13 Mar 2014 - The boring tidy-up session

Since there's not much planting going on, I've been popping down to the allotment to do some tidying between work shifts.  Apparently my shifts are annoying, but you gotta play the system!

I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, but all the fun stuff was either a WIP, or waiting for timber, so I was just pottering.  Luckily, two guys I know were also there, we'll call it a hot date, cos the sun was out and we had lunch together!

Also joined by the resident ducks, who were trying to nick the nails from one guy.  I helped hold the wood down so he could saw (on his knees!) a bit faster, without it moving around like a spinning wheel!  He thought it was taking up my own allotment time, but I turned it into a coffee break!

My own work was a little less interesting - you could tell, the ducks weren't being nosey.  But I did manage to weed 4 beds (well, nearly finished the last one, but had to go and get ready for work).

The first bed did have Red Popping Corn, Onions & Garlic in, now just Onions and Garlic.
The second bed had Potatoes, Leeks and a tray of unplanted Leeks (which have been transplanted into spaces in the first bed).
The third bed had Brussel Sprouts, Sprouting Brocolli and Leeks (or Onions & Garlic).  I kinda ordered too many Onions and Garlic last year!

3rd bed nearest you!

1st bed nearest you (can't see it)

Tidied up - 1st nearest you!

In the before photo of the 4th bed I got to, which is my failed Munty's Bean's contraption, it's across the path from the tyres bed, with all the bottles stored in it.  There isn't a closer pic, but I can tell you there was a fair bit of nettle and dock in there!

I know it seems a waste to leave just that little bit not done, but I really do need to get to work clean and tidy, and I'd pushed it far enough doing the 3.5 hours work! 

I'll be back another day (soon as I get my rota) and weed that bit, turn it over to make sure I got the dock out properly and I've got some mushroom compost to go in there.  One guy has got donkey manure, so we're doing a bit of a study of that one (as you do!).

9 Apr 2013 - First plantings & protection!

I have several excuses for not getting down to the allotment much this year:
1) Britain under water on my days off
2) 12-15ft snow drifts here, digging sheep out from under the snow
3) Powerlines down on the road to the allotment
4) 237.5 hours worked in January
5) Camping in Formby for a hockey festival in -2c weather

Apart from that......

My usual supervisors...

I've been starting all my seedlings off inside, and those that should be planted straight out (or are quite tender) have been planted in toilet rolls so that I just put the toilet rolls in the soil and the plants are none the wiser!



  
So, on 9 April, I actually managed to cycle to the allotment (5 miles each way) and my little brussel sprouts bounced their way in the basket on the front!
 




As I said before, the weather hasn't been terrific, so I've been saving up alot of 5l juice bottles from work, to make mini cloches for the seedlings, plus some 2l bottles and milk bottles from home.  The first seedlings ready were the brussel sprouts, but apart from protecting the seedlings, I also needed to make sure that the cloches didn't all blow away as well!

Here's what I did, pretty self-explanatory.....

a water feeder added

what you need

tied to the plum tree!

all safe under netting

I also had time to plant out some garlic and onions (alternating) with gaps left in between rows for something tall to be planted.  Not decided whether it'll be the strawberry popcorn or sprouting brocolli, or both!  We'll see which ones come up first at home!





And what I hadn't expected was the mushroom compost to turn up - 20 of these were mine, and I had to wheelbarrow them round to the plot - not normally a problem, but I knew I had to cycle 5 miles home again afterwards!

26 Aug 2012 - Our first ever Artichoke!

Here's today's crop - a hellava lot of garlic, some turnips, rainbow spinach, 4 raspberries, 2 plums and our first ever globe artichoke!

We nibbled on the raspberries while trying to work out what to do with the artichoke!

 Two bags of cut turnip for the freezer, one for soups, the other for steaming.

Unfortunately, it looks like we've missed out on using the middle leaves for a salad, but the outer ones look okay (to us beginners, anyway).









Mike sets to with cutting the tips off, and we just put it in the oven with some oil and the potatoes.

(We did find a really cool recipe, but it looked a bit much for our first attempt!)

....and not much left, it was great!

2 Aug 2012 - success stories

Today was a very successful, but hardworking day.  I had a day off so I spent 5 hours pottering at the allotment in the sunshine - be rude not to!

I mowed some of the lawn, turned over a new bit of plot and planted out some more beans and peas and changed the protection of the cape gooseberries.  I also put in a rose plant to attract bees (and hide a wee gap under the mesh). 

potatoes & raspberries

The newly dug plot gave us a few potatoes, which was a nice surprise - I swear the guy before us planted nothing but potatoes!  Also managed to rescue a few more raspberries (raspberry fool, anyone?) and 4 redcurrants - see if you can spot them..... I guess any redcurrant jam on our shelves will be bought this year!

brocolli & sprouts

There were some other pleasant surprises - in the row of brussel sprouts is a very nice looking brocolli!

flowers on squash

There are also some flowers on the squash plants, although most of them are ornamental gourds, which is something I'm going to have to learn to dry out (or whatever it is I'm supposed to do with them (afterall, you never see one in the shops with a giant hole in it where the seeds have been taken out!)

Apart from that, everything else is coming along nicely, if not a wee bit behind schedule - but we have had a pretty wet summer. 

