Giving up!

Giving up!

As of September 2014 I’ve given up my half allotment, Plot 12A, as I couldn’t spend nearly as much time as I needed to on it & the needs of our daughter & grandchildren have also restricted my time there. A third reason is that we don’t get much out of it as neither my wife nor I are keen on many vegetables that can be grown on it. We only really like potatoes, tomatoes, lettuces, sweet peppers, cucumbers, beetroot, onions, garlic & strawberries.

Plot at beginning of September 2014:

We were ending up with gluts & deficits – especially with lettuces as, for as much as I try to stagger them, the weather seldom played ball & I’d end up with gluts that couldn’t be used or even given away! We thought it didn’t make sense to continue to pay out for a plot that is getting more expensive every year & could only be used for less than 6 months a year.

The orange fencing marks the end of the plot or the division between plots 12A & 12B.

Nevertheless it’s not the end to my allotment growing as Gerry has told me I can grow some things on his 1 & 1/2 plots. That’s how I started out in 2010, helping him. It was he who encouraged me to apply for my own plot! He has supported me during these years in letting me use his greenhouse on the plot & using his shed & tools. In turn I’ve tried to help him on his plots at the same time.

This past summer saw a big struggle in maintaining his plot & mine as well at the same time. Having even less time on the plots made both our plots suffer & once weeds start to get the upper hand it’s an uphill fight against them which they seem to win most of the time.

On August 1st Gerry had to go into hospital for a major operation which saw him on the op table for 9 hours! He is now recovering well but it will still be a few months till he regains his former strength. It won’t be till next spring that he will be able to work on his plots again & at that time I will help him again.

I’ve added a few photos of views of the plot I’ve given up, some were taken at the beginning of the month some just a few days ago. These will obviously be the last pictures I will be taking of Plot 12A.

Plot 12A Beds being dismantled:

As you can see from these photos I’ve started to dismantle the raised beds that my brother & I put up 3 years ago.

Since the pictures were taken I’ve finished the dismantling & today my wife (she very rarely sets foot on the allotments!) & I took down the runner bean plants while she foraged around for the last of the beans. If I can get down tomorrow I’ll take the canes down & return them to Gerry who kindly lent me them.

I’ve also got two teepees of runner beans to take down yet & when they are finished that will be the end of my dismantling of the plot.

Thanks to many of you who gave me encouraging comments & their support over these past 3 years. I very much appreciated them! 🙂 Thank you all for putting up with my, more or less, monthly blogs on our allotments as well.

But … you won’t be getting off too lightly as I will be back with more blogs on the allotments – when I can’t be sure but I’ve sufficient photos from Gerry’s plots to make up several blogs!

What a disastrous year for growing Tomatoes & Peppers!

What a disastrous year for growing Tomatoes & Peppers! I’m ashamed to post any pictures of them – or even take photos of them in the first place – let alone write about them! :-((

Garden Pearl & Gardener’s Delight seeds sown on balcony:

Germination was very good but it was the growing on of them that has been the problem! Other years I’ve had lovely plants for planting out in the middle of May – but not this year! The seedlings just sulked due to the very cold May we had!

Tomato seedlings in the kitchen:

After being potted up I moved them out onto the table in the most sheltered corner of our balcony but they made no progress at all during all of May!

Seedlings on table in corner of balcony:

Tomato Marmande seedlings just transplanted:

I took them down to the greenhouse on the allotment hoping they might pick up there, but no such luck!

I did plant some out in my own allotment, Plot 12A, a couple of weeks or so ago but even they don’t seem to have made much progress! They are all still little more than seedlings with a couple of pairs of true leaves! :-((

Tomatoes after mulching:

Tomatoes Marmande just planted out on balcony:

These were the only decent seedlings to really make any progress once in the greenhouse. I’d potted them up in 5-6″ pots before bring them back home on Saturday. I planted the up in some tomato growers set atop a growbag. Hopefully I’ll get some fruit from them before the growing season comes to an end!

Sweet Pepper ‘Corno di Toro Rosso’ germinating:

Sweet Pepper seedlings repotted on balcony:

TWO MONTHS LATER:

Sweet Peppers ‘Corno di toro rosso’ with true leaves:

Even after a month in the greenhouse on the allotment they still had made next to no progress! :-((

I ended up planting some of the seedlings in the green house border:

Others I planted out in a space on Gerry’s allotment:

I noticed on Monday that the Peppers planted in the greenhouse border seem to have grown a little & look better (or is it my fanciful imagination?)

Back from Spain – a 2nd time!

