#saladstarter

[thelandthatfeeds]

Week 19 of the 2018 growing season. It's the start of blackberry and plum season now, and the tomato plants are reliably producing every week. Still waiting on the sweet peppers but after that there should be the full range of crops available. The wicking box salad successions are coming along nicely too. 2.9kg of cucumbers (about half of which were massive ones that won't fit in the selling boxes - I think I'll try and find a smaller Persian cucumber variety next year), 2.4kg of tomatoes (half sellable, half were splitting from the weather), 2.3kg of courgettes and 400g of mixed lettuce. Plenty to sell in the salad stall, but I hadn't counted on them resurfacing the road outside all day, which looks like it massively lowered foot traffic and resulted in only £2 of sales (a box of tomatoes).

[thelandthatfeeds]

Weeks 27, 28 and beyond.

Crazy hectic few weeks! We've had engineers and plumbers and all sorts going on around the house, but (fingers crossed) all sorted now. Meanwhile, at the allotment, the cold nights have pretty much shut down production for the year. Next year I think I will definitely have two transplanting windows, as the later and more vigorous plants have been able to shake off the worst of it.

On week 27: 3.2kg of tomatoes, 1.2kg of cucumbers, 400g of courgettes and a few beets, radishes and a pepper. £5 in from the salad shop.

Week 28: 2.4kg of tomatoes, 800g of cucumbers and of courgettes, and a few more beets, radishes, carrots and another solitary pepper. I decided to formally close the salad shop for the year this week, as the current yields are just about enough for our personal use.

Going forwards, I'll be pulling everything up at the allotment for the kitchen or the compost pile, tarping over the salad plot and barking over the perennial plots.

[thelandthatfeeds]

Week 20 of the 2018 growing season. Faiiiirly quiet week at the plot. Lots of blackberry and plum picking with the kids and their cousins instead though. 4.8kg of cucumbers (⅔ sellable), 3.7kg of courgettes (½ sellable), 3.4kg of tomatoes (⅓ sellable) and 500g of mixed lettuce. Another oddly low sales week with £2 in for a box of tomatoes. My theory (well, hypothesis) is that either the novelty of the salad stall has worn off, or that all of the usual customers are off on holiday. Or I haven't noticed a zombie apocalypse. Again.

[thelandthatfeeds]

Week 23.

The summer holidays are coming to an end, and summer too for that matter. The Super Smash Bros and I spent a good few days up the allotment this week, picking fruit and planting for next year. I swapped out the bed of liquorice plants in the forest garden plot in favour of a bed of lavender, as the liquorice was just not really performing. We also planted beds of crocosmia, tulip, daffodil and flowering alliums in the new perennial cut flower garden, which is just waiting on some agapanthus, day lily and scented roses now.

Bringing it on back to vegetable-ville, 3.6kg of tomatoes, 2kg cucumbers, 1.1kg courgettes, and about half a kilogramme of salad leaves from 2 of the wicking boxes. I'm getting a bit overrun with produce as the salad stall hasn't really been performing either, and I'm already hurling fresh bags at every visitor anyway. Worst case: new compost material that will feed next year's plants.

[thelandthatfeeds]

Week 25 of the 2018 growing season.

With some help from these two ninjas, this week we picked 3kg of really good cucumbers, 2.5kg of pretty split tomatoes, 1kg of a few big courgettes, and about 300g each of salad mix, radish, beetroot and beans, with a good 600g of sweet peppers. £4 in from the Sunday salad stall.

I'm hoping for harvests all the way to Halloween, but I am getting suspicious of how much longer some of the plants can handle. Otherwise, lots of weeding and tucking in for the year going on now. I'm not aiming for over winter harvests (just a bit easier that way) so I can start to tarp over the empty beds ready for next year now. Last orders before we close up, Plot.

[thelandthatfeeds]

Week 21 of the 2018 growing season. Beets and peppers! Well, two of each. But still very promising signs of their main cropping coming in. Lots of side plots (because allotment plots, haha. Classic.) this week, mostly from a whole leaky kitchen ceiling plumbing thing, but also with the beginning of my 2 weeks-ish long birthday celebrations. I am 30 of your earth years next week! No salad sales this week, but as I've been seeing lots of people I've been able to give away a lot which I'm still happy with. Lucky number 4 with the vegetables this week, 4kg each of cucumbers, courgettes and tomatoes, half of each in a sellable condition. 300g of a little mixed lettuce harvest, 300g of probably my best radishes so far, 2 sweet red peppers and 2 chioggia (pink and white ringed) beetroot; 50g each. Very tasty, and beautiful toppings for salad. Found out I have grey hairs in my eyebrow now. No story there, just still processing that fact.

[thelandthatfeeds]

Week 9 of my 2018 growing season (part 1 of 2). That's right, a two part-er. Many things! I am pretty sure I have more salad in my body than I do blood at this point. It looks like I start to struggle (even on the low carb diet) after about 500g of salad mix a week. I've got about 300g of last weeks spring mix left still, and I turned most of the spicy mix roughly into a pesto (which is not too bad, I mixed in some olives and parmesan too which works pretty well). Then, harvested this week, about 1.6kg of spring mix (which is mostly from lettuce, which is a real turn around from last year), about 400g of spicy mix which has gone really woody, and 400g of radishes. I have noticed a general reduction in leaf size (other than the lettuce, which is a beast), which I suspect is from spacing too closely, but I also suspect that I need to water more; not just directly to feed the plants, but also to take the edge off of the heat to hopefully slow down the salad bolting (flowering) which turns them to sticks. Alternatively, I think I could use shade cloth, but it would be a bit of a hassle to install and could cost hundreds to cover everything. All 5 beds were clear harvested, which looks like it is going to really going to push the compost pile as there was easily a wheelbarrow full of old stems, and I reseeded the beds with the same crops. Although, instead of tatsoi, I am starting the seeding of the summer mix leaf which is leafbeet (from baby bull's blood beetroot), and I also planted a new bed of chioggia beetroot (the white and purple ringed one, which is way less messy to eat). Next in part 2, I will be having a go at selling! I have washed the spring mix and left it to dry in a net sack tied to the garden apple tree (the standard approach), and I will then be bagging it up and setting up a small front garden honesty stand for the morning, and just see what happens really.

[thelandthatfeeds]

Week 7. First (mini) harvest of the year! There's plenty more salad for cutting, but I held back for two reasons; next week I'm back on the low carb diet (basically it turns out to sort of be a keto diet, but it's something I thought up back in college when I was in a nutrition class: less than 2000 calories and 50g carbs in a day) for which a ton of salad would be super useful, but also because I've noticed that I am still getting the same quantity of mature leaves as last year's wicking box system, but their overall size is much smaller. This could be for a ton of reasons, so to start with I'm just observing what another weeks worth of growth will do. Specifically, this week I harvested 70g of radishes, and 170g of mixed salad. The bags I picked up for holding the salad could easily fit a 300g portion, but I think that selling them in 100g portions (and in smaller bags) is going to be an easier sale. The taste is pretty much the same as the box system as well, which is good, but we have noticed a few more bite marks now that the salad is grown out in the open.