by Philippa | Aug 6, 2013 | Allotment
We managed a couple of visits this week and while the change in the weather might be making others grumble, the rain has helped a lot. Most of the squash and brassicas have grown a fair bit and look much greener.
The plots were judged for the annual competition this week so it’s a good job we’d done a lot of weeding last time. While I doubt we’re in line for any prizes we can at least be proud of how both plots look, especially given everything else that we’ve had to do this year! The results will be announced at the summer show so watch this space. One area he thought some members needed to improve on was composting. It’s odd as we’ve composted right from the start and it seems so obviously helpful that its hard to see why people wouldn’t compost! Maybe they just need a bit more information about how to get started. On that theme, Neil gave the compost bays on plot 118 a good working over. There was quite a bit of couch grass in one of the bays that we’d stored manure in which he cleared and he managed to get a couple of barrows of compost out of the bays for spreading around.
Neil was very much getting jobs ticked off the list! He did some tidying of the back of plot 118 and so I put some chippings down to keep it looking neat. He repaired the back gate which had somehow come away from its concrete post. But the best job was building a new front gate! It had been made out of pallet pieces but over time the screws holding the fastenings in were coming loose in the wood as it was slowly disintegrating. In fact the whole latch had fallen off on Saturday meaning it couldn’t be locked. Cue a trip to buy some wood and hey presto we have a lovely new gate! He even managed to get a coat of green woodstain on it before the rain started on Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, I wasn’t exactly slacking! The garlic and the shallots have been looking ready for harvesting for a couple of weeks so I dug them up. The two varieties of garlic are noticeably different in size, with the Lautrec Wight bulbs being almost twice the size. While the Solent Wight has performed well for us previously I might be tempted to just go for one variety next season. I hung the bulbs upside down on the greenhouse staging to dry. Then we’ll be able to see if there are any likely prize winners this year! The shallots looked good. The average size of this banana style variety is much better than the round varieties and I think we’ll get a lot of use out of them as a result. I strung them up in the greenhouse again to dry them out before storing.
The strawberries that have been growing straight in the ground rather than in the beds on plot 118 have for the last year been looking a bit like they were on the way out. The crops from these are generally smaller and fewer in quantity. We’ve never really been sure of the variety as we inherited them but they are quite seedy too, definitely our poorest performers given how good the others are! So we decided to get rid of them and I dug them all out. We also started collecting some runners off the other strawberries so they can be transplanted later.
We had a successful batch of small but tasty carrots. Think the key is picking them quite early on, previously we’ve left them a bit longer and they have been holey as if they’ve been eaten by something! So we’ll pull some more up next week. Meanwhile we’ll have to be looking up some good plum recipes as it looks like there will be a bumper crop!
by Philippa | Jun 9, 2013 | Allotment
A lovely weekend at the allotment in the sunshine, several hours flew by on Saturday but that may have been in large part to lots of chatting with Bob! Neil managed a couple of hours with me on Sunday after getting his almost 3hr run out of the way.
You really cannot miss too many visits at this time of year, the weeds have gone bonkers! The high temperatures all this week have had a noticeable effect. I popped along this Tuesday and gave things a good water and weed but even despite that there were plenty of new weeds to tackle by the weekend. Neil did a mammoth weeding of the onions, which seemed to have attracted more weeds than anywhere else on plot 118.
The heat has contributed to most other things growing great guns this week. All the tomatoes needed sideshooting already. The parsnips were ready to be thinned and the beetroot also, which incidentally seems to have had a really good germination rate. You could practically watch some of the greenhouse sowings grow. I planted some pak choi (joi choi) on Tuesday and yet by Saturday they had germinated well. The climbing beans were all sprouted and so I moved them to the coldframe to go out next week. I suspect the Brussels and cauliflowers already in there will be ready to go out too, but will need netting.
All of the cucurbits have done well and will be outgrowing their 7cm pots soon so it will probably be time to get them outside in the next week or two. I potted on all of the cucumber/gherkin varieties and also all the chillies and peppers. We always pot on more than we will end up using as chillies are really nice to give to friends and families and are generally well received!
Outside, the strawberries on both plots look decidedly perky and you can see that they are going to crop well, as long as we beat the slugs! I gave the shallots and garlic some water and added some organic general feed to the watering can.
Neil put in some ‘cross training’ by digging over some more of plot 118 and getting a few barrows of manure. I sowed some flower seeds, much less tiring work! We say every year that we want to plant more flowers and while we have started quite a few off, I’m not sure we’ll have many due to patchy germination. Even our marigolds, usually a winner, have been a bit off. Bob clearly took pity and generously donated some of his spares which we can be transplanting or planting out in the next few weeks. There were some marigolds, lobelia, lupins and petunias. I did have two small buddleia and a hydrangea plant I’d bought last week, so I planted these out at the rear of the left side of plot 118 along the fence. Hopefully these will add some interesting colour and height when they establish. I sowed some pansies (forerunner), Michaelmas daisy, aster (milady), chrysanthemum (mixed), ipomoea (grandpa ott) and zinnia (Oklahoma) in the greenhouse and coldframe. I also sowed some poppies outside (Shirley double mixed). The packet rather poetically suggested sowing these in drifts for a majestic display, so I did my best to cast them in majestic drifts!