Back from Spain – a 2nd time!

In November last year we went over to be present when our only Spanish grandchild was about to be born. This time we went over for “Mother’s Day”, which is always on the first Sunday in May.

As we were coming into town this is what we were greeted by:

Snow at Cabrejas Pass, Cuenca, Spain:

This pass is about 1,300m high & about 10mins drive from Cuenca which is 1,000m high.

More snow at Cabrejas Pass, Cuenca, Spain:

It was snowing, raining & sleeting when we reached the city itself & got off the coach about 15 mins later!

Snowing in Cuenca:

This last photo was taken by our daughter-in-law in the street where their block of flats is. She send it to us while we were on the coach on our way to Cuenca!

I read through what I wrote in November last year

“Back from Spain”

& found that what I had to say was almost the same as I said back then because our time was spent in a similar manner except this time most weekdays we were there we picked up our granddaughter from the nursery around 2 – 2.30 pm & then took her to our son’s cafeteria.

Kafe King Cross:

Our son & wife had arranged for their 6 month old daughter, Ainara, to be christened on the same day.

Ainara at her christening:

Ainara with Quico & Nanny in park in Cuenca:

Both sets of grandparents with Ainara in park in Cuenca:

We went over on April 28th for 10 days. The day of the christening was a really splendid, hot sunny day! The best day by far of our stay in Cuenca!

What a difference a week can make! Our first Sunday in Cuenca it was snowing but our 2nd Sunday was hot & sunny!

Both Mondays we were there we had lunch with them & then in the evenings, around 7.30 pm, we took Ainara out for a walk! Many of the evening we repeated this for a couple of hours then we took her back home for her supper & bath & bed. Most evening around 10pm we also helped our son to close up for the night. That way he was able to get away perhaps 30mins earlier than if we had not helped him. He opens every morning about 7.30am as many people like to have breakfast in a bar before starting work. They perhaps have a coffee & a bun before going to start their day’s work.

Most morning we also went to have a coffee & a bun at his cafeteria, around 11am. We would get him anything he might need like change for the till, some oranges & lemons or paper serviettes. He runs the place on his own much of the time so can’t get away. That way we were able to help him a little.

Our time went by very quickly & we hardly saw the son & his partner who we always stay with! They had moved into a new flat only about a month before we arrived so many things were not in place yet & they needed to get many things for the new flat.

We returned to the UK on Weds 8th May to be greeted by a strong, cold wind! Apparently the temps had fallen a good 10ºC from the high on Tuesday which it seems was the hottest day of the year so far.

This Sunday back in the UK the started off as a lovely sunny day but with a cold wind then about 3pm it started to rain & the cold wind continued.

I haven’t been down to the allotment for over two weeks now but I hope to be able to resume work – & my blogs! – from next week. Now we are in the middle part of May I hope we have seen the last of the frosts till the middle of October so I can get on with planting & growing once again.

Since before going to Cuenca in November last year I’ve hardly been able to do any work on either my plot or Gerry’s. I had a lot of seeds germinating in the greenhouse as well as here at home. I have about 3 seedtrays of Sweet Peppers as well as 4 of Tomatoes all waiting to go down to the allotments!

May marks the time when I take my Amaryllis plants down as well. This year as I have no Pansies left alive to help brighten up the balcony I’m going to take all my spring flowering bulbs down to the allotment for the summer as well. They have all finished flowering now & the balcony looks dull with a load of floppy green leaves slowly turning yellow! I simply do not have the space on the balcony to keep them during the summer.

The October Plot

The October Plot

The October plot is quite a different plot from the September plot! It’s very noticeable that the days are hurrying towards their shortest time in December. Everything is shutting down now, the leaves are falling off the trees (time to collect them & compost them for leaf mould!) & most plants will have been harvested before the end of the month.

Talking about harvesting, here are a few photos of my harvesting results:

Beetroot Bolthardy just harvested:

I’ve now lost count of the number of times I’ve sown & harvested beetroot this year! I was even allowed to pull up some from the lady’s plot across the path. She said she had asked several other people if they would like some but they had plenty of their own! She happened to ask me at a time when I was between crops of mine.

Cucumber Marketmore just harvested:

I’ve been able to harvest quite a few cucumbers in spite of the powdery mildew that has covered them all growing season! I had greater success in the greenhouse than out on the plot! Does anybody know of a variety that is more resistant to this mildew?

