An End of the Year Ramble around our plots

An End of the Year Ramble around our plots

View along Gerry’s plot:

Bed half dug:

View along Plot 12A from bottom:

On my own allotment, Plot 12A, I’ve made up raised beds only a few feet wide so I can get to the centre of the beds from the paths. I dug in lots of horse manure last year but we don’t have any this year. The soil on my allotment is very shallow in some places – not more than half a spade’s depth! Most of it is about a spit deep but it is underlain by sand & gravel.

It seems that a 100 years ago it was a gravel quarry but it became uneconomical to run & was filled in. As it was deemed unfit for housing & it was turned into a big allotment field.

Apparently the landfill came from the works of widening the A1, then they put a thin layer of topsoil over it before converting it for allotment use. At least that’s what a couple of the old guys down there have told me. I wonder if I should look it up in our local reference library. But it’s only a curiosity which will just be academic in a few year’s time as the cemetery alongside is expanding. A few years ago it swallowed up about 1/3 of the entire field & in about 10 years time they will need the half of the field where my plot is for expansion as well!

Just before Christmas last year (2011) they started to use it for the 1st graves. Now they have used up 3 or 4 rows the width of the old plots. Even at that rate they have space for a few more years yet! All the same it’s a bit disheartening knowing you only have your plot for 10 years! Not very conductive to long time planting of apple/pear/fruit trees or to plant up fruit bushes! I’d have liked to do that but once they (Town Council) told us their plans for the future I just forgot about the idea! I’ll content myself with the usual annual crops we plant.

Gerry has plenty of fruit bushes on his plot between 12 Gooseberry bushes, 2 Black Currants & a White Currant plus two big beds of Raspberry canes, one with 2 small Fig trees in it. He also has 3 Victoria Plum trees & a Black plum he thinks may be ‘Czar’. There are several yellow plum trees as well that produce delicious tasting orange/yellow plums & a Blackberry bush.

Fig trees under fleece in new Raspberry bed:

(Made no difference we still lost every fig! The wind also shredded the fleece towards the end of the winter.)
Gooseberry bushes behind shed:

Gooseberries – Close up:

Black Currant bushes:

Then there is the big old Apple tree under which we placed the shed a few years ago. It’s a cooker of unknown variety which produces more apples than we can get rid of! I bring some home & Gerry has given other plot holders permission to help themselves but more end up as birdfood than what we humans can consume!

Apple tree in flower with shed underneath:

He also has a dessert apple, a dwarf, right in front of where we put the greenhouse. It has only produced a very few fruits up to now. Though every year since I’ve been there, 3 years, it’s doubled the production of the previous year! But, before you think that’s great, you should realize the 1st year it produced just 2 (TWO) small very red apples, the following year it made 4! A 100% increase on the year before! This year it made quite a few more – around 10 or so. A few were even a bit bigger than bite-size! Who knows what will happen in 2013??? Perhaps it will have enough to take to the Farmers’ Market in town! ;D

I’m going to put an end to this now. Happy New Gardening Year 2013! 🙂

♪♪♪ Half an allotment is better than … ♪♪♪

♪♪♪ Half an allotment is better than … ♪♪♪

♪♪♪ Half an allotment is better than … ♪♪♪ to the tune of ♪♪♪ Half a sixpence …♪♪♪

(Thanks to TT for the musical notes! )

Today I went down with my friend, Gerry, from church who said I could have half an allotment as he has two (or 1 & 1/2 not too sure!) We spent the better part of two hours clearing away dead growth from last year. He had a serious operation last year & has hardly touched the allotment since recovering .

See updates below:

He has many Gooseberry bushes which, although he said they gave a lot of fruit last year, I believe need some serious pruning! Lots of the branches are covered in lichen, just like old trees! Anyone know of a good website that gives advice on pruning of these bushes?

Update: A photo of the Gooseberry patch:

He also has many raspberries, autumn fruiting he told me. Should they be cut back to ground level this spring? He said something about digging them up. As they are established plants can they be lifted & divided or should they be thrown away? I’d like to plant some on my half of the allotment if they can just be dug up & divided.

Update:
Here’s a photo of the Raspberry canes before I cut them back to the ground!*

Well, actually the photo above contains the Loganberries as well only they are difficult to see. They are the greyish “lines” that go from the white posts & wires towards you in the photo.

Apparently he has some loganberries which have got very much out of hand & have grown for several metres along the ground, how can we get them back under control? Is it possible to cut them hard back now & train in the new growth? I don’t know if they fruit on this year’s wood or last years. I don’t want to cause him to miss a crop by telling him to cut them back if they fruit on last year’s growth!

Update: I’ll now answer my own question: I cut them back to the ground but later found out I should have left a couple of the strongest canes as they fruit on 2nd year canes not first year ones like Blackberries! Sorry no photos of “before”! LOL! (Not much point of putting in photos of “after” , as there’s nothing to see! LOL! )
What can we do about horseradish? He has lots of it in his plot & can’t get rid of it! He dug up a couple of the plants this morning & I saw they have very thick taproots. He told me that if any piece remains in the ground it will grow again!

No update on this question as yet!

And Jerusalem Artichokes? I was doing a little research on the web trying to find out more about them. He has given me a couple of kilos of roots. Some pages say you can treat them just like potatoes & even eat them raw. I thought I might save a few small pieces to grow on my balcony as it seems they are related to sunflowers & have sunflower like flowers. If I find we like them I may grow a few plants on the allotment as well.

Update on this question: I cut them up & fried them like you would potato chips!

When should potatoes be planted? Can I plant them in the coming weeks of March? I haven’t grown spuds for more years than I care to remember! Well that is except for a couple of plants in an old compost bag which I grew on the balcony a couple of years ago! I found they took up far too much of my precious space for too little harvest to repeat the experiment!

No update available at the moment.

As neither my wife nor I like “greens” I shan’t be planting anything other than lettuces! I bought a packet of seeds today & I shall sow a few of them in the next day or two. Do they need a little heat to start off? I know they are plants that like cool weather to grow well. Can I just sow them & keep them on my balcony till they are ready to go to the allotment?

Update: No photos of the lettuce seeds still growing on my balcony.

I want to sow in the next few days a few seeds of tomatoes ‘Alicante’ I bought today. I’ll only plant a few for the time being as I want to grow a couple of plants on the balcony, like other years & later put some on the allotment.

Update: The tomato seeds have still not germinated, so … no photos!

I also bought a packet of sweet pepper seeds. I grew a few plants in a growbag about three years ago on the balcony. I found they were much slower growing than the tomatoes & it was near the end of the summer before they bloomed & didn’t have time to set fruit before the autumn was upon us. This year I want to try again & I intend to give them a longer growing season by sowing them now.

Update: No recent photo but they are about to produce their first true leaves.

I hope we get a warm summer so that I get some fruits. We use quite a few at home but find them very expensive. In Spain they laugh at us when we tell them how much a single pepper costs! For that price they can buy them almost by the kilo!

Well I’ll update you on further blogs as to my progress on the allotment & include some photos in the next ones.