It was a year of gains and losses which I think is par for the course when gardening, we enjoyed the fruits (and vegetables) of our labours and what we lost hopefully we can learn lessons from.

One of my grandchildren shelling our dwarf beans, some still in the freezer for the winter.Runner beans were a runaway success after a slow start. The first lot we lost to a late frost, the second lot either the birds or mice got to them and the third and final sowing were slow due to the adverse weather in early summer but once they started they were unstoppable! Lots of them in the freeezer also.

Potatoes got blight, plus attacked by wireworm and slugs. We cut back the stalks to within a couple of inches of the ground to mark their positions, we are still digging them so there was enough to go around between ourselves and the slugs! We had earlies and second earlies which escaped any damage and were wonderfull. The British Queens, and Kerr’s Pinks have some slug damage  but otherwise gave a good crop, Golden Wonders the last to dig are still in the ground maybe a little too late?!

Sweetcorn went to seed, I think too long in pots before putting out , planting out was delayed due to the wind and rain and also affected it for some weeks after planting.They never grew very high so the few cobs that did form were just at rabbit height and got nibbled.

Courgettes went wild, we had courgettes with or in everything and anything.

Salad crops were slow again due to the weather.

Lots of onions, the winter onions we put in last year were not any bigger than the later planted ones, in fact the last lot we put in in February were the best.Garlic got garlic rust probably due to a wet winter.

Carrots were a disappointment, our first year putting them in the ground instead of the bins.Weird and wonderful shapes and tasty but small for the most part.

We had beetroot,swiss chard, spinach,rhubarb,white turnips (again a great cropper)cauliflower, red cabbage and summer cabbage, broccoli ( just finished now),Peas ,herbs,tomatoes were another disappointment this year, few and far between!

We had a great return from the fruit bed with raspberries and blackcurrants, a few blueberries in their second year and strawberries. We have extended the fruit bed to over double its size in the last few weeks to make room for autumn fruiting raspberries for next year and more blackcurrant  and gooseberry bushes.

We are still cropping potatoes, brussel Sprouts and leeks and have left the parsnips until after the first frost which may not be long now.

Most of the beds have now been dug over, covered with manure and black membrane and left to rest until next Spring when they will be ready for immediate planting once the ground warms up a little.

The sweet corn has been out in the allotment for about 2 weeks now but the wind and rain were playing havoc with it. There are squash interplanted at the edges, a sort of ‘two sister’ arrangement. I made a barrier with a roll of bubble wrap I had at home to give it some shelter, it seems to be working but the unseasonaly cold weather has slowed up growth all over the plot. Some seedlings barely showed over ground and have showed little sign of growing upwards for the time being.

The first and second earlies earthed up. There are 2 drills of Orla, 4 of Colleen,2 of Charlotte, 1 Home guard seed and one of volunteers.The drills had to be straightened as some of them grew out from the side of the drills.

The brassica bed is on the new plot which we took on this year, Brussel Sprouts and summer cabbage are under the netting to protect from the pigeons and crows. I was on the plot one night about 8.30 pm on my own and it was like something from the Albert Hitchcock film ‘The Birds’!  The other plotters had left and I was tidying up before leaving and all these birds just came down and lined up on the fences around me just waiting for me to leave to get stuck in!

The two mini greenhouses are groaning with seedlings at the moment and there are more on the bedroom window sill, as soon as danger of frost is over there will be lots moving out to the allotment. In the one on the left from the top are Sweetcorn, behind them are summer cabbage derby day.

Underneath areLeeks, red onions, lettuce and ten pots of cuttings from a Christmas Cactus not a veg but important none the less! I had to remove one shelf as the Sunflowers are climbing rapidly and red cabbage are with them on the bottom as well. The cabbage is ready to go but not until I get a frame for netting up to discourage the birds from feasting on it.

In the right side greenhouse are all of the Tomato plants, under them are more tomato plants much smaller as they were left to their own devices in a seed tray to see how much difference potting them up individually up to the bottom set of leaves made, it made a huge difference! They were all set on 3/Jan, while they all got spindly due I think to lack of natural light the ones potted on are now about 6 ins tall . The ones left in the tray became a tangled mass which were only potted on last week but are making great progress since then.

Brussels sprouts are under them and on the bottom tray are Cauliflower behind and 3 pumpkins in front of them

On the windowsill are herbs , Basil,Dill, thyme, marjoram the sage is a slow starter and the parsley has only put up 3 miniscule seedlings and do not appear to be growing, I may end up buying parsley plants!

 Flowers in trays are Borage, Marigolds and the Calendula

Squash , lettuce and summer salads are still in trays too, I need more space!

No, not miniature shamrocks! These are the brussels sprouts sown on 7th march on the windowsill and they put in an appearance on 11th march!  Today the salad onions and the second sowing of peas are showing, too small to take a photo of yet. The leeks sown on the same  day are still shy. We got the bean bed ready on the allotment, dug throughly and  then I dug out a trench down the middle. Into it I put any yellowed leaves  and then a layer of wet newspaper and brought out 2 bags of well rotted organic compost from home. Beans need a moisture retaining soil for the summer.

 I paid a visit to B&Q this morning and got 10x 2.4 metre thick bamboo canes for 5.00e! These are to build a framework for the beans . While there I noticed they have a good selection of  fruit trees in various sizes, not for the 6.99 that Lidl had, they range in price up to around 20e. Atlantic  had a lot of herbs, tomato plants and Globe artichokes on sale.