Sweet Peppers harvested:

I am rather disappointed with the Sweet Peppers, these all came from the plants I grew from the seeds my wife brought me back from Spain last year. I’ve come to the conclusion that these Peppers are of a small variety & not like the big ones we get in the supermarket! Only a very few were longer & thinner the majority, as you can see in the photo are not much bigger than a thumb! These came from the bed of around 70 plants!

The Sweet Peppers in the photo below grew in the other half of the 3 Sisters’ bed. There were around 40 plants in this bed. There were less Peppers even though the plants looked stronger!

Sweetcorn harvested from 3 Sisters’ bed:

Gerry took these home but he hasn’t mentioned to me anything about them!

Sweetcorn F1 Incredible harvested:

I took these home but as I wasn’t able to cook them immediately I forgot about them in the fridge for a couple of days! I eventually got around to cooking & eating them – nothing much to say about them – perhaps as I didn’t use them earlier they had lost some of their sweetness. I’ve heard that Americans will even go so far as to take a pan of boiling water down to the plants & pop the cobs into the water within a minute of harvesting them!

Tomatoes Mallorquin from GH just harvested:

These came from the most ripe truss at that moment. I took them off to give the rest time to ripen a little more before the weather became too cold:

Here you can see how much just 1 truss weighed when I got them on the scales at home:

Tomatoes Self-sown from greenhouse:

How this plant got in here I’ve no idea! Obviously a seed came from somewhere & germinated in the soil between the concrete slabs that run down the centre of the GH & the plastic that covers the ground where I have the growbags with the tomato Mallorquin & the Cucumbers. It doesn’t look like any of the three varieties that Gerry & I grew last year. (Alicante, MoneyMaker & Gardener’s Delight).

Tomatoes Gardener’s Favourite harvested:

These Toms came from self-sown seed that somehow survived the winter in the soil. This was the only one to be harvested of the several plants that escaped my attention till they were too big to pull up (Yes, I’m a big softy at heart!). I spent much of the summer pulling up these weeds as they came up amongst my Sweet Peppers! The Sunflowers were just as bad as well! They kept popping up all over the place!

Tomatoes Mallorquin:

These were harvested from the GH a couple of weeks after those in the previous photo. As you can see it was well worth picking those before to let these ripen! I still have a couple of trusses more waiting to be picked.

Amaryllis Red with white stripe:

This was just waiting for my return from a 2 week absence from the plot! We went to visit my wife’s family & our 2 sons for 10 days & on my first day back on the plot, Sunday, just to water the plants in the GH, I noticed a red splash which on investigation turned out to be this Amaryllis! I hadn’t noticed the bud when I watered the pots with tomato fertilizer the day before leaving for Spain!

Fig tree:

Up until recently this Fig tree was hidden amongst the autumn fruiting Raspberries. While I was away it had grown a little higher & was now visible. No figs to pick though as the very late frost we had in May, coinciding with a similar trip to Spain, (only 4 days though),killed all the growth they had put on & last year’s brevas, as the immature figs are called, so nothing for this year. Hopefully we will get some for next year as new growth next year will be protected by fleece!

Lettuce Tom Thumb just planted out

It may seem strange to plant out Lettuce so late in the growing season, now coming to an end, but I noticed that last winter they survived the heaviest frosts we had as well as all the snow & ice. So I thought they will be able to survive a few light frosts as we were bound to have some warmer days before the real winter cold set in. What I didn’t expect was that we would have daytime temps around 13-15ºC at the end of October!

Peanuts:

I have no idea if Peanuts are frost hardy, I doubt it but my plants have survived the first very light frost we had on the night of October 14th! A frost forecast for the 21st didn’t happen! Phew! So these are still growing! I have no idea what size plants they normally make or if there are any peanuts in the soil beneath them. I’ll find out shortly.

Pinto & Garbanzo beans & Lentils:

These Legumes, as this family of plants is called, are still doing quite well. The Pinto beans are very susceptible to frost, more so than runner/green beans. The light frost of the 14th damaged many of the plants but didn’t kill them outright. The next day I made it my first duty to go around the plants & pick as many pods as I could. But I ended up pulling up the plants as it was quicker & I put them in the GH to dry off till I can open the pods & extract the beans. The plants mostly were no more than 6″ high & many of them were going over any way.

The Garbanzo beans (aka Chick peas) & the Lentils proved to be frost resistant last year so I’ve not bothered with those for the moment. Any way they are there more as green manure than as a crop to harvest. I found last year it was too much work to get a few beans & lentils. In comparison the Pinto beans are much, much more rewarding!

