by Philippa | Aug 1, 2011 | Allotment
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…at least not until the woodstain has dried! After a flurry of visitors last weekend, we realised that having our guests sitting on upturned buckets and bits of slate balanced on things was not very hospitable! Neil made a cheeky request to his dad that we could do with a picnic table. Little did we expect that less than a week later he would be telephoning to say he had made one and would drop it off this weekend! It is an absolute triumph and so we wanted to give it a couple of coats of preservative while the weather was dry to make sure that it lasts for years and years. Thanks Geoff!
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The weekend was a strange mix of larger projects and little bits and pieces that needed doing. Neil’s main project, again taking advantage of the warm weather, was to start recycling all of the bricks that have been collected on the plot during various clean up jobs into a barbeque. Armed with a plan and a spirit level he set to work. Rustic was the term I think he applied after a few courses of bricks were down! He worked long and hard on Sunday and it is almost finished. We will hopefully be able to christen it before the summer is out!
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I did a fair few barrow runs of wood chippings. It seems like feast or famine with our deliveries of chippings, so it is always tempting to get as many barrows as you can while they are around as you never know when the next lot is coming! I put an extra layer over the border between plot 97 and Sharon’s plot as whilst it wasn’t too long ago that we did the first layer those chippings contained quite a bit of green matter which has since rotted down. I also added some to the back of plot 118 as it is useful for keeping on top of the weeds that are determined to poke their way through the membrane there.
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The Solent Wight garlic and both varieties of shallot were ready for harvesting. Both are good indicators of when they are ready to pull up as the stems start to yellow and collapse down onto the beds. After harvesting, I gave the soil a good dig over and incorporated some chicken manure to start adding back some nutrients. The shallots have done particularly well, although as we have previously noticed the red Pikant variety is much smaller and less reliable than the white Topper. We strung them in bunches using garden string to hang them in the greenhouse for them to fully dry out and develop their brown papery skins. We are hoping that there are some prize winners amongst them so we can go for the hat trick at the summer show!
I also pulled up most of our lettuces as they had mostly gone to seed in the hot weather over the last couple of weeks. I need to get planting some more salad leaves next week as we have ended up with a gap in the planting plan, partly explained by a batch of Lollo Rosso just not germinating when I sowed a couple of rows a few weeks back. Think the bed might have been too shaded by the raspberry canes and the trees, so will try them elsewhere, hopefully it’s not the seeds that have passed their best.
We took a varied basket of goodies home with us this weekend – peas, broad beans, a green cabbage, calabrese broccoli, the first of the courgettes, tomatoes and chillies and a really good first harvest from the plum tree. Also, two lovely bunches of flowers, sweetpeas and dahlias, which are so fragrant and colourful. Am sure the basket will be even more full next weekend!
by Neil Wilkinson | Jun 28, 2011 | Allotment
We only had a quick visit to the allotment this weekend (well, Monday really due to getting involved in the mud/sun of Glastonbury) but still ended up getting quite a bit done despite the high temperatures (30C in Manchester, who knew?). Bob kindly looked after our greenhouse things whilst we were away (thanks Bob!).
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One of the jobs we’ve been meaning to get done is to set up the automatic watering system in the old greenhouse. The involves hooking up quite a few tubes, then cleaning all the drip ends, before finally attaching the timer. It also meant taking down some of the staging, which was not much fun as it was baking hot in the greenhouse. Once I’d got it all set up it was annoying to discover we have misplaced the timer, so couldn’t really get it all working after all.
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Pilla set out planting the celery out, which we have never grown before (partly because neither of us are great fans). This was a tricky task due to odd details on the packet (we thought we had got a self blanching type, the packet disagreed, the Internet was on our side), and involved several trips to Bob’s plot. Much like the leeks, Pilla has gone for some trialling, and planted some deeper than others, we’ll see which turns out best.
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We harvested quite a bit and left with a full trug of raspberries, strawberries, lettuce and beetroot. Elsewhere round the plot we have lots of fruit that looks almost ready – from cherries to plums back to blackberries.
