Soilman's Allotment Blog

The speed freeze race

Went away for a few days and came back to this. Extraordinary how fast everything grows when you're not there to harvest it.

So now it's a dash to get it all in the freezer. Can't possibly eat a whole bucket of vegetables fresh – more's the pity.

May cause swelling and irrigation

Wretched cauliflowers. They're growing fast, but I'm pouring a river on them every evening. It's killing me.

When the sun shines, brassica gardeners groan. Thank God rain is forecast for the next 24 hours.

Bring it on.

The cauli wobbles

Autumn Giant cauliflowers... at the second attempt. The first lot were scoffed by slugs a few weeks ago. My blood pressure is only now coming under control.

Actually, it's total purgatory growing cauliflowers. There is nothing, but nothing, in your favour. Every bird wants a piece of them. Pests and diseases delight in them.

So you obsess about netting solutions. You launch tragi-comic nocturnal slug hunts by torchlight. You chase white butterflies with toy nets stolen from five-year-olds.

You have the same dreams about pigeons that Nero dreamed about Christians.

And ultimately, no doubt, you end up suffering a twitching, frothing, cauliflower nervous breakdown.

Watch this space.

Memento mori

It's that toe-curling moment – again – when I eschew all gentlemanly restraint and gloat horribly about my cauliflowers. 

If you've not witnessed this ugly spectacle before, and would prefer to cling to the delusion that I'm a decent and modest kind of chap... then look away now.

YES! THE BUGGERS WORKED! SOILMAN SCORES!

Cheers... and tears?

Another outrageous success on the plot this weekend. Two hours of work in gorgeous sunshine. Felt like a foreign country.

I have seeds sprouting everywhere with reckless haste, desperate to make up for lost time. Grim and gloomy April is all but forgotten.

The only disappointment is my overwintering cauliflowers. They look terrific – the pigeons were successfully repelled – but no sign of any heads. Which is bloody peculiar, given that it's now May.

Have I lost the Midas touch with my brassicas!?

Early to sow, early to grow

Nothing more delicious – or more satisfying to grow – than a cauliflower. Raising a good cauli is one of the great challenges of vegetable gardening. If you can manage it, the sheer excitement is life-threatening.

Perhaps I should get out more.

Anyway, to get good early summer cauliflowers it's best to sow indoors now. I'll harden these off and plant out in mid to late March.

The tortoise-like progress of celeriac seedlings astounds me. A month after sowing, they've just grown their first true leaf. How did celeriac survive before it was domesticated?

Its preference for boggy conditions can't be coincidence; it relied on herbivorous dinosaurs drowning in the swamp before they got close enough to scoff it.

Of cabbages and kings

Notice anything odd about this January King cabbage? Something a little incongruous, perhaps?

Clue: Look at the calendar. It's the end of February. And this bugger's only just starting to head.

I could rant and rail. I'm tempted. But the truth is, it's my own fault. I was so convinced we'd get a warm autumn that I sowed these in July. With the lousy weather we had, they didn't have time to head for winter.

Now they'll probably bolt the moment it warms up. With luck I may get small, crappy heads. Instead of January King, it'll be March Stunted Prince.

Winter days: Short and sharp

I just love these icy mornings. It's grim getting up in total darkness, but seeing the first light of dawn on a foggy, frosty day almost makes it worthwhile.

Frosted brassicas are particularly photogenic. The ice forms in little beads, like water on a duck's back.

Mercifully, the shortest day is almost here. My spirits lift the moment the days start to lengthen. In only four weeks, I'll be sowing celeriac – the first seeds of the new gardening season. And by mid February, the alarm clock will go off after dawn.

Hurry up, 2008!

It just takes a smidgen to poison a pigeon

The good news: These winter cauliflowers have grown terrifically well.

The bad news: My total netting solution isn't quite so... total. The bastard pigeons have been sitting directly on the supports and nibbling the upper leaves through the nets.

The damage is only minor. It won't affect the plants seriously. But these flying rats do my head in. I have tried everything – and I mean everything – to keep them off my crops. Nothing is 100% effective.

My latest wheeze is poison. Some French vintners inject 1 in 100 bottles of their prized vintages with strychnine and advertise this with warnings in their cellars to deter burglars.

Is it in keeping with organic standards, do you think, to sacrifice one cauliflower as a deadly meal for these buggers?

No sow, no reap

These are the January King cabbages I'm counting on to give us greens in late autumn. Whether they'll have time to heart is a bit iffy.

Confession: my June-Xmas self-sufficiency is in the balance. Frankly, I blew it. The weather was so vile in June and July that I didn't sow much. Didn't think it would work (Translation: I was a big girl's blouse and didn't want to get soaked).

Now I'm reaping the result. Or rather, I'm not. There's beetroot, spuds and carrots aplenty... but our only green veg is coming out of the freezer. I'm praying for frost so I can attack the parsnips.

Can you die from eating too much root veg, do you reckon?