While replacing some of the autumn sown onions that just disappeared over winter I went back to Ravenscourt garden centre in Kerry Pike, they had one bag of onion sets  left, all of the shallots were gone. The lady serving me said they had never seen such a run on seed potatoes and onion sets, everyone seems to be interested in growing something this year!

These are seeds planted on sat 7th march of  Brussels Sprouts and Musselburg Leeks. Enough sprouts for our use , the leeks we intend sowing in succession so they will not all harvest together when these germinate we will sow more and then sow direct when the weather improves.Leeks were one of the success stories of last year but we planted them late in June, we have been using them up to a couple of weeks ago. These seeds were bought from Seedaholic in Mayo who do a good range of organic seeds quite reasonably priced and posted by return. their website is www.seedaholic.com or they are also on ebay.What I particularly like about them is, instead of the usual generic information on the back of the seed packet you get an A4 sheet with all the info on sowing ,harvesting and uses.

 The first lot of seeds sown in January of Tomatoes got kind of leggy and spindly which may have been due to too little light. This idea of reflecting light on to the seeds I read somewhere. I covered cardboard with tinfoil and attached it to the tray cover with the ever reliable duct tape. It is facing the window and any little sunshine we get will hopefully be reflected on to the seeds.

In the mini greenhouse outdoors I have 5  different types of tomatoes, peas, 2 types of borage supposed to be good as a companion plant and to attract bees etc. Sunflowers and calendula again for companion planting . I had to move everything outside but wrapped bubble wrap around the greenhouse and everything seems to have survived the move so far.

On saturday morning I got seed potatoes in Ravens Court garden centre in Kerry Pike.They had just been delivered so were freshly packed.I was looking for an organic variety called Coleen but will have to track them down. I got British Queens which are a second early, we are not putting in main crop this year due to lack of space and the dreaded blight.At least when these are harvested there is still time to put in another crop.On an allotment space is at a premium! I saved egg cartons during the winter and the pops are sitting nice and snug in their nests.Once the shoots develop it is very easy to damage them if the pops are not supported in some way.They are put in with the side with the most eyes facing up to the light.

In a few weeks they will send up green shoots and around March will be planted out on the plot which has been readied with manure and compost and covered with black polythene for the winter.The shoots are the new stalks and they are planted with the stalks upwards. The first time I did it I was not sure if the shoots were the roots or the stalks!

On the left of the photo are my collection of recycled plastic cartons, with holes punched in the bottom they make excellent seed trays. On the right is the beginnings of my plastic bottle cache, these have to keep their caps also as they will be filled with water and with holes pricked through will be used for drip feeding plants during the long hot summer we hope we are going to get! My jam jar collection is waiting for the summer fruits for jam making and last year I tried making chutney and pickles for the first time.

All of these items can be recycled and saved from filling up our bins and landfill.

I bought these seeds in B&Q and planted them 10 days ago on a windowsill. There were 5 Tomato varieties in the pack for 4.10e.Not all of them have germinated and maybe this is the total but so far there are:

16  Marmande

8 Tigerella

3 Golden Sunrise

17  Gardener’s Delight

1 Moneymaker ?!

I also planted Lupin seeds which I had saved last year from a lovely red lupin I have had for a number of years. I don’t know if it will come true to type, this gardening is a waiting game!!

The garlic which we planted last October is growing and has survived the winter …so far! I had planted it last year around March but it died off in June. We had our Open Day on the Hydro Allotments and one of the visitors from West Cork had a look at it and said we had planted it too late it was just naturally dying off at the time it would normally be harvested.

The best time to plant it is October or November as garlic needs a cold spell to germinate.It sent up tiny green stalks and sat there Nov and Dec but on my last visit it had definitely started to grow so we are hopefull of having our own garlic this year.

I use quite a lot of it and had always picked it up in the supermarket until buying home grown garlic one day at a farmer’s market and there was absolutely NO comparision! I have been checking labels recently in any shop that sells it and China seems to be the only country that is exporting it…so much for food miles! I buy it at a farmer’s market when I need it now.

There is not a lot on the plot at the moment ,we have the garlic and purple sprouting broccoli which is growing and we are looking forward to harvesting that around March.That will leave another patch ready for Summer sowing.

We have started getting the ground ready for next years veg.There is no resting with this allotment lark! last year we finished when the last of the veg was harvested, but this year we have started the ground preparation for the next crops. Trench composting means digging out a trench about 12 ins deep, fill with wilted or ‘going off’ fruit and veg. the idea is, it rots down in to the ground over winter. Fill in the trench as you are going along, and there is one bed ready by next spring. We are going to use this for beans as they are hungry but not lovers of animal manure.Some veg just do not like any kind of manure and some prefer it well rotted down. This piece of ground was manured for the crop last year so just compost will top it up for next year now.If you don’t want a compost bin around or think you don’t have enough material for a compost bin then this method is ideal to get started on.

Hello from the Hydro Allotments in Blarney,Co Cork.I have an allotment here with my daughter Kathryn since April of 2007, we started growing our own as we wanted to taste some real vegetables that had not travelled half way across the world or been treated with shedloads of preservatives! It has been a learning curve so far, we have had surprising successes and some dismal failures.We have met lots of people also interested in growing and have pooled resources and advice. The pumpkins have been grown on a heap of horse manure,we have an endless supply of it for our allotments, right on site. Our allotment owner is Zwena and she grows them every year.Believe it or not these are not the biggest she has grown! The big one here weighs in at 30 kgs and measures 61 ins around the middle. We had to roll it down the bank as it was too heavy to lift. A few have been left on the plants until Halloween to see if they grow any more.The biggest one went in to the Good Food stall in the English market and the others are probably soup by now!