Spring & a new start to the growing season on the plot

Spring & a new start to the growing season on the plot

Yes, Spring has sprung in the NH (Northern Hemisphere) & we are making a new start to the growing season on the allotments! Have you been itching to get your hands dirty again? I know I have! But I have difficulty getting down to the plot I share with my friend, Gerry, from church.

At the end of of September 2015 he gave up his half plot to concentrate on his one whole plot. Two years before I’d also given up my half plot as I found I couldn’t manage it & Gerry’s 1 & 1/2 plots. He’d had a very serious operation & for more than a year he found it too much to spend more than a couple of hours a week on his plots. I’d also found my time was very much compromised with other activities – very often related to our grandchildren.

The last 6 months I’ve also had health problems & have had to make several visits to the local hospital for tests on my bladder. This is still ongoing & a satisfactory cure has still to be found.

In January it occurred to me I could plant out the onion sets I’d bought before Christmas in a seed tray in the greenhouse on Gerry’s allotment. Although I wouldn’t be able to plant them out for a few weeks I thought they would be able to make a start & gain a few weeks on the season. As it turned out they had to stay in the seedtray in the GH for much longer than I had thought at first!

I filled a seedtray/flat with compost to overflowing & filled the tray with the biggest of the sets:

They must have spent the better part of 3 months in the GH! The onion sets were really crying out for more space by the time I was able to finally plant them out!

I’d also sown a 2nd tray with the remaining onion sets – these were smaller than the first sowing but, even though they hadn’t grown nearly as much, I planted them out on the same day as the first sowing & the Garlics. It will be interesting to see if there is much difference between the plantings at harvest time.

Back in the autumn of 2015 I started to dig in some horse manure that Gerry manages to get hold of. I was only able to do half this bed before the rains started & I started with my waterworks problems. So I used this half bed for my Onions & Garlic.

The Garlic weren’t nearly as bad:

I planted out the Garlic cloves alongside the Onion sets. Even though it’s not easy to see they are on the left of the photo, alongside the piece of blue string:

At the same time as I sowed the Onion sets & the Garlic I also sowed a tray of Beetroot seeds. They say you shouldn’t disturb the roots of Beetroot & for that reason they are usually sown “in situ”. Yet I’ve never found much in the way of problems doing this. I’ve been doing it for the 7 years I’ve been working with Gerry on his allotment plots as well as the 2 years on my own plot. I’ve sown some directly in the soil each year but I can’t say the results have been all that good.

This year I bought a big packet of Beetroot seeds in a mixture. There are yellow beets as well as white & one with pink & white rings. There are also long ones & short ones so it will be fun later when it comes to picking them!

The half bed that didn’t get any manure I’ve filled with the Beetroot seedlings & two rows of seeds:

I got enough seedlings to fill two half rows along the length of half a bed. I know they are very difficult to see but I assure you they are there! (on the right):

I sowed quite a few seeds in the two rows on the left but they haven’t germinated just yet:

At the present moment that is all I’ve done on the allotment for this year. I know Gerry wants to sow his potatoes but he heard Monty Don on the BBC Gardening World programme advise people not to be too quick in sowing them as the soil is still quite cold, so he has put off sowing them for the time being.

I don’t have any potatoes to sow. I put in a few Strawberry plants in the bed in front of the shed under the apple tree but I don’t know how well they will do this year. I weeded them a bit the last time I was down on the plot but they probably need a bit more attention.

In the same bed there are lots of spring bulbs that are presently flowering:

In a few weeks’ time the bright red Tulips will also be flowering – as they do every year!

Well these bright spring flowers mark the end of this first blog of the year on the allotment. As there is only the one plot this year the updates will be less frequent, (do I hear a sigh of relief?), but I will write an occasional blog & show you our work & produce.

Happy gardening everyone!

The new season on the plots 2014

The new season on the plots 2014

We are now well under way into a new season of veg growing on our plots so I thought I’d start a new blog here & at the same time record some of the things I’m doing on my own allotment, ‘Plot 12A’, as well as on my friend Gerry’s plots. I’ve mentioned before that I help him on his 1 & 1/2 allotment plots. I’ll recount some of our activity here as well.

View up Plot 58 from our shed:

I don’t seem to have taken a photo of Plot 58 from the top so I’ll use this photo of “View up Plot 58 from our shed” to give a little impression of what the plot looks like. Although the photo was taken two weeks ago little has changed in that time as we have concentrated our attention on the smaller half plot 59B.

