New For 2012 - No. 3 - Rooster Potatoes

I like growing potatoes. Some people seem to think that because they are cheap to buy, you do better to use your space to grow something that would be more expensive. I totally disagree, on the grounds that I have never bought a potato that tasted half as good as one I'd grown. To be honest though, I can't remember when I last bought potatoes. For me there's one reason to grow your own above all other reasons - you can't beat the taste of naturally home grown.
This last year, I grew 15 varieties. These were Rocket, Homeguard, Pentland Javelin, Juliette,  Exquisia, Highland Burgundy Red, Salad Blue, King Edward  Maris Piper, Desire  Cara  Wilja, Harmony and Pink Fir Apple - 14 varieities repeated from 2011 - and Rooster, a new variety for 2012. Each year I like to try a new variety and ditch anything I'm not so fond of. In 2012 I ditched Edzel Blue and I didn't miss them. I read somewhere that they were supposed to make the best mash, but I wasn't really impressed.
I had looked at Rooster for a while without buying any, but one day noticed my girlfriend had bought roosters for her dinner, so I cadged a small one out of the pack to give it a try. I have no qualms about planting supermarket potatoes instead of certified seed potatoes, but you have to be able to recognise disease and be willing to take action if you see it. Anyway, nothing but healthy plants this year, and I was amazed to see my one Rooster potato produced 19 good sized potatoes in return. I realise now I should have put something in this picture to help judge the size, but too late now I've eaten them.

I confess I baked eight and then ate eight. They were really nice. So, these will be going in again this year. If you are short of space for potato growing, don't be shy about offering to dig up somebody else's garden. I planted 100 or so potatoes on somebody else's allotment this year. They were struggling to keep it in order, so I helped them out and they helped me and got a few potatoes as a bonus.

New For 2012 - No. 2 - Ulluco

With the aid of a £5 off voucher to spend on Ebay, I invested in some small Ulluco tubers to grow. I had been eyeing them for some time, but they did seem expensive. I planted 8, 3 of which stayed in pots, and five were eventually planted outside. The plants grew well and looked quite attractive.

Those planted in the pots came back into the greenhouse in September, which turned out to be a good move. When I finally dug up the outside crop after the frost had killed them there was very little in the way of tubers, and what there was was heavily eaten, presumably by slugs. Those taken back under cover survived right into December and had about 30 tubers on each plant. unfortunately they were mostly not very big. They have earned themselves a place on this years growing list though, with a challenge to grow bigger. I wont be planting any outdoors this year, but will have some in pots, perhaps bigger pots, and will put some into the greenhouse border. Happily this year, I will have an extra greenhouse, so more room to experiment.

New For 2012 - No. 1 - Sweet Potato

A rainy November day seems a good time to get back to the computer and share some news from the allotment. I like to try something new each year and here is the first of this years experiments - growing sweet potatoes.
I took a cutting from a friends plant in 2011 about the start of September, and it quickly rooted then when the weather turned colder it started to look a bit sad so I brought it home to spend the winter on the window sill in the spare bedroom. In May it returned to the allotment and was planted in a large pot in the greenhouse. My pot was about 18" across and 12" deep. It spread well, going in all directions, covering about 12 foot end to end by autumn.

I wasn't quite sure when to dig it up and see what was there, but as the foliage began to die back I decided I couldn't wait any longer. November 7th I harvested these beauties. Hard to say whether they were limmited by the size of the pot or whether I should have waited a bit longer.

Arranged on a standard dinner plate to show the yield they weighed in at 1kg. The largest tuber was 7oz. Not a huge crop, but very usable and very tasty. I really like them mashed 50/50 with potato.
You can buy slips from lots of places, but if you know somebody else prepared to spend about £10 on an experiment do try to lift a couple of cuttings to rear your own, and once you have them don't feel you need to buy new stock every year. Being pleased with this years crop, I have already got three cuttings started in the spare room to grow for next year. Traditionaly where these were grown, new plants were raised from cuttings to perpetuate the crop shortly before harvesting.

Early Peas

So, I like mice, but that doesn't mean I want them to decimate my peas. They used to cause a lot of damage, digging up the newly germinated pea and eating the remains of the seed. Decoy feeding worked well, putting a scattering of wheat seed down to distract them, but sowing indoors works even better.
I fill two pieces of old guttering with compost then pushed the peas in about an inch with a finger. Sitting in the greenhouse they don't take long to come up and the mice don't get a look in.

Now the weather is picking up, I put the peas out each morning to harden off and take them in at night. Next week, if the weather is still fine, they will get planted out. I just use a hoe to make a channel in the soil and then slide the peas in. For succession sowing I immediately refill the guttering and sow again. After doing that perhaps four times, I'll switch to direct sowing the peas. For whatever reason the mice don't seem to target the later sowings.

Friend or Foe?

This little fella has started getting quite tame and is now posing for photos. I'm not sure what kind of mouse he is - perhaps you can enlighten me? I know not everybody likes to have mice or rats or other wildlife in the vegetable garden but my allotment is also an animal sanctuary.

I don't think you need to wage war on nature to grow good veg. Mice usually only cause trouble when they start digging up peas, beans or sweetcorn as they emerge. I personally have only had trouble with the peas and then I use decoy feeding to protect the plants. A generous helping of wheat scattered nearby is enough to distract them. Within a week or two the peas are too big to interest the mice and then I stop feeding them. The early peas get extra protection by starting them off in the greenhouse in a piece of guttering, but I'll show you that in a month or so.

Have you tried Oca yet?

Oca (oxalis tuberosa) doesn't seem to have made it into any of the main catalogues yet, but is quickly growing in popularity. I got a few tubers from ebay a couple of years ago and this year five of us have grown it at the allotments (on six plots). Usually I dig it up a couple of weeks after the frost has killed the tops off, but this year the plants are still alive as we've only had minor frosts. As the tubers start to grow after the autumn equinox, a late onset to frost is great. Digging up the oca has the same excitement as digging up potatoes. The colourful waxy skins make them look like jewels in the autumn sunshine.

 

The waxy skins make the tubers easy to wash and they are cooked and eaten without peeling. I really like them roasted with honey and ginger, but like a potato they are very versatile. Try them raw too. If you have trouble getting hold of some, drop me a line and I'll sort you out.

Another Bag of Carrots

I thought while we're on the subject of carrots, I should show everything. This is the bag with the carrots for winter use. I've just started to eat them, and they are great. (I am so modest). It may seem strange to make a fuss about carrots as they are far from exotic, but until I experimented with growing in builders bags I was totally unable to grow them where I live. They just seemed to hate the heavy soil and carrot fly maggots were all over them. Now I have clean crisp carrots which more often than not serve as part of an impromptu lunch while I'm on the plot.
I tend to make about eight parallel drills across the soil when I plant, giving plenty of room to grow. The  bag gives them about a foot and a half of soil depth which is more than I have on most of the plot. I heard of somebody who grows all their veg in these bags, but for me its a way to create a space with customised soil for a specific purpose.