Belleville Vegetable Garden

Fennel shock

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:36:00 +0000

The new crop of fennel looks promising. The last lot were all gnarled and unpleasant. I think the recent rain has helped, so fingers crossed.

The leeks are looking good and I think I'll sell them at the Xmas fair. We'll also be selling some jams and chutneys made by a victim of crime that I met through work. Good cause.

The broad beans have stood up the recent high winds and hail surprisingly well. They may or not flower soon but the beans should be well set for a spring appearance.

I've now planted four varieties of garlic, including elephant garlic. Hopefully some of these should make an appearance over the next few weeks.

The spinach is coming along slowly but should be ready in a week or two if the weather stay mild.
I've also planted some seed grown onions and we have a bag or two of wintering onions to plant asap. Any volunteers? Let me know.

[Below] Our old favourite swiss chard (Bright Lights) is coming along well. A very reliable winter crop.

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:10:00 +0000

Broad Beans

This tomato is a bit of a mystery as it shouldn't be there! We only used small and cherry varieties this year. It's quite a mystery. It produces very large, very juicy tomatoes with good flesh and few seeds. A really excellent 'slicing' salad tomato. So... we I think we have a new variety on our hands, and we need a name for it. Any suggestions? How about Belleville Red?

Swiss chard. Pretty.

Expansion shock - winter veg

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:38:00 +0000

[Above - late season salads and strawberries
thriving in the sunshine]

Today I took advantage of a shorter than expected dental appointment and the beautiful late autumn weather and planted seed grown wintering onions, 'perpetual' spinch and broad beans. Hopefully these will have time to settle in before winter, and will be have a head start when spring comes round again. If it stays warm we may have spinach in November!

Tiny onion plants grown from seed, not sets (small onions). Hopefully they won't wither and die!
I covered the beds to stop birds pulling up the onions and the foxes who like to dig up worms (and slugs) in disturbed soil.

Broad beans, with little sticky supports and stakes with wire supports. Nothing can go wrong. Let me know if you see any greenfly!

Perpetual spinach which went all floppy when I planted it. It does this on purpose to make you feel like you don't know what you are doing. Then, when you're not looking, it springs into life again. I think.

Let's hope there's no overcrowding when the plants start growing! [Leave out the politics - Ed]

Tommy asked me to give you a preview of his halloween oufit:

CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE

Produce Sale

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:52:00 +0000

Sold nearly thirty bags of rocket, wild rocket, mixed salad leaves, pak choi, tomatoes and chili peppers today - sold like hot cakes, so thanks for your support!

The pak choi is great in salads or you can stir fry it the Chinese way.
One of my favourite meals is griddled salmon steak with steamed jasmine rice and steamed pak choi, served with a warm marinade of soy sauce, a little honey, ginger, garlic, and mirin if you have it. Highly recommended!

I mentioned before that the fennel wasn't exactly a triumph. Instead of a nice bulb we have this weird looking root conglomeration. Have tied this specimen to the fence to frighten the children.

Don't forget to sign up for the veg garden newsletter!

School Photo

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:06:00 +0000

October Crops

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:23:00 +0000

The warm September has extended the growing season and the salads and tomatoes are doing especially well. The fennel [above] looks very beautiful and smells great, but I'm not sure the heads are large enough to eat. I suspect a lack of water at a critical growing time might have reduced the bulb size somewhat.

The tomatoes have been a great success, the small orange 'Sungold' variety proving specially sweet.
They're definitely on my list a favourites for next year!

We can look forward to these Cos lettuce and Swiss Chard providing some colour and flavour in the weeks to come. The Swiss Chard is the multi-coloured 'Bright Lights' variety. Click on photo for more detail!

Mixed salad leaves and rocket make an attractive display and a delicious salad (which has been going down very well with home made pizza recently chez Dutton! Brilliant pizza dough recipe available on request.......)

The mizuna leaves look great and add a bit of spiciness to the salad [right]
Look out for the leeks that are doing really well. The difference between home grown and shop bought is massive!

Remember, if you want to help out with the garden email me or say hello when you see me in the playground. Thanks!!

Oh, and an historic day at Belleville School - A masterclass in organisation!

New academic year!

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:27:00 +0000

[Above: Mr Grove's sweetcorn. Please do not touch!]
STOP PRESS: APPARENTLY THERE WAS AN UPTURN IN THE AMOUNT OF VEG BEING EATEN BY THE CHILDREN IN THE SCHOOL CANTEEN DURING THE LAST ACADEMIC YEAR, AND THE STAFF THINK IT'S BECAUSE OF THE VEG GARDEN!

Welcome to a new term at Belleville School.

The main frustration over the summer holiday has been that the school is closed when many of the crops have been ready for harvesting, especially beans and tomatoes, but also courgettes and carrots, in fact just about everything we were growing. Fortunately Lollo Roja has been able to harvest some beans and tomatoes for the restaurant, but nonetheless, there remains a problem of what to do in the summer when the school is closed and so many people are away. Maybe next year we should aim to have open days every Sunday morning when parents can come along and pick their own?

Here's a quick run down of successes and failures over the summer:

Failures

1. Fennel - it looks beautiful but no bulbs have formed at all, which according to the books is normally caused by low temperatures but, given the summer we've had (decent?) I'm wondering if it might not be lack of water at crucial times. Apologies for poor picture quality - blame Nokia!

2. The climbing french beans were great in that they grew very quickly in great profusion, but they did tend to pod very quickly if you didn't pick them in time. Next year, borlotti beans!

3. Dwarf beans. Hopeless. Not sure why. Probably my fault.

Successes:

1. Tomatoes. Very sweet orange coloured cherry toms were my favourite. Unfortunately I lost the seed packet so might not be able to grow them again.

2.Companion planting. That's where you grow one plant in close proximity to another for their mutual benefit. In this case I grew Nasturtiums next to the climbing beans, and they were successful in attracting the blackfly away from the tender beans which often get overwhelmed by the nasty bugs. Very green!

3. Pumpkins. Last year they all went spongy when only a few inches across, but it turns out we weren't watering enough. It was such a wet summer that the soil was normally wet, but because the raised beds are on top of concrete they were bone dry just under the surface, so the thirsty pumpkins shrivelled and died. In other words I killed them! This summer I tried to give them long soaks and that seems to have done the trick.

4. Carrots (partial success). We grew heirloom varieties, none of them orange, and although they tasted great they didn't have the modern carrots size and shape. The above the ground plant was often massive while the carrot was quite small. Modern varieties reverse those characteristics.

Also, the peppers again showed how easy they are to grown, the potaoes tasted great but were pretty small, and the strawberries are still going nicely.
But the biggest success of all was the recruiting of Evie who is going to run a veg gardening club after school every Thursday. Great news! More about that soon...

July update

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:23:00 +0000

PICK YOUR OWN THIS SATURDAY AT 10am

Above: (new 'superfood') Curly Kale, still going strong.
Below: Our extra produce is being sold by Dandelion in Northcote Rd. They seem to be pretty pleased that our courgettes are grown 150 yards from the shop are replacing those that were grown 150 million miles away in Costa Rica!

We've also supplied Lola Rojo with french beans and they'll be harvesting during the second half of August and beyond perhaps.
Here are some photos of what's else is on offer this Saturday.....
Right: Climbing french beans. You need to be tall to pick these!
Below: The tomatoes are ripening rapidly and there should be quite a few ready for picking on Saturday. The photos are a couple of weeks old.

Below: Pumpkins won't be ready until Halloween time, by which time they should be really large. They enjoy beer.

Right: The leeks also need more time to grow.

Left: We've already had loads of courgettes but there should be some more on Saturday?

Below right: The carrots (any colour but orange) have shot up (or should that be down?) recently. We could maybe pick a few to thin them out?

Below: For some reason the peppers are growing upwards rather than downwards.

Below: We'll have a dig for Pink Fir Apple potatoes (stock photo below). Seriously, they taste great, and they only need a scrub, no peeling required. Not sure if they're ready yet?

Dig For Victory!

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:19:00 +0000

YOUR GARDEN NEEDS YOU!!

Are you a lower playground parent or will you be a lower playground parent next year?

Do you enjoy the vegetable garden?
Do you feel sad when you see the plants looking thirsty?
Would you like to earn the respect of your children?
Well now's your chance to help!

We're looking for volunteer 'drought wardens' to check on the garden at drop-off and pick-up time, and to water the garden if it looks dry. It would only take a few minutes although if you have longer to give the soil a good soaking, then that would be great. For more info see below:

The hose is easily attached to the tap
Don't water if the soil is already damp
When you water it's better to thoroughly soak some of the garden then wet the surface of the whole garden
Most veg require lots of water, but parsnips, garlic & onions need a little less when they are a decent size
The raised beds dry out very quickly and very deeply because they are laid on tarmac. It's a good idea to sometimes leave the hose on the surface of the soil while the water soaks in
Tomato leaves don't like being wet for too long, but on a warm and sunny day this isn't a problem
In order of water requirement: Potatoes, beans, courgettes and pumpkins, carrots, tomatoes, salads etc
If the gate is locked when you are finished you can leave via the school office

For some further entertainment try these excellent sites which are sure to give you a lift in these difficult times!
http://outonafunkytrip.blogspot.com/
http://skatalitesindub.blogspot.com/

Thank you for your kind attention - Ministry of Food

Courgettes in a pot

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:56:00 +0000

CLICK ON PIX TO ENLARGE

For anyone who bought a courgette plant at the summer fair (and there were quite a few of you), just repot into a large pot with compost, keep moist and find a sunny spot. My plant was grown from seed at the same time as the ones sold at the fair, but re-potted a week or two earlier, so yours should be ready to produce courgettes any day.

These shallots were grown at the school and will be for sale at drop off on Monday along with some bags of curly kale, one of the world's healthiest foods apparently!

How to grow leeks?

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:44:00 +0000

There are various ways to grow leeks but this year I sprinkled some seeds into compost filled 5" pots and transplanted the resulting seedlings (in big clumps) into one of the raised beds when they were a reasonable size. I dug these up today. In the photo on the left you can see how the roots have formed a healthy looking root ball.

At this stage (or before) it's a good idea to mark out your lines (with string?) and make your holes. These should be six inches apart and six inches deep and the rows should be around a foot apart.

I then shook out some of the soil (photo left).

The individual leeks then have to be teased apart (above) and then the roots and leaves are trimmed (right).
The leeks are then dropped into the holes and 'puddled in' (left) which is a gardening term used by the real experts. It means filling the hole with water, which doesn't sound as technical as 'puddling in'. This process settles the roots and fills the bottom of the hole with soil so the leek can get into growing mode again.

They look neat in their rows which I've covered with netting in an attempt to stop foxes digging them up. They look for disturbed soil which, because they are stupid, they hope might contain a chicken.

I'd actually grown four clumps of leeks so I planted the remaining ones at Honeywell Nursery (below right) with the able assistance of Sam Watson.

Bloomin' June

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:59:00 +0000

[Above] Veg Club member Javonte takes a look at the potato plants

[Left] Curly Kale, an early kids Veg Club project, grown from seed. They grow into spectacular plants and are a staple of the Able & Cole veg boxes later in the year. Ha!

[Right] Dwarf beans. There's one clearly visible in the middle of the photo. Behind the beans are the canes for the climbing beans which are just beginning to curl around the poles.

[Left] The clumps of leeks in the foreground are waiting transplantation to rows in one of the other beds. The wild garlic is ready if anyone wants some?

[Right] Onions, shallots and garlic coming along nicely. You can also just see carrots in the outside rows planted by a kind Veg Club member - just where I was going to plant the leeks. Still they're coming on ok. I've also sown five rows of 'heirloom' carrots in the first raised bed... yellow, cream, white and red. Anything but orange. They never used to be orange you know.

[Left] Pak Choi. I'll be selling some at pick up on Monday. I've tried it. It's very nice.

[Right] Pumpkin plants. Last year the butternut squash was a disaster. These are Halloween style pumpkins.

[Left] Strawberries. Everybody likes strawberries. Not sure if there will be enough to sell as they don't ripen at the same time. Although there might be, as there are loads more than last year. I think they taste better than the ones in the shops. Javonte agrees.

[Below] I'm quite excited about my tomato plant cage. I borrowed the idea from something I saw at the Chelsea Flower Show a couple of years ago. Their's was much better.
Don't forget to prune your tomatoes if you bought any off me. And put them in the ground if you can. And support them well with big canes. And feed them when the first tomatoes are full size. They should be great!
And if you could donate to the African school project on the left it might actually get built, as they've almost reached their target.

Veg tribulations

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:37:00 +0000

I was beginning to think it was easy. Plant a few seeds, watch the seedlings grow into plants, cut them down, sell them. And then along came the brassicas. If you look further down this page you'll see photos of nice pointy headed cabbages. I didn't have time to harvest and sell them. The sun came out and they bolted. Which means the nice pointy cabbagy heads opened up and turned into great big leaves. Which is fine, but not so neat and pointy and ace as what we had before.

Post Script I whizzed down to Honeywell today and harvested twelve cabbages in their pre-bolting state. They were planted a couple of weeks after the Belleville ones and as the weather has been cooler recently they hadn't had a chance to bolt. Phew.

Please have a look at the 'Just Giving' box on the left hand side of the page. If you click 'donate' you will see more details about the project. It looks like a worthy cause to me, and Danny Wallce is an ok fella.
Speaking of the Club, there's an after-school workshop this Friday 15th May for joinees. 1530-1700.

The Belleville Cauliflower Experience

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:42:00 +0000

The brassicas have been pretty decent so far, especially now four of them have turned into cauliflowers. They look great and need regular watering to keep them in good shape.
These specimens are up for sale on eBay (in aid of the Belleville Primary School PTA) . Just go to eBay and search for the Belleville Cauliflower Experience. You'd be mad not to.

The other thing you can to with caulis apart from keeping them watered is to keep the sun off the heads which stops them yellowing (not that that affects the taste). The one in the photo on the left below has had the leaves bent over to protect it.

The leek seedlings are doing well (I think). I started them in five inch pots and after they grew repotted to ten inch, of which we now have three. One of these I planted out into a bed I'm using as a nursery bed, which at the moment only contains some wild garlic. The idea is to grow them on until they're as thick as a pencil and then they can be planted out in their final positions, alongside the garlic and onions. Unless we sow carrots there first, which we may do as the garlic and onions might repel the dreaded carrot fly.

The Pink Fir Apple spuds have been earthed up nicely by some veg club members. Last year I underwatered the potatoes which produced the unsightly, but harmless, potato scab. Nice name.
However, when it comes to watering (club members take note) , please don't overdo it!

Post Easter Break

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:42:00 +0000

Two weeks away and the change in the garden has been fairly amazing. The chard and spinach has gone crazy, the onions, garlic and shallots [foreground above] have come through as have the potatoes (pink fir apples), the brassicas have gone crazy and the fox has dug up the climbing beans.

[Above] Purple and white sprouting broccoli, a delicacy to be savoured!
[Below] Onions, garlic and shallots on the left and a rather neat looking pointy cabbage on the right. A bargain at a pound!

[Below left] spinach ready for harvesting
[Below right] swiss chard in the foreground. It's about to be removed to make room for more strwberries.

[Left] Pink fir apple potatoes, just showing through. We'll earth them up when they're about ten cms high.

[Right] Little gem on the right and a new crop of wild rocket on the left.

I might be doing more after drop-off harvesting on demand. Look out for the emails!

Spring Update

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:56:00 +0000

It's that time of year again, the clocks have gone forward, the temperature's rising, new shoots are appearing all over the place - and I'm off on my hols for two weeks.
Today was my last chance for a session before going away and, amazingly, I found this lump of ice on one of the polytunnels.
It was a bitter night, but I'm fairly sure that from today the nights and days will be getting a fair bit warmer.

The garden is all set for the growing season, and here's a rundown of what's in each bed:

Bed One:

Brassicas, including cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. They were being eaten by the pigeons, so we had to put nets up to keep them away.
The plastic bags are supposed to act as bird scarers.
Once these brassicas are harvested we'll turn this bed over to salad crops.

Bed Two:

Potatoes. Grown from chitted potatoes (old potatoes which are left in cool, light place to encourage growth of the little shoots).
I planted two rows of Pink Fir Apples which are a knobbly but very delicious potato. They are great in salads and can also be eaten hot. The Veg Growing Club members will learn about earthing up in order to increase the crop, once the shoots start appearing.

Bed Three:

This bed contains a fair amount of perpetual spinach which survived the winter. At each end is a pair of brassicas which were transplanted from bed five, which we emptied to make space for other plants to grow.

Bed Four:
This bed will be exclusively for strawberries, although at the moment there are still some swiss chard plants going strong.

Bed Five:
Two rows of garlic, one and a half rows of shallots, and half a row of onions. The garlic is grown from individual cloves, each of which will turn in to a bulb of garlic. The shallots are grown from 'sets' which look like baby onions. They split and you normally get eight or nine shallots from each set. I ran out of shallot sets so filled up the row with some onion sets from last year (Hopefully they weren't too old!).

The second picture shows an onion set in the ground ready to be covered over with soil.
In early May the Veg Club members will sow two rows of carrot seed. I've orded a mixture of heritage varieties including purple, white and red carrots, which is what they used to be like in them olden days.

Bed Six:
Brassicas, including cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. These are covered with nets to keep the pigeons off. The cloche is merely being used for the same purpose as I ran out of netting, but it will be interesting to see the effect on the grown of those plants under cover.

Bed Seven:
In the main part of bed sic there are two tunnels, one containing little gem lettuce, the other two rows of recently planted wild rocket.

Along the west side of the bed, in both the large and small sections, I've built a cane structure ready for climbing french beans. We can then grow some dwarf beans in front of the canes. These shouldn't take too much of the sun from the climbers.
We'll also be able to keep the wild rocket growing, but the little gem will have to make way for the beans.

Other random photos [click to enlarge]:

Purple sprouting broccoli, cabbage, wild rocket tunnel, little gem.

SEE YOU SOON. HOPE TO HAVE THE FIRST VEG GARDENING CLUB WORKSHOPS IN MAY!

Snow bound

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:17:00 +0000

Snow covering the beds on 3rd Feb

Early winter thrills

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:10:00 +0000

We had an excellent produce sale last Friday and everything sold out in about five minutes, which was very gratifying and shows that Belleville parents quite literally have great taste [quite literally? - Ed]. We sold spinach, Swiss chard, chinese salad and pak choi.

Swiss chard 'Bright Lights' (right) which is a stunning plant (try some in your flower beds next year?) looking quite literally good enough to eat [Hmm - Ed].

For those who think the growing season is over...... The usual winter crops like parsnips are enjoying the mild weather (ours have all been harvested now) and the perpetual spinach is quite literally living up to it's name [what the ...!.? - Ed].

But the exciting thing is that the chinese salad is still going strong (including the Pak Choi) and the Winter Little Gem seedlings are doing well in my greenhouse and should be ready for planting out in a couple of weeks. I may even use a cloche for them although in theory they shouldn't need one. It's all soooo exciting [calm down -Ed)

[Left] Weird looking but delicious chinese lettuce, part off the the chinese salad collection that seems to enjoy the cold.

[Right] Winter Little Gem in the greenhouse

[Below] Parsnips picked in October

Wild Garden - The Big Clear Out

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:59:00 +0000

Today was an 'open day' where volunteer parents (and a teacher) cleared out the rubbish at the site and pruned or removed bushes that were in the wrong place or were inappropriate for the wild garden. Some were dying, some were covered in thorns. We also removed the really grim looking chain link fence and chicken wire that jst acted as a collection point for leaves and bits of rubbish. It's looking a lot better now (and lighter too) but more tidying up work is still needed before we start work on planting and erecting insect and bird houses. We'll probably have another session next Sunday.

Sauce, tools and the dreaded blight!

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Green Team members Lara & Joe join Lucas to show off the giant Radiator Charlie Mortgage Lifter tomato

[Photo courtesy of The Wandsworth Borough News]

It's been a busy week for the Green Team who have also been invited along to a garden tool recycling project run by the Conservation Foundation in conjuction with HMP Wandsworth. The general public have been invited to deposit their worn out and damaged garden tools at recycling centres (such as the one near Wandsworth Bridge), and these tools have then been repaired and refurbished by prisoners at Wandsworh prison.

Belleville were donated a full set and it is hoped that these can be used in the construction of the wild garden which is due to be built before the end of the year (email me if you'd like to help with this project).

The cold, wet weather of a couple of weeks ago took its toll and blight swept through the tomato plants - we lost more than half of them. Blight is characterised by brown patches that appear on branches and stems and soon reach the fruit which would go brown and rot, given the chance. The disease spreads rapidly from plant to plant. In theory the plants should be burned and tomatoes shouldn't be grown in the same soil for three years to halt the spread of the disease. Nasty.

On a happier note the Cream Sausage tomatoes grew very well and I made a sauce based on an Italian recipe.

You basically heat onions and garlic, add the chopped yellow tomatoes, add a yellow pepper and when cooked, blend to make a sauce which goes well with pasta and fish in particular.

Currently the foxes are driving me mad and we've had to resort to physical barriers to stop them destroying the new crops [right]

The mini Indian summer has helped the surviving to tomatoes to ripen.

The giant Radiator Charlie Mortgage Lifter is no more. I ate it.
Almost all of it.

And it was extremely tasty which you might not expect such a whoppa to be. Up there with the Coeur De Boeuf that we ate in France in August. I added a little seasoning, extra virgin olive oil and a drop of balsamic, and wow, tomato heaven.
Served with grilled Haloumi. Yum. Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter was the success of the year, especially considering the poor weather. I'll be selling seedlings and small plants in the playground next April for sure.

While we're on the subject of sauce, we've made use of the surplus by making lots of tomato sauce, some spicy using chillies from the garden, and these have been sold in the playground for the PTA.
The most recent batch we made was a simple blend of tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, a little balsamic vinegar and seasoning.

