Saving of our Allotment Sites

Recently Fortis Green Allotment site has been under threat of being sold from under them by their landlord Thames Water,  who were presumably looking for a developer to purchase the site.  Fortis Green had a petition which was available to sign to to support their bid to save their site from being yet another housing development.


It appears they have had a stay of execution for a while and they are looking into means whereby they could purchase the site from Thames Water, who may be giving them first refusal.  Clearly the amount of money required to purchase land in London is very high.  They are looking to raise funds by various means and have asked for suggestions.  They have formed a not-for-profit, limited company with charitable objectives, (see: http://www.savefortisgreenallotments.com/news.htm) and formed 'FRIENDS OF FORTIS GREEN ALLOTMENTS' to raise funds. Clearly they are looking at the obvious means e.g. Big Lottery Fund’s Local Food programme.


It is important that we all support their efforts to save their allotment site.  Too many have disappeared recently as a result of Councils and land owners regarding these areas as an easy way of boosting their coffers.  Of course selling the family jewels can only be done once, the asset is then gone for ever.  


It appears that Thames Water may be having second thoughts and may now have a different Idea of what they want to do.  However, the possibility still exists that the land could be sold to the highest bidder; the threat is still there.


I for one support the efforts of the plot holders at Fortis Green to attempt to save their site from development and I sincerely hope they succeed.  

Prize Giving at Rathbone Allotments

On Monday evening Anne and Andrew Brown, June Brookes and I went to Rathbone allotments for the Prize Giving for the best allotments in the Borough.  Rathbone is situated in the Northern region and is a very large site.  It has a really large Meeting room with excellent facilities.
We were fortunate enough to win the best site prize for the Central Barnet area and the best site in Barnet too.
This is June with both cups we hold for the year and the two shields that we can keep.

This picture is of the other dual prize winners, which they won for best plot on their own site (Poinings) and best plot overall.  They were going to e-mail me with a picture of their plot but they haven't yet got around to it. 

Rathbone allotment won the best site in the North Barnet area.

The cups that were distributed filled the whole table; quite a display of silverware.  Giving them out took a while but we had been plied with home made cakes and cups of coffee or tea so we were quite mellow. 

Continuing Harvest

Last Sunday was very hot and humid, in fact there were very few allotment holders on site. It was also very dry in spite of the rain we had during the week. We have been fortunate this year as there hasn't been a hosepipe ban and we have been able to water freely. This is clearly a problem as we are all very conscious, these days, of water shortages and, for that matter, all environmental issues. Talking of which, the composting loo is nearly ready for use. It has been built for some time now, but as the concrete apron in front of the toilet had not been constructed and the floor inside had not been painted, it has not yet been commissioned. Apparently, the only thing now holding up the grand opening is the lack of a chain on the toilet brush.

WATCH this space for the announcement that the loo has been declared officially opened!

I have been protecting the corn cobs from the squirrels with plastic water bottles with the tops and bottoms removed. I have only protected half of them owing to shortage of bottles. Up to last week my corn had not yet been attacked but the squirrels are eating the ripe ones first. As mine were planted a little later, they will, no doubt get round to eating mine in due course, once they have eaten the riper ones.


Unfortunately the tomatoes have all got blight even the ones in my greenhouse. I have removed the diseased plants, and tried to salvage some of the apparently unaffected fruit even if not yet ripe. With luck the fruit will ripen without blemish. June is saying she is thinking of banning growing tomatoes outdoors for a year, in an attempt to break the cycle. I am not sure that it is proven that this works. I heard somewhere that watering the tomatoes thoroughly after a rainfall serves to wash the spores off the leaves and this is an effective means of preventing blight without spraying with chemicals.

Bountiful Harvest

Everything is bearing fruit and I can hardly carry the stuff home. My colleagues at work are benefiting from the glut of summer squash and round courgettes. and I have to take them to work in a wheeler as it is all so very heavy.

Beans are really taking off too. I have grown an Italian yellow climbing bean which is completely stringless and very attractive growing over the archway I constructed this year. It is not as tasty as I had hoped it would be but it is perfectly acceptable; however, I probably will not grow this variety again. I have some dwarf green French which are also starting to crop now and these are tastier.

I have harvested all of my overwintering onions; they are mostly large and juicy. I 've had some go rotten but on the whole these have been extremely successful.In particular the red onions are the best I have ever grown. I will definitely be growing these again and I will increase the number of sets I plant too.

This is my mum checking and cleaning the onions for storage.

I have had a few cucumbers, Burpless Tasty Green are my favourite outdoor cues. They are all female and without any bitterness and the skins are not too tough so need not be peeled if sliced very thinly.

