Spade Work : From Plot to Plate

Lumper Potato

I finally put the Lumper potatoes out of their misery yesterday. The haulm never looked strong and all the leaf had keeled over in the last week.

There was no sign of blight but I couldn't really think that this straggly foliage which was slowly decaying was going to add anything to the harvest.

So out they came to make way for a sowing of turnip top greens.

If this was the potato that the Irish survived on before the Famine in the 1850s then I'm surprised they survived until then. Whilst the tubers were sizeable and irregular in shape, the yield per seed potato was low. And even though I pulled them a bit early there was no evidence that any more tubers would have grown on if I'd left the plants in the ground for longer.

The flesh was pale, very starchy and made a delicious mash, skin and all but I didn't have enough to compare them roasted or boiled. Perhaps I'll track them down through Seed Savers' Exchange again this year and grow some on for chipping.

From the Ashes

In May my allotment shed burnt down (see the devastation here) and with it the Pilgrim Rose (from David Austin Roses) which I was training up the side.

But rather than dig out the burnt stems I let it be to see if anything came back. From the charred remains a couple of green shoots emerged (maybe the root stock - I'll have to see as it grows). You can see the bare blackened stems and the new growth coming through.

I could make some allegorical tale of this - the Pilgrim Rose coming through the travail of  allotment life rising phoenix like (to add myth) from the ashes........

But I won't except to say that all plants want to do is grow if given a chance. Encouraged by this I've seeded the bare patch with grass seed and next weekend hope to find time to build a climbing frame  for the rose. 

Beans, beans and more beans....

It's that time of year - gluts of produce and people start avoiding you.

This is the mornings harvest of climbing beans and there'll probably be more by this evening. At any rate we'll be harvesting daily for the next few weeks, blanching and freezing as we go.

My favourites are the yellow climbing beans, Rapid,bought in Spain and doing really well. It's the first to flower (creamy white blosoms) and the first to produce long, flat, yellow pods which retain their colour. Great on their own or dressed with balsamic vinegar and garlic or chopped in a curry to pad it out.

New to me this year are  Kew Blue (top right). They're prolific (I know it sounds like catalogue speak but they really are at the moment). There's not much foliage so the crop is easy to see and pick and fewer chances the leaves will irritate your skin. They are slim, tender (we'll see as they get on a bit) and stringless.

On the left is Blauhilde, slightly behind the rest but still doing well. It was one of my favourites last year for cropping and length of season and stayed stringless throughout. But there's a lot of foliage so this makes picking a little more difficult. Some have tended to curl a bit (and I wonder if this is because they are twineing around the foliage) so you don't get the profile that Kew Blue gives - of course it makes not a jot of difference to the taste.

It's a good eater, quite meaty, but this year it's getting a run for its money from Kew Blue.