Munchen Beer

I'm off to the allotment to pick some of the Munchen Beer radish pods. The roots are quite fiery, and the pods are supposed to be quite peppery as well. The plants have sprung up from the roots left over from the winter. The bees loved the flowers. Will I love the pods?

At Last

It's been bucketing down, since 4 Sunday afternoon.

You can almost hear the plants slurping it up.

First Strawbs

of the season from the cold frames. Ate them so quickly, still quite warm from the frames, that there was no time for a photograph. Either that or there was a super injunction.

Frames in Place

There you go. Frames in place over the already planted strawberry plants. They look a bit bright and light.

Also I tidied up what used to the old strawberry patch, now transplanted to a new bed. That has got three goosberry bushes in it:

This is my jotted map of the patch, so that's White Lion, first, that according to the fruit book of Great Britain at chestofbooks is

Large and obovate. Skin, white, and downy. Of first-rate quality, and a good late sort. Bush, pendulous.

While Howard Lancer is, according to perennials of distinction, is very large greenish white berries with a superb flavour. Strong grower and regular cropping.

and Lord Derby is a red berry that is the last of the red berries to ripen. The fruit is large and oval and is a good choice for exhibition purposes. Season Early August Dessert / Culinary, according to perennials.

Though this bush is looking a little sickly at the moment.

We had goosberry crumble the other day with the last of the gooseberries that were frozen last summer; the picture is up above as blogger is a bit glitchy with the placing of photos

I also planted 12 potatoes where the strawberries used to be and another 6 between the goosberries, as they're on the small side, for the moment.

A small line of spring onions, white lisbon was put in as well.

No Good from a Really Ill Wind

During the first year of my first ever vegetable garden in spring 86; at the back of a terrace house with nice silty soil, Chernobyl happened.

I remember as I was transplanting cauliflowers wondering with the wind coming from the east just how polluted it was going to be. It didn't rain over us, but a couple of days later it did rain over parts of the Lake District. And those fells are still being monitored pretty closely.

It's only a small world so if there is a melt down or a major explosion over in Japan it won't take long to have some of that dust drifting down onto our gardens and allotments.

One of the most haunting things about Chernobyl was a description of people watching the initial fire:

(Image credits:Vivo (Ben) )

“After the explosion at Reactor 4 the people of Pripyat flocked on the railway bridge just outside the city to get a good view of the reactor and see what had happened.

Initially, everyone was told that radiation level was minimal and that they were safe. Little did they know that much of the radiation had been blown onto this bridge in a huge spike.”

They saw a beautiful rainbow coloured flames of the burning graphite nuclear core, whose flames were higher than the smoke stack itself. All of them are dead now – they were exposed to levels of over 500 roentgens, which is a fatal dose.

Read more: http://funny.funnyoldplanet.com/strange/the-chernobyl-story-told-in-pictures/#ixzz1GhrBZpYq

A Battle to be Won for the Eating

Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington of Waterloo fame would have been proud of me, and his sergeant majors, as I lay out three precise squares of Amsterdam forcing carrots to bring on under a cloche. And that cloche should also help to protect these early ones from any carrot flies that might come surging over the allotment hedge, swarming in their thousands like the cavalry under Michel Ney the first Duc d'Elchingen and the first prince of Moscow, the bravest of the brave, but also the stupidest of the stupidest as he sacrificed his cavalry on the British squares that hot, dusty and deadly afternoon. And so the carrot fly should be repelled by my plastic cloche as long as they're not riding big thundering horses, wearing a lot of gold braid and have wickedly sharp sabres, no cloche however plastic can stand up to that sort of treatment.

For the main crop I intend to build three cloche-like structures covered in that white meshy stuff to keep off the fly. Adding more belt to my braces, for a Christmas present I was given a packet of Flyaway carrot seed and I will use that for one row of carrots, while for the other row I would like to get some James Scarlet Intermediate to sow.

Cold Frames for the Hot Bed

Those cold frames are just about finished now, sawn, hammered, screwed and painted into submission. I think I may paint my allotment number on to them, it might make them look a bit smarter. Working out the cost of the frames was a bit difficult, having to buy some tools and rather more screws than you need and also overestimating on the paint; but you can never have too much white gloss can you? Well using a variety of cost accounting methods that would make your average city banker pretty chuffed, I reckon that the pair of frames should cost around 60 squid for the pair. Not bad bearing in mind that the build quality is of a pretty high standard in terms of the materials, not my carpentry skills, and a double lick of paint is worth more than it's weight in gold. So there you go, voila!