★ Leap Year ★

A post to celebrate the 29th of February and our ✩First Seedlings of 2012✩. Ta-dah!

Old dog's new tricks: tamp the compost into the paper pots, knocking out the air. Otherwise, the compost will subside as the air is forced out of it when you water and the seed is washed to the bottom where it has a hard time germinating.

For tomatoes, lay the seed on the firmed surface. Then, no need for a sieve, rub a pinch of the compost between your finger tips and sprinkle a fine layer, not much deeper than the thickness of the seed itself, over the top of the pot.
Sprinkle with water until the module is damp but not soggy. Allow space for air to circulate around the modules when you place them in trays. These precautions go some way to prevent things getting mouldy, which they do sometimes*.

Keep the modules damp and check after watering that the seeds remain covered with compost as they need darkness and moisture to germinate.

*Take all precautions to stop things getting mouldy to prevent damping off running rife through your seedlings. Though this too can happen anyway, whatever you do.

We sowed 2x9 varieties of tomato: Gardener's Delight, Minibel, Purple Calabash, Marmande, San Marzano, Principe Borghese, Costoluto Florentino, Tigerella and Lldi. The Lldi failed to germinate.

Arthur Long

An opportunity to laud the local: Arthur Long, confectioner.

A new shop selling traditional sweets by weight and various curious imports has opened on Higham Hill Rd. Oh joy!

A stash of our favourites: Gray's Teacakes, ginger ale bottles, Dobson's lemon meringue and coconut lolly pops.

Lovely Lavender

This is what we got up to yesterday:



Lavender to scent our smalls and keep the clothes moths from our woollens. It is usually harvested in late summer, but we had little opportunity to do any allotmenting in 2011. Scant pickings, but the scent cheered us up enormously.

We've established a row of eight Lavender Angustifolia bushes that provide a permanent wildlife corridor across the plot for allotment critters. We presume this has been mapped as integral to the site's logistics infrastructure, because the allotment kittehs go out of their way to patrol this line in their wanderings.





We dug and prepared the last 3 of the 9 beds and planted the King Edward and jerusalem artichoke tubers for 2012. The photographs are a bit uninspired but the light was fading and we were cold and ready to go home.

Spring Has Sprung

These beasties were at it ALL day. A fabulous sunny day it was too. "A good day to do it," as septuagenarian and neighbourly plotter, James H, wryly pointed out.

Chip Week

Another opportunity to laud the local: Waltham Forest chippies.


So to celebrate the chip as only a chippie can make it, we partook of the Five Star Fish Bar's fare. We're spoilt for choice really as The Brothers Fish Bar, Wood Street and High Fry Fish Bar, High Rd, Leyton also serve up the real deal.







Five Star Fish Bar, Forest Rd.


A carb induced imperative to dig the plot and plant those potatoes if ever there was one!

Pancake Day

We opened the treasured jar of gooseberry jam made from our first ever harvest, 2011.

This year we'll strain out the pips as they hurt our teeth.

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

The last of 2011. Mmmm Mmmm.


Artichoke Soup Recipe

2012

This Walthamstow Market stall is THE place to get your keys cut. The pitch is situated on the corner of Vernon Rd and High St, just across from the Market Cafe.

Paper Seedling Pots

❅❄It's snowing!❄❅

Old dog's new trick: fold the lip over to prevent the seam splaying open once the paper seedling pot is filled.

Chitting Potatoes

♥ Dreams of long Sunday roast dinners. ♥