The autumn/fall of 2013 & the winter of 2014 broke records all over the UK for the wettest since records began! It has also been a exceptionally mild winter & there have hardly been any frosts – especially in this part of the UK. The allotments field is a fair bit lower than the surrounding houses, up to almost a metre in parts. This is especially relevant in October & May when we tend to get frost earlier & later, respectively, than the gardens of the houses above us. We therefore have to contend with a frost trap which, in essence – puts an end to our frost tender plantings about the middle of October & also stops us from planting out frost susceptible plants, like beans & Sweet Corn, till the middle of May most years. We therefore only have a window of 6 months max in which to sow, plant, grow & harvest our crops, the other 6 months it is difficult to grow many things.

Due to the very wet winter we haven’t been able to anything on our plots which has put us well behind compared with other years. Nevertheless during this month of March as the weather has improved, & the plots have very good drainage, we have been able to make a start on clearing the weeds that grew during the mild winter & sowing our first few crops. Like most years it has been the first early potatoes we have planted first of all.

About the middle of March Gerry planted a bed full of seed potatoes that he had been adding horse manure to. These were First Early ‘Pentland Javelin’. These he sowed in the first bed, near the plot division.

Potatoes 1st Early ‘Pentland Javelin’ just planted out:

Since then he has worked on improving a couple of more beds with horse manure where he intends to plant more seed potatoes but this time maincrop potatoes ‘Picassa’. As these potatoes generally go in later than the earlies, he wants to get the beds ready before the weather turns wet once again & so that he can also concentrate on some other beds for future crops.

Lettuce ‘Little Gem’ seedlings & Crocuses under the small apple tree in front of the greenhouse:

The Lettuce seedlings were planted out at the same time in the greenhouse & under the apple tree. See the difference between these growing outside & these others growing in the greenhouse (photos taken same day!):

A few days ago I put up a heavy net that has been laying around in the shed for a year at least. As the winds & rains had broken down the finer mesh net I put up last year, to first protect Pea seeds from the pigeons & then to give support to the plants, I removed the rests of the netting & canes & put up this new net in its place. There are Sweetpea seedlings growing from the last year’s plants growing there & I’ve lifted them up from the ground & placed them on the netting in the hope they will continue to grow & later flower.

New net on plot division 58B:

Like Gerry I’ve been working on my own plot as well as helping him. About the same time as Gerry I also planted out a bed of first earlies, in my case some ‘Rocket’ & ‘Pentland Javelin’.

Potatoes 1st Early ‘Rocket’ being sown at far end of plot 12A:

Potatoes 1st Early ‘Pentland Javelin’ being sown at far end of plot 12A:

But I also planted some onion sets at the end of February:

Onion sets ‘Setton’ just sown:

I noticed a week ago that these have now sprouted:

At the time I planted the onion sets I also planted out seeds of Broadbeans ‘Aquadulce Claudia’:

When I last looked, last week about Tuesday, there were no signs of them sprouting yet – something that concerns me as after 4 weeks of being in the ground they should have germinated by now.

Last week I also planted some more onion sets, on my allotment & also on Gerry’s. On both allotments I sowed a complete bed the width of the plots & about 4ft wide. The sets were planted approx 6″ apart . I got 4 rows in each bed. These sets are called ‘Stuttgarter’.

Onion sets ‘Stuttgarter’ just sown:

At the same planting distances we got some really big onions last year!

Plum tree ‘Black Czar’ blossoming:

This tree is near the top of Gerry’s main allotment. I expect the yellow Plums will be flowering during the coming week also.

Last look back at winter on the plots – at the end of March!

Last look back at winter on the plots – at the end of March!

I thought we’d take a last look at the plots after the winter, (now that the Spring has supposedly sprung!), starting in January 2013:

Leeks & Lentils at beginning of January on Plot 12A:

View along Plot 12A from top, beginning of January:

View along my plot from the top, middle of the month:

Here are some photos from February:

Leek bed a month later:

A Before photo just prior to harvesting a couple of rows:

An After photo of the Leek bed once a row or two were harvested:

The same bed of Leeks but harvested on the first day of March:

Beetroot ‘Baby Solis’ harvested & chucked straight on the compost heap!

These poor Beets were totally useless even if they don’t look too bad in the photo.

Last year was a total waste of time & space for me trying to grow Beetroot! I’d sown MUCH more than in previous years but harvested practically nothing!

Middle of the month: Carrots & Parsnips sown:

Might seem a strange time to sow Carrots but I was itching to put some seeds in & thinking March was just around the corner & the weather would be quickly warming up (!) &, having many packets of Carrot seed & several of Parsnips, I thought I could risk sowing some now. “If they don’t survive,” I thought, “nothing really lost as I’ve plenty more I can sow later.” Just as well as they are unlikely to germinate after weeks of winter weather all through February & March!

