Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Gerry’s allotments on 6th February 2012

Allotments field under snow seen from Entrance gates:

This is the first view you get of the allotments field as you arrive at the gates. Not very encouraging!

Allotments field under snow: General view:

Another view of the allotments field covered in a thick blanket of snow (3-4″):

Gerry’s Plot under snow as seen from the top looking down along its length:

A general view over Gerry’s allotment. I grew potatoes on this piece of the plot last year, where the plot number marker is. I’ve been told that many years ago a former tenant kept pigs here!

Gerry’s Plot under snow as seen from the top looking down along its length:

This is a view of the whole allotment that Gerry has & where we have put the greenhouse & the shed. This is a complete plot & goes all the way down to the hedge at the very bottom.

Gerry’s Plot under snow as seen from the top looking down along its length:

Although the view is similar to the previous photo above it is in fact angled more to the right where the allotment is divided into 2 halves. Gerry has the top half behind the division where we had Sweetpeas & Morning Glory last year. Where you can see the “wigwams”!

The half nearest you belongs to another lady & her daughter.

Purple sprouting Broccoli under the snow:

Unfortunately the Purple sprouting Broccoli has come out more a black “object” probably owing to the great contrast of the white snow & the dark green of its leaves. There are 3 plants that should be upright but which were blown over by the strong winds of December/January.

Gerry’s Plot under the snow looking up towards the top from the bottom:

You may be wondering just why we have our very own Pyramids! They are in fact covering a couple of small Fig trees! The last 2 growing seasons the new growth & the immature fruits, called Brevas, from the previous year have been killed by late frosts. So I’ve rigged up some canes & wrapped fleece around them several times hoping this will protect them & that this growing season we will get some figs at long last.

Gerry’s Plot under the snow looking up towards the top from the bottom:

This is a view looking up towards the top of the plot & you can make out the greenhouse in the middle. Our shed, under the apple tree, is to the right. The bundle of dry stems in front of the shed is an Asparagus plant that Gerry planted at the bottom of his plot years ago.

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My allotment: Plot 12A

This is my allotment. I took it over in September 2011.

Plot 12A: Under snow from the very top of plot:

Under snow: View along the plot from the top looking down towards the bottom:

This is a view along my half allotment taken from the path that divides the allotments field in half, down the middle. The corrugated iron sheets are the outer wall of the compost heap that runs the width of the plot.

Similar to the the view above but taken from the right & looking down the length of my allotment towards the centre of the plot. Perhaps you may be able to just see the horizontal brownish line at the top of my photo, well, that is where my half of the plot ends.

Under snow: Strawberry & Onion beds:

Because of the blanket of snow my Strawberry plants are invisible. They are in a bed just alongside the compost heap, where I was standing when I took the photo.

The Onions, planted by the previous tenant, are visible as green sticks standing out from the snow just in front of the orange plastic fencing.

Under snow: Raised beds under construction: Beds 5-1:

A snowy view of my half finished raised beds. I’m waiting on Gerry, & the snow, to finish making up the beds.

This photo shows the beds in reverse order, (5-1), as I decided I would number them from the far end of my plot. This is because I started with the bed closed the end of my plot & I want to put my new potatoes in there.

Under snow: Raised beds under construction: Beds 1-5:

Another photo of the unfinished raised beds under the snow. This time they start off at number 1 & show up to number 5.

Numbers 2-5 were the original Raspberry bed which I dug up & then dug in horse manure.

Well I’m going to finish now! I hope this snow clears soon as I’ve not been able to do any work on the plot in the last 10 days. Since February 3rd to be precise! We had this 9cm-12cm (3″-4″) snowfall on Saturday evening/Sunday morning 4th-5th February. Just as it was almost all gone we had another night of snow, so it’s back to square 1! We also had the coldest night of the year Friday 10th Feb. Temps plummeted down to at least -12ºC! It was officially the coldest night of the winter & the coldest night since the winter of 2010.

Hope my next blog on the allotments shows something actually growing – some green instead of so much white! Until then, keep warm!