Cabbages and kale are doing well too as are beetroot.

I have also started digging up some new potatoes, Linzer Delicatesse, these are delicious. I haven't started to dig up the Desiree or Kestrel yet. The experiment of growing potatoes in a large pot was relatively successful for LD, the potatoes were a bit small; they probably could have done with more water whilst I was away on holiday and possibly they could have done with a bit more chicken manure. It still worked quite well and I still have two more pots to turn out.

We had the bbq two weeks ago and who should turn up but John Ram, all the way from Oz, by lucky coincidence at the right time for the barbie. In addition to this Jim and Imelda also turned up. It was quite a surprise. There were probably 50 or more people who came and it was a great success. I was really pleased that both mum and my Aunt Evelyn were able to come, auntie is just about to celebrate her 92nd birthday and I thought she might not have been up to it; but she really had a great time.

Plant Sale

The two pictures above show the tables laid out for the annual plant sale. We had a wonderfully successful plant sale today in spite of the dreadful weather. I woke up this morning and the sun was shining, by the time I arrived at the plot it had become overcast and as the doors opened at ten o'clock the heavens opened and it continued to pour down until about half eleven. By noon the sun was shining and the Plant Sale was over. Typical.

However we sold the great majority of the plants we raised and there are only a few left for the mini sale next week, when hopefully we will have sold the rest.

After the sale I went down to my own plot. My goal today was to erect an archway for my beans and to get my brassicas in the ground and netted over. Both of which were achieved but only one of which was photographed this week.



It is now Tuesday and I had an e-mail from Melanie last night to say that the protection I had put over the brassicas had collapsed and that she had repaired it as best she could. I am not really surprised that it didn't stand up to the strong wind blowing over the plot; my construction was a bit rickety and I had intended it as a temporary measure to keep the pigeons off until I could spend a bit more time on the project. It was the last thing I did on Sunday and I was pretty exhausted; by the time I left the plot it was about 9.15 and it was getting quite dark and I was cold and hungry.

Spring has Sprung

It was ever so hot on Sunday in the poly tunnel and there was so much to do!

The good news is, all of the seeds I sowed last week have germinated. The bad news is that they will all need pricking out, and although some seedlings were still a bit immature I decided that it would be a good idea to prick out some of the seedlings from the earlier sowings as there will be too much to do next week and it is Mother's day too. So aubergines and peppers have been potted into their final pots and placed in the heated greenhouse. If these prove to be a disaster I still have enough seedlings left over to do it again. Most of the herbs June and I sowed have come up too and will also need to be dealt with. I am hoping that there will be more people who will help out otherwise it is going to be an impossible task. June gave me some Cayenne chilli pepers this week so they have gone in and she bought some more herbs: marjoram, dill and sage; we should have a good variety now.

All the seeds I sowed in my own broken greenhouse last week have germinated so I will have to deal with these as well as the stuff I am doing for the plant sale. This week I sowed some basil seed for myself and Melanie gave me some allium seeds.

Lots of people were out this weekend as it was such a nice day and the whole allotment site is really looking good. We are still getting the lovely council compost this has been really wonderful and everyone is taking advantage of it. I meant to take some pictures this week but I didn't get round to it I will try to remember next week time permitting.

At home the garden is truly awful but at least the daffodils I put in the front garden haven't all been dug up by the local squirrels and the cat next door. It looks as if we will get a good display for the neighbours. I will take some pictures and post them once they are in flower.

One of our friends opens his garden up to the public as part of the Yellow book scheme, and he has asked me for some advice as to what to grow in his vegetable patch; this is a very small area in his garden. I think that people are interested in growing vegetables these days and don't necessarily have a lot of space in their gardens. It is a really excellent idea as it can demonstrate that it is possible to grow a variety of attractive vegetables and herbs in even the smallest of spaces. If he allows me to I will post some pictures of it here. We saw it last year just before the opening and it looked really good.

Another Fine November Day

Went down early to the plot today as we were going to see the great nephew this afternoon. After yesterday's heavy downpour I was expecting today to be equally bad; fortunately I was wrong and it was a glorious day if a bit chilly, I was well covered up against the cold, two pairs of trousers and several layers on top. beret and my French, fleecy lined wellies. These have proved to be a great investment as I never have wet or cold feet in the winter anymore.

I got down to the plot just after eleven, quite early for me these days and the pile of compost that had been delivered this week was fast disappearing. I got the only light-weight barrow left and filled it with compost, but it was a really crummy barrow and I couldn't handle it that well. Roy offered to help me a bit but I declined as Max had said he would come at 12. In the event he was late and I thought I had better bring down some compost before it all disappeared. Roy was kind enough to fill them for me as my back has been a bit of a disaster this week. I was on about the fourth lot wen Max turned up. He got into the wing of things and built up quite a pile before I had to leave to go to wash and brush up before seeing the relatives.