A few photos of my plot, 12A, in March:

We had a couple of dry, if rather cold, days at the beginning of March so I took advantage of them to dig in the last of the manure Gerry had brought down a couple of days earlier. I wanted to plant my new potatoes ‘Rocket’ in this bed. I’d started to dig in the horse manure in the middle of February, just before the snow came down, but was unable to finish it till about 3 weeks later.

New/Early Potatoes ‘Rocket’ being planted out at beginning of March, 1st row:

New/Early Potatoes ‘Rocket’ being planted out at beginning of March, 2nd row:

Second bed from the far end of the plot being manured:

Unknown Potatoes planted out in 2nd bed from the far end:

These potatoes came from the online shopping my wife does. She ordered new potatoes & when we saw them they were already sprouting! I kept about a pound of them back that were more the size of seed potatoes & put them in the 2nd tray of ‘Rocket’ that I had chitting in the kitchen. I planted them out once I’d finishing preparing the bed about a week after the ‘Rocket’ seeds were put in.

Onion sets ‘Sturon’ just planted out:

Planting these Onion sets was almost the very last thing I’ve been able to do on my own plot:

Broadbeans planted out:

This was the last time I was able to do anything on my plot during March owing to the extremely cold, strong winds that plagued us all of the month.

I only had 15 plants that had been growing in cardboard tubes in the greenhouse on Gerry’s allotment. I was going to plant out the last of the seeds directly in the soil but I’ve been unable to find them!

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Gerry’s plot during the first 3 months of 2013:

This is how the year/month began:

Still here!:

Snow on the greenhouse!:

I tried to write the date in the snow on the greenhouse roof but it starting breaking up before I could finish:

There were several inches of snow covering everything!

Now a few from February:

Bed after being dug over:

I started to dig this bed over during a short spell of dry but frosty weather in December but I couldn’t finish it. I spent half an hour digging but got less than half done before I was forced to give up because of the intense cold.

This bed had bugged me for weeks but, finally, I was able to complete it! I felt very relieved when I’d finished! Now it has a pile of manure waiting to be dug in!

Bed of Leeks & Lentils near the greenhouse:

There are actually two beds chock-a-block full of Leeks & Lentils.

Brussels Sprouts:

I managed to harvest some sprouts form these plants but the majority came from the one plant that escaped the netting! Although these have been under the netting since I planted them out all the leaves have been eaten away! I saw no caterpillars on them – I don’t see how they could have got through the fine netting anyhow!

Victoria Plum trees:

Some lovely blue sky, quite a rarity during the last three months!

Daffodils & Tulips sprouting & rests of Gladioli:

This bed right outside the shed looked a real mess & was another of those things that bugged me for a long time! I feel a great deal of satisfaction once I’ve been able to finish whatever it is that bugs me!

Daffodils & Tulips sprouting & no more rests of Gladioli:

Some views of the plot in March:

The same bed as above but nearly a month later:

Onion sets ‘Sturon’ just planted out:

Onion sets ‘Stuttgarter Giant Karmen’ sown:

To finish this blog I’m including some Crocuses that sneaked into the allotment in some old compost I brought down from my balcony!

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

Not much to show for three months but then I’ve hardly set a foot on the allotments since October 2012! This has been mostly due to the record amount of rainfall during November & December which continued into the New Year. January brought a lot of snow making it totally impossible any work. February was very cold as well & I wasn’t able to do much & March has been so windy & terribly cold that I’ve hardly been able to do anything either.

I hope to start my monthly series of allotment blogs from the end of next month & I hope I’ll be able to show a little more progress than I’ve made over the last 5 months!

Plot 12A Marching – marching on!

Plot 12A Marching – marching on!

‘Rocket’ seed potatoes on Plot 12A

I planted out my ‘Rocket’ seed potatoes about 10 days ago, on 2nd March. I had intended to plant them a week earlier but the weather was against me:

1st row planted:

2nd row put in:

Both rows now covered up & markers put in place:

Like last year I will put some plastic half hoops over them & cover them with fleece. I didn’t have time to do that on Saturday (9th).

On Saturday I also put in some unknown variety that we got with our weekly shopping some weeks ago. They were New potatoes but a lot of them were sprouting. As I had a trayful of ‘Rocket’ chitting in the kitchen & a 2nd tray with just a couple of rows, I thought I would take a chance on planting some of these. I put some in the 2nd tray & now they are in the ground:

On the subject of potatoes I bought some at a Potato Fair a couple of weeks ago:

They are both maincrop varieties: Picasso & Red Cara:

Picasso had been recommended to Gerry as being one of the best potatoes for our region by a man who grew them all his life so we both bought some:

Red Cara is described as being fairly resistant to blight which is why I bought it. I hope it lives up to its description:

I left them in the darkest, coolest place in our flat. I took the bag out this morning to find they had all got long sprouts on them! That was a big surprise!