Lotties in winter

Lotties in winter

At long last I found time to do the promised blog of our allotments at the end of the year. Today is Boxing Day & it’s a very quiet day, in spite of the strong winds forecast! We began the day with a fair amount of sunshine though this only lasted a few hours before the clouds came over. No rain though. In the late afternoon we had a little sunshine once again before the night time pulled its veil over the evening sky.

Beetroot Bolthardy harvested:

This first photo is of the last of the Beetroots that I had been growing at the top of the plot. They’re in the bag because I forgot I wanted a photo with them just taken out of the ground.

All in all I’m pretty pleased with the way they have gone this year & will again sow them at intervals in coming years.

Broccoli Purple sprouting:

The Broccoli was given to me by a guy on the conjoining plot. I happened to read about their anti-cancerous properties just before going down to the plot. This guy was planting something, I didn’t know what, when I asked him if he knew about the anti-cancerous properties of Broccoli. He said he did & that he was planting his Broccoli at that very moment! He offered me the last half a dozen he had left over & so I planted them here. Mine have done better than his!

Godetias flowering:

The Godetias I sowed originally in the greenhouse to later take home & put on the balcony but which I put in the plot have been flowering for some time. I must say this has surprised me as I expected them to die at the first whiff of frost! They have survived at least 3 frosts – one of which was forecast to be 3 degrees C below freezing!

Lettuce Tom Thumb:

These miniature Lettuce, Tom Thumb, are still going strong after several frosts.

Lentils & Calendulas at top of plot:

This is the top of the plot where I sowed Lentils & Pinto beans. I had potatoes growing here a few months earlier. After lifting them & raking out the soil level I sowed some rows of Legumes. The Pinto beans didn’t survive more than one very, very light frost but the Lentils are not fazed by a few degrees of frost! The Calendulas have been there all year! They came up with the spuds & I left them after lifting the spuds.

French Marigolds in flower:

I sowed these French Marigolds in a seedtray with the intention of pricking them out into bigger flowerpots hoping, with the protection of the greenhouse, to get some flowers from them during the winter. I was so occupied with the digging of the allotments that I never got around to doing it! So, here they are flowering, still in the seedtray!

Annual Chrysanthemums:

A guy from Spain sent me some seeds of these Annual Chrysanthemums last year. I grew them on the allotment & some seeds fell into the ground & survived the winter/spring/summer to come up amongst the Carrots I sowed there. As they still hadn’t flowered when I lifted the Carrots I decided to try & save the plants. I put them in the greenhouse, in the growbag where Tomato Mallorquin had been growing all summer. They are flowering at the time of writing this blog!

Garlic sprouting:

During November I put in a few Garlic cloves from a head of Garlic one of our sons brought over from Spain when he came to spent a couple of weeks holiday with us. He said they were probably the best Garlic you could buy in Spain! I told him at the time it was far too early to plant them but I would do it when the time was right. So here they are just poking through the ground right in front of the greenhouse.

Peanuts at an end:

Many of you following my allotment blogs during the year will remember my experiment with growing Peanuts on the allotment, well I can report that the experiment has been unsuccessful! Not surprising to anyone I suppose, but I did get at least ONE (1) peanut!!!

You must realize that I also started them very, very late. I’m determined to have another go next year & will start the seeds off much earlier, I may even give them some protection from the elements as well.

Pinto beans harvested:

Here are some of my Pinto beans as I was removing them from their seed pods in the greenhouse. I left them to dry for a couple of months before I removed them from their seed pods. Really I was too busy, & lazy!, to do it earlier! They had been picked more than a month before.

Pinto beans bagged:

Here is a bag with some of the beans once I took them home & put them in a bag. We have had a meal with some & there are still some waiting for me to remove the beans from their seed pods!

Tomatoes Mallorquin in Greenhouse:

This is the last photo of the tomatoes Mallorquin. I sowed them in January 2011 in the greenhouse. They were from the packet of seeds my wife brought me back from Spain in September 2010.

