Seeds

Just put in a huge order for next years seeds.  Got some really unusual ones too!  Until they arrive, that is all!

Three Sisters Planting system

This year, I'm going to try something new at the allotment.  I always have the best intentions, then when I get to planting, I get bored with the preparation so I bung everything in a well-it-looks-straight-to-me fashion and I'm totally sure that in a few months time I'll remember what I planted in which half of the bed! It's a system that seems to work for me, but I'm intrigued by this one and really AM going to do it properly.  Honest.

I've got the corn on the windowsill growing nicely, just planted the beans seeds, some squash are coming up - so I'm ready to start this Tuesday 23 April 2013.  There.  Date set.  Must achieve!

And because I'm a very honest person, I'm not even going to pretend that this Native American system is even remotely my idea!  Although I can't remember where I first heard about it, this was the most informative site I found, with plans I could understand (and hopefully follow - which would be no fault of theirs if I didn't!)  How to set out your bed 

Incase you can't be bothered reading about it in full, what I'm basically going to do is have sweetcorn, beans and squashes all growing in the same bed.  In a nutshell there are lots of mounds of mud, the corn is planted first (4 in a diamond shapes leaving space between the mounds) , then when they get taller the beans are planted (4 in a square, in the same space as the corn) then the squash is planted in between the corn/bean mounds.  The idea is that the corn supports the beans and the squash restricts the weeds, and lots of blah, blah, blah about nutrients and water used.

I'll keep you updated and put in photos as it progresses, because I'm quietly confident on this one, and because I can't help but experiment, I'm going to try it with the dwarf varieties as well!

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!

6 June 2012 - fruits of labour

Today was mostly about mowing the grass because it was getting really long and our new toy arrived - 2 hours of mowing meant that I only had time totake photos of how everything else was going.

confirmed to be a plum tree!

The tree that we'd been keeping an eye on has now started showing signs of fruit - looks like we've got ourselves a plum tree after all!








 

 It's official, these are raspberry canes!

We've got lots of raspberries coming up, after trying to work out if they were currants when we only had bare canes to look at.










  

Cape Gooseberries surviving the outdoors!

The Cape Gooseberries have coped well with being outside, we've had a mixture of weather from very hot to very wet, but they're looking strong, and the slugs have stayed away, which is always nice!

plastic tree farm doing well!

The first 2 rows are Spaghetti Squash, which I planted straight out as seeds, but that was only last week, so early days yet. 

The back two rows are ornamental gourds which have been grown on the window sill, possibly a bit early to be going out, but they've got their own greenhouses.  I've extended the experiment to see if having lids on or off makes any difference.

19 Feb 2012 - Seed Swap Day

Well, Lovely Greens has been involved with planning this day for a while, and I've really been looking forward to it.  Yesterday we got some snow and I was a bit worried we wouldn't get there afterall because of the hills in and out of the area, but I still got my seeds ready - in eager anticipation.  Snaefell is already closed this morning, due to snow.

Bramley Corner recently went to a Potato Swap Day, which I was very jealous of, so hopefully this will make us even!

Going to catch up with The Looney Leadleys and hopefully meet some people from our allotments since we haven't been there long!  I've put my blog address on the back of the seed packets so that hopefully there will be more of us on here chatting away and passing on tips, although it is great reading what people are doing in other areas as well!  (Claire, you've created a monster!)

Of the 24 packets I made, the seeds I chose were: Capsicums (jalapeno), Kohl Rabi (green), Carrots (orange), Artichoke (purple), Spinach (rainbow), Komatsuna (Japanese spinach), Scorzonera (black salsify), Brussell Sprouts (red), Perpetual Spinach (leaf beet), Aubergine (purple).  So, not too many, but enough variety and some exotics in there as well ;-)

Girlie Gardening set up a wee stall in one corner

The weather turned out okay, no problems - the Laxey Sailing Club very nicely put the fire on for us and the turn out was so good that they were running out of members to sign us all in! 

Mike & the Looney Leadleys

Seed Swap table

We caught up with Alison & Tony and the skeet from The Braiid allotments, and we all shared our findings, so we have a few things to experiment with and can compare notes later - see what grows better in the north and centre of the Island!  Also caught up with Vic & Karen who are neighbours at our new allotment, got some potatoes from them and Vic giving us tips on what did well down there for them in previous years.  No sign of Richard, but did find out which plot is his, and it's not the one with the cage.

So, what did we end up with?  Well, we're now the proud owners of Feverfew (herb), Jerusalem Artichoke, Pink Fir Apples, Echinachea, Black Forest Squash, Cape Gooseberry, Garlic Chives, Brocolli - white and purple and Amaranthus Calaloo Red Leaf (which we think is a Jamaican spinach) - so all in all, a fab afternoon spent chatting about things we love! 
What more could you want in life?

If you were there, I'd love to hear what you thought of it, what you got and what you swapped!  If you weren't there, I'd love to hear what other allotment groups get up to!  Thanks for reading.