Red Cara sprouting:

Picasso sprouting:

I have nowhere in the flat to put them out in the light so they will have to go down to the greenhouse on the allotment, be put in trays & then covered with a couple of layers of fleece as this week we are expecting sub zero (Celsius) temps all week. :-(( I have no bed prepared for them as I hadn’t planned on planting them till after Easter. The weather has been against us gardeners all winter. I’m at least 4 months behind with the preparation & planting.

I harvested some of the Leeks growing on my plot this month:

I was able to put in a bedful of Onion sets ‘Sturon’ last Saturday, too:

Onion sets ‘Sturon’:

Now in the ground:

Carrots & Parsnips were sown in a very narrow bed that hasn’t had any manure or compost added. I just broke up the soil to the depth of a fork, levelled it off & made a couple of furrows with a hoe & sowed them. As luck would have it we didn’t have a drop of rain in a couple of weeks! Typical British weather!

Although this blog is all about my plot I can’t help but ending with a photo of some Daffodils & Crocuses flowering on my balcony at home as there are no flowers on the plot at the present time:

Though there will be lots of Daffs & some Tulips on Gerry’s plot over the coming weeks.

Happy spring gardening to everyone.

The Summer Allotments (June 2012)

The Summer Allotments (June 2012)

This blog I hope will make up a little for my absence from GoY (Growsonyou.com) during the last couple of months! As many of you will know it has been because I found myself a new job – as a carer – of our 5 year old granddaughter! An 8 to 5 job 5 days a week! Monday, 3rd September, was the last day I had my job – till the end of October!

During the summer I’ve only been able to spend a few hours a week on our allotments! The bad weather has also impeded me on occasions as well. Nevertheless I’ve been able to get lots of photos.

As I’ve so much to talk about (!) & so many photos I thought I’d divide this blog in 3 parts! So each part will be dedicated to one summer month – starting with June.

Broad Beans:

We had two varieties of these beans; an unknown one Gerry brought down (He’d lost the packet!) as established plants from his greenhouse at home, I had also grown some in the greenhouse on the allotment called Aquadulce Claudia. I received my bean seeds in a swap organised on another gardening forum where I also post.

Here are both varieties, now with pods:

Aquadulce Claudia:

Unknown variety:

Here is a picture of both varieties showing the difference in colour between them:

Here is a picture of both varieties after I finished shucking them:

Cucumbers & Water Melons in the greenhouse border:

At the end of May I decided to plant out a few Cucumber & Water Melon plants in the greenhouse border:

Here is a photo of the very first Cucumber fruit:

Garlic:

My Garlic was looking ever so good at the beginning of June:

By the end of the month they were looking very sad for themselves & were covered in Allium Rust. After a bit of “detective work” on the internet I discovered that they were alright as long as it hadn’t entered the bulbs:

Gerry’s Brassicas:

One day around the middle of June Gerry came down to the allotment with lots of Brassica plants – only he didn’t know WHAT TYPE OF BRASSICA they were!

I can’t tell the difference, at this stage, either!

Here they are again a couple of weeks later – with Pinto beans germinating amongst them as well! This view is taken from the opposite end of the bed from the picture above, you can already see the difference in the Brassicas!:

Pinto beans:

I’ve found that these beans give a very good crop so I’ve sown them in several beds at different times:

Pulses:

Pinto, Garbanzo beans & Lentils:

Why are the 3 types all planted together you ask? Well our granddaughter likes to prepare Real Food for her dolls’ picnic & my wife gives her a couple of handfuls of these pulses & some white rice. She insists on mixing them altogether with water! When she goes home I gather them all up & the next day take them down to the allotment & sow them!

These are not for harvesting really, except perhaps the beans, but for green manure which I’ll dig in later.

Lettuce ‘Paris Island Cos‘:

I sowed some Lettuce seeds in the greenhouse in February but this photo is included here so that you can see the name of this variety & also realise I haven’t made a mistake with its name:

Here they are just before I planted them out in the plot (These seedlings may not be the result of the sowing in the photo above. I made a number of sowings & I may not have taken photos of each one, but they are the same variety):

After planting them out they were critically inspected by Mr Robin! I think they met with his approval as he didn’t scold me while I was taking his photo:

Onion from sets ‘Sturon’

During March my brother, Ken, spent a few weeks with us & he helped me on the allotments. He really was a Godsend as without his help during that month I would have fallen so far behind that little of what I grew would have been planted in time! He helped me plant these Onions, which came as sets:

A month later & you can see the progress they have made in 4 weeks!:

Early Potatoes

I planted 2 varieties of potatoes of early potatoes in a bed close to the greenhouse. Gerry, as is frequent with him, wasn’t sure of the name of the variety he bought at a garden centre. There was an offer in which you could fill a plastic flowerpot with as many seed potatoes as you could get in it – twice – as the offer was 2 pots for the price of one! Gerry thinks they may have been ‘Picasa’ but he wasn’t sure:

The two varieties in the same bed at beginning of June:

The two varieties in the same bed at the end of the month:

‘Arran Pilot’ is in the rows on the left of the picture:

Potatoes King Edward:

Potatoes Rocket:

Potatoes Arran Pilot flowering:

Potatoes can also be very pretty when flowering:

Pumpkins at top of plot:

A guy from across the central path in the allotments field gave me a couple of Pumpkin plants as he had more than enough. As I didn’t really have space elsewhere at that time I decided I’d put them at the top of Gerry’s allotment being the only space free as the rest of the allotment had been planted up by that time:

Sweetcorn ‘Swift F1’:

At the beginning of the month Gerry brought down, & planted out, a lot of Sweetcorn, ‘Swift F1’, plants that he had been growing in his greenhouse at home:

Here they are at the end of the month &, in spite of the cold, wet month we had, they have grown tremendously!:

Sunflowers behind shed:

Gerry brought down a half bucket of Sunflower seeds saved from the plants on the allotment last year. His birds didn’t eat as much as he expected & it seems that even the wild birds didn’t eat as many as other years. So he had lots of seed left! I planted a few rows of them behind our shed & a few rows in another part of the allotment:

Sunflowers in another part of the allotment:

Sweetpeas ‘Royal Family’:

The Sweetpeas my brother planted out for me in March are now flowering:

Tomatoes & Marigolds:

I planted out these Tomato plants for Gerry at the end of May. As the year before we had lots of Marigolds & Tagetes growing amongst our tomatoes, to attract the White Fly, I repeated the idea this year using saved seed from last year only they turned out to be Tagetes when they flowered & not Marigolds!

Lavenders, Calendulas, Cosmos, China Pinks & Verbena bonariensis at top of Gerry’s plot:

View along plot from shed:

I’ll finish here this L-O-N-G blog of Gerry’s allotment during June with my traditional photo along the plot from the shed:

Thank you for bearing with me & I hope you found this blog interesting.

Onions grown from seed: Alisa Craig

Onions grown from seed: Alisa Craig

I thought it would be fun to do a monoblog on just one vegetable. As I have photos for every month I thought I would show you just how my onions developed from the day they were sown till the day I harvested them & later cleaned them up at home & put the weight on the last photo.

So here is the 1st photo of when I sowed them in a seedtray in the greenhouse on Gerry’s allotment:

Germination 3 weeks later:

About 5 weeks later I transplanted them into my own allotment, Plot 12A:

Here they are well established after about another 3 weeks:

About a month later – making good progress:

Some 6 weeks separate the photo above from this one:

Here’s the final photo of them in the ground – ripening nicely:

Here they are just having been harvested:

The final photo – after a good clean up:

As you can see I got almost 4kg of onions in 6 months from seed to harvest!

I also sowed 3 bags of onion sets but I’m not going to write about them here, suffice it to say we are now  swimming in onions!!!

Allotments during April – May 2012

Allotments during April – May 2012

I had a nasty experience on the plot the other week! I was shifting compost from the heap to the bed I was making up for beans in a few weeks time. On the 2nd or 3rd trip with the barrow chock-a-block with compost I found it was impossible to push it! After struggling for a few minutes I looked at the wheel – I had a puncture! Fortunately a fellow allotmenteer lets us use his barrow so I had to go over & get it & transfer the compost from one to the other! As his barrow is smaller than ours I had to make two trips!

On one of the previous trips – now I think about it that was when it must have happened – I found a pane of glass from the greenhouse had fallen out & I’d had to stop & pick up all the broken pieces.

Around about that time also I had a third accident I stepped on a piece of iron with rusty nails in it & one nail went through my shoe into my foot! Fortunately it was at a point where I have quite a thick callous & when I checked my foot I didn’t find any blood on my sock, (I was wearing white sports socks), nor when I took them off to go to bed later that night. I was worried about Tetanus at first but, seeing as there was no blood, there should be no danger. I had my last booster about 5 years ago so I should be alright.

My brother, who has been helping me out for the last few weeks, wasn’t there at the time. But his work has been invaluable! He really has been a Godsend!

Gerry’s Broad Beans

Just planted out …

A fortnight later …

Another 3 weeks have gone by …

Daffodils & Tulips:

Gerry’s Daffodils & Tulips looked fantastic at the end of March & they have continued through all of April though they had finished at the start of May:

Daffodils & Tulips beside our shed with Rhubarb plants:

Here you can see the Tulips in full flower in front of our shed:

Onion sets ‘Sturon’:

These were planted by my brother, Ken & myself …

Here they are 5-6 weeks later:

Early potatoes

Gerry got 2 green pots full of seed potatoes which I calculated to weigh about 3kg each but we don’t know what variety they are.