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by Philippa | Jun 20, 2011 | Allotment
We really feel like we are on top of things on both plots at the moment, which is surprising given our three week absence while on honeymoon. Most of the greenhouse plants have been potted on to their final pots and due to having glazed the new greenhouse some have been moved over to plot 118. We have split all the varieties into both greenhouses, just in case they don’t grow consistently although the new greenhouse seems to be doing its job so far. As a result we seem to have plenty of room for other tasks. Neil has decided to do a little experiment with some rosemary cuttings which he is trying to get rooted. I’m not sure he knows exactly what needs to be done so he has just put them into damp compost! Apparently some rooting/cutting gels have high hormone levels, which is a bit off putting, so we will see what happens without.
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We have managed to take a bumper harvest of fruit home already, including about 1.5kg of raspberries, 750g redcurrants, 500g blackcurrants and 500g strawberries, all of which have been delicious. The blackcurrants, our first harvest off the plant we got about a year ago, are incredibly tart when eaten straight from the bush, so need plenty of sugar adding to any recipe they are being used in. I have a plan for the box we have in kitchen, a combination of cordial (move over Ribena!) and some blackcurrant vodka, which will need three months maturing and so will be in good time for Christmas gifts.
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We would have had more strawberries, and gigantic ones at that, had it not been for some local pest problems. The plants we put in during winter have been growing nicely, with large, upright fruit. They started ripening in the last couple of weeks and we had been looking forward to harvesting them once ready. However, eagle eyed Bob noticed that suddenly there looked to be a lot less fruit on the plants. We’ve come to the conclusion that it is either wood pigeons, squirrels or a rat. Whatever is responsible, it is pretty voracious and has left us with few fruit on the plants in the bed. It is a bit disappointing as it has never been an issue in previous years, but I suppose the wildlife now knows after three years on 97 that it provides a consistent supply of treats!
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Another casualty of the wood pigeons has been the kale and the purple sprouting broccoli, again things we have grown for the last two years without any attacks. We only planted them out about a week ago, having reared them to be big and healthy in the greenhouse and they are now almost stripped bare! This necessitated an emergency dash for some canes and netting and Neil spent a good deal of time constructing frames to keep them covered. Hopefully they will be back to normal in a few weeks, although Neil remains pessimistic! I really hope so as kale has certainly been a good crop in the colder months.
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More planting out this weekend, a Crown Prince squash, very precious as it was the only one that germinated out of the four I sowed. The broad beans, three varieties, Streamline, Red Knight and Moonlight, have been strung up the munty frame and look quite healthy but we have decided we must be a couple of weeks behind some other plot holders who already have flowers appearing on their beans! The Sugarsnap peas are now twisted round the base of a cane structure, these are the second attempt at these this year, as the first ones that I sowed directly into the ground pre wedding were very poor at germinating. Courgettes, Jemmer, Zucchini and Tundi, have gone out too.
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With the leek planting, I’m trying an experiment of my own. The Gardener’s World website reckons on planting them out once they are pencil thickness into holes that are 15-20cm deep and then watering them in so a little of the soil falls back in the hole. Some others (Bob included) reckon that all you need to do is dig them in with a trowel and put the soil right back over it. So we have two rows, one of each method, and we’ll report back if it makes any difference! We hope to still be in as much control of things in the next couple of weeks, but we have this weekend off in Glastonbury so who knows!
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by Neil Wilkinson | Nov 21, 2010 | Allotment
It’s Pilla’s 29th birthday today and we celebrated it in style. Allotment style of course. We’ve had another big break in blogs, for which we are very sorry but it’s been a combination of a) not getting down to the plot that much recently and b) not much going on at the plots. Well, I say not much going on, this is actually my favourite time of year. The weeds are not growing, the place is quiet and you actually feel like you are making progress with the plots, it’s just that there is not that much interesting stuff to report. The day was slightly interrupted today with the annual allotment task of signing up the other plot holders and payment of rents but we managed to get lots done over the weekend none the less.
