Update on allotment

Update on allotment

Here is an update (of sorts) to Gerry’s allotment plot 58 during the 2016 growing season which is drawing to a close now that we are in September & the start of autumn is only a couple of weeks away now.

I’ve actually spent very little time on the allotment this year owing to a number of different reasons chief amongst them being a 3 week stay in Spain. No, not a holiday unfortunately, my wife’s family lives over there & her mother is very ill & may soon pass away. My wife’s sister is normally her carer but she had urgent business that couldn’t be put of for any longer so we agreed to take her place caring for their mother for a few weeks. This was during July, the middle of the growing season in the UK.

Just before going off to Spain I sowed 3 rows of Beetroot Mixture seeds in the raised bed in front of the greenhouse. In fact that day I sowed many more seeds than I have ever done before thinking that I could thin them out once we get back from Spain. Unfortunately when I was able to get down to the plot, a few days later after our return, I found that none of the seeds had germinated! Of course I was upset about that as the previous crop of Beetroot had bolted & Gerry had pulled them out. It was beginning to look like I wouldn’t get any Beetroot this year!

Bolting Beetroot:

The crop that had bolted was from the same packet of seeds that I sowed in the greenhouse earlier in the year. I know some people say you should sow them in situ but I’ve been sowing a few crops of beetroot in the greenhouse & then transplanting them to the allotment for some years now & have had better results that way than sowing direct.

The other half of the raised bed had onions from sets that I’d planted out earlier in the year. These were doing very well. There were few weeds amongst them & these were dealt with quickly.

Onions just planted out in raised bed:

Onions growing very well in June:

Onions just harvested:

Last year I had grown potatoes in the raised bed, (once they were finished & had been dug up I put in horse manure & compost in the half where the onions grew), I was sure I’d dug them all out but no, I obviously missed quite a few as there were lots of potato plants, in rows, growing amongst the beetroots & onions!

Beetroot Mixture just harvested:

I had to let them grow as it would have meant disturbing the onions & beetroots.

When I lifted the onions I found about 1/3 of them had a fungus disease, possibly White Rot, as the basal plate showed a rotting mass of white “fluff”. If that was the cause it will mean the bed can’t be used for any of the Allium family for at least 10 years! Which means Garlic, Leeks, Spring onions & of course onions themselves can’t be sown in it any more! I mentioned this to Gerry & he said a few of his onions, that he had sown before Christmas 2015, had had the same problem. I said we will have to put some kind of permanent marker on the beds to remind us about this as we are bound to forget at some time during the next 10 years that we shouldn’t put any crops from the Allium family in these beds.

Potatoes:

I didn’t sow any potatoes this year but Gerry sowed several beds of them in different places on the plot.

He has since harvested some but others he has left in the ground so as to harvest when he needs them. He told me the results hadn’t been too bad as I’ve not seen them.

Runner beans:

His runner beans at the very top of the plot don’t seem to have done nearly as well as other years when he has had far more than he could use.

Beetroot:

He sowed a row of Beetroot seeds rather thickly but has never thinned the seedlings out with the result being that they are a long thick clump of leaves &, I imagine, little root! At least his germinated & grew!

Cabbages:

He planted out some cabbages seedlings he had started off at home while I was away.

Cabbages at top of plot:

Brussels Sprouts near greenhouse:

Unfortunately the plants have been stripped bare of leaves by the Great White’s caterpillars! The same has happened to his Sprouts, planted in the bed in front of the greenhouse! These he had covered with netting but still they managed to get in & he has been left with skeleton-like leaves.

Dwarf French beans:

He planted out Dwarf French beans also while I was away but I don’t think they did very well.

Broadbeans:

Butternut Squashes:

Gerry has decided to get rid of the bed of Raspberry canes alongside the greenhouse but he doesn’t seem to have decided yet just what he will put in their place next year. So this year there will be no Raspberries just as there have not been any Strawberries either. The bed at the bottom of the plot that I made up a few years ago had become so overrun with Bindweed it was practically impossible to get any fruit from it last year & this year I removed the black plastic sheeting I put down when I planted out the rooted runners later Gerry applied weedkiller to the whole bed. Next year he wants to plant something different there.

