Apart from my father-in-law having a dig in preference to going to Bluewater (crazy man!) the allotment hasn't had any attention at all now in 3 months. But with the weather getting better (we've actually seen the sun on quite a few days this last week. Shame it poured with rain every afternoon) I've really got to get my stuff together and get down there.Luckily there is also a fair amount of preparation that can also be done back here, and I'm almost on top of that.My veg-table sitting out in the backyard has now come into its own. It...
growing from seed
Apart from my father-in-law having a dig in preference to going to Bluewater (crazy man!) the allotment hasn't had any attention at all now in 3 months. But with the weather getting better (we've actually seen the sun on quite a few days this last week. Shame it poured with rain every afternoon) I've really got to get my stuff together and get down there.Luckily there is also a fair amount of preparation that can also be done back here, and I'm almost on top of that.My veg-table sitting out in the backyard has now come into its own. It...
It's been a long hard winter, but it seems like there is now a light at the end of this long damp tunnel. We've now had several days where that large bright orb has appeared in the sky.I really felt like we were all groping our way around the surface of the earth with our eyes blinded from glare - hands out pumping the air - exclaiming "too bright! too bright! what is it?" as we emerged from our caves of darkness.Yes, I do hate winter in England THAT much. And as we've not had a good summer in -...
I don't know if my tomatoes are supposed to look like this. but they are very funky....
Not long ago I took possession of my very own veg-table, which is a raised vegetable bed on legs. It's the brainchild of one of my clients - Veg-Table ltd, and after doing the website for them they let me have one to play with. It was one of those designer/client relationships that just works perfectly, since l just love to get down and dirty with the onions.But since it was October when I got it, I was slightly at a loss as to what I could stuff it with over winter. The cat decided it made a great hidey...
Some of my seedlings were a little less than successful, and strangely - in those seed trays I had an abundance of small mushrooms. I wondered if the compost that I used wasn't suitable for the seedlings (some brassicas I think) or whether it just happened to have mushroom spores in it already....
Now that I've discovered I am ill, I need to milk this condition to the fullest until friday at least (which is probably the point at which the doctor points out that I just need to stop eating bolognaise for the rest of my life so quit whining.) So instead of working today, I indulged my inner child, and played in the dirt.Or put it in another flavour, I went down to the allotment and spent a contented two hours digging and planting. I've managed to dig over and plant the green manure for hungarian rye and winter tares in...
As I start to harvest the last of the summer produce, I am beginning to prepare those newly empty beds for green manure. I didn't do this last year, and when I started to dig in, I found the ground rock hard. So I am hoping that not only with the green manure add benefit to the soil, but that it will also help to keep it light and turnable.I also need to work out what green manure I can use in each section. One of the green manures are field beans - since they are beans, I have to...
When I first started working on an allotment - or more correctly, on my three beds on my friend Ali's allotment, I hardly planned to be self sufficient. It was more about the discovery and joy of achieving perhaps 1 successful harvest.Now that I have a full allotment to myself, and am in the second year of working it, I still didn't set self sufficiency as a goal. But this month it's what I've reached. This is the third week since I cancelled the Abel and Cole mixed fruit and veg box, and replaced it with a fruit only...
brassicas ready to plant out, originally uploaded by pinkpie. The word brassica makes my husband snigger, but this is a picture of my lovely brassica's ready to plant out this Sunday. I've got chevalier calabrese, purple sprouting broccoli, brussels sprouts, and several different types of cauliflowers. Last year I had amazing luck with the chevalier calabrese, it sprouted huge lovely heads, then after harvesting those it pumped out side shoots like crazy. The purple sprouting broccoli was good too, stretching to 4 harvests of tender heads. I only got two cauliflowers last year, but they were both good. I...
Not that you'd know it from my radio silence, but I've become white the allotmentophile lately. As the days have lengthened, I've been slipping down at 7pm to search and kill slugs and to dig out the remaining plots. I gave up on the carrots since none of them decided to raise their heads above the crusted ground, but when I dug over the area I found quite a few of last years crop. Which means that it wasn't the best place to have planted them in the first place. I've got my first lot of leeks planted out,...
