gate could be closed and the water level matched to that of the Albert Dock, given that it was going to take several hours, we decided to depart for lunch… as did everyone else I think! The crew’s however would have to wait until they finally landed in the Albert Dock (though they clearly had copious deliveries of beer…).

After lunch we made our way round the the Albert Dock in preparation for the final journey of the yachts and met up again with a number of other family members. After a long time, the yachts eventually started to move into the Albert Dock, this time in reverse order. This process seemed to take an excessive amount of time, however eventually the Hull & Humber arrived into the dock…

Unfortunately, our vantage point wasn’t next to the landing point for the Hull & Humber, so we had to shuffle through the crowds to try and get a better view of the crew and see the presentation of the 2nd Place flag, champagne and all.

There are reports (see here, here, here, here and here in the comments) of crop problems at a number of allotment sites and it looks like the cause is from manure which is contaminated with a herbicide. The contamination seems to have been caused by having been sprayed on grass which is then either used as food or bedding for cattle or horses. As some farmers buy in feed for their animals, they may be unaware of the spraying themselves so it might actually be quite difficult to determine how safe the manure is for use on food crops.

The RHS have posted some advice on the causes, symptoms and what to do, though basically it looks like you shouldn’t eat affected crops.

Image from Wikimedia Commons, by Malene Thyssen.

Some of the other things are looking a bit worse for going away, but then some of the things were moved out of the greenhouse at home as they definitely would have died there.

Surprisingly some of the broccoli seems to have gone to flower, given that I thought it was all winter type veg, I’m not sure what’s going on there! Sweetcorn seems to be doing well, though it seems to be sprouting shoots from the bottom rather than going tall…

The cucumber plants are doing well and there’s a number of good sized fruit on them, though the tomatoes in the greenhouse don’t seem to be doing much really. They’ve grown lots of stem, but haven’t really started to develop fruit. The Edonis melons are also doing well and a number of fruit on each plant have set, so I’ve cut the growing tips and removed the rest of the flowers to encourage the fruit to develop properly.

Sunday was mostly tidying and I did a bit of watering. Planted out the sage, lettuce leaf basil, sweet green basil and another type of basil which I’ve forgotten the name of right now (edit: Lemon basil it was)… Also put the last few sweet pea plants out on the plot in a gap where some beans didn’t germinate. Also put a couple of Pinocchio’s nose chili plants and some normal toms out which I didn’t have space for in the greenhouse.

The corn seems to be coping OK and has certainly started to grow … just need to hope for a bit of rain! - Apparently if they lack water then it can stop growth completely, the plants will look healthy enough, but just won’t grow… Hopefully the clay soil will retain enough moisture to keep them going, assuming we get the odd rain shower!

I’ve now removed the glass cloche from over the melon plants as they are starting to put out flowers, hopefully some will set soon! There’s also a few flowers starting to appear on the bush tomatoes I planted out last week. The courgette plants look like they are starting to produce some fruit as well, I suspect in the next week or so, some will be ready for picking!

I’ve put the plastic hoops from the cheap poly-tunnel that I bought out over the strawberry plants, need to add some bird netting over it - at some point I’m going to build a proper full sized bird cage, but I don’t think I’m going to get time before the fruit comes. There’s certainly some fruit on there now, and its starting to ripen. I don’t think we’ll get a huge crop this year, but then some of the plants only went in this year, and the rest were the remnants of the ones which were removed by the previous occupant. The ones at home look better, though the fruit isn’t ripening yet.

Back at home we’ve done some general tidying of the garden (removing the odd bit of couch grass there as well!). I’ve also just installed a drip-water irrigation system in the greenhouse. Got the drip system from Amazon as well as the timer module (just went for the basic one as it seems to have all the functions I need!). I did have to replace our outside tap with a new one - the old one used to spray water out the top of the tap when it was turned on, but under pressure…. it was actually quite easy to replace, (though it looks like there might be a tiny tiny drip, so I think some more PTFE tape may be needed).

So mostly taking it easy on Saturday, cut the hedge at home, piled more trimmed tree into the green wheelie bin, so its full again and general tidying of the garden at home. Cucumber plants have started to produce fruit and the melons in the greenhouse seem to have come on quite well. Planted up some hanging baskets with a couple of the Balconi tumbling tomatoes in each one (found some hanging basket liners which are actually the correct size this year from the local DIY/hardware store, which is also quite cheap for other garden products, including paraffin for the heater!). I think I’ll give them a couple of days before putting them up onto the hangers, but they seemed to have grown quite a lot by Sunday! Generally quite pleasant weather on Saturday, so much so that I got the BBQ out!

Did manage to get a couple of hours in on Sunday afternoon though. I was surprised that we were the only people there - maybe everyone else was put off by the rain in the morning. Cleared the area around the water-container again and dug out some large convolvulus roots again. Lined the edges of the plot just there with empty compost bags to try to discourage the roots from invading from the sides again… Earthed up the spuds (after adding some organic feed), though I think I got a bit close finding soil on a couple as I spotted s mini potato at one point!