Gooseberry bushes behind shed:

He has also cut back, quite severely, the overgrown Gooseberry bushes behind the shed which obviously means that there will be no Gooseberries from the 6 bushes next year.

Yet the other 6 bushes near the top of the plot he hasn’t touched though they are probably in a worse condition. Perhaps he didn’t want to lose ALL his Gooseberries next year!

The Black & White Currant bushes near these Gooseberry bushes are also very overgrown & are in need of some TLC!

Asparagus:

Gerry has several Asparagus beds on his allotment but he has one plant that is bigger than any of the others & that is located at the very bottom of his plot.

Plums:

There have been next to no plums at all this year. The Yellow Plum tree, (he now only has the one having given up his half plot where there were several trees), has had very few plums this year the same as his two Victoria Plum trees at the top of his plot. Last year they had the best crop I’d seen on them since I started helping him about 8 years ago. He also has a black plum tree he thinks is called ‘Black Czar‘. It had masses of flower in the spring but has produced just ONE plum this year! Like the other fruit trees last year it had a tremendous crop of plums! There must have been a late frost as all the fruit trees had a very bad production this year unlike last year’s which was record breaking!

Apple tree:

Yet the apple tree over the shed, a cooker, possibly Brambly Seedling, has done much better again this year!

Last year the crop was the worst I’d ever seen since I’ve worked on the plot. Again I imagine it is the fault of the weather. Last year March, & April, especially, were fantastic months for fruit tree pollination whereas May was a poor month with lots of very cold weather. Just the opposite of this year’s weather.

Well that about sums up the allotment plot this year. As you all know I gave up my own allotment plot (Plot 12A) last year, in September, as I couldn’t manage it & help Gerry & attend to all the other demands on my time. As you can see I’ve done very little work on Gerry’s plot this year but fortunately his health has been much better & he has been able to do a lot more than for some years. Giving up his other, half allotment plot, has also freed him up more time to concentrate his attention on his main plot.

Well that’s all for now I don’t know if I will write another account on the plot this year, it seems unlikely as the season is drawing to a close.

 

Allotment 2015

Allotment 2015

There not having been much to write about the allotments during the winter/early spring I have only now gathered a few photos & something to write about.

Like previous years I plan on writing – at least once a month – a blog on the progress of things on the allotments I’m sharing with my friend Gerry from church. I’m back to sharing with him after having to give up my plot (12A) last September due to time constraints & the demands made on me. 

As April has been a an unseasonably warm & dry month I’ve been able to get down to Gerry’s allotments a little more often.

View from the top of Plot 58 on 1st April 2015:

Lets start with some colour from March:

Crocuses flowering under dwarf apple tree in front of the greenhouse:

Some Daffodils flowering in front of our shed:

In April lots of lovely red Tulips in the bed in front of the shed:

I’ve been able to do some sowings & some work on the ground. Gerry has done the “Lion’s share” of the digging & has planted lots of potatoes.

Potatoes recently sown:

At the time of taking the photo I didn’t know Gerry had planted his seed potatoes in these couple of beds that’s why the caption reads: Beds recently manured. All that was visible were remains of the horse manure he’d previously dug in!

I haven’t planted any at all though there is still time yet to put in 2nd earlies & maincrop spuds. Not all is lost!

Garlic ‘Marco’:

I planted out a few cloves of Garlic ‘Marco’ back in December in the bed in front of the greenhouse. Now they are growing nicely.

Leeks at the top of the plot with some Lettuces planted alongside them:

The day I went down to the plot with my son I had intended to dig up the last of the Leeks that I had transplanted from my old plot last September but I discovered Gerry had planted these Lettuces right alongside them! Digging up the Leeks would have disturbed the soil around the too much I thought & they might not survive. I therefore left the Leeks where they were. Oh well, perhaps we can save some seed from them to sow next year! At least we will be treated to some great ball shaped flowerheads for a few weeks!

I sowed a packet of Broadbeans in toilet roll tubes:

As well as some Beetroot seed & Lettuces – 2 different varieties in the greenhouse.

Broadbean plants before/after I’d planted them out:

Beetroot ‘Bolthardy’ before/after I finished planting them out:

The Beetroot germinated very well & I’ve since planted it out on the plot. In fact I made two sowings & planted them out with only a few days of difference between them.