Tomatoes Mallorquin harvested in Greenhouse:

A few days later I decided it was no use keeping them on the plant any longer so I picked them & here they are laid out on the bench in the greenhouse.

Runner beans

These were the last of the runner beans for this year. I collected the last few seedpods to save for next year & I’ve now cleared the ground of them. We had a huge crop from them!

Fig trees with frost protection:

These “wigwams” are the winter protection for the two Fig trees we have. After two year of losing the fruit in the very late spring frosts I thought I would protect them this year & see if we can get something to eat from them. I shan’t take the fleeces off them until the middle of May next year. The two previous years we have had frost as late as the first week of May!

Tomatoes Mallorquin in greenhouse just harvested:

These are the very, very last of the tomatoes Mallorquin. I harvested them on 5th December. I then removed the plant from the growbag & threw it away.

Godetias at top of plot:

I showed you a photo of these Godetias at the top of the plot further up but this photo was taken several weeks, & several frosts later! Even on Christmas Eve they were still flowering!

French Marigolds & Cosmos on Christmas Eve:

The French Marigolds I showed you a few photos earlier were still flowering on Christmas Eve & there were a few Cosmos amongst them! They had been affected a little by the frosts lately but, as you can see, continued to flower!

Sweetpeas Royal Family just sown:

I finally sowed my Sweetpeas. I had tubes & compost all waiting in the greenhouse but I had no seeds till the 15th December! On the 20th I sowed about a 1/3rd of the seeds. The tubes are placed in a standard seedtray in which over 20 tubes fit.

Onion Alisa Craig sown on Christmas Eve:

When I spent an hour or so on the plots on Christmas Eve I sowed a few of my Onion Alisa Craig seeds in a seedtray. This is a little later than last year I think when I believe I sowed them a week or two earlier. I was quite pleased with the results of the sowing when I lifted the bulbs in July. I want to sow more this year as our stock ran out about a month ago!

Well that’s the last from the plots I share with Gerry for this year. I have to make up one last one with what I’ve been doing on my very own plot (12A) which I got from the Town Council on 1st September.

Wishing you all a happy end to the year 2011 & a fantastic New Year 2012.

Summer (?) on the plot

Summer (?) on the plot

We may be “officially” in the middle of a “Great British Summer” but you would never believe it! A couple of months ago one of the tabloid newspapers had great big headlines on its front page proclaiming we were going to have the hottest summer since records began! At least words along those lines! Temps were expected to be in mid to high 30s C!

I’ll start this month’s summary of the plot Gerry & I share with a look at how the Three Sisters planting has come along:

Three Sisters:

Beginning of July:

As the month got under way here is a shot of what this tripartite planting looked like:

A week later we had some very strong winds for a few days & these blew over the Sweet Corn so I put more canes in & ran some string between them & loosely tied in the Sweet Corn before they ended parallel to the ground instead of perpendicular!

Another week later & the Sweet Corn, as well as the Runner beans, are going “great guns” but the Water Melons aren’t doing at all well!

Cucumbers in greenhouse:

Beginning of July:

Middle of July: (Spot the difference!)

Looking terrible, aren’t they? What can you do about Powdery Mildew? I can’t give them any more ventilation than they now have. The door is never closed nor is the vent in the roof & there’s a pane of glass missing where the Tomato plant is growing, as anyone with sharp eyes would have already noticed!

Outside in the ground they also have Powdery Mildew!

First Cucumbers to be harvested from the greenhouse:

Had quite a few since then though during this last week they seem to have almost stopped growing! Maybe the colder weather?

Same day but only 2 were big enough to harvest from the plot outside:

Onions Alisa Craig:

I grew some Onions, “Alisa Craig“, this year from seed for the first time ever.

Here they are a few days before I lifted them to dry:

These are a few that came out of the ground when I pushed the tops over. Many of the tops had already begun to keel over I just hurried up the natural process! The soil was so dry that it looked, & felt, like grey sand!

Shallots:

Garlic:

The Garlic I planted haven’t grown very big at all! I wonder if it is worth the while planting them in the future?

