March Picture Gallary

Peggy suggested that I should post some pictures.

I agreed it was about time I remembered to take the camera.

So heres a few snaps from this afternoons bolt up to the plot to pick up my seed box.

http://picasaweb.google.com/CazauxFood/March2009CazauxTime

Its all a bit brown on the plot - I'm sooo looking forward to seeing my scratch of a patch become an oasis of green.

Nature sticks it to my Food factory.

So like any other day, I return from work last night after a long slog, hoping to kick back and relax before the next instalment of Groundhog Day, the elements provided a nasty surprise for me when I got home.

Apparently the wind picked up yesterday afternoon, and during the course of the evening it caught hold of my little greenhouse and tossed it about for a while. There was no damage as such to the greenhouse but inside was a whole different story.

The Staging at the back of the greenhouse had been knocked for six and along with it the majority of my seedlings that were coming on a treat. They had been upturned in their pots and scattered all over the floor.

To say I was major league peeved off would be any understatement. I’ve lost all my salads, Sage, Thyme and Tomatoes (except a few tomato's on a windowsill indoors). I managed to save about half of the kohlrabi and some of the basil looked salvable.

Thankfully the leeks were ok; they had been on the bottom shelf and managed to avoid natures little rabbit punch to the solar plexus.

I went into salvage mode, repotted the Basil, firmed down the few kohlrabi that survived the assault and threw the rest into a large sack for the local recycling centre.

The survivors got special treatment last night and spent the night in the comfort of my house. My wife must have felt pity for me because she didn't complain about the uninvited guests and I got a hug which cheered me up.

Lessons Learned: No point in crying over spilled milk. I'm going to move the greenhouse into another location and bolt it down so securely, that even if we get a storm of biblical proportions my greenhouse will remain a safe haven for the seeds I'll be sowing this evening. Just for that Mother Nature, I'll not be recycling for a week.

Ahoy me Blighty

It’s such a shame about the UK Weather. Tomatoes have finally shown blight.

“A small miracle it’s only just happened really considering the downpours we've had the last month”. I'm lucky enough to live in one of the drier parts of the country. Still looking out of my window you would not think it was. Until of course you read the paper or watch the news and thank the gnomes that its not too bad here compared to the rest of these isles.

I have lost a beefsteak plant to blight completely. All the stems where blackening, the leaves mottled and the fruits had decided to rot. So this year’s beefsteak harvest was two (Which I ate, in my shed, while dodging another downpour). I cut the beefsteak plant at the base and hurled it rotten tommies and all into the non compostable bin. They will go into the household rubbish. Don’t want to put them in the recycling bags as I figure they may end up somebody else’s blightened compost if I do that. It’s a shame about the beefsteaks as this was the variety my wife was most interested in to make those "tomato au farce" which are so popular in France.

It’s not all bad though.

The other plants have had little damage so far and I have been careful in removing any foliage that looked suspect as soon as I have seen it. I have also removed any baby fruits now not as I'm sure that even if the blight does not take hold they are stopping the sized fruits from ripening. They are still being fed the nettle tea I made a couple of times a week even if it is raining all the time.

I have had a couple of kilos of the little sun gold cherries which are like sweets without the conscience. I used a bag of them last week to make a fresh pasta sauce with one of my onions, a couple of cloves of the Provencal garlic and basil from my planted herbs. The sauce went really well with the homemade pumpkin ravioli. Its not a difficult dinner technically but time consuming with the pasta making and rolling, the pumpkin roasting and filling preparation, the cutting out and all the washing up it made. I had no complaints when it came to the eating so I was happy.





Another half kilo of them went to work which I put into a bowl for people to snack on.

The rest are on the kitchen windowsill waiting to be munched.


The Alicante variety has been fantastic. They are a good size. Very tasty as they are, in salads and were used in the chicken dinner the other night.

Being a little a little over cautious maybe, I have been cropping them when they start to turn pink and then finishing them off outside on a covered window ledge by my garage.

Jungle Fever

The long drive home from our holidays really zapped me. After spending so much time on the motorways we arrive home on Saturday the 2nd August in the evening. I needed to stretch my legs so thought I would pop over just for two minutes mind to the plot.
Bob was at the gates. He had offered to do a bit of watering while I was away and I thanked him. He told me that he'd helped himself to a few courgettes while I was away. No problem I said.

Michael's kids came running down the hill. "We've been watering your plot while you was away" Thanks kids. We had some courgettes said Grace.

I kept walking up and bumped into Shirley. Ooh she said. Ive been watering your plot for you, Its been really hot over here. By the way, I've had a few courgettes.

Although they were not all up the site I later found that Keith, Mick, James, Trevor, Eugine and Mark all said the same. They had all watered my plot and all of them had helped themselves to a few courgettes.