Planted out the rest of the Balconi tomatoes on the plot next to the corn (which is mostly looking healthy), so they can grow as a bush variety. The melons under the cloche look OK, though the growbag had dried out quite a lot.

Put in the spare canes that I have as a wigwam and planted up some mangetout peas, though I suspect the local pigeons will probably attack … some sort of bird-scarer may be in order for that!

The courgettes seem to have recovered a bit, and look like they are might produce some more growth over the next week if the weather warms a bit during the day. The spuds are in desperate need of earthing up, but that will have to wait a bit still. The broccoli seems to have perked up quite well over the last few days as well, though the netting cage had blown over a bit and was lying on it in some places.

Finished digging over the bit below the fruit section and we now have the Sweetcorn in as well as a couple of my Balconi tomatoes - they should be fine outside, though they should really be acclimatised for a few days. Also popped the last pair of melons into a growbag at the allotment. They are in a glass cloch made from some spare greenhouse glass and some special clips my dad gave me last year. We also planted in the redcurrant bush. The redcurrant root stock I bought earlier and planted last week looks a bit healthier now, though the blackcurrent that did look fine when in a pot looks a bit worse for wear - I guess it got a bit battered around by the wind over the last week.

Spent some time weeding again, I guess a bit like painting the Forth bridge (though yes I know they are changing the coating soon), but I figure as long as I keep doing a bit each week, I should stay on top of it.

Some people from one of the other allotments mentioned they thought it was looking good and that we’d got a lot done, which is good that we aren’t getting complaints about the state of some of the plot! I think we’ll try to tackle the next bit which has been covererd for a while before going back to couch grass attacking. That bit is next to the corn where the soil has a completely different structure to further up the plot. I also read yesterday in one of my gardening books that outdoor tomatoes have been known to kill couch grass. Now I’m not entirely sure how this works, but I think I might try planting some in amongst the couch grass and see how things go….

Oh and I almost forgot, Thompson and Morgan have 1/2 price seeds at the moment… so I bought some stock for next year.

The leeks have gone into a bed in the middle of the allotment which has taken three digs over to make the soil vaguely usable (the last 1/2m x 2m section took hours the first time as it was filled with couch grass)… We went for the option of cutting the roots to an inch or so long and then trimming the tops so they are 6″ high. Hopefully they’ve survived the high winds over the weekend, as well as the beans which went in earlier in the week. I guess the courgettes may be a little worse for wear as well, but we’ll see.

I reorganised my greenhouse last week, moving the staging to the back “short” wall which has given a lot of space in the rest of the greenhouse. Got 6 moneymaker tomato plants into growbags and finally planted a couple of the Edonis melon into growbags as well. They’ve also had their growing tips pinched out as they were more than beyond the four true leaf stage. The final two melons are going up to the allotment at some point, into a cold-frame made from spare greenhouse glass. The cucumbers are also doing well now (mostly), though a couple of leaves have got white spots on, which I guess is downy mildew - I’ve removed them anyway.

Chillis and sweet peppers have all been potted on this weekend into larger pots (though I don’t have enough of the “correct” size pots, so they’ll just have to cope).

Planted out the blackcurrent we bought last year as well as the cranberry, blueberry and redcurrant root stock I bought in Woolies earlier in the year (they have some green leaves, so they have two chances). We also got a good sized redcurrant from Bridge End Garden Centre whilst off visiting people at the weekend.

And on a completely different note, now that the roof is secure and watertight, we moved a whole load of boxes out of our shed back into the roof space. The roof is pretty dusty now (not a big surprise given the state of the old slate!), so I’ve had to clear a bit of a path through. The upshot is that you can now get into our shed and to the back without having to climb over everything. I definitely think replacing the old garage with a big shed was a good investment last year.

Our roof was suffering from nail fatigue (where the head of the nail rusts through) - hardly surprising given the house was built in the 1930s, before galvanised and copper nails were around. The old slate was also breaking up, which is apparently caused by a lack of roofing felt or torching, and then freeze/defrost cycles. I’d already been up last year and reseated a number of slate, and earlier this year we had a number of slates come down from the edges in high-winds.

We had a couple of quotes for the replacement of the roof, the cost varied dramatically between people, in fact there was a difference of about 3k between the cheapest and most expensive quote we received. I strongly advocate getting at least three written quotes and comparing them carefully.

The company we chose was called Securaroof, who advertise in the local paper. I found the guy who runs the company to be friendly and not pushy when he came out to quote for the replacement. He was also quite happy to give me a couple of options for roofing material. I was impressed that every day during the job, the ground was swept before we returned home - the first day I was wary there might have been nails or shards of slate on the driveway, but everything had been carefully collected.

In terms of roofing material, we opted for a Spanish Slate - La Roca, over a man-made concrete based replacement material. Generally I think that the natural look of the slate is much better than the mechanically cut lines of the replacement products, and though real slate is more expensive than a man-made product, it wasn’t prohibitively so…