Tour of my plot

I remembered to pick up the camera at the weekend. Here's a few snaps of my plot over on Leigh on Sea Allotments in Essex. I would have taken more but the battery ran short so this is it for now. You should be able to click on the images to enlarge.

Up at the back of the plot I have a pumpkin and squash, two rows of calabrese (Broccoli), a row of celeriac, another row of celery and a couple of rows of leeks. The brocolli has been very tasty, my kids love it. Shame though as I have taken the first heads back to the house and the secondary headlings are not growing too quick. They will soon become compost fodder.

I haven't eaten any of the celeriac yet but the roots are fattening up nicely. I have only ever eaten this once on holiday in Italy this year and am really looking forward to digging some of this up for a lux mash.

One of my celeries was pinched last week, I hope it was a stringy one.

The leeks are growing nicely now after a slow start.

Here's one of the Raised beds in the middle of my plot.

At the back there you can see some runner beans loving the sun. If you look closely to the left of the beans you can see a sick looking plant, thats a salad I have left to bolt and hopefully I'll get some seed of that in a few weeks as its finished flowering.

In front of that I have a whole bunch of Swiss Chard. here are two varieties growing. My wife can't stand the stuff but I love it. It's gone down very well with the kids and work colleages too.

On the bottom right you can make out some broad beans. They are starting to rust in the picture. I pulled them out ten minutes later and bagged the last crop of beans for tonights dinner.

The empty spot in the bottom left was my beetroots which I pulled a couple of weeks back. The ones I havent eaten or given away have been pickled for christmas. I have planted some regular spinach in the void left by the beetroots and broadbeans.



Heres a snap from the front of the plot. They are making a site road next to my left, I'm not to fussed about the road but some twit keeps running over that raised bed with my salads in it.

As you can see I'm surrounded by unkempt plots. I'm not to fussed about the family behind me giving up because they made Wayne and Waynetta slob look like model citizens but It does p1ss me off a little when the council won't alow me to take on another plot due to the waiting list. "A load of twoddle if you ask me". They havent done anything to make these people clean up their mess and I'm having to maintain boundaries that aren't mine just to make it safe for my kids.

The courgette's are slowing down now. They have been amazing this year, a little too rampant for us to keep up with them for just our family. I have lost a couple of plants due to high winds and mildew in the last week but we still get enough, and a few extras for neighbors and friends. Here's a picture of one fattening up, it'll stay on there until I have managed to eat the dozen or so in the veg box at home.

My wife went to France a month or so to go shopping in Calais. She bought me whiskey, wine and some turnip seeds. What a gal.

Heres the onions, shallots and a row of garlic covered in a mulch of seaweed. not much to look at for the moment but this is going to provide all we need for the entire family if the pigeons don't keep pulling them out that is.

This Tyre looks like it came from a bus of some large vehicle. Its big and full of kitchen herbs. The gnome's named "grow-bag", he smells. Grow-bag's a right lazy sod - always sleeping off the night before.

I have two of these tyres found in an old unmaintained part of the site. They weighed a tonne when I found them as they, were filled with weeds, hardcore and topsoil. I like them mostly because they were free, they help contain evasive mint etc and they are pretty comfortable seats too.

I have another one I grow spicy salad/stir-fry leaves and I melon which is a healthy enough plant but hasn't done much except produce walnut size fruits before dropping them.

Some french beans ready for picking.

A late crop of peas, just beginning to flower tucked into the corner of my garlic bed.

Here's my brussell sprouts, a few weeds about around here I know but I have a job, wife and kids too you know so these little monsters have been spared.....For now at least. They are doing really well to though and some of the little cabbages are almost ready for the pan. We love sprouts so these are probably staying strictly in the family, even my wife has been asking if they are ready so they had better be good. A nice chap named gardener Pete gave them to me and I negleted them in their starter plugs for weeks so I hope it didn't stunt them too much.

Hope you enjoyed the tour.