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!

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.