Allotment Diary (December – Week 2)
As predicted it’s been a very quite week on the allotment, I’ve visited only a few times. Apart from harvesting I spent a few minutes weeding, aired some of the beds, watered the under-cover brassicas and spinach and that’s about it.
The only sowing I did was micro-greens and to be honest I’m not sold on them, the effort/reward is low, except for peas. I think peas are definitely worth growing, much better than pea-shoots in the ground. I’ve also tried eating broccoli sprouts for a week and I’m not sold on those either, they make me feel quite bloated, so despite the health benefits I will give them another week.
The lovely sprouter that I bought has developed a faulty mesh lid, so if my stomach doesn’t settle after another week I will be returning it and my sprouting trial will come to and end. So many people have encouraged me to try micro-greens though, it’s something I had to try but growing in the ground is so much easier, cost effective and tasty!
Fortunately as the gardening stops plenty of new opportunities for fun surface. I’ve managed a couple of stunning bike rides and some long walks. I’ve swum every day and the sauna and steam room are open again!
Sitting by the pool I’ve completed my most challenging book chapter so far, “growing carrots year round”, which as been a lot of fun. I’ve also drafted the chapter on my “philosophy of life and gardening”.
I’ve also written our family newsletter, which we send out for Christmas. If you don’t do a newsletter and you have kids, start writing one. In 20 years time the kids will love looking back at them all!
It’s very rare for me not to sow or plant anything, but that’s how it should be in December, a rest month!
Here’s this weeks sowing log.
As already mentioned I’m well on with the planting now, this is what I’ve planted this week.
I now have a public view onto my database that lists every seed packet I’ve used in the last few years, as well as those I have in stock. You can find it here and embedded below.
It’s worth noting that these embedded views are very powerful, you can search, sort, filter and export from them.
Here’s our harvests for the year so far, with the most recent at the top. We’ve now passed last year’s total harvest value and we still have a huge amount of food in the ground to harvest this year, so I’m expecting to harvest about £2,500 more than last year. This is party as a result of spending £200 extending the growing area in the back garden, a very nice payback!
Here’s a list of the preserves for the year.
I always like to keep a track of or first harvest dates and you can find a summary of those here:
YouTube videos for the week can be found here:
