Belleville goes exotic

[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

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.

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

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.

Holidays, foxes and tapas

There's a fox (or foxes) at work in the garden. This morning I had been gardening for a few minutes when one climbed out of one of the raised beds and sauntered off. Looking a bit miffed.
Every time I use the organic fertiliser he digs up the watering pots (which is where I sprinkle the fertiliser) and digs holes in the soil. I believe the fertiliser uses chicken manure which would account for the fox's interest. I've tried to fox-proof the veg garden, so volunteers are advised only to use the gate near the greenhouse, and please make sure both gates are closed when you leave. And look out for foxes on arrival!

Well the holidays are here and there's lots of work to be done before we go away to France for a couple of weeks.

Having harvested the potatoes there was a whole empty raised bed to fill. Rather than sowing seeds I planted all of the sunflowers left over from the competition and I added a couple I had grown myself because I couldn't face seeing them die in pots that are too small for them. I then planted three or four tomato plants that were also stuck in smallish pots. These should lead to us having a continuous supply for some months as they were sown much later than those that are fruiting now. If the weather holds out there's no reason why we shouldn't have tomatoes up to October maybe.
Some of the bigger tomatoes are ready to eat now (see pic below), and the first of the cherry tomatoes (Gardener's Delight) are ripe too. The latter are super sweet and will probably all ripen when I'm away, darn. I keep meaning to mention to harvesters that they shouldn't be over-watered as that makes the taste too, er, watery.

The onion bed also has a big space where the onions were. I'll sow some oriental salads there.
For later in the year I have ordered fifty brassica plug plants from dobies.co.uk. These will save loads of time and effort and are relatively cheap. I've also sourced a variety of other winter season goodies including Winter Gem seeds which allegedly produce a crop of Little Gem lettuce through the winter months. I'm traditionally rubbish at brassicas. They should really be planted in concrete like soil and you don't get concrete like soil in raised beds because it doesn't get trodden on. Although I suppose there's nothing to stop me climbing up and stomping around once they've been planted.

The strawberries have shot out lots of runners and I've pushed some of these down into pots with a view to having some nice strawberry plants to sell cheaply at the Sunday sales (see pic right).

Next week I'll sow some more spinach and swiss chard which should appear in early August and be ready to harvest around three weeks later.

An exciting development is that we have started supplying the Lola Roja restaurant with produce. Today we provided a huge bag of french beans, wild garlic, wild rocket, tomatoes & onions. Co-owner Cristina is a mum at Belleville and all proceeds will go to the PTA. In mid August we will start the Sunday sales, as we should have enough produce to supply the restaurant and parents. If you haven't tried Lola Roja you should, it's amazing. And now they've reduced their carbon footprint. Couldn't get much more locally sourced veg!

Aghh - common scab!

So, end of term and our first disaster.

Dug up the remaining Desiree potatoes today and found that many of them had a nasty scabby thing happening. Looked it up in the book and it's 'Common Scab', the least serious of all potato problems in that the disease is only skin deep. Peel them and the remaining spud is fine. Took the decision not to sell the affected poatoes, but donated them took caretaker Baki's family (and kept some myself).
In the photo below you can see the scabby bit on the large potato to the right. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Produce sale tomorrow at pick up time in the main playground:

About ten bags of onions
Three or four bags of wild rocket (recommended!)
French beans - about five bags? This weeks top tip: Kids love them!
One bag of courgettes
Two bags of potatoes
Some spinach and swiss chard

The tomatoes are suddenly starting to ripen and we should have quite a lot of red ones in a week or so. Oh, and the aubergines are seriously flowering and there's a decent chance that they'll produce over the next few weeks.
Would like to get sowing seeds asap but working for a living seems to be getting in the way.

Might have to buy an automatic watering system. Now that would be cool.

A brief look back