Fight The Flatworms

New Zealand flat worms are an invasive species accidentally introduced to the UK and Ireland in the 1960s, and they are now wide-spread throughout Northern Ireland. Flat worms eat large numbers of earth worms, and native birds don't like to eat them, so they do no good in your garden. We are lucky to have loads of worms at our allotment, but I very rarely find any at all in our home garden, just a few minutes up the road from our plot. Today I was moving pots in the garden and discovered several of these ravenous New Zealand flat worms hiding underneath. New Zealand flat worms can't tolerate temperatures below zero or above 20C, so when harsh weather threatens they hide in sheltered places under stones, under pots, and even on the insides of pots with gaps in the soil.

Our recent unseasonably chilly weather means that these beasties are likely to be hiding in sheltered spots right now, so lift your pots and planters and see if you can spot any of them. If you do see any New Zealand Flat Worms, or their black shiny egg cases, destroy them. Sadly you are unlikely to ever get rid of them all from a garden, but the more you get rid of, the fewer there are gorging themselves on your precious earth worms.

The picture above was taken this afternoon in my garden. I collected 5 flat worms and as many egg cases, put them in a jar, and then poured boiling water over them to kill them. If you prefer to squish them, wear gloves as they can cause a skin reaction in some people. 

There are native flat worms, but they look nothing like the foreign invaders, so don't worry - you can't mistake anything you want to keep in the garden for these nasty worm-eating mini monsters.

Our Year 2020 Videos

Throughout 2020 we kept a diary of photos and videos, which we submitted as an entry in Ards Allotments Diary Competition.  We were surprised and delighted when we got the word that we won! Thanks very much to everyone at the allotments who make it such a wonderful community, and to Maurice and Judith the allotment owners. Below are the twelve videos - one for each month - that made up our diary entry:

Playlist (watch all): Brian and Amy's Allotment 2020 - YouTube

Or month by moth:

January: https://youtu.be/VeTt9KysPyg

February: https://youtu.be/U5QaQfDkroM

March: https://youtu.be/jWZesOj6tnA

April: https://youtu.be/hGqnH0u3a6o

May: https://youtu.be/vq09JiCnMjM

June: https://youtu.be/dQYoWTaQeQM

July: https://youtu.be/YNzDAi2Lmug

August: https://youtu.be/HKlIYu14mCQ

September: https://youtu.be/LpD5Zoy3Ykk 

October: https://youtu.be/wdKNRzhXSAQ 

November: https://youtu.be/PbhySo2jAFQ

December: https://youtu.be/7AWRTFTqf48

 

We're in the Chronicle!

We were lucky enough to be one of several allotment holders featured in the Newtownards Chronicle newspaper in the week of 22 April 2021. It was brilliant to be able to share our enthusiasm for allotment gardening with more people, and even better to see some of the lovely people in our community share their own stories.

December 2020 - Yacon and Home Grown Christmas Dinner

With cold weather blanketing the country many of the crops are now finished, but one crop has been waiting for just this moment to shine. Yacon is a plant native to the Andes in South America, which looks like a small sunflower above ground, but below the soil it grows sweet tubers that taste a little like pear and have a texture like water chestnut. The plant is tender, so it grows all through the summer, and then when the first frosts wilt the foliage it is time to lift the plant and harvest the exotic tubers. We tried this for the first time this year, and found it a nice addition to our crops.

We also grew our own vegetables for Christmas dinner - rainbow carrots, stripy beetroot, Home Guard potatoes, swedes, and parsnips. Delicious!

Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/7AWRTFTqf48

November 2020 - Preserving our Harvest

 With so much fabulous produce we use all sorts of methods to use and preserve our crops. We make cakes, breads, chutneys, jams, pickles, and of course freeze lots of our crops to use later. We are still harvesting lots of brassicas, autumn raspberries, beetroot, apples, and we have grown several different varieties of turnip and swede to see which performs the best. Mashed swede is a big favourite in our house, and Brora is a fabulous variety for that. For a lovely addition to a salad, thin slices or grated young turnip snowball is a treat. And you can eat the leaves of all varieties of swede and turnip, too - just boil them up until they are tender, and season to taste. In the Southern States of America it is a soul food staple, served with shredded ham hock mixed through it and a side of corn bread. What a lovely way to cut food waste and get an extra harvest with no extra effort!

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/PbhySo2jAFQ

October 2020 - Sweet Corn and Melons

October brings our first harvest of home grown sweet corn and melons. The melon in a cantaloupe type called "Edonis F1" that we grew in our cold frame. We only got two small fruit, but they were fantastically sweet and perfectly formed. Last year our sweet corn failed to ripen and we just ate it as baby corn, but this year the warmer weather and sowing it a little earlier has resulted in full, ripe, delicious cobs. Sweet corn is a crop that is especially good to grow yourself, as it is at its sweetest the moment it is picked. Once it is off the plant the sugar levels drop as the starch levels rise progressively, so the longer it is off the plant before it is eaten the less sweet it will be. We pick it and have it in the pot within minutes. It really is the sweetest sweet corn we have ever eaten!

See our Amazing October Harvests on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wdKNRzhXSAQ

September 2020 - Self Sufficient in Fruit and Veg

In September we are still getting all of the fruit and veg we need from our plot, as well as a steady supply of leaves for herbal tea, and gorgeous cut flowers for the house. Everything is grown naturally without and pesticides or sprays, and we are able to grow crops that are difficult or impossible to get in the shops. When was the last time you saw Tayberries or fresh chocolate mint leaves in the supermarket? We feel so lucky!

