December round up

We will have dug over and prepared all beds at the allotment by close of play New Year's eve. 

Other recent activity is: 

Sowing a pea pot, to use the fresh pea tips in rice dishes etc. 

Planting out broad beans and peas into the lottie, for an early crop

Popped more garlic [given to me by Finedon Dandy from the Vine], into modules on the 29th and put outdoors to get frosted. 

Sowing early toms  on the 27th Dec: 

6 x Grushovka

6 x Aurora

6 x Purple Ukraine 

Sowing early chillis on 27th Dec:

6 x Gelbe Kirshen Early Yellow Chilli

Sowing alliums on 29th Dec: 

Shallots: Zebrune and Banana

Leeks: Blue de Solaise and Lyon 2

Onions: Mr Allen's Reliance, Golden Bear F1, Redbeard, Red Baron, Brunswick, The Kelsae, Bedfordshire Champion and some spring onions, Elody. 

Overwintering Chillis, including Alberto Rocoto which was brought indoors this month and the pepper started turning red - it's looking very healthy so far; and possibly a Numex Twilight which we bought in France which is looking really good. Can't wait for the next flush of flowers to start both of these off again in Early Spring. 

Onion Trimming

Links to onion trimming, going to try this as a little experiment this year. 

number 1

number 2

Garlic Moon Trial

I am conducting a garlic Moon and Non-Moon Trail

50 Garlic Cloves, bought at the local veg shop. 

25 to be planted out on moon days and 25 on the next opposite moon day. 

All sets will be weighed before planting and after harvesting next summer and after 24 hours of drying. 

Soil prep; the cloves are all going into 1 bed on the lottie, which had main crop potatoes in until September. the bed was hand rotavated and all weeds removed. I'll add coffee grounds and epsom salts to the soil prior to each sowing. 

i am sowing to find out whether a sept/oct/nov/dec sowing is best, the cloves that go in on midwinter day will be harvested on midsummer day, and all other cloves will be harvested the same number of moon cycles from sowing.

Dates:

Moon

GA planted out on 11 Sept

GB planted out on 9th Oct

GC planted out on 15th Nov

GD planted out on 2 Dec

GE planted out on 21st Dec

Non-Moon

GV planted out on 16th Sept

GW planted out on 15th Oct

GX planted out on 18th Nov

GY not planted out due to frozen ground

GZ planted out 3rd Jan 2009

December 2008

We popped to the lottie today, as I wanted to pop the last moon garlic in [it's the Winter Solstice today]. So, I took a few photos, of the plot on the shortest day. 

This is my onion bed, with sets that were put in on 21st September. They will romp away as soon as spring comes round. We will weed it over the next week or two. 

Just a shot of the full lottie, to compare as the years go by. 
Raspberry bed, with 3 sets of 6 rasps.