The new face of evil

Seems we've spent too much time worrying about pigeons and slugs. While our backs were turned, our focus on other things, a big new bad boy was munching his way through our crops.

Catterpillars.

Went up to the plot yesterday evening, glorious September warmth bathing the hillside site, only to find all our swede leaves munched away.

A bot of investigation found an infestation of furry wannabe butterflies looking fat and guilty on the stems where big green bits used to be.

Evil little grubs. Lets just say their dreams of flying came true early when I hurled them as high and far as I could into the neighbouring field.

Problem is, the net we have over the top of the patch to stop the pigeons getting in and eating the leaves also stops the pigeons getting in and eating the catterpillars.

Might try the soot trick to see if that will keep them away, but I'm thinking its too late, the damage looks pretty severe.

If these swedes were wired up to all kinds of machines on a TV hospital drama the doctors would have stopped shouting "Get me 10cc of adrenochrome stat" and the beepy machine would be making a long, constant, ominous whine. 

Oh well, who likes delicious golden mashed swede on the side of a plate of Sunday roast anyway? Drenched in organic butter, a slight sprinkling of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Catterpillars=evil. Anyone got the number for Crimewatch?

Harvest

I love the smell of onions in the morning, reminds me of...victory.

The crop is in, and it looks good - a barrow-full of onions which drew appreciative looks from others on the plot when I staggered with the heavy load to my car this weekend.

The car, the house and everything within a one-mile radius of my house now smells like onions.

Harvesting them was simple, they were ready to come up and an hour's work transferred them from soil to barrow.

The garlic next to them needed a bit more digging, and some of the potato plants further down were looking decidedly yellow so I took a fork to them for a bit of investigative surgery.

And they were great, much better than last year's offering - big, yellow, waxy, healthy, thin and good looking skins and very tasty when roasted for Sunday lunch.

I plan to go back this afternoon to dig up a few more...

Which leads to the main problem, what to do with the glut.

So far our freezer is full of gooseberries and raspberries, our cupboards are full of apples, the garage is full of onions and I haven't quite worked out what to do with the potatoes or blackberries yet and we're still waiting on carrots, leaks, swedes, plums and tomatos.

We have a huge jam pan on loan, and many people could be finding themselves with a jar of apple and onion chutney this Christmas.

If you want one, be nice to me. If you want two then get on my bad side.

We had apple charlotte for pudding this Sunday, as a change from gooseberry crumble which we've been eating for as long as I can remember.

But on the positive side the shopping bill was about half its usual size this week as I avoided most of the fruit and veg aisle.

Plan is to head online and find recipes and instructions for proper storage. Any suggestions of what to do with excess veg will be welcome (rude suggestions will be recycled into insults for future use)

Film with a good plot

There are two words virtually guaranteed to make a film/TV show unwatchable - Omid Djalili.

Fortunately, One-joke Djalili does get deported half-way through British comedy film Grow Your Own. Unfortunately it's just his character that gets deported leaving Omid free to make more 'aint racism funny' price comparison website adverts.

Grow Your Own (originally called The Allotment) is a 2007 film which I only got round to watching last night, and only picked up in the library because it was set in an allotment.

But I would highly recommend it. Very British in its subtle humour, moments of melancholy and hidden depths but deeply enjoyable.

Anyone who has had an allotment, been to an allotment meeting or 'enjoyed' the daily politics of allotment life will find a lot familiar here.

Of course it isn't really about allotments, but the communal garden setting is a perfect symbol for what the film is really about, and the setting is not wasted.

If too much sun or too much rain is keeping you away from the plot - track down this film and sit back for 90 minutes of entertainment.

AGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

Press release just issued by the Royal Horticultural Society, to which my general reponse is AGGGHHHHH!!!!!

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is sending out a slug and snail alert. Because of the recent and prolonged dry period both slugs and snails will have been dormant. However, with the forecast of heavy rain, the charity expects them to start moving about again and to be quite hungry. Hosta plants will be particularly vulnerable.