Beetroot ‘Bolthardy’ 2nd sowing just planted out:

All these seedlings were planted out in a raised bed I made up on Plot 58 between November 2014 & March 2015.

As the Lettuce hadn’t germinated I had none to plant out! One of the two trays of seeds has produced a very few seedlings which for the present are still in their tray. No more seeds seem to be germinating though.

After planting out the Beetroot I sowed a couple of rows of Lettuces directly into the soil this time of both varieties.

I also sowed a couple of rows of Beetroot seed as I have several packets of seeds still:

(My brother has since given me another packet!)

View from top of Plot 59B:

Mixed runner beans just sown at the base of the netting on the plot division:

Jonathan hoeing red onion bed:

I’ve even “roped in” my son, Jonathan, to give me a hand. He is my youngest son, he’ll be 38 this year. He hasn’t helped me on Gerry’s main plot, 58, so far that’s why the only photo I managed to grab of him was while he was busy hoeing the red onion bed near the end of Plot 59B, Gerry’s half allotment.

The first day he came down with me he helped me get the green netting on the plot division between Gerry’s half plot & his neighbour’s plot set up much better. It’s now stronger & better held up than last year. I don’t have any photos of this work as I didn’t think to get “before & after” photos. Though the after ones I can get any time now, obviously! I could even dig out (excuse the pun!) some photos from last year where the netting is quite clear but I doubt anyone would be interested in seeing “before & after” photos of some netting!!!

He also helped me with the raised bed we have made up on Gerry’s side of the plot division. This is something I’ve wanted to do for several years but had neither the time nor the wood with which to do it. Using some of the planks from my old plot we were able to make it up.

Raised bed beside plot division being made up:

Raised bed beside plot division now finished:

Some months ago we changed the flooring in our flat. We had had vinyl flooring since we moved in in 2001. We put vinyl flooring down instead of carpeting as we had 5 little dogs. A few years ago the last of the dogs died but we didn’t change the flooring. During the last 3 months of 2014 we decided it was time to change the flooring so we started to buy carpets which I, & one of my brothers, put down. We then kept the old vinyl to put down on the allotments. During April I covered most of the paths on Gerry’s half plot with this vinyl making a waterproof access to any of the beds.

Vinyl covered paths on Plot 59B:

Potatoes just planted out:

Here you can see the vinyl flooring on the paths either side of this bed of potatoes. Unfortunately there won’t be enough to cover much of Gerry’s main allotment. All the paths are approximately the width of the rake head +/- 12″. This just gives me enough room to turn face forward across the width of the beds so I can reach the centre from either side without having to step on the soil when it is wet.

Views of the apple tree over shed:

This cooker, perhaps a ‘Brambly Seedling’, is now starting to flower so I took a couple of pictures which will serve to close this the first blog on the allotments I share with Gerry for this year.

The apple flowers are so pretty when seen close up I thought I’d take a really close up photo:

Next month I hope to be back with the goings on down at the plots. Till then “Keep on gardening!”

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:

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 bird food 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! 😀

I’m going to put an end to this now.

Happy New Gardening Year 2013! 🙂

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! 🙂

Gerry & Balcony’s allotment

Gerry & Balcony’s allotment

My balcony has at last become to small to keep me in check & I’ve now got half an allotment.

As you will remember from my blog Half an allotment … a friend from church, Gerry, has let me use some of the space on his allotments. I’ve now been down several times & have made a start on clearing away a space so that I can plant some lettuces & onions. The lettuce seeds are making progress & I will take them down to the allotment in a couple of weeks.

Here are some of the onion setts I have planted on the balcony. I have planted each of the individual setts in its own small pot. I’ll take them down to the allotment in a few weeks time. Then I will fill the pots again with the setts that are still waiting.

Onion setts just planted:

No sign of the cucumbers germinating yet. On the other hand it’s only been a week or so since I sowed them in the picture below.

Cucumber seeds just sown:

The Sweet Peppers have germinated well but not making much headway. I’m sure they need more light. I was thinking of putting them out on the balcony during the day when the weather suddenly changed for the worse again.