Here is the ‘Unknown variety’ (from the green pot) now sprouting as well as my ‘Arran Pilot’ …

He also brought down a couple of bags of 1st Early ‘Rocket’ which Ken planted for him on St Patrick’s Day! Last year I discovered that St Patrick’s Day was the traditional day for putting in the first seed potatoes. It was just sheer coincidence that we planted them that day as it was a beautifully sunny, warm Saturday morning & many of our fellow allotmenteers took advantage of the day to plant theirs as well!

This photo is of ‘Rocket’ at the bottom of the 1/2 allotment Gerry has …

Here are the same spuds a few weeks later …

This photo is of ‘Rocket’ at the top part of the 1/2 allotment Gerry has …

Here are the same spuds a few weeks later …

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My own allotment – Plot 12A

These Beetroot ‘Bolthardy’ were planted out in early autumn & have been there all winter …

Here is the result of the Beetroot once harvested …

The only problem is that they had started to ‘bolt’! I took them home & cooked them but they were, for the most part, totally & absolutely tasteless! UGH!!! I had to throw the majority away! I’d been looking forward to eating my first Beets of the year as well!

Beetroot ‘Bolthardy’ seedlings:

These Beetroot ‘Bolthardy’ seedlings were put into the ground at the beginning of April …

Here they are just a few weeks later …

These are the same plants a few weeks later …

Lettuce Paris Island Cos:

I’ll show you more photos very shortly.

It’s all go now that spring has sprung!

It’s all go now that spring has sprung!

As most of you will know that is the pure truth for us gardeners! Now that we also have the extra hour of light in the evening & the lengthening days when the sun is getting stronger & we notice the difference day by day we are desperate to get out & get our hands dirty!

I’ve had little to say about the allotments during the winter but that is now about to change. I will try to bring you up to date on what I’ve been doing over the winter & the helper who has been a real Godsend to me during the last month or so.

I hope to start my fortnightly blogs on the allotments I share with Gerry & my very own half allotment, Plot 12A.

How should I do it I wonder??? Should I make a weekly blog, alternating Gerry’s plots with Plot 12A, my own plot? Or should I “mix ‘n’ match” them both in the same fortnightly blogs. I think perhaps I’ll start this new season of blogs with the “mix ‘n’ match” approach as there is so much to mention.

Let’s make a start with my very own plot 12A as this has undergone the greatest transformation:

First a look at what Plot 12A looked like when I first took it over in September 2011:

The first 3 photos give you an idea of what work I had to contend with at the start & the state of the plot whose tenancy I took on in September 2011. This is just a quick look, month by month, of what I’ve done since. Please bear with me:

This first photo shows the first of the old Raspberry beds that I dug up as they were terribly overgrown & would never produce any decent crops in the future:

This 2nd photo is a view of the bed above now finished. It took me a long time because first I had to skim off the Couch grass or Twitch & the old Raspberry canes. Having done that I had to dig over the bed with a fork trying to remove as much as possible of the roots of both these plants. When that was complete I had to go back over the bed & add horse & chicken manure. Once that was done it was a case of raking it more or less level & then covering it with soil improver:

As Gerry was able to make several trips to get hold of horse manure & soil improver I dug the former in each bed & then, after covering the beds, I used soil improver to fill up the paths between beds making it much easier to access them without standing on the soil:

As my daughter was able to get hold of a couple of really big packing cases from the firm where she works & Gerry was able to bring them down to the plot I was able to start laying out the wooden boards to make up the raised beds I wanted to do:

Here is one of the beds after I had put in the temporary pegs to hold the boards in place as I went along:

Many of you will still recall the heavy snow & frosts we had in February. Well this is how my plot looked at that time. Snow stopped work:

At the beginning of March one of my brothers came down from Northants & stayed with us for some weeks. Thanks to his work on my allotment I was able to get an awful lot more work done than if he hadn’t have helped me. That allowed me to get my very first crop of new potatoes into the ground. He cut the hoops to size for me & even pushed them into the ground:

Finally here is my helper, Ken, as he was finishing off the remodelled compost heap. The compost bin has now been completed & the plot is practically finished.

That then has been a quick run through of the work that has been done on Plot 12A since September 2011 to March 2012.

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Gerry’s allotments Spring 2012

Now I shall add a few photos from Gerry’s allotments & a few comments.

