on your plot

This section will feature one way of planting tomatoes. The steps are as follows: You seed them in pots at home or in a green house. When they have their second set of leaves, you transplant them into a larger pot. This step can be repeated as often as necessary until they can be planted in their final place.
You can use milk cartons or liter bottles if they get really long. You just remove all leaves except the very top ones and more roots will be formed along the stem that is under the soil.
Now, when it is time to plant them in their final place (the ground) you make a shallow trench with a deeper place at one end. This is where the main root ball will go. Lay the plant on its side and cover it completely except for the very top leaves. Prop these up and place a plastic cup or an empty flower pot over the root ball and partially submerged in the soil.
You give water in the cup to the deep roots and along the underground stem. I have read that the deep roots take-up water and the roots nearer the surface take up nutrition.
The reason for planting the plants in this way is that the tom's roots like warmth and when planted this way, they get extra. By laying the plants on their sides the covered stem roots are closer to the surface. When plant gets this extra warmth it will grow faster than plants that have their roots planted deeper in the still cold soil. This is helpful, as here in the north we have a shorter growing season.

This is the way the planted toms should look with their watering cups. Don't forget to water over the horizontal stems underground. You can mark them with sticks for so you won't forget...see the pic on the right. We have used cane segments.
The toms are planted amongst the butterleaf lettuces, maximising the space available. The lettuces will be picked in a couple of weeks and then the toms will have all the nutrition for themselves.

There are all kinds of ways that one can seed and plant their beans, I will show just one of them here below.
We begin by making paper seeding "cups" out of newspaper with a special little paper roller that we found in Britain. These will be filled with garden soil, the seeds will be planted in this and then covered with a fine compost.
You water them once then place them together in a container in the green house to germinate.
They should be up within a week. Wait a few days to to give the roots time to form a decent clump, then plant them in the place where they will grow.
We select a place where the beans will come the year before the planting time.
Once a place has been selected, it is a good idea to make a trench, fill it with compost or weed cuttings (earlier in the year), and work it through with regular ground.
Use a tulip planter to make the holes (it should be like a hot knife cutting through soft butter if the soil texture is correct), fill the holes with water then lower the plantlets in and cover. When you have finished planting the row, water it once again...then let Mother Nature do her thing and do YOUR thing: defrost and clean the freezer.

The cultivation of asparagus on our complex is not widespread, but there are a few folks that are making the effort.
I visited Gerard Schepers, Lottie 262 and he explained how he does asparagus.

The process of growing asparagus is a long and sometimes tedious job. Having said that, the hardest work is in the beginning stages with the ground preparation and development of the mound; after that, it is a relatively simple matter of maintenance. Perhaps the best aspect of all is that once the bed had been made, it can be used for 10 - 12 years.
When it comes to harvesting�well who's going to complain about that! One must only be careful when removing the stalks.
The procedure that is described here is one that you follow every year until the bed has finished producing.

PREPARATION
The first thing to do is to decide if you want green or white asparagus.
Next decide if you want to buy seeds to plant (which will cost you an extra year before the first harvest) or buy klauwen (root clumps). Gerard chose for the latter.

PLANTING
You choose a sunny location with sandyish soil if at all possible.(1) In March, dig a trench about 30-40 cm deep (± the depth of a spade). The length depends upon how many plants you want to have.
(2) When the trench is dug, make a small "ridge" in the middle on the bottom of the trench. You then place the klauwen(roots) flat on top of this ridge, with the roots spread-out like a spider and space them four per meter. Fill half the trench with the sandy soil that you dug out to make the trench. The plantlet roots (klauwen) are to be covered completely�and then just wait.

WAITING/MAINTAINANCE
Let the plants grow until October, at which time; you clip the plants off just above soil level (3). Add a little sandy soil as necessary. When March rolls around again, mound-up your plants (4) before the asparagus grows out of the soil. Just wait until about early May.

HARVESTING
The time from first planting to the first harvest is fourteen months.
You know it's time to begin harvesting when you see the points breaking-through the soil on top of the mound.
The first year you harvest you can only harvest for about two weeks, then you must stop in order not to "wear-out" the plants. Harvesting in the following years can extend to ± 21 June before terminating the harvest.
Gerard harvests about eight asparaguses from his bed per day; however, he says that when things are really going well, it is better and in fact necessary to harvest TWICE a day.

HARVESTING METHOD
In early May you will see small, thick, white points protruding through the top of your mound (5). It's time to harvest!
Begin removing the soil around the asparagus point with your index fingers. To work deeper, use your index and middle fingers forked-apart (6). Carefully remove more and more soil until you have reached the depth that you want (7). You can then cut it with your special tool (8). You may notice other points working their way upwards; just leave these, as they will be ready the following day or perhaps the day after (9).
When you have removed the stalk, refill the hole so that the other upcoming stalks won't become discoloured.
Sometimes you see that the stalks are a bit reddish-coloured or "blue" as they call them here, and this means that they have had some light exposure. You can't sell these to a restaurant, he says, but the flavour is not affected, actually.

SAVING THEM
When they have been removed from the bed place them in a bucket of water for one or two days, then wrap them in a moist cloth and place them in the fridge until you have enough for a meal (10 & 11).

YOU CAN DO IT THIS WAY TOO
There are a couple of other allotmenteers that are cultivating "green" asparagus. Here we see a pair of fotos from two different plots.

January It's cold and dark this month, but there are things that can be done in spite of the weather conditions. There are thirty-one days in which to do a few things, so don't let it deter you.
There are things to harvest, seed, force, prune, dig and of course�the ever-present "clean-up".
Let's take a look at what can be done this month:

SOWING
Onion seeds in a container or tray filled with compost-cover with vermiculite or very fine sifter compost and water. Set them in a heated propagator and let them germinate.
Sowing indoors: toms, caulis, broad beans, lettuce and peas to name a few.

PLANTING
There isn't much that you can actually plant out yet.

HARVESTING
There are a host of things to harvest, if you are growing them: Parsnips, leeks cabbages, Brussels sprouts, carrots, scorzonera, Swiss chard. You should check on your clamp, if you have one to remove any rotten ones or ones that have been gnawed-on by rodents.

FRUIT
Continue pruning apples, pears and fruit bushes. Secure support lines. Remove canker. Apply fertilizer under your fruit trees. Plant new fruit tree or bush arrivals.

Tip: Try your hand at making a hotbed. Now is the time to get it started.