All part of my master plan, Mr Bond. (or ‘From Yorkshire with Spuds’)

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Deep in my secret over-ground bunker (or the shed as mrs MK knows it) I am planning and plotting. Not for me is the overthrow of the world, or even the secret destruction of the allotment society, no no no.

This week has been dedicated towards the future planning on the allotment, trying to get as much as possible from it. Something I have previously been very bad at, usually I have the ‘it’s finished so just dig it up’ approach and let it go fallow, but now the year is still quite young and we have hopefully 2 more months of growing ahead of us. So I am thinking a lot more about what we have produced and what we can produce in the time we have left this year. It does seem a little unfair that winter veg seem to take so long to mature and need to be in the ground for so long (turnips being the exception).

So far this year I have been lucky. Things have flowed nicely from one crop to the next. The broad beans went to the mange tout, then to the peas, now French beans and next will come the second peas and then the runner beans. So I am happy in that the crops seem to be flowing well. In previous years it has been unlucky that everything came in at more or less at the same time (apart from the runners that is).

The mange tout have been incredible, and oddly enough they are producing more flowers on some new growth. I don’t expect them to crop anything as heavily as they did, so I have ripped up half of them, if I get any more then I will count it as an extra. In it’s place I have put in some turnips and some spinach.

I have now ripped up all of the old broad beans and replaced them with a new crop of French beans, that should hopefully be ready right at the back end of the year. If they do then that is wonderful, but if they don’t then I won’t complain as I have already had a lot of beans. The seed is a few years old and anything I get is a bonus.

The broad beans I planted have taken off nicely and are growing away. If anything, then these are the risky crop. They were planted a week or two later than they should be, and we do have a shorter growing season up here, so I will admit I am taking a risk with them. The thought of broad beans in September is very alluring though.

The peas have been very prolific for me and have produced a lot of lovely peas that we have either eaten or have happily been frozen for later in the year. I did plant some peas at the beginning of June ostensibly for September or October, but they are now putting out pods that will be ready for picking in a few weeks time. So yesterday while washing up I pondered putting in another row of peas. The theory being if these newest peas have taken 6 or 7 weeks to get this far, and probably be ready for picking in 9 to 10 weeks, then in I sow some peas now then they should (fingers crossed) be ready at the back end of September, start of October. I realize that this is being incredibly hopeful, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

So I have ripped out the original 2 rows of peas, after I picked over them on Sunday there wasn’t much left, so the last of the peas have gone. Then I weeded and turned the ground and put in my trench and sowed another row of kelvedon wonder. So if all goes well I’ll have fresh peas in 10 weeks time.

Now if this were my bond film then at this point we would have a completely gratuitous shot of Ursula Andress appearing from amongst the sweetcorn in that famous white bikini holding a trowel as a conch would be out of place (however so as not to alienate female viewers (or mrs MK) please feel free to substitute Daniel Craig if you so wish, but hopefully not in a bikini).

At the moment I can’t really say if it’s been a good year or a bad year, but I do seem to have frozen an awful lot of vegetables so far this year, and with runner beans and sweetcorn to go I am pleasantly hopeful and surprised at how well the year has gone. And the sweetcorn is looking incredibly good (even without Ursula Andress).

I do have to spare some concern for my butternut squash. They are nice and bushy at the moment, and have flower buds on them, but as yet they don’t seem to be doing any thing else. There’s no baby butternut squashes growing yet, but I live in hope.

The pumpkin does have a few 2 small pumpkins growing on it, and given that we have about 10 kilo of pumpkin in the freezer already Mrs MK is a bit scathing about the prospect of more of it, and has actually threatened me with ‘you grow it, you eat it’. It hasn’t been indicated if it’s all in one sitting or not.

Now where can I get a tank full of piranhas ? Today the allotments, tomorrow, MORE ALLOTMENTS, mwa-ha-hah!

Enjoy yourself all.

• 23 Jul, 2009
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