There are too many crops to list, so just watch the video below to see some of our beautiful harvests:

Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/LpD5Zoy3Ykk

August 2020 - Apples, Blueberries, and All Things Nice

Throughout the month of August we continue to harvest impressive crops of berries, our first apples, and to our great delight our home grown tomatoes! They are ripening a little slower than they might have in a greenhouse, but they are definitely still growing strong, and we look forward to picking our tangy sweet little tomatoes for many more weeks. We also harvest beetroot, tomatoes, cabbage, peas, beans, turnips, swedes, redcurrants, blackcurrants, blackberries, tayberries, blueberries, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, courgettes, lettuce, pak choi, radishes, and Brian's new favourite, Onion Shakespeare: "They are sweet and mild, perfect for eating fresh in sandwiches and salads."

See our amazing August harvests on YouTube: https://youtu.be/HKlIYu14mCQ

July 2020- Outdoor Tomatoes and Heaps of Harvests

With the new beds finished and all the crops sown, there is little to do this month except harvest, harvest, harvest. We are experimenting with growing hanging basket tomatoes outdoors in the fruit cage. We don't have a greenhouse, but we love the tang of home grown tomatoes, so have chosen fast ripening cherry type tomatoes that are advertised as being suitable for growing outdoors, and given them a warm spot in full sun. Many of the tomatoes sold in shops are varieties chosen to store well or look good in a packet, rather than being chosen for taste or texture. Growing your own lets you experience the perfect flavour of tomatoes, so we hope that our hanging basket tomatoes will ripen for us. They are growing strongly, and we have companion planted them with marigolds to help keep pests away from them. While we wait for the tomatoes to ripen there are plenty of other harvests, as we continue to benefit from all the fruit and vegetables we can eat. We store what we can't use right away by freezing, making in to jam and chutney, and cooking into delicious meals we can freeze and enjoy later.

See our July 2020 Allotment Video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YNzDAi2Lmug

June 2020 - Bountiful Harvests and a Mountain of Mulch

This month we finished building our new garden beds, and move an absolute mountain of mulch for the paths. With the crops growing strongly we were able to harvest enough fruit and vegetables from the plot that we didn't need to buy any from the shops. The strawberries are incredibly sweet, and with several different varieties ripening at different rates, every couple of days we pick a big punnet full. We keep our plastic supermarket packaging to use to harvest all the berries, but as well as gooseberries, strawberries and raspberries, we've also got fabulously sweet carrots, mange tout peas, lettuce, cabbage, kale, chard, beetroot, spinach, mizuna, radishes, turnips, and a plethora of herbs, cutting flowers, and edible flowers. This really is "the good life"!

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/dQYoWTaQeQM

May 2020 - Wildlife at the Allotment, and our plot gets a makeover

After some initial confusion about whether visits to the allotment are allowed, we receive official word that we CAN go to the plot. There are new restrictions, but it is a joy to be back at our little patch of earth! When we took on our second plot we just cut new beds right into the grass, always intending to eventually box them in and do away with the grass paths in favour of mulch. With Amy's work hours restricted we had time to start building the new raised beds, and to get the plot on the way to looking like we always wanted.

There is plenty of wildlife at the plot this month, including unusual 22-spot ladybirds. These tiny yellow and black bugs are the smallest of the UK native ladybirds, but they still have a voracious appetite, and help to keep aphids and other small insects at bay. We never use any insecticides or pesticides at our plot. We want to encourage a natural balance of predatory insects and birds to keep the pest insects at bay, and to benefit local wildlife. Encouraging wildlife is really important to us, and so is growing food naturally. One of the main reasons we got a plot in the first place is that we want to eat produce that has been grown conscientiously and not sprayed with anything nasty.

Watch our May 2020 Allotment video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vq09JiCnMjM

April 2020 - Covid and Seeds from the back of the cupboard

 Covid has hit Northern Ireland like horrific hammer. Every night the news recaps deaths and fills us all with fear. Shops closed and all of us are in lockdown, and we are not able to go to the plot. Desperate for a gardening distraction, we rummage through the back of the cupboards, find some old culinary spice seeds and decide to try to sprout them. To our surprise, the Caraway seeds sprout after a couple of weeks on damp kitchen towel! We grow them on, and plan to eventually plant them out at the plot. It just goes to show, even in the darkest places, hope and life will find a way.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hGqnH0u3a6o

March 2020 - Crop Rotation, Spring Blooms, and Potatoes

 March is the start of the growing season for us. Our Allotments are located right on the shore of Strangford lock, so we benefit from a warm microclimate. We do get an awful lot of wind, but the soil is fabulously fertile and the ground warms quickly as soon as the March sunshine breaks through. This month we plant out early crops like lettuce, carrots, onions, and even some tender crops like spinach that we protect with fleece. We plant potatoes on St. Patrick's day, and start a new strawberry bed.

Watch what we got up to in March on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jWZesOj6tnA

February 2020 - Frozen Ground and Winter Chores

After a fairly mild January, February has been cold enough to freeze the ground and make many garden tasks impossible. You should never work frozen or really soggy soil, as this damages the soil structure and does far more harm than good. We are still harvesting some hardy crops, like sprouting broccoli, and catching up on winter jobs like cleaning labels, sorting seeds, and planning the growing year ahead.

Watch our February at the plot on YouTube: https://youtu.be/U5QaQfDkroM

Winter Harvests

As the colder weather closes in and we brace for snow and high winds, there are still hardy harvests from the allotment. Purple Kale, green Cavolo Nero, Purple Sprouting Broccoli, small but perfectly formed Romanesco Natalino, and the last of the turnips are all finding their way to our table.

Brian admiring the Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Tiny yet tasty Romanesco Natalino

Purple Kale is still going strong and is a lovely addition to stews and casseroles

Don't let the chill discourage you - with a little planning you can have tasty home grown produce for your table all year round!