by Philippa | Mar 7, 2014 | Allotment
Well, it isn’t long before you suddenly feel that Spring is upon you and that you don’t have much time left!
After some quiet weeks following the new year we visited the plots to see what needed doing. I pruned the currant bushes while Neil tackled the blackberry plants and the raspberry canes. Neil must have been feeling creative because after wondering why he had been so quiet for a while I found him by the shed with this little beauty! For growing peas up apparently!
All the seeds ordered for us from Kings by the society had arrived and so I sorted them into bundles of when they need to be planted, which seems like only a matter of weeks away! We also received the garlic bulbs ordered. After the best in show success of the summer we decided to just plant one variety this year, the Lautrec Wight. We did this about three weeks ago and no sign of life yet. In the following week we planted our onions (Sturon and Red Baron) in seed trays in the greenhouse to give them a good start as this really helped last year, particularly with the red onions.
The February storms brought chaos with them for the whole site. While other plot holders found sheds on the other side of fences and bits and pieces all over the place, we weren’t sure what to expect. We knew that we had a piece of glass missing from our greenhouse on plot 118 prior to the high winds and were dreading how vulnerable this would have made it. We were right to be anxious as the greenhouse had lifted up and shifted across the base considerably. Bob next door was lucky not to see it flying his way I think!
As a result of the wind most of the glass on one side was broken and all over the place and some of the frame is twisted and damaged. It prompted a big clear up in general really. It took two tip runs to clear all of the broken glass, buckets of debris dug out of the soil and other rubbish. We swept up all the small branches and leaves that had blown about and dug over most of the beds on plot 97, adding manure and organic chicken pellets to them.
We have moved a massive amount of manure onto both plots over the last few weeks but not really dug much over just yet as it has been so wet it becomes too much of a chore! That will be a job for the next few weeks as the weather picks up.
This last week we have bought our potatoes (Charlotte) and put them in trays to chit. We have also planted all of our tomato, chilli and aubergine varieties in the heated windowsill propagator at home and have already had most of them germinate after a couple of sunny days. We did some of our oddest planting yet. We have studiously followed the packet instructions for the bluebells which apparently need a forced 4-6 week period of cold and so we now have a bag of damp compost and bluebell seeds stashed at the back of the fridge! There is a reminder on the calendar to get them out in several weeks for the next step. That is, if they haven’t accidentally been eaten in the meantime!!!
by Philippa | Sep 1, 2013 | Allotment
Wowee! What a result! Last weekend was the annual allotment summer show. We hadn’t been sure what we would have to put in as entries in the produce competition. Some things were passed their best, some things were not quite ready enough! It’s always a bit of a gamble what will look good enough in the day or two before the show. You would think that we would be lovingly tending to each and every entry for weeks, ensuring that it is up to standard but it’s more like ‘hmmmm what looks passable and do we have enough of it?’.
This year we managed to enter our old favourites, garlic and beetroot, along with a cucumber, a single sunflower and a corker of an aubergine in the open category.
It was a good turn out for the show, with lots of items lined up in the judging tent. After the anxious wait for the RHS judge to do the rounds everyone crowds in to check out the results. We managed a respectable second place for our cucumber, beetroot and sunflower. Our poor aubergine didn’t place but the open category is always a tough one. However that was more than made up by our garlic not only being awarded a first place but also winning the best in show! According to the judge he had never seen any as good as ours! What a compliment! So as well as a certificate we have a trophy which is to be engraved! Seeing some of the previous winners on there we certainly feel like we are in esteemed company.
Massive congratulations are due to Bob who won a trophy for best plot over all three sites. This was also decided by the RHS judge who had done a thorough walk round in late July, so he definitely knows his stuff. Well done Bob!
With it being the bank holiday weekend there was plenty of time left for other allotment activities. Neil worked like a trooper as I was off on a cake course. He dug all of the onions up which despite an inauspicious start look amazing. The average size is probably the best we’ve ever had. We’ve left the drying upside down on the bench but will soon have to bring them in for storage.
