Episode #29 - Watching the weather

24 - 31 March: First tulips, unfancy rhubarb and fancy black Tuscan cabbage.

The March daffodils are almost over, but the year’s tulip mania is brewing. We have unexpected baby Cav nav, and a collective bout of frost anxiety for our fruit trees. Is it really Spring now? Can we call it?

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This week’s Plot Shot

I don’t think there is a recognised collective noun for tulips. Back in the 17th century Dutch Republic, when the economy experienced the first asset bubble caused by speculation on the forward price of rare tulip bulbs, it would probably have been a ‘mania’. The first signs of 2025’s tulip mania are appearing on the plot as the bulbs planted in previous years start to come up.

Tulipa either ‘Negrita Double’ or ‘Negrita Parrot’, slightly snail-munched.

(Technical note: there are usually a *lot* of photos, mainly mine, in this post, and it might not all fit on your email. Hitting the View Entire Message button at the end should sort this out, as will reading via the app or online versions of Substack.)

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Plot work in progress

Every autumn when the bulb catalogues arrive, I am convinced that the plot needs *more* tulips. Of course it does. For 2025, I planted about another 100, mainly along the outer edges of the rose beds, which are just starting to show buds. The splendour of Keukenhof it is not, but every year there are more tulips.

Of course, the row of new bulbs is now showing up that I forgot to dig up and move the few older bulbs which are now in the wrong place at the head of this bed, so I’ll have to shift them after they’ve flowered. There’s a gap where they could go so this might just work out as if I’d planned it properly. Otherwise, these two central beds are now dug over, weeded and packed with manure as mulch and rose food, ready for planting out the summer’s dahlias and tomatoes when the time comes.

There are still clematis to go in, to climb on the rose arches, and salivias and sweet peas taking up space in the greenhouse which are due to go out here. Just the last clumps of couch grass to evict from under the artichoke to finish the tidy up. These two beds have been overgrown with couch grass and under-used for the last few years so I’m pleased with the improvement. They’ll be fantastic when they are full of flowers and veg and the roses are in bloom.

Harvesting now soon

While we’ve been enjoying the tsunami of purple sprouting broccoli, the rhubarb has fired up for the year. These crowns are still establishing themselves, so we haven’t forced the plants for the delicate pale pink stems yet, just let the plants grow as regualr greener, tougher field rhubarb. It’ll be fine in crumbles.

Of course, like all the perennial beds, this one needs weeding for the spring and a good feed of manure stacking around the growing rhubarb crowns. That means that the purple dead nettle needs to go, but it is almost the only wild flower providing pollen and nectar for bees at this point in the year, so I’m holding back on pulling it all up. They’d make a great no-effort, not-even-foraged addition to the plot produce tally, if we used the leaves in salads or stir-fries (I’m assuming they’re edible like baby nettle leaves are - anybody know?).

Making and eating

Also nudging aside the PSB this week has been the surprise entry of a few Cavolo nero, Tuscan black kale, into the produce fray. I’d forgotten the plants, hidden under their individual greenhouses of reused plastic bottles over the winter, but there were enough leaves to pick and slice into a minestrone-ish soup¹.

Brassica oleracea “Cavolo nero’ kale

The bubbled, blistered leaves of these Cavolo nero are my favourite of all the kales, with the possible exception of Red Russian with its pretty pink leaf veins and stalks. I missed sowing Red Russian last year, but it is on my list for this summer to add to the too-slim produce tally at this time next year².

E17 Local Heroes

I took a photo of the main path through the rose arches and noticed how much the climbing roses had grown in the warmer weather. Suddenly they are filling out their arches again, building the height that defines the plot over the summer months.

The climbing roses are the true heroes of our plot in summer. They don’t add to the weekly produce tally (I haven’t dried any rose petals), but I like to think that the colours of the roses at height on the arches attract some pollinators to the plot.

At this early point in the year, their greenery is providing cover for small birds coming to feed from the suet block holders hung from the arches, so they’re at least doing something useful. Useful now, beautiful to come, so they’ll fulfil William Morris’s criteria.

Community of Practice

Across the site the allotment gang are all busy with plot maintenance and the start of the year’s seed sowing. I’d like to say I’m on top of this, but I’m not. I’m behind. Dahlias aside, I’ve not got any new things into compost yet, but the greenhouse is clear and the plants will catch up in warmer weather, won’t they?

The good news is that all eight rotation beds are a quick weed away from being usable for new planting - just some wind-blown weed seedlings to clear and they will be back in action as soon as there are seedlings to plant out. There’s much speculation over tea, not about tulip bulb prices but whether frosts are done for the year. We’re at that key point of the season when fruit should be setting on the plums, peaches and nectarines. The blossom on the stone fruit is almost over now, but we had a late frost in May a few years ago, and a lot of setting fruit was ruined. So we wait, with our collective one eye on the weather forecast in case temperatures look due to drop.

Weekly Fox News

Not the best foxy photo this week, but here’s a new member of the extended fox family on the site. This is Cher, one of the daughters, squinting from an infection in one eye, rather than watching the weather forecast. But it isn’t getting worse, so will probably heal up once she’s done nursing this year’s cubs and can recover some energy.

Until next week, I’m keeping one eye on the frost forecast.

Ang

1. This week’s harvest, 200g of baby Cavolo nero leaves, equivalent pack £1.65 on Ocado.

2. Plot produce tally for 2025 now stands at £13.35 to date.