On Saturday Philippa spent her last few hours as a 28 year old by removing all the old plants from the greenhouse which is now almost completely empty and giving it a good clean out. It only seems like a few weeks ago we could hardly get in there and now there is not a single plant growing! I tidied up the raspberry canes on plot 97 by removing the canes that had fruited this year and tying up the new growth. There are probably about three times as many canes as last year and we were overrun with raspberries so it’s a little bit frightening how many we might get next year.
We’ve been talking for a while about getting a little tea shed on 118, before we could do this we needed a shed base, which I made on Saturday with a layer of sand and 8 of the 2″ by 3″ flags. It started level enough but by the time you have laid a few of those flags you get pretty tired and in the end it’s probably best described as ‘level enough’. It now sits proudly next to the greenhouse base. We did have a plan to put the greenhouse up today but we probably couldn’t have done it in the time we had available, so instead I decided to make a brick path to both the shed and the greenhouse. I think they are best described as rustic! No-one could describe them as level and if you hit the right bricks there are definitely a few wobbles, but it is a good way of using up lots of the bricks we have dug up over the plot. Pilla sorted through the many pots we had of spent compost and grow bags from the greenhouse and spread it all over the asparagus bed.
We’ve harvested our first sprouts since the last blog (of which Pilla ate three, a record!) and today took our first parsnips. What with the beetroot, cabbage and kale we are well into our winter crops already.
by Neil Wilkinson | Aug 2, 2010 | Allotment
… it must mean another three days at the allotment and we got tons done again. We had another big job list and managed to get quite a few of them done. Creating a list of jobs to do on the plot is easy, actually getting time to do them when your fitting in weeding, watering and harvesting is another matter.
First up was some time dedicated to planting up our crops for a late autumn harvest and clearing some of the massive soil pile. Whilst Pilla was preparing the beds on 97 for the sweet williams and wallflowers I got to work clearing the massive pile of mud we had been left on 118. The previous occupants had dug up the path one day (it was quite a comical raised grass path that was about 6″ higher than the soil either side) and piled it on one side of the plot. This had then got absolutely covered in horrible weeds and is full of glass and rubble. Which means that not only do we have to dig through it, we have to clear the weeds, glass and assorted hand tools contained within it. I think I’ve got past the half way point and must have cleared around 20 wheelbarrows of mud, putting in around the plot werever the soil looked a bit low (or was of rubbish quality). We thought about using the extra space cleared to plant things but as we had just had some fresh manure delivered from the stables next door we opted to start a manure pile instead. This will eventually rot down a bit and we’ll cover the plot in the winter with it. I can’t see it adding that many nutrients but it should make the soil a better condition and it’s probably been years since anyone put any down on this plot.
Pilla planted some late sowing turnips and some late peas on the new plot. The peas are going at the front where the new potatoes have just come up from. Having not had a crop in for years this side of the plot is on it’s second already this year! We did tons more harvesting too, comedy sized courgettes and cucumbers included. We picked some more new potatoes (probably just plain ‘potatoes’ now) and lots of beans. Having hardly had any beans last year they are one of our big successes this year. The climbing beans in particular have done really well and we are considering scrapping the dwarf variety next year. We haven’t even started on the runner beans of which there are approximately one million. I had a quick weed and managed to put down the last two flags I have on the path, which i’m very proud of as iIt has made a huge difference to how neat the plot looks.
Another exciting job was to plait the garlic we harvested last week. I found this ace link on how to properly tie it together, for begginners like us it was definitely a two person job, but the result is pretty impressive. Our garlic is huge this year, i think every head is as big as the biggest one from last year. We’ve got 27 in total form this solent wight variety, including 6 we have singled out for the show. We’ve also got a batch of smaller garlic, which we harvested this weekend, and it is currently drying in the greenhouse. We used a lot of our own grown things in the Tatton park picnic on Friday night, including lots of fruit in this raspberry jelly. MMMMmm!
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