Eric's Online Diary: Catching up on the allotment

Autumn-sown broad beans at the back and spring-sown
coming through in front.

I have been busy at the allotment and have managed to do quite a lot of work, even if I am always four weeks behind where I want to be.

There's a list of jobs marked 'not done' (and I guess there always will be) but it is looking as well as it ever has and I'm quite optimistic for this season.

My autumn digging never happened and turned into spring digging, which meant the soil wasn't broken down as well as I had hoped. However, I did get almost all my digging done and the bit I didn't get round to, I have covered with black plastic to keep the weeds down.

I have had three or four feeds off my three asparagus crowns, which have been in for three years. I have now left them alone to build up their strength. Most of the tips have come from just two crowns, while the third (a red variety) is proving far less vigorous.

Last year I expanded the bed and added another five crowns of Mondeo, which is a pretty vigorous variety. One didn't survive, but the other four have come through. I'm not touching those until next year.

Leeks were a big success and we finally picked the last ones in April. Despite deer nibbling the tops throughout winter, they did pretty well and were a good size. I grew Musselburgh and I'm doing the same this year. The seeds have germinated in the asparagus bed.

My winter-sown broad beans (Aquadulce) look good. They're a coming up to three feet and have set lots of pods, plus lots of flowers. David Jones, my farmer friend, said I should sow them on Bonfire Night and plant them nine inches deep. I didn't sow them quite that deep (I thought they'd never come up), but I did sow at the beginning of November and they have done very well. I've also got a crop of spring-sown ones (Robin Hood), which have all germinated, so I should have a good crop for several weeks.

I have runner beans germinating in the cold frame and French beans still to plant. Perhaps I'll get those in this week (if I can find any room). I'm growing Butler runners and Blue Lake climbing French beans. I won't eat the pods, the plan is to save the beans and eat them like kidney beans during the winter.

Last year, my peas were a disaster – they were covered in weeds, eaten by birds and mice and a complete waste of time and space. This year, I have been much more careful. I have prepared a good plot, covered it with mesh (to keep out the rooks and the pea moth) and watered well. I'm growing Hurst Green Shaft and Lincoln and they have germinated quite well, so fingers crossed.

Late raspberries are making good growth.

My autumn raspberries gave us a few berries last year. They are primocane plants (cropping on the current year's growth) so I cut them all down at the end of the year and they are now sprouting lots of lush growth, so I'm hoping for a bumper crop. My six blackcurrants and one redcurrant bush look healthy and are setting lots of fruit. I also put in some early raspberries at the end of last year. Most of those canes have some growth, but I won't get any fruit until 2018.

I failed completely with gooseberries last year. I'm not sure if the location was too sunny or the deer came and ate all the fruit. In any event, we didn't get one berry! Last summer, I went to a pick-your-own fruit farm with Tom, Lucy, Emilia and Julia and it was quite an eye-opener. Strawberries were grown in troughs at shoulder height so the berries hung down and were easy to pick. Raspberries were in grow-bags and everything was in poly-tunnels, which had been rolled back as the weather got warmer. I don't plan to copy this type of industrial fruit growing, but I did see that they had gooseberries in large pots, so I decided to try that. I've dug out my four bushes and put them in plastic pots with the bottom sawn off and set these halfway into the ground. I've put them along the back fence behind the cider apples, so they will be a little shaded. So far, they're looking pretty good and there are certainly berries forming now. I'll be able to net them there to stop the deer stealing the berries.

Redcurrants forming (above) and my potted gooseberries (below)

I have decent-sized plot of onions (Rumba, a white variety) and I'm growing these on virgin soil due to worries about white rot on the other side of my plot. They worked well last year and the sets are looking OK at the moment.

I have grown a few potatoes in pots the last few years and my fellow allotment holders think I'm a little strange because I don't have any on my allotment. Some people grow nothing but potatoes and almost all the others have a good section dedicated to them. This year, I said no more South American corn and so the spare land will be dedicated to spuds. I have two varieties Cara (maincrop) and Jazzy (early). The seed potatoes were stored in the garage when they arrived. I thought it would be dark and cool, but it was clearly too warm and when I checked on them, the shoots were sprouting out of the box! I had to rub them off and resprout them in a colder spot. Earlies went in some weeks ago and the lates a couple of weeks ago (with Max's help). Sadly the earlies have been frosted a couple of times (despite being under fleece), so I'm not sure how much that will have affected the yield. The allotment is a bit of a frost pocket, I'm afraid.

Last year, I decided that the allotment should not be just for vegetables and I planted some sunflowers and roses to provide cut flowers for the house. I now have nine rose bushes. They are all older varieties selected for scent – Peace, Fragrant Cloud and Silver Jubilee. The sunflowers were a big hit last year and I'm growing them again, a little later, so we will have a supply of flowers for the flower festival. I also have sweet william at the allotment, which are almost ready to flower.

As I write, there are still a lot of plants to get sorted. I have beetroot, swede, carrots and parsnip to sow in the ground and also courgettes (if I can find room in the greenhouse).

One big job facing me this summer is to move the cynara cardunculus plants, which I had assumed were globe artichokes (they are a close relative), but I now believe are cardoons. These are vigorous, massive plants which look like giant artichokes, but have spiky flower buds which are not edible. I'm going to move them to the side of my plot because they look spectacular (the bees love them) and replace them with some artichoke green globe, which I have in my greenhouse, having grown them from seed (they're almost ready to prick out).