Why Quinoa's going to be a mainstay on my allotment

It's the second year I've been experimenting with growing Quinoa.

Last year's green house quinoa

Last year, I grew it at Winterbourne Garden's, Urban Veg garden http://urbanvegwhg.wordpress.com/ in the green house and a little bit outside.  To be fair it was planted out very late and the quinoa grown in the green house was better than those grown outside.

Previously, I thought it was heat that helped but after growing it again this year I think it might have been the rich compost in the green house versus the soil outside.

I didn't get a huge crop from last year's attempt, about a jam jar's worth.  I used some of these seeds to grow this year's crop and cooked with the rest.

This year, I've grown some of the quinoa in compost in tomato bags and the majority of the quinoa on my work allotment (about 10 metres away from where I grew it last year!)  They've grown OK in the compost tomato bags but they've grown amazingly well on the allotment - I'm so glad I planted the majority there!  They're well over a metre high and loads of grains on each plant.  It looks like my first proper bumper crop of quinoa.  I love store cupboard food growing in abundance!  They've grown much higher than they did in the green house.  The conditions on my allotment are a very nice loamy soil that I feed with compost each year and a sheltered sunny south facing spot.  Although we did have a great growing season in the UK this summer, I think it's the condition of the soil that has made them shoot up this year.

This year's allotment quinoa

I've started to crop the ones that have fallen over already - they're drying in our outbuilding, but I've yet to crop the majority that is still growing on the allotment plot.

And it's such a versatile thing to use in the kitchen.  You just store the dried seeds in a jar and use a few handfuls when you fancy.  What could be easier?  NB: Just before you use them you must thoroughly rinse them until you don't see soap suds as they contain saponins.  

You do need to get to grips with removing the seeds from the flower heads.  There's some really good instructions on http://www.realseeds.co.uk/grains.html  I work mine out of dried flower heads when I'm watching TV.

Earlier in the season I used some of the leaves in salad and they were delicious as a salad leaf with a few small oca leaves to create a flavour mixture.  They are a very close relation to fat hen, which also grows really easily in our gardens and especially on my allotment - so maybe if the fat hen's found my plot maybe I just have all the right conditions for growing quinoa and I should just not over analyse it!

If you've been inspired to try growing quinoa, my original seeds were Rainbow Quinoa from Real Seeds http://www.realseeds.co.uk/grains.html  I sowed the seeds in trays in early May.  As it was mild enough already, I kept these outside until they were ready to plant in early June.

Are you growing quinoa?

Plot inspired dinners

Yesterday I had quite a haul from the allotment.  A large Ram's Kodu Squash, a golf ball sized turnip and about 100g kale. I was so proud of my allotment's contribution, I showed my hubbie what I'd grown and brought home for our dinner.

So last night's supper was chopped up fried sausage, chopped squash, onions, tomatoes fried together for about 20 minutes.  I added kale cut into small strips in the last 5 minutes.  I also added some left over tomato salad dressing as the sauce and some chillie flakes (from home grown chillies that I grow on our bathroom windowsill) and just before serving I add turnip peelings - as an alternative to pasta.  I just stirred through so it soaked up the sauce for about 30 seconds and then served.

Turnip peelings sounds like a waste product but it really isn't.  It's one of the most yummy things you can do with turnip!  First peel away the top layer of your turnip in the usual way and disgard this bit (I feed this bit to my rabbits).  Once it looks all white carry on peeling your turnip but save these peelings to eat yourself.  It's great in salads or in the fried veg dish I cooked last night.

Today, Sam and I went back to the allotment at lunch time.  I got a bit of childish excitement wondering what I'll be going home with today.  I'm a bit short on veg this week as we haven't bought veg for the last few weeks due to lack of planning with our shopping.  So today's haul has been enough salad potatoes to make a potato salad - I'll make home made mayo to go with this.  Also, as I cut back the rat tail radish bush an envelope's worth of rat tail radish for tonight's salad.

I've noticed I'm starting to plan what I'll cook next based on what I'm likely to be able to raid from the allotment and the home veg patch!

Seed sowing in July/August

Last week, I took a day off work to clear the soil on the new side of the plot.  I had some help from a great friend who dilligently sieved the soil.  It is now perfect to sow some seeds. 

Whilst at Hampton Court Flower Show a few weeks back Alys Fowler's advice was that now is the time to grow oriental veg.  So I went through all my seeds looking for the orientals and anything that can be sown now for Sam (my new fellow allotmenteer) to grow.

