Allotments News

Pumpkin Competition

Believe it or not, our heaviest pumpkin weighed in at a massive 60.27lbs (over 27kilos) this year, that’s over 4 stones in weight!!! I can imagine that it will keep Di Stevenson, the lucky winner, in pumpkin soup all winter long!! The next heaviest pumpkins weighed in at 38lbs (17kilos) each and the two runners up were Sean Sarson and Pol Law. Well done to all of you!! These whoppers will make some really scary Halloween lanterns as well as lots of lovely soup!

Jobs to do now

I have just brought a couple of my chilli plants in from the greenhouse to the house to overwinter. I did that last winter and managed to get a few more chillies off it. I am tempted to do the same with some of my sweet pepper plants as, amazingly, they are still producing buds and flowers and baby peppers in the greenhouse! It must be all the mild weather we’ve been having recently.

At the moment (the end of October) I’m still picking lots of ripe cherry tomatoes from the greenhouse and lovely they are too! The allotment is still producing lots of kale and broccoli and I still have the leeks and parsnips to harvest but I must remember to harvest all of my beetroot, carrots, winter squash and pumpkins before the first frosts arrive. Not only do they not taste too good after being frosted, I also struggle to get the fork in the ground to lift them out!

Tidying up the Plots

A lot of the plots on the allotment are being ‘put to bed’ now if people don’t intend to grow any vegetables over the winter months. So, the ground is covered up with compost, manure or leaf mould to enrich the soil ready for next Spring and keep the weeds down. I don’t like to tidy my plot up too much although I do get rid of the seeding or creeping weeds. I like to grow quite a few things over the winter, broccoli, onions, garlic, and green manures, or plants which grow and offer shelter to some ‘good’ beasties over the bad weather. These plants are then dug in or left to rot down as manure early next year. I also like to leave a few dead brown plant stems in the ground for ladybirds and other beneficial insects to hide in until Spring. I have a small wood pile in one corner of the allotment where I put all the woody stems, broken bamboo canes etc. as shelter and generally try to do my bit for nature. It looks like we will all have to do a bit more to help our wildlife in the years ahead with the ravages of climate change getting ever more destructive. With the strange weather this year having an impact on my vegetable harvest, I’m sure our farmers are also going to need all the help they can get to keep the nation supplied with food. Let’s hope some action comes from the Climate Change conference in Glasgow so we can all continue to enjoy plenty of fresh food and stay safe.

Bonfires

As of 1st November, allotment holders are allowed to burn the woody waste which cannot easily be composted on their plots. Not everyone burns their woody waste as it does rot down eventually. The ‘burning season’ lasts until 31st March next year, when bonfires are banned again till the following autumn.

We always make sure to remind all plot holders, and as we are coming to the bonfire season, can I remind everyone to check your pile of waste to be burnt, and if possible, move it to a slightly different location before setting light to it. This is because your pile of woody waste may be just the place where a hedgehog or other creature has decided to make their home for the winter and hibernate there. It would be dreadful if they were burnt alive so PLEASE CHECK BEFORE LIGHTING.

On a general note, we always ask that no-one lights bonfires on the plots when the wind is blowing in the direction of nearby houses or if there is a lot of smoke which is likely to cause a problem for adjacent roads or nearby fellow allotmenteers. Carol Lincoln