All images: Barry Cuff
BBC Radio 4’s excellent Food Programme has been on air every week since 1979. On 21st March, the audience was asked: “Are we prepared? Could we (Britain) feed ourselves in a crisis? Can our food supply withstand another shock to the system? Is there resilience to face another pandemic or even war?” Speaking on the programme, Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University, said he believed there was a high risk of outright food shortages in the UK within the next few years. In his report Just In Case: Narrowing The UK Civil Food Resilience Gap he lists 13 different types of growing theoretically available to citizens. At the top of the list is allotments – plots of land for gardening in a large space. The report makes interesting reading.
March diary
The recent dry spell has allowed us to carry out many jobs on the plot after such a wet winter. Any frosts were short lived, and despite some cold winds it was good to catch up. On the 28th we saw our first flush of weed seedlings: always a good sign of warming soil.
1st: Picked carrots, parsnips, sprouts, winter radish, salad leaves, sprouting broccoli, cauliflower and rhubarb.
2nd: Checked seed spuds for chitting and disease. Received our annual invoice for rent and insurance.
3rd: Dug the ground for potatoes.
5th: Dug the ground for potatoes.
6th: Pumped water for the site (first time this year). Planted out from trays a double row of broad beans – Witkiem Manita and Masterpiece Green Longpod. Planted first row of potatoes (Maris Bard).
7th: Paid rent.
8th: Picked leeks, parsnips, sprouting broccoli and salad leaves.
9th: Weeded the raspberry canes and mulched them with manure.
10th: Planted two rows of potatoes (Charlotte and Sagitta).
11th: Sowed 17 varieties of tomatoes in a propagator on the bedroom window sill.
12th: Sowed plugs consisting of two to three seeds – 150 of Bonus onion, and 60 of Red Baron onion – all in the greenhouse.
13th: Filled the large tomato pots with our homemade compost.
14th: Picked parsnips, carrots and the last of this season’s sprouts.
16th: Removed the Brussels sprouts stalks, gave any good buttons to friends on the allotment and gave the tops to our neighbour’s chickens! Dug the potato ground.
17th: Rehomed the parsnips as they were in the way (the ground is needed for spuds!).
19th: Planted two lines of Jazzy potatoes.
20th: Planted one mixed line of potatoes – Java, Harry and Harmony – which are all new to us.
21st: Planted three lines of Caledonian Rose potatoes. Moved the sweet peppers from the bedroom window to the greenhouse.
22nd: Put the Red Drumhead cabbage plants outside in order to harden.
23rd: Pricked out 96 tomato seedlings and potted on to 7cm pots.
24th: Picked parsnips, cauliflower and leeks. Sowed a unit of Little Gem lettuce.
25th: Planted one line of Caledonian Rose potato, and did some more digging.
26th: Planted one line of Desiree potato. More digging. Planted out a part line of Witkiem Manita broad bean, and also 15 Little Gem lettuce in the greenhouse from the 12th February sowing.
28th: Sowed 60 more plugs with Bonus onion. Picked parsnips, cauliflower, carrots (these were sown early August 2024), leeks, sprouting broccoli and the last of salad leaves.
Any weeds flowering now are a good source of pollen for the bees and we leave them alone – mostly dandelion and red dead nettle.