Sunflowers Tall at top of plot:

As you might imagine all the Sunflowers have now finished flowering & Gerry has even cut off dozens of seedheads for his birds. I started to pull up some of them but more than 3/4 of them remain. I haven’t pulled up any of the Mini sunflowers yet or the Little Dorrit ones. Gerry has harvested many of their seedheads as well. I’ve saved a few for my wife who likes to eat Sunflower seeds. A very popular pastime in Spain!

Tomato Mallorquin just harvested:

These are the last fruits of Tomato Mallorquin that had been growing outside in the soil just behind the shed. I picked them before a subsequent frost could damage them. I’m disappointed with this tomato as the fruits were small & very late in forming. Next year I’ll go back to the more traditional varieties of tomatoes. I think they need a GH to grow & fruit well. The one plant in the GH on the allotment has, eventually, produced much bigger fruits as well as better looking. Yet Gerry had a dozen plants in his GH at home & they were a disaster for him! I have 3 plants on my balcony at home; these have done better than the ones grown out in the open on the allotment but not as well as the one in the GH on the plot.

Carrots Autumn King before lifting:

Carrots Autumn King after lifting:

I was surprised to see the roots so forked! I’ve been told there are two main reasons why this should happen, 1: soil too rich/manure & 2: stony ground. Well the first certainly can’t be true as this bed has had no manure put into it in years as Gerry didn’t know of a place to get any till this year. As for stony, well this is more of a possibility, but I think a hard pan 3-4″ down is more likely. I dug this bed over after lifting the carrots & I encountered this hard pan a little way down.

Parsnips White Gem after lifting:

Much the same reason as for the carrots. I noticed months ago that the Parsnips were pushing out of the soil & some seemed to be growing on their sides. So I thought at the time that the bed had a hard pan a couple of inches down. Which proved to be the case.

Also this was my first time ever at growing either of these two crops. Advice on watering Parsnips & Onions changes according to who you ask! Some say they never water after watering when planting out while others say they water them like other crops! So confusing for a newbie!

Beetroots Bolthardy before lifting:

Beetroots Bolthardy after lifting:

I lifted these because I wanted to clear the ground & finish digging the bed over. There were in the same bed I planted up with Lettuce Tom Thumb. They also looked big enough to harvest & were unlikely to get much bigger even if I left them for a few more weeks.

I’m quite pleased with efforts of growing Beetroot this year as it is only my 2nd season growing them. I have one last bed at the very top of the plot but these won’t be ready to harvest for months I should imagine – if they are frost resistant, something I don’t know – yet!

Godetias at top of plot:

My wife likes these little plants a lot & most years I grow a few plants on the balcony for her. I also had a few this year but they didn’t do very well so I bought another packet of seeds which I sowed in a tray in the GH on the allotment. Unfortunately I could never seem to find the right moment to prick them out into pots to take home & put on the balcony. Eventually I decided to plant them out of the plot even though I wasn’t really expecting them to put on much of a show before the frosts killed them off. But it seems the warmer weather of late has saved them for the time being! As I’ve no photos of the view from the shed I’ve put this one on to end this instalment of the continuing saga of the allotment through the year!

Lots of photos for the last (probably) blog of the growing season on the plot. I may make up a last one sometime in November. I still have to make up one for Plot 12A!

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.

Early summer on the plot

Early summer on the plot

Summer put in the very briefest of appearances on Sunday & Monday 26-27th June. We reached around 30ºC on Monday! On the allotment it was so hot that you could see the plants wilting! Especially the Sunflowers but even the Beetroot & other plants, like the Potatoes in front of our shed, were wilting! I may not be a plant but I was wilting as well!

On Tuesday we had thunderstorms on & off for most of the day. After which the next few days saw much lower temps.

Gerry has 2 rows of Gooseberries on his plot. A row of 3 at the beginning of the plot & another half a dozen behind the shed. This year they are so laden with berries that the branches are bending over & touching the ground! I’ve already picked some 3 times for myself. Gerry has taken quite a few & we tell other people they can help themselves!

The 6 bushes behind the shed haven’t been watered in the 2 years I’ve helped Gerry on the plots. The 3 near the beginning got watered several times a couple of weeks ago.

I planted some French Marigolds & Tagetes amongst the Tomatoes as companion plants as they are supposed to repel Whitefly. I’ve since learnt that they attract them – away from the Tomatoes!

My Lettuce is now bolting! This one has flowers that will open any day now! Even so we have had many heads from them & everyone has commented on my giant Lettuces! They’ve been quite impressed! Yet I did nothing more than water them after I transplanted them! They have had no fertilizer nor compost or manure nor was that part of the plot treated in any way beforehand!

