Allotment 2011 – My second season!

Allotment 2011 – My second season!

My second season on the allotment is now getting underway. I have been down there on occasions during the winter but as I suffer from Reynard’s Syndrome, which causes poor circulation in the extremities, I find it difficult to spend time out in the cold as I lose all circulation in my toes & fingers & it can be very painful at times.

Anyway there is little that can be done down there during the winter. I did go down on the 20th of December & this is what I saw!

The whole allotment appears to be covered in snow – actually it’s hoar frost!

Here’s a reminder of autumn! A lovely pear tree in flaming red – didn’t half light up the dismal days back then! 🙂

I went down on Boxing Day 2010 for a few minutes – too cold to do anything! I wanted to have a look at how my plants in the greenhouse were holding up.

This is how the plot looked:

Buddelia before pruning & in full flower in the middle of July 2010:

Buddelia after pruning by Gerry:

I’m very impressed by the way the Lentils & Garbanzo beans (Chick peas) took all that hard frost & snow we had in December! Yet the poor Pinto beans succumbed at the very first whiff of frost! (I’ve deleted the photos of them that I put on here as we are now coming into spring & I don’t think anybody wants a reminder of what happens when a plant is killed by frost – we’ve all seen too many of them killed off during the winter).

The green manure looks like another victim of the cold winter. I had a look today at the bed (2nd March) but I can’t make out the shapes of the mustard leaves! Plenty of weeds now though!

These tiny little Lettuces “Tom Thumb” also survived the frosts & the snow but the rain eventually did away with them & I had to pull them up as they were rotting.

New Year 2011

Now let’s get into the New Year 2011!

Here’s snapshot of some of the things I had growing in the greenhouse while looking forward to another year on the plot.

Around Christmas I sowed some onion seeds. It’s the first time ever for me! Last year I grew onions from sets – again a first for me! They did very well. I hope the onions from seed do at least as well!

Here then are the very first seedlings to be transplanted & you will see that I’ve sown some more in the tray behind the seedlings:

Today, 2nd March, I planted all the seedlings into the soil on the allotment, you can see them in the photo below:

I put some Garlic cloves into the soil on the plot around Christmas time. The ground had thawed out a little so I made holes with a broomstick handle & dropped the cloves into the holes scraping some soil over the holes but without firming down as I thought I had made the holes too deep.

I later got some more Garlic but this time I planted them in trays in the greenhouse & this is what they looked like near the end of January:

A couple of weeks ago I planted them into the beds on the allotment.

The earlier sown ones have now come up as well & this photo shows them today:

They are in two beds but occupy only about a square meter, perhaps less:

I’ve planted the seedling onions in the same bed as the Garlic cloves but continuing on down from the cloves. Although I planted dozens of onion seedlings today I still couldn’t fill up the bed!

Below you can see the seed potatoes I’ve put out to chit on the greenhouse staging. The eyes are now just beginning to grow a fraction. I don’t have a more recent photo than this one of the day I put them out on the staging:

These are called “Rocket” & are first earlies. I saw they were highly praised by people growing them & who post on the BBC Gardening boards. When I went to Wilco’s to get a bag of seed potatoes I noticed these & remembered them from there & so I bought them. I’ve been told they have very nice BLUE flowers! I’ll be sure to take some photos when they come into flower!

I’m going to wait a couple of more weeks before planting them out. I see no advantage in putting them out now into cold, sodden soil – even if it does tend to dry out pretty quickly – I don’t want them rotting!

I’ve also sown a few seeds of the Green & Red Peppers my wife brought me back from Spain last year:

Red Peppers sown 15th February:

Another variety of Red Peppers:

I was astounded by the amount of seeds in each packet. The packet says there are 5 grammes of seed in each packet – that’s 100s of seeds in each packet! – quite literally! The seeds are loose, not in a foil envelope inside but the whole packet is made of foil with the picture & instructions printed on the outside.
The first packet I opened was the Lettuces & they spilt everywhere! I managed to get most of the seeds back into the packet but there must be thousands!

I managed to sow a few but they have also come up amongst my transplanted onions!:

Here is a photo of the seeds recently germinated – not sown, you will notice that I’ve tried to modify the caption on the photo but could only add on top!:

I also sowed some of the Tomato seeds brought back from Spain by my wife. Again I’ve 100s of seeds!

I looked at the trays today but none of them show any signs of germinating at present. Perhaps the temps are too low for the moment. I’ll give them another week or 10 days before I sow some more at home & put them in the airing cupboard to germinate!

To finish I’m going to put in a couple of photos of the new strawberry bed I made up last autumn & my “traditional” photo taken of the plot from the shed!

New Strawberry bed after the winter & in desperate need of weeding if we are to get any Strawberries this year!

After an hour or so of hard graft this is now what it looks like:

I shall now stay on top of it & this will be the last time it gets into such a state – at least while I look after it!
Last year when I started my series of fortnightly blogs I added a last photo of the view as I saw it from the shed. As a lot of people liked that I’ve decided I’d do the same this year – at least until August when the Raspberries will block the view down the plot.

Actually this is not the most recent photo ( I haven’t taken any more yet) as since taking it I have cut the Raspberry canes right back to soil level & cleaned up all the leaves & weeds from the bed. They are just now beginning to sprout once again. These are autumn fruiting canes.

Well that’s the end of this first instalment for this year! Hope you won’t find it boring, I’ve tried to make it interesting but your comments are most welcome.

Until next month then. Enjoy your new growth & the spring flowers.