We are all up to date with seed sowing now, save for lettuce varieties. I think it’s because they grow so quickly that I have a tendency to leave them until we’ve caught up with other veg, which is a bit daft really as they are a tasty and value for money crop. Anyhow, I’ll get them in sometime over the coming week!
by Philippa | Apr 7, 2013 | Allotment
Another dry and not too cold a day, it might actually be Spring now! Although maybe that should be whispered in hushed tones so as not to jinx it?
We had our monthly meeting first thing and once finished we did a bit more digging over on plot 118. We’re in the bit that is quite heavy going compared to the rest (and which we STILL manage to find glass in four years later). But we are nearing the end of that hard patch and so hope the last bit of the left side will be much easier!
The onions are still doing well and it’s a fine balance between putting them out too early and leaving them in the greenhouse for too long. So we’ve taken them out of the greenhouse, partially sheltered them with some glass panes and will try to plant them out next week. Our Charlotte potatoes are also ready to plant out next week, as they don’t look like should be hanging around inside much longer.
There are more signs of life around the plots. The rosemary has flowered and all the soft fruit bushes have either buds or small opening leaves on them. The garlic seems to have done well in the last couple of days of sunshine and as it hasn’t rained for weeks I gave them a bit of water from the butt.
We’ve started our tomatoes, chillies and aubergines off in the heated propagator at home and this leads me to a top tip! We always seem to go through loads of plant labels from first sowing, to potting on, to planting out. The packets of labels you can buy from the garden centres often don’t have enough in and we have been unimpressed with some of them. Wooden lolly sticks work temporarily but the writing fades after a fairly short time in the sun. And so we came to our free solution! All you need is an empty plastic milk carton, the bigger the better. Wash it out and cut it down it’s length so it opens out flat. Then cut out strips and cut these to the length you like for your labels. You can trim one end to an angled point but it isn’t vital. Now you can write on these with Sharpie permanent markers and plant as many things as you like! Worthy of a Blue Peter badge I think!
by Philippa | Apr 2, 2013 | Allotment
The unpredictable weather certainly lasted longer than we anticipated! A few weeks of snow, ice and high winds have meant that we have not been able to get down to the plots much at all. We would normally have started sowing our tomatoes and chillies in our heated propagator at home but once they germinate they need to be potted on quite soon afterwards and the greenhouses just aren’t warm enough yet. With the forecasts only now getting to be more appropriate for the time of the year we are starting them this week.
The onions are still in the greenhouse. Some have sprouted quite tall, others haven’t, but all of them have made really good root systems. An added bonus will be that when we plant them out in the next week or two the chances of pesky birds or squirrels lifting them will be reduced if they already have roots. This is also good for those gardeners who like neat rows uninterrupted by random gaps!
The Easter weekend and its bank holidays gave us a good block of time to do some more soil preparation. All of the beds on plot 97 now have multiple trugs of well rotted manure dug into them. We had added some manure to plot 118 a couple of weeks ago on top of the compost layer and so we did a fair bit of digging it over. The difference in the soil quality on the left side of plot 118 is really noticeable compared to a few years ago. Even the patch of clay we have in one area is much lighter and finer, all through what’s been added over the last couple of years. It feels like a good achievement, albeit a bit of a geeky one!
There are quite a few signs of Spring finally visible. The raspberry canes, gooseberry and currant bushes are budding. The garlic we planted a few weeks ago has sprouted, seemingly having enjoyed the cold snap! The rhubarb has gone crazy, particularly on plot 118. It looks like it’s sprouting up all over the place! Hopefully now the weather is milder we are looking forward to getting caught up with sowing things in the next couple of weeks, but we wouldn’t be surprised if we end up working about a month behind schedule due to the weather. Surely we must be due some normal weather next year?!
by Philippa | Apr 2, 2013 | Allotment
Well, it is not quite a year since our last post and so it seems as good a time as any to get back to blogging about the allotment! Fear not, we didn’t take a year off the plot. We were busy as always digging, sowing and growing. Last year was a strange year for allotmenting with the weather-a heat wave in March and then a very wet summer made for some difficult conditions. Lots of things that we had always had good crops of struggled and if it wasn’t for the greenhouse we would not have taken home anywhere near our usual quantities. We said we were glad it wasn’t our first year as it would be easy to believe that we were doing something wrong and to give up if we were just starting out. Anyway we thought that 2013 would be much improved…so much for optimism!
We didn’t have a lengthy list of over winter jobs. The main task was soil preparation. We ordered a ton and a half of compost to be delivered at the end of January. Forty four wheelbarrow runs later it was spread out on plot 118! It is a much finer grade than we had delivered last year and so it seems like it will be really good at improving the texture of the soil.
Due to the crazy weather we’ve had so far we were worried about starting our onions just as another snowy spell was forecast. We followed Bob’s lead in trialling a new technique by planting the sets in seed trays that were covered with clear lids and kept in the greenhouse. This at least would give them a chance of putting some roots out until it was warm enough to plant out. Varieties are Red Baron and Sturon.
We were a bit bolder with our garlic as they prefer a cold snap so we put them straight into the beds on plot 97. Varieties are Lautrec Wight and Solent Wight which we’ve had lots of success with in the past.
Sadly Neil’s grandma passed away at the start of the year. In the big clear out of her house there were some old gardening tools looking for a good home. I don’t think anyone believed us when we said we wanted them as they thought they were passed their best but they are just the job for us and includes a good shovel which will make Bob proud! We put one of the spades to good use with all our digging of compost-thanks Grandma!
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