The Anaesthetists Allotment – 6th April 2025

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Hello again! 👋

Welcome to this edition of The Anaesthetist’s Allotment. I hope you enjoy it.

Please feel free to follow, like or comment and I look forward to getting some of your feedback.

Disclaimer: I’m a professional anaesthetist, not a professional gardener. I do a bit of gardening and cycling in my spare time. I have grown veggies for many years and have learnt what works for me (sometimes!). These are my ramblings! I would be honoured to be corrected / advised by those with more knowledge than me!

General:

This is the 6th post of 2025 in this year’s series of

“The Anaesthetist’s Allotment”.

I’m just back from a couple of weeks aboard a luxury cruise ship. This journey started in the Caribbean and visited a few islands there, where we enjoyed some sun and warmth. Then we headed back across the Atlantic to Southampton.

I would normally have started sowing my seeds in the last week of March. But that had to be delayed until I got back so that were no disasters whilst I was away.

So today has been a mad planting day trying to catch up with my sowing progress.

In the greenhouse:

The Seed Potatoes (Picasso) which I had planted into grow-bags in January have sprouted whilst we were away – both bags 👏 (left).

So, today, I have added some more compost to the bags (right) – covering most of the new growth with the compost. Apparently, this has the same effect as “earthing up” potatoes which are growing in the soil (allotment), thereby increasing the yield.

I received three Broccoli (Marathon) plants from a mail order just as we got back. They are looking really good. I will get them into a cold frame to allow them to acclimatise to the Scottish weather, then will get them planted out into the Allotment later this week / early next week.

The Broccoli are now in their cold frame (left).

I have more plants arriving later in the growing season – I’m attempting to get a nice staggered approach to the crop (successional sowing!) instead of the usual glut of Broccoli which we get at harvest time. It is one of our favourite crops, but when one gets so many at one time, one has to start getting very inventive with the culinary uses.

Right, so now we get on to the seed sowing saga which took place this afternoon………………

Leeks – Oarsman and Below Zero have been sown in pots. These are two varieties which grew very well last year in the Allotment and produced fantastic tasting leeks from early autumn, and are still harvesting now! This new sowing has been placed into the mini-greenhouse within the actual greenhouse. I’ve set the temperature in there to maintain a minimum of 15’C and also have enhanced artificial lighting. Hopefully this will stimulate the germination of the seeds!

Also sown today:

Summer Cabbage (Caraflex). This is a Hispi style cabbage which should be ready for harvesting in late summer

Broad bean (The Sutton). I will also plant some of these directly into the soil in the Allotment, but hopefully, these will germinate faster and give us an earlier crop.

Beetroot (Boltardy = red) & (Burpee’s Golden = yellow). Again, I will also plant some of these directly into the soil in the Allotment, but hopefully, these will germinate faster and give us an earlier crop.

Chard (Bright Lights) & (Perpetual Spinach). Again, I will also plant some of these directly into the soil in the Allotment, but hopefully, these will germinate faster and give us an earlier crop.

All have been put into the same heated mini-greenhouse as the leeks to aid, and hopefully expedite, germination.

In the Garage:

………yes………

……….in the garage!

I have set up a heated propagator with artificial lights added. Within this, I plan to germinate my squashes, pumpkins, cucumbers etc. I can set the temperature of the propagator quite high (at 25’C) which these seeds need to germinate.

I tried this last year and it worked very well. The seeds germinated quite quickly and the wee seedlings grew like triffids. But then, there was a disaster. I left the top of the propagator on tight which created a tropical jungle-like humidity. This caused a fungal overgrowth and my poor wee plants started rotting. I lost pretty much the whole lot and ended up starting over from scratch, resowing. This meant that the plants were all behind schedule and our crops were very poor last year.

I am determined to learn my lesson this year, so here goes!

Today, I have sown:

  • Courgettes – “Gold Mine” (yellow) & “Zucchini” (green)
  • Butternut – “Walnut” – We have struggled with Butternut crops for a while. This variety seemed to give us the best crop we had for a while last year. Let’s see how it goes this year.
  • Summer Squash – “Little Gem”, or for those from Southern Africa, “Gemsquash”. These are beloved of those folk from Southern Africa, and one of our personal favourites. For some reason, which completely escapes me, these grow incredibly well in the Far North of Scotland, both in the greenhouse and outside in the Allotment. 🤷‍♂️
  • Pumpkin – “Jack of All Trades” & “Wicked”. These have both performed very well for us over the last few years, with huge crops of delicious pumpkins.
  • Cucumber – “Mini Munch”. These grow well in the greenhouse and produce huge crops of delicious finger (bite)-sized cucumbers.

All of these have been placed into the propagator in the greenhouse.

Note the wood logs – allowing ventilation – hopefully not so much as to lose all the heat!! 😬

Now, my regular readers will know that I always have to experiment with something! Others would say that I’m a sucker for punishment 🤷‍♂️! Well, we have some newish air plants. We have found that they do quite well with a high humidity. So I have placed them on a rack above the seed trays, hopefully taking advantage of the high humidity in the lid of the propagator. 🤞

Veggie garden / Allotment:

The allotment still looks pretty bare at the moment.

The Onions “Hercules” from the greenhouse were planted out into the allotment before we went away. They are coming along nicely and looking good. (left)

The Shallots “Longor” were also planted out before we went away. They are also looking great and doing well. (right)

The Garlic – “Granny’s” and “Solent Wight” were sown in autumn last year. They have both sprouted well and are now growing very strongly. Should be a good crop.

The Rhubarb plant has resurrected itself, as it always does, after winter. It wont be long until we get huge delicious sticks of rhubarb.

The Spring Cabbage – “Spring Hero” was sown in September last year, then planted out into the allotment last autumn. As the days start to lengthen, it has taken off and is now bulking up nicely. Wont be long until we get delicious cabbages from these – they are the most tasty of our cabbages.

The Red Current bushes are now well into leaf. ☺️

I will see you all in a couple of weeks with further updates. Things will be really kicking off at that stage.

I look forward to keeping you updated regularly on further developments in The Anaesthetists Allotment.

See you next time!

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