Sweet Peppers germinating:

Below is a general view of the allotment looking up from the middle towards the top. The tree is an apple tree that apparently produces a lot of apples but which is very old & neglected. Gerry said something about pruning it but I thought it would be better to leave it as it is. After so many years with no attention a certain equilibrium between the tree & pests will have built up & any pruning will upset the balance. We’re going to leave it for this year & just observe it. we will then see if we do anything to it for next year.

Apple tree:

The allotment is in quite a mess as Gerry had to have a very serious operation last summer & the allotment suffered from abandonment as he simply wasn’t in condition to go down & maintain it.

The patch below was sown with sunflowers last year & millions of weeds grew in among them! We cleared away all the remaining dead stems from last year & it is now ready to be dug over but I won’t be able to do it as the patch is far too big for me. I’m going to ask him if he has any plans for it, if he hasn’t I will see if I can use it for potatoes.

Bed to be dug over:

The lower half of this plot belongs to someone else. You can see, even at this distance, that they have done quite a bit of work on it.
The photos below are of the first small patch I began to dig over on 26th March. It’s taken me 4 sessions of various hours each to almost finish it. There is another half an hour’s work to do before the last few feet are finished.

First small patch:

It takes me so long to do a small area that a healthy person would have done in a couple of hours at most. I have to push the fork into the ground, lever it forward & then get down on one knee to lift up & turn the forkful over! I’m lucky that the soil is quite loose & seems to be in quite good heart. But trying to turn over the soil while standing up is totally impossible for me as it causes excruciating pain in my lower back. Even getting up & down for every forkful is agonizingly slow work. So I shan’t be doing much more once this plot is finished.

First small patch dug up:

It was necessary to dig it all over as it was full of perennial weeds, Dandelions especially. Now they are all out & in a few weeks time this bed will be full of the onions (see photo above, I have several more trays full like this) I now have on the balcony as well as the lettuces I’ve started.

Below is the patch almost finished. One more session will see it finished! Phew! This photo is from the 29th. I couldn’t go down on the 30/31st because of the rain.

First small patch:

Below is a photo of the autumn fruiting Raspberries – awaiting pruning! We have made a start but less than a quarter has been done as yet. In the coming days I will see if I can finish pruning them down to ground level.

Autumn Raspberry canes:

In this last photo, on this blog for the time being, the shed can be seen. As is immediately obvious it still needs to be put up! We are going to put it up at the far end of the plot as seen from this position. The place Gerry wants to put it up is beyond the Apple tree. It still needs to be levelled & the weeds present there removed. Gerry has already put down weedkiller so we should be able to clear it in the next spell of good weather. Then we will have to get someone to give us a hand to put it up.

Shed awaiting assembly:

In a few weeks time I will see about making up a continuation blog with whatever progress we have made.

Amaryllis on the allotment May 2010

Amaryllis on the allotment

I’ve started to plant my Amaryllis on the allotment.

This is what the last few look like at present on our living room table:

On Saturday I took 2 dozen plants down to the allotment. As I have no car I have to walk so I did two trips. I put them three at a time in supermarket bags & carried four bags down to the allotment. Normally it would take me 10 mins to walk from door to door but this time it must have taken me 20! I had to stop frequently to rest my poor arms! As the bags don’t have handles in the correct place it meant I had to twist them a little so they didn’t bang my legs.

Now the first 2 dozen are planted!

Between the shed & path & the Amaryllis there are a row of Daffs, now dying down. A couple of long rows of Gladioli with some Tulips between them & the Daffs. Then come the three rows of Amaryllis.

They should get plenty of light & all the sunshine the vulgarities of our British weather dispense. I hope they don’t get decimated by snails – I sometimes find the leaves have been partially eaten here on the balcony. Down on the allotments there are snails by the million!

I will lift them at the end of October or beginning of November. They need some cooler weather to provoke the bulbs to form flowers but the mustn’t get frosted. I’ll be keeping a *very* close eye on the weather forecasts from mid October onwards!!!

They looked like this a couple of weeks ago!

The first to go in were the ones that haven’t flowered yet. There were at least six of them. Then I decided to plant the Red ones to complete the first row. That is the row closed to the shed.

The next row was made up of those that had a red background with a white line along each petals. There were not many, perhaps half a dozen.

I still have a few more here at home that haven’t finished flowering just yet.

The outermost row is made up of those that have a white background with varying degrees of red veining or flushing.