The RHS suggests a number of ways to protect plants. For those who prefer more natural ways of control, the charity suggests that it will be necessary to water in a new batch of nematodes (Nemaslug) as any distributed previously will have died in the dry soil. The nematodes used against slugs are microscopic worm-like creatures that enter the bodies of slugs and infect them with a fatal bacterial disease. Barriers, such as copper tapes round pots or mineral granules and egg shells sprinkled around plants are also useful to discourage slugs and snails getting to the plants.

Alternatively, proprietary slug pellets containing ferric phosphate or metaldehyde can be used if the infestation is particularly bad.

For further information the RHS has a web page with more handy tips. It can be found by searching for ‘Slugs’ on the RHS site www.rhs.org.uk.  RHS members can also contact the RHS Advisory Service at  http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Help-advice/RHS-Advisory-Service

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One thing we have found effective is soot and ash from the fire - useful if you have an open fire or a brother in law who is a chimney sweep. A little sprinkle around the beds seems to deter the pests. May have to get up to the plot when the rain eases off to refresh the barrier.

RAIN!!!!!

The rain finally came! Great news, it means I get a day off watering duty on the plot.

While the masses may be enjoying a barbecue summer, for growers it just means extra time with the hose to ensure we don't have a harvest-less autumn.

The RHS put out a release today indicating that soil dryness is now at levels normally only seen at the start of August. Read the full details here. They reckon that four inches or rain would be needed to bring levels back to normal.

So the showers we've had in the last 24 hours, while annoying for those trying to get a tan, won't really scratch the surface. The Met Office says at most we had 0.4mm in the latest 'downpour'.

That RHS release also has some greant hints about what needs watering and what can be left, and the most efficient ways of watering.

All that said, the crops continue to look great. Raspberries are red, gooseberries are almost there, onions and garlic starting to yellow up.

According to the Met Office it might rain in the next 16 to 30 days. Then again it might not. Great. Glad we sorted that out.

The one current pest is pigeons, who seem to have developed a method of teaming up which I would have put beyond their bird-brains. Best I can tell a couple of them are sitting on the nets over our brassicas to push it down, then they all nibble on the broccoli before flying off again.

We're going to need a stronger net!!!

Here we grow

The rain is coming down, and the carrots are coming up. Everything is growing nicely on the plot and the hard work of earlier in the year (and last year) seems to be paying off.

While the battle with weeds goes on, among them are things which definitely look like they might be edible some time soon.

As well as carrots there are potatoes (in need of earthing up), broccoli, cabbages, sprouts, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, leeks, garlic, raspberries, gooseberries apples and plums.

There's also rhubarb (though definitely in need of a feed), the mulberry tree looks healthy, the butternut squashes are growing well and even the sunflowers and peas are reaching for the skies.

The 1.5 patches we haven't yet cultivated are under control thanks to heavy maintenance with a petrol strimmer.

All seems to be going well...maybe too well!!!

There ae still things we want to get in the ground - so I guess we better get on with it.

It came from the desert...

The last time I was attacked by ants I was 15 and I was sitting in my friend Rashpal's bedroom.

They weren't even real ants, they were giant radioactive mutant ants on the Amiga 64.

That was much more fun that getting attacked on the allotment when I was planting butternut squash, plus Rashpal's dad always handed out cashew nuts from the shop downstairs.

We've put the squash in a corner down at the botom of the plot, which unfortunately is also where a nest of red ants seem to have set up home.

Red ants aren't something I'd encountered before. Previously I thought there were only two types of ants. Ants, and made-up giant radioactive ants.

But it appears there are red ants too. Which bite. And hurt. Especially when they crawl up your arm, under your jumper, and bite you all over. A lot.

Ouch.

Still, as far as we can tell they don't do any harm to the plants, so we'll leave them where they are for now - and just remember not to lean on the mud when planting more squash in future.

The plot also seems to be home to a colony of giant black wood ants, and some of those normal ordinary size black ants.

I think if I'm going to blog about ants I need to do some investigation online...or maybe just dig out It Came From The Desert on the Amiga 64 again...