Gerry dumped the soil conditioner he brought in his trailer here, at the very top of his plot. I’ve already removed a great deal of it in this photo but you can get an idea of what it is like:

This soil conditioner is made from the composted green material that the local council collects all over the county & which is composted on a site they have a couple of miles from Huntingdon, where we live. This is an industrial process & the resulting material is sterile & probably doesn’t contain nutrients for the plants but it makes an excellent mulch! It won’t allow weeds through either, well, at least not the annual ones. Most perennial weeds have been removed during the last few years I’ve worked on the plots with Gerry:

Gerry bought some new potatoes, ‘Rocket’, which are 1st Earlies & my brother, Ken, planted them for him:

At the beginning of March Gerry brought down some Broad beans which I put in the soil. I don’t know the name of the variety & he doesn’t remember! After planting them out I then covered the ground with soil conditioner:

I also planted some Broad beans, Aquadulce Claudia, of my own that I had received in a swap with a gardener on another forum where I also post. I planted them alongside Gerry’s as I want to compare how the plants do & the final yield we obtain from them:

At the end of March the Rhubarb alongside the shed is beginning to grow strongly & there was a nice clump of bright yellow Daffs. I thought they made a good photo opportunity & something to cheer up a rather dismal looking plot at the present moment:

A short time ago I bought a 2nd bag of seed potatoes. The first bag, ‘Rocket’, I put in on my own plot at the very beginning of March. These spuds are also 1st Earlies but they are called ‘Arran Pilot’. They have been planted a month after ‘Rocket’.

I used a very thick dibber to plant them in a bed filled with compost. After I finished putting them in I watered the soil back down over them. The compost & the soil were very dry in spite of some rain a few days before. After I had finished watering them in I covered the whole bed in a thick layer of soil conditioner which I hope will allow them to go through their growing period without further watering. I’m doing my very best to use as little water as possible this summer:

The Onion sets, ‘Sturon’, which we planted between Ken & myself in the bed just in front of the greenhouse, are now beginning to grow. I lost my seed onions, ‘Alisa Craig’, to a mouse that got into the GH & dug all the seedling out of the compost & left them to die on the surface of the compost one weekend. So I got some sets. I’ve also planted some sets in my plot & have another bag I must sow in the next few days:

Some of you may remember we have a couple of Fig trees growing on the allotments. As we have had late frosts for two years in a row during May I decided that this year I would try & do something to stop them getting frosted this year. So when Gerry brought down a couple of bags of horticultural fleece I thought I’d use it to cover the trees & hopefully stop them from getting frosted the following spring. That’s why they look like “wigwams”! The bed has been covered in soil conditioner to stop the weeds from coming up amongst the Raspberry canes.

View from the Shed

To finish this first blog of the new growing season I’m including one of my “traditional” photos of the “View from the Shed” that I try to end my blogs with:

Here then are some lovely Daffs that contrast so strongly with the rather dismal scene of the rest of the allotment as seen from the shed on a misty day!

Please leave comments on the blog below. *ALL* comments are welcome. Until next time, happy gardening to one & all.

End of first season on Plot 12A

End of first season on Plot 12A

I’m now coming to the end of my first season on the new half plot I got from the Town Council on the 1st of September 2011.

Even if I dare say so myself, I’ve done quite a bit of work & transformed it completely! There’s little to see in the way of plantings as I’ve been concentrating on clearing away the very old overgrown Raspberry beds. Thanks to an exceptionally mild & dry November I’ve been able to do much more than I could have ever imagined when I took the plot on four months ago!

Ex-Raspberry plot 1st to be dug & manured:

All the Raspberry beds have been dug out & the roots removed. The couch grass (twitch) has been dug out as much as possible, but, as we all know, for as much as you try to remove every tiny trace of root, lots always remains & in the spring I expect it will be as green as a bowling green! The very first bed I dug up has sprouted a generous crop of grass!

First & second beds dug & manured:

It is hard work, very hard work clearing away the Raspberry canes & even worse digging out the Couch grass! As my back isn’t in very good condition I have to stop for a breath & a rest after practically every forkful!!! It’s a real fight trying to get the grass roots apart sufficiently so as to be able to lift the mass out of the soil. I have to rock the fork backwards & forwards several times on two sides before I can get down to getting the spit of soil & roots out! An exhausting task, even for a person half my age!

The First bed refers to the very first bed I dug up & manured. It wasn’t part of the Raspberry beds. The Second bed is the first of the Raspberry beds to be dug up & manured. Hope that clears up doubts as to the numbering of the beds!

The First bed was planted with a few Strawberry plants at its far end whereas none of the old Raspberry beds have anything planted in them. This bed is also at the furthest end of my half plot, there is a division put up by the council gardeners which is clearly visible in the photos.