Purple Sprouting Broccoli:

I was reading about the benefits of Broccoli on the Internet – very good for preventing Prostate Cancer it seems. I commented on it to a guy in the plot next to ours who was planting out some “Greens” (they all look the same to me – I couldn’t distinguish between a Cabbage or Brussels Sprouts or a Cauliflower!) when he said that was was he was planting out! He then offered me the few plants he had left over! I accepted them & planted them & covered them with some netting to protect them from the pigeons as you can see in the photo below:

Beetroot:

The day before we went to Spain (Prince’s Wedding day) for a few days I sowed some Beetroot seeds directly in the soil, the only ones I’ve sown that way this year, so here is the end result a couple of months later:

Just a few days after taking the above photo I decided they were big enough to harvest & this is what I got:

Onion Turbo:

These are Gerry’s onions from sets planted in March I think:

Peanuts!

Yes, Peanuts! I’m growing them outside in the soil! Here are two photos as proof of what I say!

The picture above is of them the day I planted them out & the one below is about 10 days later. Of course I have no idea whether I will get any fruit (peanuts) as I may have planted them out too late, but it’s another of my little EXPERIMENTS! , like the Pinto beans & Garbanzo beans & Lentils I tried growing last year.

Potatoes 1st Early Rocket harvested

I believe I mentioned somewhere before that I had read the praises of this variety sung on the BBC Gardening Forum which decided me to give them a go.
The results can be seen below. But I have no idea of how many kilos I harvested – of these or any of the others below!

Potatoes 1st Early Kestrel harvested:

I harvested Gerry’s potatoes at the beginning of the month & you can see what each plant produced in the 4 rows in the photo below. I also took a photo of each row as I finished digging them up but I also took this one of all 4 rows when I had finished lifting them all:

He has quite a few more rows of Main Crop potatoes still growing as have I! He has King Edward & Maris Piper whereas I only have Maris Piper as my maincrop. I do have a couple of rows of 2nd Earlies Maris Piper that need to be dug up soon!

Potatoes 1st Early Arran Pilot harvested:

These potatoes were the last to be planted (can’t remember the date now!) & I put them at the very top of our plot.

Runner beans:

The Runner beans Gerry sowed at home in his GH & brought down to the plot later are now flowering, as you can see. So far we have had just one pod but there will be plenty more soon! I planted them in 3 rows & on the outside I planted some Pinto beans which are also in flower – though they can’t be seen in this photo.

Tomatoes Mallorquin:

The tomatoes are setting fruit but it doesn’t look like we will be having a glut this year! They are now waist high. The 3 plants on my balcony are now head high!

Sunflowers Little Dorrit:

Here is a photo of some dwarf Sunflowers called Little Dorrit. Gerry bought a packet earlier this year. I shall save some seeds for next year.

Sunflowers Titan:

The first three rows of Sunflowers in this photo are of Titan, again a packet Gerry bought this year. Behind them are more that I just call Tall as I don’t know what they were called last year.

Anyway they are growing faster & taller than Titan! For some strange reason they are also growing taller on one side of the bed than on the other! You might be able to see that in this photo below:

Water Melon,Sweet Corn & Broccoli:

The Water Melon & Sweetcorn are growing together at this end of a bed which also includes Broccoli. The Water Melon is doing better in this bed than in the 3 Sisters planting. The wood chips were put down weeks after the plants were put in.

Sweet Peppers:

The Sweet Peppers are coming along nicely! They are opening their first flowers & I expect to see the first fruits beginning to form over the next couple of weeks, perhaps I will be able to get a close up picture of a plant with its baby peppers!

There is no view of the plot from the shed this time simply because it seems I have forgotten to take any! Anyway it is difficult to see down the plot any longer because the apple tree branches with their fruit are hanging down over the doorway & the Raspberries have almost reached their maximum height, further obscuring the view down the plot!

Well that’s it for this blog. In my next blog, about the beginning of August, I hope to include a “View From The Shed” photo which at least may show the Gladioli beginning to open, as there are now lots of flower stems emerging from amongst the leaves.