So as I walked the last 30 metres to my plot I thought I would be three foot under water and have several spent courgette plants.

I was wrong again. The place looked like a tropical Jungle. The corn had grown to six foot. The beans had twined around the cane supports and were nearly reaching the tops. Tomato plants were laden with fluorescent fruits, some of the sun golds where beginning to ripen but they had also got so heavy they they had snapped their support canes and I was going to have a job on in fixing them up. The beautiful potato plants had all fallen over - I thought this meant they were dying. The cabbages where perfect specimens the size of bowling balls. My eyes bulged with amazement.

Sadly half of my caulis had bolted, these we going to have to be composted.
At the back of the plot I could not really see much for all the weeds. I was going to have to sort this out asap.

The biggest surprise of all though was those damn courgette plants. I was wrong again about having none left. but these weren't courgettes - these were blinking marrows. Chris had been cutting them to keep the plants producing and they were layed out in a row. Twenty or so, huge! On every plant there was still more growing by the second.
I packed these up into a couple of builders bags I had from some split compost bags I had bought. They weighed a tonne. Well not quite but after nearly breaking my back dragging them back home I weighed them in at 42 kilos. That's about six stone I think.

Holidays are great aren't they!

Quality time to spend with you family is really quite precious in this hectic age of ours. Italian Ice-cream - Simply one of mankind’s best creations! We went to Tuscany for a week and then onto Provence in the south of France. The car journey was long but we had plenty of breaks and the kids had the portable DVD player in the back for distraction.

We visited San Giminiano, Sienna and Como. I adore the North of Italy. There was a Market in Como where I found a stall selling Bortolli Bean Seed. Naturally I bagged some.

The second week in Opio Provence was great too. I picked up a couple of kilos of fat garlic. No idea what the name was but thought it would be nice to plant some and hand some out to the people on the allotment.

Two weeks just never seems long enough.

I dreamed of the allotment the first three nights wondering what state it would be in when I got back.........After a week it was all but forgotten. Holidays are great aren't they!

Can we drag the UK over the the left of Italy. Theres a big gap there. Im sure we could fit.

Courgette Bonanza

I didn't think it was humanly possibly to grow too many courgettes. We are a family who love em on the barbeque seasoned and oiled, my mother in laws ratatouille is to die for. They bake well, soup and sauce well.

Well I was wrong.

Not at the beginning mind you. I watched impatiently as the first flowers developed. Then to my great excitement the odd fruit became finger sized. And then rotted.

More came, More Rotted. Something was wrong. I was disheartened to say the least.

I removed the mulch of manure and replaced with a mixture of compost, sand and grass cuttings.

Bob showed me how to "Sex em up" as he called it. Bob's a left handed, slightly dyslexic East ender who moved out just like me. Double plot - old school - no boxes. Bob also gets on really well with Michael but loves ribbing him about his girly boxed plot. (I like Michaels plot by the way) he's got fruit trees.

Any roads I’m off track so - "We sexed em up real well” this involves pulling off a male flower, ripping off the petals and what you have left on the stalk is the flower equivalent of the erhem Harris. Then you gently pull open the female flower (the one with the fruit) and give it a jolly good jab with the male.

In doing so I created a monster, several of them.

The plants kicked into Food Factory mode almost over night.

I was picking them in the evenings. Every four days each plant the planned would provide beautiful small fruits with the most amazing flowers, taking them home and showing the family my perfect specimens. We were happy to add these to our daily meals.

But then they changed gear and each plant (Yes I planted several of them) had between two courgettes pumping out every four days.

Then I read some growing guide about courgettes and it suggested feeding them every couple of weeks with a standard tomato feed.

Can't do any harm I thought so in went one cap full as recommended and one for luck.

The next week I took home thirty four courgettes. No sooner had I picked them the next set would start to jump into action, the plant would grow a couple of inches, set new leaves and several new flowers would form. They all but gave up producing male flowers after that and I have not looked back.

Neighbours started getting courgettes, fellow allotment holders, family, friends and work colleagues. I was walking home one day and was waiting for the traffic to provide the gap I needed to cross the road. "Nice Courgettes" said an elderly gentleman on a mobility scooter. He had the lot.

It wasn't that we weren't eating any ourselves. On no. If you are what you eat my entire family should have been British racing green. We were off on Holiday towards the end of July and I was damned if they were going in the compost bin.

I had begun taking home the larger broad beans too now along with cabbage and caulis. The potato plants were beautiful with purple and white flowers. The herb bed had filled out. Salads were coming into their own and being welcomed by the family. The French dwarf beans were being picked young. The runners were running. The beats were swelling.

I felt like a proper farmer I did.

Managed to keep on top of the courgettes and handed them out to various victims the Friday before we went on our family holiday.