He also collected a mammoth number of wheelbarrows of manure to cover the area where the onions had been.
The peas had served their time so he pulled them up for composting. Some of the broad beans were starting to flop over and no longer had any harvest worthy beans on them so he pulled up the row which had gone in first. The remainder are still ok for another week or two as they went in later and still have a good amount of pickings on them.
The raspberries have really come on in the last week. We’ve had one or two at a time up till now but this time we could take a full punnet home. The blueberries are still going strong, one plant in particular has flourished since we moved it into a large barrel planter. It’s so bushy with new growth you really have to search to find the hidden fruit.
And to prove I had a worthy excuse for not helping out with all the wheelbarrowing, here is my Gruffalo cake!
by Philippa | Jul 24, 2013 | Allotment
It has been far too many weeks since our last update so this one covers quite a lot of happenings! We knew that the end of June and the start of July was going to be a busy time as we had Glastonbury festival and Neil’s Ironman event, both of which spanned full weekends and which fell consecutively. In addition, just prior to going to Glastonbury the weather really picked up and temperatures were consistently high meaning that lots of jobs that needed doing couldn’t really wait what would amount to more than a fortnight.
Prior to Glastonbury both of us spent almost a full day at the allotment getting things ready to be left alone for a couple of weeks. This involved a major weeding of both plots, including the paths on plot 97. We had a lot of things still in the greenhouse or coldframe that needed to be planted out or potted on. We potted on all the tomatoes, cucumbers, chillies, peppers and aubergines into their final larger pots. We added a handful of the organic pellet feed that lasts for up to 8 weeks to each of them. In the greenhouse on plot 118 Neil dug the pots down slightly into the open soil, this seemed to work quite well when we tried it with a few select items last year as a bit of an experiment. It does seem to mean they don’t require so much watering.
We potted on all the brassicas but they had still been in the small trays they were sown in so they went into the small black bags we use as an intermediate stage. We put them straight out into the coldframe as we didn’t want there to be too much delay in them being ready to be planted outside once we returned from all our festivities!
Courgettes and some squash were ready to go outside and they did their usual impression of looking like they had died in the days following being planted out! But, as usual, they perked up in no time and once we had returned they looked much better.
There were loads of other things that we did and I had been really efficient and written a list of them for blog purposes but due to a technology fail this got deleted! But we did get to a stage where we felt content that the plots would not come to ruin due to our absence. Once we returned we were pleasantly surprised by how good they looked and also by how much had grown in the sunshine. We were also able take our first produce home-strawberries, rainbow chard and some mini cucumbers. In fact we have declared this year the year of the strawberry. We are at 25 punnets so far and there are still fruit on some of the plants!
In the last week or so the heatwave has meant that some things look permanently parched. Neil has set up the greenhouse irrigation system on plot 97 which helps. We have now planted out all of our squash varieties. All of the brassicas are either planted out under netting or are outside but still in the small bags still developing their roots. It does feel like they are really behind, I’m not sure whether this is due to the cool start to the year or our being busy or a combination of both, but they will be ready to go out this week. We have had a couple of trugs filled with produce, which along with more strawberries and cucumbers has included some peas, broad beans, red and blackcurrants and a handful of blackberries.
Having visited today to do some watering in the greenhouses we have our first red tomato! There are lots of green ones on all the plants but this is the first one to ripen. It is the gardener’s delight variety that is in the lead, although the plant does not look too healthy so it may be in a panic that its days are numbered! I also discovered that one of our pepper plants had lots of tiny holes in most of its leaves. I had expected to find some whitefly which we have had previously on some greenhouse plants but there were none. After very close inspection I found lots of very thin, bright green caterpillars. My internet searching has not given me a conclusive answer yet as to what they are or how to treat them but as the only thing I had at my disposal was some whitefly organic insecticide I gave the plant a good spray with that – even if the active ingredient doesn’t see them off the drenching might have drowned them! I’ll do an inspection at the weekend to see if there is any change.
by Philippa | May 27, 2013 | Allotment
We had a pretty busy bank holiday weekend-Neil had a five hour bike ride and then on Sunday did twice round the Manchester 10km race. Monday was our day of allotmenting and we were really looking forward to it. The weekend had been pretty warm and sunny but Monday was a bit cooler but that’s ok for a full day on the plots getting stuff done. And boy did we get stuff done!
