29 July 2012 - protection from bunnies

Mike did some protection work at the weekend - he's put a lot of thought into it and when we do the weeding, just pull the posts out because the netting is attached to the posts, and not the boards.  He also made sure that they were only half bed sizes so that one person could do it without getting all tangled!  How cool is that!

carrots growing nicely

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!

16 May 2012 - Seeds, seeds, seeds

I took today off work as an "allotment day", I'm guessing non-lotties won't understand how fab that is!

Well I ended up not feeling very well on Tuesday, not much better today, so packed myself off to the allotment with coffee and a packet of Tums and thought I'd do an hour of the easy stuff, go home for a bit and come back for another stint in the afternoon.  Yeah, like that's gunna happen!  Four hours later, I'm heading off home!

I forgot my camera, but here's what I got up to:

*  got 20 rows of seeds sown in trays, covered and put in the greenhouse (10 rows are pumpkin, courgette, marrow, melons.  10 rows are mini sweetcorn and late peas/beans)

* weeded the "fruit" bed and planted a lavender in a space there (a bee came along to investigate, but it was a dim one, it was at the wrong end of the bed!) - bed is just behind the blue tarped bed

* weeded round the "roots" bed, we've got lots of turnips and looks like some salsify is coming up too. - bed is just by the greenhouse

* in the "leaves" bed, dug over the rest of the bed, planted out the rest of the brussel sprouts, put in the leeks between those rows, sowed some UK bluebells, nasturtium, purple sprouting brocolli, cauliflower and celery parsley. - bed is under the green netting

* at the fenceline of the "leaves" bed I dug in a tyre, filled it and planted out some of the carnation sprays.

* watered the new seeds/seedlings in place and the ones in the greenhouse too.

I had my "ears" in and was singing away (using the term loosely) and decided at just the right time to stop and look around.  I'm sure the guy trying to mind his own business wasn't that worried about a bad rendition of Twisted Sister and failing to hit the high notes of The Proclaimers, but I'm really glad I decided not to sing along to The Bloodhound Gang!  I may never have lived that down!

8 April 2012 - Easter work

a well earned Easter Egg break!

Well, it might not look like much, but we have been busy - honest!

Friday was a trip to the park after baking a courgette cake - a 3.5 year old had 4 pieces!

Saturday was bowling and seeing what older kids think of courgette cake (sent it home with them, will find out later, I guess).

Brussel sprouts survived

Sunday was allotment day, Mike sorted out a better cover for the sprouts, and luckily, they all survived the hail/snow/wind/rain we've had last week - the net curtain did the trick, but was a temporary cover designed to keep the hares out.

roots planted

I dug over and planted out some seeds in the roots bed.  Under the mesh is jerusalem artichokes, and there are now one row each of samurai carrots (red), snowball turnips, nasturtium, salsify and beetroot.

The plan is for them to have 2 weeks head start on the next lot of veg, so that we aren't swamped with stuff all at the same time.
 

3 new rhubarb plants forced

We weren't sure if there was any rhubarb survivor in the existing tyre, so we tried forcing soil - lucky us - there's 3 plants come up!

You have to look close for the 3rd one - it's at the front.

lazy weeding

Mike dug up some of the grass that's grown between the tyres at the end of the brussel sprout bed and that took ages.  Plan B is to cover the grass for now and see if it dies away to make life a bit easier.

Next year, we'll extend the length of the beds to the fenceline.

Oh, and Monday - well that was sorting Ellie's Plot!