A new academic year, three new monsters!

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:31:00 +0000

LOOK OUT, IT'S BEHIND YOU! (Monster No1)

[Click on any picture to enlarge]

A new academic year starts at Belleville and there are some new seedlings to be planted, new parents to involve and older crops to dig up and put on the compost heap (along with the old parents)

Left: New parent gardeners wondering what they've let themselves in for. They/you can receive the email newsletter about produce and sales etc by emailing jd@motionrecords.com

Right: They were spicy green
chillies but now they're
larger red chillies.
What does it all mean?

MONSTER No2.

Left: Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter demonstrating its claim to be the world's largest tomato. Yes it looks like three sections but it's actually one tomato. It weighs 920Kg and the circumpherence is 18 1/2 inches. The Wandsworth Guardian photographed it with Lucas (nepotism) and two of the green team.

Right: New crops: oriental salad including Mizuna lettuce and pak choi. Note the homemade protection from the fox (that dug some up yesterday) and footballs.

Below: Brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower) ready for planting.

To save time I ordered these as seedlings from Dobies. They arrived in the post and as I wasn't around they might have died in their box were it not for the quick thinking of Robert De Niro (lookalike Baki) who planted them in the window box. I think he has it in for me, as he didn't label which were which. Now only time will tell....

MONSTER No3 Below: The hazards of vegetable gardening. I spotted this man eating spider 'Spideris Horiblis' today next to the giant Tornado F1 tomato plant. Weighing in at roughly 1 Kg it paralyses with a nip of its sharp little teeth and then eats you slowly from the feet upwards. So if you don't see me for a few days and the spider looks bigger.....

Belleville goes exotic

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:48:00 +0000

[Above & below] Three Aubergine plants in all their glory.
For some reason these are doing much better than expected.

The variety is Long Purple, and it's obviously well suited to the rather cool weather we've been having.(Cream Sausage tomatoes in the background).

The chillies and peppers are also doing well. All sorts of varieties are thriving again despite the weather. The one disappointment is that the pumpkins and squash have been a disaster - they grown to about two or three inches and then rot or wither and die. I'm blaming the weather. Nothing to do with my incompetent gardening obviously.

There's also a new crop of oriental salad (Mizuna, Pak Choi etc) which is something of an experiment. Looks good though!

Next produce sale is today (Sunday) at 6pm, Wakehurst Rd entrance. There are LOTS of tomatoes, as well as the above crops.

Post holiday produce

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:15:00 +0000

Just back from our hols and we have a new look for the Belleville blog. We've also harvested lots of tomatoes which are now ripening nicely.

Two Omar's Lebanese tomatoes alongside a couple of giant Radiator Charlie Mortgage Lifter tomatoes [right]
We also have spinach, chard, rocket. The carrots are just about ready but too small. The parsnips are also doing well.

Chillies and aubergine are also coming along nicely, and should be available in a couple of weeks, touch wood.

STOP PRESS: Below is a BRANDYWINE tomato, considered by some to be the tastiest tomato in the world. This one looks slightly more weird than they normally do so I didn't sell it. Which meant I could eat it myself. It was VERY tasty, so look out for them at the next produce sale on Wednesday (if any more have ripened by then). Midday and six pm is the plan.

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:24:00 +0000

Good news! We have a major new addition to the veg garden team.
Duncan Marshall (left), who lives right opposite the main entrance to Belleville School in Belleville Road, is semi-retired and looks after the children while his wife is at work. He is going to drop in every day while I'm on holiday to water and tidy up, and will harvest only if the Lola Roja team have left anything. Also pictured are Cristina and Antonio, owners of Lola Roja on the Northcote Road. Antonio is also the chef and is particularly interested in the Tres Cantos tomatoes which originally hail from the Andalucian region of Spain and should be rather special, given a little more good weather!

Lola Roja and sunflowers

noreply@blogger.com (jdmotion) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:32:00 +0000

Lola Roja on a sunny July evening, the beans being received in the kitchen, sunflowers showing over the school wall on Wakehurst Road, and tons of Gardener's Delight cherry tomatoes, on the vine. They'll be in Lola Roja in about a week!
[Click on the photos to enlarge]

The plan is to replace the summer crops (such as salads, tomatoes, courgettes and beans) with winter crops - probably in October. These will not only include the usual brassicas (brocolli, cauliflower, cabbages etc), but also winter salads such as Winter Gem, and perpetual spinach. I think swiss chard is also a winter survivor, but will have to check to be sure.