Whilst Max was piling up the compost I started digging over the section where my courgettes and cucumbers had been. I needed to disassemble the bamboo framework that had supported the cucumbers. All of the cucurbitae were poor this year, I am not very sure why as I fed them regularly, but they were definitely not up to scratch. I am hoping that the soil improvement from the compost we are piling up this year will improve the yields next season. I also used seaweed and chicken manure, but maybe not quite enough or perhaps all the nutrients were leached out by the rain?

Susie decided to dig up her leeks as she said she didn't ike the look of them. They looked like fine leeks to me so I gave them to Max as his reward for helping me this week. My leeks don't look anywhere as good as hers and I am not digging mine up just yet.

From Nov 2008

I took some pictures of a Robin this week

I had to leave at two so left Max working on the plot on his own and asked Melanie to look out for him if he needed any advice. I asked him to close the shed when he left but I forgot to tell him the same about the greenhouse. so I imagine he won't have closed the door and all the plants will die. Not his fault as he wouldn't know to do it; maybe Melanie noticed and closed it or told him to? Anyway too late now. I was going to give Max a set of keys so that he could come and go as he pleased; I know I had two sets when I arrived on the plot but as I was about to go I couldn't find the set I was going to give him. They must have dropped out of my pocket when I answered the phone when he called me. Anyway I have lost a set of keys and I will now have to buy another one at £10 each losing keys is a bit of an expensive passtime.

Harvest Time

Pot marigolds are a ray of sunshine in this dank and miserable August.

Netted brassicas with tagetes ineffective against white fly

Weather still wet and windy. Would you believe it it's mid August and it seems cold enough for October. The weather has seriously affected stuff on my plot, situated as it is at the bottom of the hill and with a tendency to water-logging. The beans have not been happy at all and have not thrived. Nor have the courgettes been as prolific as I would have hoped in spite of feeding them liberally with organic seaweed fertiliser. They do have quite good foliage but the fruiting is sporadic as the bees are sheltering from the rain rather than buzzing about pollinating the flowers. I have noticed that the cucumbers are only half developed too.

Carrots have been grown,in this old cold frame. this seems to be extremely effective at preventing carrot fly form reaching the roots. I have had little or no trouble from this pest since I have been growing them in this frame. I just move the frame from one area to another every year.
To add insult to injury those pesky critters, the squirrels, have got all my sweetcorn. M and I had eaten a total of five ears before they got the remainder. I arrived at the allotment on Sunday ready to harvest my crops, fully expecting to pick at least half a dozen ears of corn to find that there were none left. What a disappointment. I won't be letting them get them next year, that's for sure. I will put padlocks on the netting! I think I will be investing in a fruit cage for the purpose.

On the bright side, I have grown a novel variety of courgette this year; an Italian pale yellow rough skinned type. this has excellent flavour and is unusual looking in that it is shaped rather like a slim gourd with pale yellow skin, not the bright sunshine yellow of the standard varieties, and with a bumpy wrinkled surface. The skin is very thin and tender too, which makes for very good eating.

I am a bit disappointed about the productivity of my plot, in spite of all the organic matter and organic chicken pellets and seaweed fertilizer the crop yields seem much lower this year. I hope that the soil is not becoming exhausted. I don't crop intensively nor do I grow on every bit of land every year and follow a fallow field regimen for the most part; so it is all a bit puzzling.

Another success has been the broccoli; I have had the main broccoli on four plants that were given to me. and I am now harvesting side shoots every week. This seems to be a very good value plant for the space it takes up. I am, however, unable to control the white fly, but reckon as long as I wash the vegetables thoroughly it should be OK. I have grown tagetes among the brassicas but this seems to be completely useless as a deterrent.

My onions have been harvested and are now cleaned and laid in trays in the greenhouse to dry off. The harvest was not great and the onions were quite small. Next year I will set them further apart in an attempt to grow larger bulbs. I am harvesting leeks too. These have grown well and so far none has bolted, they may stand through the winter if I let them.

My biggest disaster so far this year is my plum tree. This was thriving and then one weekend it looked half dead and the next weekend it was completely dead. I really don't know how it happened; the tree just went brown. I will leave it in this winter and see what happens in spring but I think it is a goner.

This was one of the plants I grew from seed for my garden, Scabious Summer berries. They have turned out to be lovely flowers at all stages of development from the buds as shown here on the left to the mature flowers and seed heads. The colours are wonderful too in all shades of pink and red the darkest being nearly black.