I gave her a full assortment of everything we could possibly sow right now in my possession. 

Here's a picture of the full selection she chose: turnips, white radish, rocket, beetroot, salad leaves (now that we've passed mid summer the hope is that these will not bolt) and mizuna.  I think we're pushing the sowing window for turnips and beetroot but we'll see. You never know - autum might be mild.  I would also like to get some kohl Rabi and some Kai Laan in the ground before it's too late - I love the sweets stalks of Kai Laan!

When I sow seeds on the plot I also do a second sowing at home in modules just in case the pests eat the emerging seedlings.  On the plot the battle is with slugs, lots of birds, mice, squirrels.  Some allotmenteers have had what looks like badgers dig up their potatoes.  I always garden organically and I've often found when sowing seeds I often don't see them emerge so now I sow things in modules at home, make sure that the main stem is sturdy and then plant on site. 

On the new section, I've also been populating it with seedlings I had ready for growing: leeks, quinoa, chard and orache.  I've also moved some globe artichokes to the plot as once they are established this will be a much better site for them than my cooler home garden.

From my side of the plot we have quite a few things cropping: last of the broadbeans, chard by the bucket load (Fiona, these are the seeds you gave me for Christmas - thank you!), kale and radish pods.

The sweetcorn and squash plants are growing well so a bit more comfrey feed and I think we'll be eating summer squashes soon. Although a pest does like chopping the sweetcorn down so we may not get to eat corn on the cob, but we'll see.  

Please, any suggestions you have with dealing with the pests organically would be very much appreciated.

The Work Allotment has just got BIGGER!

For the last year, I've been sharing half a plot with a neighbour who shall we say last summer was a fair weather gardener.

When I first took on the plot, I would have preferred a whole one but the soil was so rich and it was a very sheltered sun trap that I thought half an exceedingly good plot was better than a whole really bad plot.  I had to remove the weeds which was a lot of hard work, but now I have a really lovely half plot where I am trying to grow the 3 sisters combo of sweet corn, french beans and squash.  I also have strawberries, rat tail radishes (for radish pods), broad beans, abundant chard and kale.  It's all going great but whilst I've been doing all that hard work on my side, my neighbour hasn't been to tend their side since last summer.

I was biding my time till there was no more work to do and then I was going to ask if she was ever coming back and if I could take it over.

This week a colleague needed a break from the office and asked if she could come along with me to my allotment for lunch break.  She loved the allotments so much that she was really enthused and wanted to grow veg, but she hasn't grown it before.

That gave me the push to actually find out if the neighbour was coming back and the good news is she'd abandoned it.  I just wish I'd asked the question sooner!  My colleague will garden my plot with me and I'll share all my growing knowledge with her as we work the plot.  It'll bring back my Master Gardener days with Garden Organic, when I was a South London Master Gardener.

So far I've lent her my veg patch book with post it notes on all the pages of veg we can plant in September.  We've still got half a plot of weeds to dig out but I'm sure it'll be easier this time sharing the hard work.

I have an allotment!

I've always wanted one and now I've found a small one very close to work.  I imagine myself spending lunch hours tending to my veg.

You may ask why I wanted an allotment?  If you're a regular to my blog you will have seen pictures of my veg plot and large garden.  We rent our home and garden and for that reason I've never had the opportunity to grow the longer term investment crops and perennials that need a few years to reach maturity. So there are certain crops I've always wanted to grow but haven't ... until now that is!

I've always wanted a little patch of home grown asparagus.  I wait for the asparagus season every year and look forward to lightly grilled asparagus with fried eggs - pierce the yolk and it dribbles on to the asparagus - there's nothing better!  And yet I have never tasted "fresh out of the ground" asparagus.  I usually get mine from the farmers market and put them in a jar of water to keep them fresh for as long as possible.  But now I have the opportunity to finally grow some of my own.  Well asparagus has been my main motivator.

There are other things I plan to grow on the allotment plot such as oca, spuds, pumpkins and squash.  If I've still got some space I'd like to grow some peas and beans.

I'm also looking forward to some good seedling swaps and seed swaps with my allotment neighbours.  I love saving heirloom varieties and am Heritage Seed Library addict.  I'm also looking forward to the plot side chats and horticultural debates with my new allotment neighbours.  Maybe we'll even exchange some allotment inspired recipes.

So now my windowsills are full of seed trays of pumpkins and beans getting ready for the plot and I've ordered my asparagus - I thought I'd go for plants so I don't have to wait quite so long for my first "fresh out of the ground" asparagus spear!