The front of both plots were weeded and we planted out some evergreen plants I’d bought a couple of weeks ago. The front of plot 97 doesn’t have many evergreen things in it which means it has times in the year when it looks pretty shabby and I wanted something a bit neater and more manageable year round. Well that has been improved and it will look even more lovely when things have established.
The coldframe was stuffed to the brim and everything needed planting out as they were at risk of being straggly. We planted out the broadbeans (masterpiece green longpod) in blocks and also planted some more seeds so we have some successional cropping. We also put out the pea varieties on the wire mesh (early onward, purple prodded and sugarsnap) and some more seeds in the planting trench. The germination was pretty inconsistent but hopefully they will all catch up with each other. As usual they all looked very floopy after they were planted out but with the windy weather we have been having they will strengthen up in no time.
We had done a mega B&Q run before getting to the plots for grow bags and multipurpose compost and it was good timing as the tomatoes needed potting on immediately. Neil did all 8 varieties in the greenhouse on plot 118 so they are in the final large pots and also potted on the aubergines to intermediate pots. The sunflowers were taking up lots of bench space so Neil put them out in our makeshift coldframe using some classy old shower panels! Good recycling at work there! Neil also gave the grapevine a good pruning as it is really getting going and there were too many little bunches to have all made it to full fruit.
The weather started to get a bit drizzly so I retreated to the greenhouse on plot 97 for some more planting of seeds. We are pretty much on target with most things now, accounting for the fact that the weather is about a month behind usual temperatures. I planted climbing French beans and red knight runner beans, three varieties of borecole (dwarf green curled, scarlet and cavolo nero), savoy versus cabbage and some sprouting broccoli varieties (purple sprouting, summer purple sprouting, green calabrese and red arrow). While I was doing that Neil started a job I don’t think he had planned to do but once he started he wanted to finish! The paths on plot 97 have for the last year or so been getting quite mossy and weedy. It’s ok to keep on top of the weeds every few weeks but the moss is a bit more tricky and also gets very slippy when wet. So Neil scraped off the top layer of the paths and it looks really neat. Hopefully it will last for a while!
In general this last week has seen a sudden influx of green and everything looks a lot fuller. We will definitely be sorted for redcurrants this year! We might also see our first gooseberries after planting out a bush that was in a pot for four years doing nothing and which I think we both thought was on its last legs! Next week will have even more going on. Love this time of year!
by Philippa | Apr 28, 2013 | Allotment
We only popped down for a couple of hours today, which after sorting some admin things became only about an hour and a half! But we did get some good jobs done. Our shallots arrived mid week, which is pretty late compared to previous years when we’ve had them planted for several weeks already. Usually we put them in at the same time as the onions so they are probably a month behind those. Oh well! We tried a new variety this year, Longor, which is a longer, more banana type of shallot so we’re interested to see how they get on.
While I planted Neil was giving the compost heap some attention. It’s had quite a lot of brown matter in over the winter months and not much green matter so we are hoping to redress the balance in coming weeks. Neil chopped some larger pieces down to make it a bit finer and after a few turns there was some decent looking compost coming out from the bottom layers. Neil spread some on plot 118 and hopefully there will be more before too long.
Lots had sprouted or grown since last week. The sunflowers have germinated, as have some of the peas and the Brussels sprouts. No sign of the broad beans coming through yet which are what I’m keenly waiting for! The redcurrant bushes have started to bud and already it looks like there will be a bumper crop. Although next year we will really have to do some pruning as they are looking a bit wild and bent over in places which will only increase once they are weighed down with fruit!
The rhubarb looks fantastic, in fact it was too good to resist so we pulled a few stalks! Great to be taking something off at last!
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