Third bed dug & manured:

This is actually the Second bed of the old Raspberry beds. It’s the third bed from the end of the plot. There’s nothing planted in it at present.

View of bed alongside Compost heap:

Here is where my plot (12A) actually starts. The main path for cars & dividing the allotments field in two down the centre is on the far side of my compost heap. I will have to do something about it in a few months’ time as it is far too big at present. Dividing it into two/three parts seems to me to be the most sensible thing to do. First I will have to empty it! Unfortunately it is totally infested with Bindweed!

Horse manure being dug in:

This is the very first bed from the beginning of the plot. It was really choked up with Bindweed & Couch grass. I dug it all over trying to remove as much of the roots as possible. Later I dug it over a 2nd time adding the horse manure.

Bed finished digging in manure:

It took me two days work but now it’s finished! That was just digging in the manure!

View of manured section:

A couple of weeks later the 2 beds here are finished & the manuring has been finished. The 2nd bed was full of several rows of Onion sets. After weeding them & getting out as much as was possible of the Bindweed roots I pulled the loosened soil up around the necks of the plants to stabilize them. Since then I’ve mulched them with soil improver & they look 100% better!

Strawberry plants just planted out:

These Strawberry plants come mostly from the plants that Gerry had in pots in his GH at home. He brought them down to the GH on the allotment where they spent about 6 months. I put them outside when they started to flower but brought them inside again when the runners started to root into the grass around the GH! I put the runners into pots & pegged down other that hadn’t rooted yet. That way I got a whole load of new plants to put in this bed.

Strawberries mulched with soil improver:

A couple of weeks later Gerry brought a load of sacks of Soil Improver down to the allotment & I used a couple of sacks to mulch around the Strawberries & the Calendulas.

Calendulas & Strawberry plants on Christmas Eve:

Here is the most up to date photo I have of this bed which was taken on Christmas Eve.

To end this blog I’m including a series of photos of the bed that contained Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings when I took over the tenancy in September.

Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings 16th September:

Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings 5th October:

Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings 23rd November:

Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings 3rd December:

Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings Christmas Eve:

Sometime in the New Year I will continue to make updates but almost certainly the next Episode in this saga won’t be until Spring is officially here!

Allotment 2011 – My second season! April – May!

Allotment 2011 – My second season! April – May!

I haven’t written a blog on the allotment for several months now so I’ll make up for lost time by making this a double blog. I hope to go back to fortnightly blogs in June.

March was a rather disagreeable month with rain & cold weather but April was, officially, the hottest April on record since they began 130 years ago! The soil on the plot looks & feels like grey sand! Near the end of May now & still we have had no rain! We have had a few very light showers which have made absolutely no difference to the soil & I have to cart cans of water around the plot. Last Saturday, 21st, I spent over 2 hours watering the plot!

I’ll make a start by showing some of the changes that have taken place since my last blog in March:

It wasn’t my intention to include frosted potatoes at the start of this blog! No, what I meant to show was the Buddleia that Gerry cut back so very drastically last autumn! Up to now only one of the 3 stumps he left has sprouted. Just as well because I planted potatoes all around the area it covered when in full growth last year!

Although it doesn’t show up very well on this reduced size photo, two rows of potato tops were badly damaged by the frost we had on the night of 4th May:

Onions Alisa Craig:

Lettuce Cos “Ruboneo”:

This is the Lettuce variety that my wife brought me back from Spain last September.

Lettuce Cos “Ruboneo” seedlings before & after planting out:

Same day:

Here they are – a month later!

Three weeks later, in May!

Garlic:

Beetroot:

Just this week I’ve noticed that one of the plants in this patch is bolting!

Onion sets Turbo:

Gerry brought a couple of bags of Onion sets down to the plot & I planted them for him:

Beginning of April 2011:

3 weeks later:

1 month later (end of May):

Sweet Peppers:

Bed 1:

Bed 2:

Three Sisters:

Have you ever heard of the Three Sisters method of planting? It consists of planting a spreading plant (Water Melon in my case), Sweet Corn & then a climbing bean (which uses the Corn to climb up). I’m trying it out this year for the first time. The beans haven’t germinated yet giving the Corn time to grow tall before the beans start climbing.

Potatoes Earlies ‘Rocket’ in front of shed:

Day of sowing (end of March):

No photos during April!

Now at beginning of May:

10 days later:

2 days afterwards:

View from shed:

Here are some views up the plot from inside the shed:

1st April – still looking rather bleak!

Three weeks later!:

Tomorrow I’ll take one for May. I haven’t got around to doing one this month!

End of May:

There you have, in a nutshell (a rather big one!), the progress made on the plot during April & May 2011.

I hope to go back to fortnightly blog in June. So watch out around the middle of the month for my next instalment!
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