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! 🙂