Our First Cucumber

This is what Xanthe considers to be an appropriate 'I grew a cucumber!' pose, it's unclear exactly why. I hadn't planned on growing any cucumbers but we were at a car boot sale a few weeks ago and saw a stall selling vegetable seedlings for 50p each. I offered to buy one each for the children for their section of the allotment, Willow chose a tomato plant and Xanthe chose the cucumber.

I have to admit I didn't think too deeply about either plant, just stuck them in the ground and watered them. The cucumber has romped away, so far we've had this one and the curly one in the previous picture and we still have a few babies too.

The broad beans have finished now so it feels like we're in a vegetal stasis. We've got Rainbow Chard and courgettes a-plenty but are still waiting for the Cavolo Nero, sweetcorn, pumpkins, borlotti beans and runner beans. I also dug out the religious carrots* and have planted peas instead so I hope my allotment book is correct when it says I'm not too late to get a pea crop. I've also planted some red Pak Choi which should be interesting.

My poor home veggie patch is very neglected this year so I'm hoping to lavish some attention on it this week (children permitting) I've just planted my salad tray with a mixture of my favourite mizuna and peas (as a cut and come again salad crop of pea shoots, not for the peas themselves) I figure that should be a nice mix to use either as a salad or a stir fry crop.

I have to admit that, overall, my crops seem to be a little unbalanced in that they're all either green and leafy or beany poddy. I think that's kind of inevitable given that I'm not too keen on root veg which is probably just as well given the wireworm problem. Next year I think I'll mix in some alliums somewhere along the line though I have to keep to my philosophy of growing crops which are either expensive or hard to find in the shops. I'm thinking green garlic but not sure what else. Any suggestions?

* Holy.

..... is for Cucumber.

Here's Xanthe's cucumber helpfully teaching her the alphabet. I'm not sure that teaching via vegetables is the way to go though, as it appears to have glossed right over A and B.

Did anyone else tell that silly story as a child, you know, the one that goes "It was a dark, dark night, in a dark, dark house ...." I've adapted it slightly for the allotment, "It was a hard, hard plot, with hard, hard soil in a hard, hard year, watered with hard, hard water by a gardener with hard, hard hands and a hard, hard heart" (all true apart from the heart business)

Our woes have been added to with the discovery that our carrots weren't eaten by carrot fly but by wire worm. A neighbouring plot has lost potatoes to the same pest. Apparently they have a three year life cycle so it could be 3 years before we can successfully grow root vegetables.

However, it's not all bleak. Today I harvested the remainder of our broad beans, we've had about 10 kilos in total so I think that can count as a successful crop. The courgettes and rainbow chard are also cropping well at the moment and the pumpkins, borlotti beans and cavolo nero are coming along nicely too. I am a tad concerned that the sweetcorn isn't growing as quickly as I'd like but fingers crossed.

The courgettes are doing so well that I've been able to kick off the 2010 preserving season with my first batch of courgette pickle (below), hopefully there'll be a few more to come. I've got an exhaustive wish list for this year's preserves, more of which anon but suffice to say I've got my eye on the Rowan berries next .......