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!

25 June 2012 - new growth

Pumpkin (possibly)

My brother very nicely got me some seeds for Christmas, I had planned to have a whole bed of my favourite pumpkins, but so far, all that's come up is the ornamental gourds!  Well, at least I've got something, but how do I get them to be ornamental?  I'm guessing I've got to get the seeds out, but you never see holes in the ones in posh shops.....Time to learn a new dark art!

ornamental gourds

I lost the label, so the plant in the root-trainer pot is possibly a pumpkin, marrow, melon or courgette!  You can see how well the roots grow in these pots (they split in half for easy access and reuse).

before....with weeds

after

Here's the "leaves" bed - at the front is brussel sprouts, then further back (in toilet rolls) is some cauliflower (plants & seeds), brocolli plants, amaranthus calaloo seeds, cos lettuce seeds and rainbow spinach plants.  Between the rows is leeks.
  

Purple brussel sprout

Turnips & Nasturtium

Corn & Jerusalem Artichokes

Globe Artichokes

We've got some fruit coming through - and plans to start making rhubarb wine!

Gooseberries

Cape Gooseberries

Redcurrants

Raspberries

Rhubarb v boot!

Plums

 

resident

relaxing after some hard work

25 May 2012 - Cape Gooseberries

The work for the day was to prepare the area for the Cape Gooseberries that have been growing nicely on the windowsill at home, since picking them up from the seed swap a few months ago.  They now have 6 leaves, so I think it's time for them to face the world!

Sounds simple, doesn't it.... dig over a bit of mud, put in 6 plants...


You can just see the Redcurrant bush opposite the compost bin - well, it's that area I was working on.

 

The area I chose was the end of one of the new beds, by what we were told was a gooseberry (smothered in grass).  The bed ended up being a lot bigger than it looked, because the whole end was smothered, so there was a lot of hard work digging and trying to get out as much of the roots as possible.  It took 3 hours, but I think it was worth it.

and she's found the self timer

30 May update - The seedlings are still doing well  ;-)

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!

11 Mar 2012 - Transplanters, more than meets the eye

A bit like Transformers?!  Nah, didn't think so....

Just a quick update - We popped up to the allotment this afternoon to check on how things are going, and the fruit bushes transplanted in January have coped really well considering it wasn't suitable time or weather for it.  The blueberry wasn't affected by the rabbit(s) investigating the roots and there are signs of new growth on the blueberry, redcurrant and gooseberry plants.  The rhubarb didn't take long to force, and there is possibly one more (which looks a bit dead) that we've started to force now.  There are 10 transplanted strawberries that are showing signs of new growth too, so we're really happy with how things are growing!

Blueberry

Redcurrant

Gooseberries

Rhubarb

Strawberries

One of the neighbours had mentioned that the rabbits had been eating his onions!  We inspected our garlic, which is growing nicely (including the bits that shouldn't be there because I'm sure I dug over the whole area!  And would you believe it..... the tops have all been nibbled!   We had a skeet round the other plots, to see how they were protecting plants/beds/plots against the rabbits and pheasants, because in the old plot we only had to deal with longtails and geese.  The tops of all the chives have all been nibbled as well! Walt Disney lied to us!  "What's up Doc?"

29 Feb 2012 - Potatoes & Fartichokes

I'm loving this mid-week day off!  I decided that instead of writing a list of things to do, then not get round to doing them all, I'd write the list as I did things and achieve 100%.  I ran out of sunlight at the allotment, but as "planting broadbeans" wasn't on the list, I didn't not do it!


So, my decision at the start of the year to do only an hour at a time at the allotment failed once again.  I did two hours and watched the sunsetting ;-)

I was also fortunate enough to find a frog in the pond - can you? 


 
Well, onto the work then..... I was so pleased with the way the day ended I have updated the front photo to today's look. 


First job was the potato bed (which is actually on the masterplan as 2 beds, but that will happen next year).  I was truly surprised to see the amount of greenery under the tarp.  They couldn't have been getting any light at all, surely?  Anyway, it was quite easy to dig them up as the soil is quite sandy. 











I've now got the front row as Vales Emerald, the second row as Kerrs Pink and then as the bed widens a bit more, I've split that in 2 squares, so the top left has got the King Edwards and left room for the Pink Fir Apples we got at the seed swap to go top right.

Then it was time to sort out the Jerusalem Artichokes, more than one person has called them Fartichokes - as we've never tried them before, I guess we'll find out!

Artichokes protected

While I was there, I snapped a few photos of how things are coming along - there are a few holes (which may be the rabbits being nosey) around a currant bush, garlic and asparagus - I'm guessing they don't like those, cos they didn't stay long.  I've protected the potatoes and artichokes straight away tho, and will give Mike the good news about his next jobs later!

Garlic shoots

transplanted rhubarb

old strawberries

new strawberries

 

currant robbers

asparagus investigations