I took delivery of my potato order today. I ordered Desiree, but got King Edwards. But it's not really a big issue, since I only ordered Desiree because they sounded nice. Whether they were better spuds or not is not the issue. So my King Edwards are now sitting in the hurricane shelter with a cherry tree, 2 blueberry stalks, a redcurrant stalk and a black currant stalk. All waiting to be planted. We spent this morning moving the compost heap from our backyard to the allotment, into my newly fashioned palletastic compost square thingy. It was pretty nice compost,...
Having taken over the new allotment, I have be busy plotting up my little rotation. Piles of pages of notes, and printouts of advise from different sites was starting get slighly overwhelming! It's like putting a jigsaw together that's made of magnets. Some crops want to be near certain others, and yet others hate the very sight of them. Or so it would seem from my research. so I made it easier for myself, and made an illustrator file up so I could just slide the boxes about until they fit nicely. This is what i have so far... Some...
This post is a bit late in coming, but a few weeks ago i took over our new allotment plot. It became available when the gentleman who owned it died, which is a sad way to take over something. But I am looking forward to seeing it bloom again. right now, the plot is empty. His wife and daughters cleared the potatoes, and the corn crop had failed. There are a few tomatoes that had blight, so I don't plan on growing any on the plot at all. I found the remains of some beet plants, but most have now...
I haven't really updated you with all the goings on at the allotment (the whole two beds!). That's mostly because the weather has been totally shite, all my tomatoes got blight, and I need to end this sentence in flight... With apologies to Chris W for the poetic miasma there! Actually, the biggest problem has been that I kept taking photos on my mobile phone. And until now have had no way to get them off. Turned out it was a processing error. My brain wasn't processing the information at hand very well! But a final google of the right...
The title is poor, I know. But I am so proud of my nice rows of leeks, tomatoes, aubergine, peppers, chilly, and asparagus peas. The nicely turned bed looks very neat and weed free (for now.) The leeks I seeded before we went to Sydney, they were desperate to get out of the seed tray. Using the dibber was slightly more tricksy. Every time I tried to stick the leeks in the hole, the dirt starting crumbling in! Eventually they were all down, we'll just have to see how they grow. Some of them might have their roots facing the...
Finally a good day, and the allotment starts to take shape. After the beautiful weather for the Summer fair on Saturday, Sunday was just as glorious. Leaving swamped husband to work feverishly on this laptop, I dragged the children down to the allotment to commence digging. This is the before picture! The girls were so helpful pulling weeds out - for about 5 minutes. That's the threshold of attention span. About 10 minutes after that, number 1 suddenly needed to do a poo. There is a toilet block on the allotment - it's entirely on the other side of the...
I just read an article in the times about using the balmy nights to get your allotment going. It kept mentioning the long hot days, and I was starting to wonder which year it was actually written in, since that does not reflect the current weather report in London. Everytime I went to step out the door, the heavens threw a bit more down. I'd have gone down and worked in the rain with no problems, but I had the small one with me, and she was sniffling and hacking a bit. It didn't seem likely that she'd sit...
Well - day one did not go off as planned. The heavens remained open with the trademark English drizzle pouring out. Slightly higher volume than normal in fact. We dressed down and set off for the allotment anyway, hoping that someone would be there, and that the gate would be unlocked, since we are not getting our own key until next week. But no joy, even the steadfast old guys were not stupid enough to think spending a day in the downpour would be fun. Hell on their rheumatoid arthritus I guess. We set off for the garden shop instead....
Ok, so we're back in the land of blighty. At some point in time I'll update you on our trip away (worst floods in 50 years or so, what fun!) but for now I have a new passion. Our allotment. As you probably have no idea, I've been trying to grow some veges in the back garden. Thanks to our trip away, most of the veges are casualties of my husband's inability to put snail pellets down. The last count shows 12 leeks, 4 carrots, 2 half eated sweet peppers, 0 courgettes and 0 broccoli. (I do have to admit...
