Tenantry Down Allotment Association

It’s cold and dark and there’s not much to do at the allotment, so it must be time to be making plans for the coming year. Seedy Sunday, the Brighton seed exchange takes place on 2 February at BHASVIC. You don’t need to take seeds to swap; there are lots of interesting stalls, and if you want anything on the seed swap table you can make a small donation for each packet. Here is the link to the website https://seedysunday.org/, and I think they are also on Facebook. Other suppliers of organic seeds are Tamar Organics https://www.tamarorganics.co.uk/ and Real Seeds https://www.realseeds.co.uk/ who do unusual and open-pollinated varieties (so better for seed saving, as they come truer than F1s). There’s also the Organic Gardening Catalogue: https://www.organiccatalogue.com/. If you are aware of any other interesting seed suppliers, I would be interested to know!

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Stacey writes:

Hi Everyone

This might be of interest to you if you have a points card at Wyevale.

Wyevale by the Racecourse has been sold to Dobbies and the changeover happened on Monday 3rd June.

Dobbies will accept valid paper and digital Garden Club reward vouchers until they expire on 31st August 2019.

The Garden Club card won’t be valid after 3rd at the Racecourse Centre.

More info here:

https://support.wyevalegardencentres.co.uk/Closures/

Thanks to Dave for the message sorry it was too sent on to late for the club card points.

and thanks to everyone for the seedlings contributed in the seedling swap last month, we had a big turnover of beautiful plants and people have been very generous.

Best wishes

Stacey

For the first time in years, or possibly even the first time since I started on the allotment, I feel that I am almost up-to-date with what needs to be done. I have weeded the old Forget-me-nots and Lambs Lettuce from the final bed under the current bushes, chopped it up and put it directly back on to the bed as a mulch. I have no idea whether this will work, but I don’t want to put the forget-me-not seeds in to the compost heap, to be distributed all over the plot next year with the compost. I have watered everything, again – and thanks to the dry weather everything is growing and not being eaten by snails. Which is great, even if the dry weather does mean almost constant watering. I put my chair out at the top of the plot to admire the view of Brighton in the sunshine and start watching the birds. I am no birder but they seem to be green finches, and they seem to be eating the Borage seeds – another good reason to grow Borage, if one were needed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borage. Eventually I heave myself up to pick some tender new broad beans for supper and make my way home. As usual I have missed the bus and walk home across the fields, serenaded by sky larks.

Tenantry Down had its annual seedling swap on Sunday 19 May. Unfortunately I had to leave early, but it was a great success, with tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, leeks, kale, brussels sprouts, thyme, beans and lots of other stuff. There were also some amazing cakes. Thanks for Stacey for putting up the notices and getting there early to clean the cobwebs off all tables and chairs.

It’s April and there are seedlings everywhere: courgettes and Crystal Lemon cucumbers in the bedroom, winter squash in the spare room, bedding plants and runner beans in the living room, because it still seems too cold to have runner beans outside. There’s stuff in the kitchen as well, but I can no longer remember what it is. I hope the weather improves before they all get lanky and too big for their pots. On the garden table there are kale, purple sprouting, celeriac, lettuce and leeks.

I have been very disappointed with the selection of winter squash available locally. It seems that we are only allowed to have things for children to carve at Halloween, or butternuts, which I have never been able to grow very successfully.  I looked in all the local garden centres and shops but no joy. Eventually I found something called Blue Ballet from Tamar organics so that’s what it is going to be this year.

There is a very interesting selection of beans on this website https://www.beansandherbs.co.uk/. There’s still time to plant so I will certainly be trying some of them.