Allotment Diary (February – week 2)

Allotment Finances
We’ve harvested a total of £365 of fruit veg this year
We’ve spent a total of £275 this year, mostly one time investments

What we’ve harvested and eaten
We harvested a ‘grand’ total of £88 worth of veg this week, excluding anything from the store. We had 33 meals with ingredients from the allotment and fed two other families.

Here’s a photo of one of the three harvests we did this week. We picked new potatoes, broccoli, Romanesco cauliflower, sprouts, lots of types of kale, spinach, mizuna, giant red mustard, chard, kalettes, golden beets, spring onions, celery, rocket, lots of bean tops and loads of lettuce. We also raided the store for: carrots, potatoes, onions, shallots, garlic, red beetroot and dried pears/apples.

What we’ve bought this week
Levingtons Advance Seed & Modular F2 Compost 75L

10 Potato tubs
4 bags of Multipurpose compost
2 bags of Erecatious compost
Tiger nuts tubers

Videos published
I published four videos, first: Mulching Fruit Trees and Keeping Busy When It’s Freezing!

Then a video of me talking about: Growing Early Carrots for the Hungry Gap

Then Growing Super Early Potatoes for the Hungry Gap

Finally: Growing Perennial Kale for The Hungry Gap

What I’ve sowed
Potato Swift
Carrot Early Nantes 2
Bunching Onion Sturon
Indoor (cordon) Sungold
Rocket Salad Rocket
Lettuce Moon Red
Main crop Shallot Zebrune
Lettuce Navara
Main crop Onion Red Barron
French Bean Amethyst
Cabbage Red Fuego
Main crop Onion Red Brunswick
Lettuce Grenoble Red
Lettuce Valdor
Lettuce Bijou
Calabrese Marathon
Pea Alderman
Carrot Nantes 2
Potato Charlotte

What I’ve planted
I’ve planted two tubs of Charlotte which are now in the conservatory and two of Swift which are in the back bedroom

I’ve potted on

Bush Tomato Red Robin and a few other random tomoatoes from last year
The two over-wintered peppers

First harvests of the year
Romanesco Cauliflower
Spinach

Last harvests of the year
None

What’s left in store
Potatoes – 2 medium sized bags
Carrots – 3.25 big boxes
Onions – 2 large boxes
Shallots – 1 large box
Squash – 1 Crown Prince
Beets – 4 big boxes
Dried Apples – 1 big cool bag
Dried Pears – 1 big cool bag

What have we processed for preserving
Nothing

Highlights
The second batch of potatoes (Swift) broke through this week, they’ve joined the first batch of potatoes (Charlotte) in the polytunnel.
We’ve had a bit of sunshine

Problems
The rash I had last week is still lingering,it’s no longer itchy, but it came back when I tried to reduce the steroids, so I had to step us the dose again!

We’ve got a few slight aphid problems in the greenhouse and polytunnel, so I’ve made up a batch of home made garlic spray and I will be using that regularly from now on. A few of the lettuces had downy mildew on the leaves and we lost a few plants to rotten stems, that always happens at this time of year.

A few garlic cloves went mouldy and others needed to be used because they started to sprout