I have real trouble editing this post with pictures I don't know how to wrap text around the pictures or to add captions or even to get the pictures to stay in the right place. If anyone out ther can explain this in Plain English and not in Blogese I would be grateful to hear form you.

Wet and Windy Saturday

Today is a wet and windy day I had wanted to get out in the garden and do some more clearance. After losing my ancient apple last year on the day we were about to leave on our annual holiday to Brittany, my garden died along with the tree.

My garden was my pride and joy and was always much admired by visitors to our house. Small as it was and not necessarily always kept immaculately; nevertheless it was a haven for wildlife and had pretty flowers for much of the year.

The season starts with the bluebells, which I pull up every year but which come up in spite of my efforts to eradicate them. Forget-me-nots follow again in spite of all efforts to remove them, roes including a short flowering season of a Rosa Mundi with glorious scent and stripy flowers; given to me by my cousin on a unique visit, who I remember as a result of the flowers which appear every year, for however short the period. The rose given to us by my parents-in-law, Pink Peace, also flowers annually even though the plant is a martyr to chocolate spot. The great cabbage like blooms in the deepest pink are always stunning and appear just outside my kitchen door so that I can admire them in the morning.

On the sunny side there are Penstemons, firecracker? a deep magenta and a pale pink variety the name of which I can't recall. The black grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens') and Stipa appear on this side too. Along with lilies and phlox all now lost in the jungle or some other mysterious reason. The clematis I have planted are all gone. I have tried and tried with so little success over the years. they flower for a season and disappear, even when they reappear, as one did this year, I managed to pull it up in my zeal on clearing the weeds, which had taken over the flower bed completely.
All the pots filled and overflowing with annual bedding; each year with a different colour theme. My best year was when I planted love lies bleeding which sent out its striking red tassels in profusion in each of the four pots stationed by the steps leading up to the grass patch from the patio. My fig tree given to me for my 50th birthday in the huge blue ceramic pot also a gift for the same birthday always bears fruit but has never given me a single edible fig in spite of all of my efforts, I feed and water it assiduously and still no success. My aunt gave me a peach one year, also in a pot tended carefully too. This has fruited once in all the years I have had it; yielding four magnificent white peaches of a deliciousness never before experienced and, regrettably never since experienced.


There are all sorts of shrubs I have planted too, too many to mention most of which are gone, but I have a Myrtle which is currently in flower; I can't ever remember it flowering before, and my geraniums (pelargoniums) seem to flower all year long. I have kept them for at least four years without transplanting them or overwintering indoors.

However these successes are far outweighed by my failures. My next project is to remodel the garden completely; to get rid of the grass, as this just grows and hardly ever gets mowed. The loss of the tree may prove to be a blessing in disguise but not for this year. It may be that the apple overpowered them all and that this is the time to celebrate new opportunities to develop a completely new planting.

My garden is truly a disaster area. But I still have memories of it when it wasn't.

July 2008

Haven't been here for a while. Have been on Holiday in Brittany, which was a wonderful rest, and we had good weather. It was a novelty for us to go away early in the year, but we really enjoyed it. The days were long and warm so we really took advantage of being out during daylight hours and staying on the beach for as long as possible.

The allotment is holding an open afternoon tomorrow in aid of Mencap. So if anyone is out here and wants to come along please do.

The weather has been wet, wet, wet. and the weeds are flourishing. Spent all of last week-end weeding but only managed to tackle about half of the problem. Crops have been sparse, but last week I harvested 3 of my 4 broccoli plants. These have been remarkable as I have never yet been able to grow this particular vegetable successfully.

Failures this year so far have been the onions that have succumbed to disease ,and beans. The beans have just not taken off and my experiment at growing them between two rows of potatoes was an abject failure. I thought they would be ideal companion plants, but this proved to be a false premise, although I am tempted to try it again but only as a plan B and I would grow other beans elsewhere. The potatoes do not appear to have suffered, fortunately.

Last week I planted out some celeriac plants that Melanie had given me, they looked healthy and strong; I hope they do well ,as I am very fond of this vegetable. She also gave me some seedlings of something else but I have no idea what they are, but I have planted them out anyway and hope that I have given them enough room to develop.

Radishes were a huge success, literally huge as they were enormous, but to date these and the broccoli have been my only successes. I am hoping for better things from the cucumbers and squash, which have not grown all that well so far.

Not much in the greenhouse this year but I noticed one of my pepper plants, grown from seeds collected from one that I bought in Waitrose, had a small fruit developing. It will be interesting to see if it turns out to be anything like the parent or if it is totally different. Watch this space!

That's all for now