I've been impressed with the fact that the sweetcorn has grown - something that never grew for us at the old allotment.  It looks like one is definitely going to produce, not sure about the others, but fingers crossed!  We'll be freezing sprouts till the cows come home - that's the best crop we've got so far, and it looks like turnip wine might be on the list of things to try soon!  The garlic is doing well, but it looks like something had a nibble at one - will need to watch for that next year.  The carrots are coming along now as well, we were using up old seeds, so it's going to be a colourful Christmas dinner - there's samurai red, purple, orange and who knows what other carrot seeds we put in!

22 July 2012 - Transplanting update

Here's a little update on how those plants transplanted in January have been doing.....
If you didn't see the original posts, you can read about them here

Gooseberry, Redcurrant & Blueberry

The berry plants have done really well in their new spot, we had some redcurrants which went into the delicious summer fruits pudding that Mike made for me!

Not had many gooseberries and I think the too-much-rain we've had got to any blueberries, although I haven't actually seen any.

Asparagus

The asparagus is at the other end of the berry bed, and as you can see, it didn't show up at all, not sure whether this means we've lost them - there should be 3 or 4 rows here. 

We'll leave them in and see if there's anything going on next year, afterall, it's not the plant's fault it was moved, maybe just napped this year?

Garlic

This was the garlic that I dug up from the end of this bed - I split the cloves and planted them out, wondering if that'd work or not because they weren't in a state fit for cooking with.

Looks like we've got a lot here and I've found a recipe for a garlic pesto which I'm dying to give a go!

8 July 2012 - Garlic & Skinks

Today was pretty much a tidy up day.  We did get a visitor from our old allotment who wanted to be nosey - lucky for him I hadn't unpacked the camera yet, so there's no pic.  Next time, definitely next time!

I was a lady-wot-lunched with his wife yesterday and we were proudly showing him round horse poo & manure today - don't we just live the highlife!

I weeded the potatoes bed and put in a plant we picked up at Tynwald on Tynwald Day (Isle of Man national day) which loves sandy soil - left the tab in and now forgotten what it's called, but here's a photo.

Mike started weeding the garlics bed (which was way to overgrown for a before photo!) and I helped finish it with him because it was such a big job - better to finish two beds than have half jobs to go back to another day.  We were really pleased with how many garlic have come up and I've found a recipe that is a garlic version of pesto that I'll have to try later.

The raspberries definitely appreciated us taking the time to protect them earlier!  Here's how they're doing now. 


We'd left the brussel sprouts uncovered thinking they were strong enough to face the wind and now not little seedlings that slugs might like - completely forgetting that we have rabbits nearby.  Ooops, schoolboy error, but hopefully not too much of one.  They're covered up again now.

Someone forgot to tell the skink that sunning itself in the Isle of Man this summer is not the best idea in the world - but this one gave it a go anyway. 

(I wasn't happy to see a far-to-large longtail, but a Skink is okay)

While we were showing our friend around we noticed that someone's growing something very big of the onion variety!

I've never done very well with onions, and don't really like them much, but it doesn't mean I can't appreciate someone else's efforts!

30 May 2012 - seedling successes

Today was all about a big clear out of a patch of grass that was getting more and more out of control, or so I thought.  It ended up being much more exciting than that!

I planted out 5 spaghetti squash and gave them their own "greenhouse" as an experiment to see if this will work better than growing them on the windowsill and transplanting out, or if it doesn't make any difference either way.

I dug in some horse manure a few weeks ago and turned over a few times, when the seedlings get bigger, I'll put straw round to stop the squash from rotting.

before

Then I set about clearing the grass, it was harder than I thought it would be and found 5 tyres underneath it all!  I did get it finished, but got a little distracted by frogs, butterflies and weeding round seedlings when I got bored!

after

The seedlings were doing really well, we've got a variety of things showing up in all beds. 

brocolli

sprouts

photo 1

photo 1 - from far left:
Jerusalem artichokes
Sweetcorn
Purple haze carrots
Salsify
Nasturtium
Turnip
Scorzonera

photo 2

photo 2 - from far left
Brocolli (close up above)
Cauliflower
Parsley
Nasturtium
Brussel sprouts

Then there were my distractions, chatting to the neighbour with the pond, seemed like a good idea to find frogs!  A butterfly exploriing the strawberries also took my fancy and the creme de la creme was the surprise on the way home, but I'm gunna have to put that on the next blog because I think there are enough photos on the one now!

29 April 2012 - tidy up after holiday

We had a fantastic holiday camping round the south west of England & popped across to Newport in Wales and then had a fantastic weekend with the hockey lot, last game of the season, then baking cakes for the cake sale (no, I didn't go for the courgette cake this time), manning a stall at the club's coffee morning & sales, then relax! 

So today I thought it'd be a good time to pop down to the allotment and see what's been happening.  I expected to have alot of work to do, but pleasantly surprised I was able to get most of the beds weeded in 2.5 hours.

Here's some before and after photos:

fruit bushes

fruit bushes

raspberries

raspberries

strawberries

strawberries

beans & strawberries

beans & strawberries

see the row of turnips?

artichoke & roots

garlic - to be weeded

potatoes - to be weeded

We've also been given extra beds that someone else has given up.  The two beds are covered for now and just at the end of our plot (includes the broken compost bin, a gooseberry bush and globe artichoke plant.  There's just a walkway between the two plots - nice'n'handy!  Here's the new plot:

And the addition to the allotments - our very own slug eaters!

The seedlings didn't cope so well, but not all bad, we'll just have to wait and see.  On the plus side, if you remember the experiment with the carnation sprigs I did earlier this year, well, all of them have taken and all the one's I donated to the hockey sale all sold before I got to see them!