Lettuce bolting:

The bed of Tomato Mallorquin after tying in & removing sideshoots:

1st Early Potatoes Arran Pilot

My very first Cucumber in the greenhouse!

Onions from seed Alisa Craig:

Rocket 1st Early Potatoes:

The Potatoes are flowering at the top of the plot & they really look fantastic:

The seeds were sown on 28th May. Sunflower bed with wood chipping mulch. A lorry full of wood chipping came to the allotment field on Wednesday 29th June. I got a few barrow loads & covered this bed in them to a depth of a couple of inches! No more weeds in this bed!

Sunflower bed with wood chipping mulch:

This is how my Sweet Peppers looked before weeding:

This is how my Sweet Peppers looked after weeding:

First Black Currants of the year to be picked:

A week later:

Gooseberries:

2nd sowing of Beetroot Bolthardy harvested:

Onion sets Turbo:

The Onions I am growing from seed Alisa Craig:

Three Sisters planting:

As we come to the end of this update of the allotment I share with Gerry, I’m adding the last couple of photos of the plot as seen from inside our shed, they are taken about 2 weeks apart so as to get a feeling for the speed of developments down on the plot:

View from inside shed on 11th June:

View from inside shed on 27th June:

This last photo of this blog is a photo down the length of our allotment taken from the top & looking down to the bottom:

Our 1/2 plot is on the right from the Sweetpeas to the end. The half plot, up as far as the bin & the Sweetpeas, belongs to another lady & her daughter. On the left is a partial view of the whole plot that Gerry has.

Hope you find this blog interesting & I hope to post the next blog around the middle of July. Several more crops are being harvested & I will include them there.

Happy gardening to all.

2nd season allotment blog – 15 days in June

2nd season allotment blog – 15 days in June

I thought I might take a slightly different view this time with the plot – I’m posting a photo from the beginning of the month & the same 2 weeks later so you can appreciate the growth made in 2 weeks.

3 Sisters bed – Water Melon, Sweet Corn & Runner beans:

Once the Water Melon gets underway I shall not earth up the plants in the rows. This is done this way for the moment to facilitate watering & weeding.

Tomatoes Mallorquin:

Sweet Peppers:

Beetroot Bolthardy:

Beetroot Bolthardy Harvested:

Lettuce Cos Ruboneo:

A month later:

Onion sets Turbo:

Onions Alisa Craig from seed:

Shallots:

Potatoes 1st Early Rocket:

Potatoes 1st Early Rocket – 1st Harvest:

View of plot from inside shed:

As is Traditional I’m ending this blog with a couple of views from inside of our shed as I see it while sitting down to eat a well earned sandwich or two!

Well I hope you found this slightly different way of focusing on the allotment that Gerry & I run of interest!

Although I now have my very own allotment plot, since June 10th, it’s very late in the year to do a great deal. I shall continue to help Gerry as before. He also gave me a hand last Saturday in helping to clear my new plot.

At the end of the month I shall post another blog of the progress the plot has made during the 2nd half of the month. Hopefully there will more harvests to show. I’ve had to leave several things out while doing this comparison blog. Next time I’ll add more things. Enjoy!

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!
.

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.

February in the greenhouse

February in the greenhouse

Yesterday (15th Feb) I had everything I needed so my Green & Red Peppers have finally been sown! At the same time I sowed some of the tomato seeds she brought me back as well as some Water Melon seeds. These last were sown in small individual black pots, two to a pot, 16 fit in a standard seedtray. The rest of the seeds were sown in seedtrays & even labelled! The pencil supplied with the labels is practically useless, you can’t see what you are trying to write on them! So I wrote on them with a black marker pen I had in the greenhouse. Should try to remember to take a finer one down just for label writing.

Green Pepper seeds sown on 15th February 2011:

There are two different types of Red Peppers here:

These are the others:

They are seeds my wife brought me back from her trip to Spain last September. I was surprised when I opened the packets to find that the seed inside is loose & not in little foil envelopes! The whole pkt is one big foil envelope! When I looked a little more closely at the front of the pkt I saw there are 5gm of seeds in each pkt!!! Hundreds of seeds in each one!!!
Tomato seeds sown on 15th February 2011:

Water Melon seeds sown on 15th February 2011:

Here is a Crocus flowing in a pot of my Fuchsias in the GH on the plot. If the day hadn’t been warm I might have missed it! I turned it around to get a better look & to take a photo of it!

Back next week with another blog to kick off the allotment season 2011! 🙂