by Neil Wilkinson | Jun 1, 2010 | Allotment
Due to the Manchester 10km and Edinburgh marathon over the last two weekends we haven’t been spending a lot of time on the plots and have had even less time to update the blog. We’ve made up for the former by having a four day weekend of allotmenting and I’ve taken a lot of pictures to get a good update done.
Two weeks ago we moved the munty frame from 97 to 118 – there is a lot more room there and it held up very well in the move. We’ve planted out about twice as many runner beans as we did last year, with a new variety that’s a cross between a runner and a french bean and as such is less stringy. We got these out just after the last frost which caught a few people out (including killing the top leaves of our potatoes), and the beans seem to be doing pretty well, hopefully there won’t be another frost. This weekend we quickly hardened off the sweetcorn for a few nights and planted them out in front of the runner beans.
After the AGM on Sunday we bought four Brussel sprout seedlings as out of a whole tray of our own seeds only three germinates and we have only two viable plants. Considering just one of us eats sprouts I think two plants would be more than enough but it just didn’t feel like enough. Still, at 30p a seedling we hardly broke the bank! Next up was planting out some sugar snap peas, dwarf french beans, climbing french beans and peas. To do this we had to create something for them all to climb up – the dwarf french beans and peas need support up to about waist high, the climbing beans and sugar snaps need something considerably higher. I designed a totally unique structure (absolutley nothing like the bean structure on Bob’s plot, it’s not even close*) and put it right next to the nets I made for the sprouts (the netting is also nothing like the net structure just next to it on Bob’s plot. Totally different*) and Pilla planted out the seedlings and sowed a few extra peas in the holes for good measure. We then did a fair bit of weeding over the plot as the warm and wet weather over the last week seemed to have really brought out the weeds, they are growing quicker than everything else! We also planted a line of sunflowers in front of the beans and gave the onions and broad beans a liquid feed – we have some concerns about how fertile the soil is on this bit of the plot and neither the onions or broad beans look particularly healthy.
We spent a lot of time potting on plants in the greenhouse throughout the weekend as we had lots of plants busting to move into bigger pots. We potted on all of our tomatoes into their final pots, along with the padron and black pearl chilli’s, marconi and new ace peppers and the aubergines (moneymaker). I took down some of the staging to make room for the plants in their bigger pots – I took the staging down but left the ‘deck’ and legs in two large pieces which I then attached the side of the greenhouse. This keeps them out of the way and should mean it’s really quick to put up the staging again in the spring.
We did a general weed on plot 97, although there really wasn’t that many to take out. Pilla did some successional sowing of lettuces in a free bed, something that we weren’t very good at last year and vowed to improve upon this time around. On Sunday we thinned enough of the many lettuces we have to make a tasty salad for tea. Pilla also sowed another batch of parsnips and a few beetroot as the germination rate on the new plot has been really disappointing which we think might be a sign that the soil fertility is in need of some help . We had tons of beetroot last year (some of which won a prize at the summer show) so only having a few will be a real shame.
Elsewhere on plot 97 things are looking pretty good – we have lots of blackberry flowers across the whole length of the bush, it’s quite amazing that this was a tiny little plant this time last year. We have loads of little strawberries growing and in the same bed the raspberry canes are covered in fruits that are not quite ripe, flowers which results in frequent visits from many bees. The scabiosa plant has survived the winter and now has it’s first very pretty flower. Happily we only have a few days of work this week before we can get back to the plot!
* Ok, I ‘borrowed’ the design from Bob!
by Neil Wilkinson | May 2, 2010 | Allotment
A mammoth couple of visits over Saturday and Sunday meant that we have ticked quite a few jobs off the ‘things to do’ list. While we didn’t have much sunshine (not totally unexpected for a British bank holiday weekend!) it was great weather for getting lots done and plot 118 was our focus. On Saturday, Neil planted out the last of our chitted potatoes, Charlotte this time, whilst I weeded the onion bed. The weather last week has been the perfect combination of warm and wet so there were weeds absolutely everywhere you looked. It’s difficult to know where to start but the priority had to be those beds with produce in them. So next for a blitz was the raspberry bed. They really need to be weed free as they are so shallow rooted so to try and keep on top of it we covered the cleared bed with a few sheets of dampened newspaper and then plenty of hops to form a barrier, which will hopefully last a couple of months. In a lucky twist of timing, Simon was wanting rid of several heavy sheets of tarpaulin so we relieved him of them to lay at the back of the plot where weeds and grass carpet the area. They should provide enough coverage to prevent further growth until we clear that fully, which might not be until next year.
On Sunday we planted out some flowers and evergreen plants that we had bought from the garden centre on Friday, after some more weeding of course! We have some echinops, lupins, tulips, iris and a lovely rhododendron (had to check the spelling on that one!) and Bob very kindly gave us some plants he had grown extra of which should give us plenty of coverage throughout more than just the summer months. Neil completed the front fence in almost record breaking time, but sod’s law meant that as soon as he took the lid off the woodstain to finish the job we had our first shower of rain.
To complete the general tidying up, Neil worked wonders with the area just behind the fence where there were a fair few neglected strawberry plants hidden amongst a mass of weeds. We know from experience that they are hardy little blighters so as he cleared the weeds he replanted the strawberries into their own raised rows. Fingers crossed that they take to their new location as it will mean many more strawbs this year than we first thought!
I managed to get out of any more weeding and set to planting out those seeds that can go straight outside at this time of year. So we now have neat (although not as neat as Bob’s) rows of parsnips (Countess and Imperial Crown), a half row of turnips (Purple Top) which will be successionally sown again later on and three rows of beetroot (Bolthardy, Chioggia and Golden). Lines of string mark them out until we can differentiate the seedlings from the ever appearing weeds. On plot 97 I also planted some 60 day broccoli (Raab) and two types of spinach (Medania and Perpetual).
Having seen everyone elses broad beans popping up outside over the last few weeks it was time to move ours from the coldframe to a bed on plot 118. I planted them out in a block but also included a further block of seeds which should mean a longer crop and greater chance of many more delicious broad beans than last year! Just seen the weather report after the news and there is a risk of frost tonight but hopefully this will be another example of them getting the forecast wrong otherwise some of our good jobs today may be scuppered!
by Neil Wilkinson | Oct 25, 2009 | Allotment
More general tidying up to do today as there are more plants coming to the end of their life. Neil cleared the last of our tomato plants from the greenhouse, which suddenly looks very spacious! One of the pepper plants was now bare and a couple of the chilli plants were limp and so they went on the compost heap too. However, this was only after another bumper harvest – 15 habaneros and 47 chillies to join the bulging bag in the freezer and the ever lengthening string of dried chillies!
A bit of digging for some accompaniments for the Sunday roast followed. The leaves on our parsnips had grown considerably over the last couple of weeks and so we expected that the roots would have done their fair share of growing too and indeed they had. They were very tasty and sweet and were joined by a mixture of beetroot alongside our chicken. We also picked some kale for a chorizo and bean stew later in the week.
Our biggest job this week will come over the next few days when we have to address our minds to our seed order. We learnt from last year that it is easy to get carried away with your order as the names of fancy fruits and vegetables catch your eye! Also, some seed packets come with 12 seeds in them and others have 1200! As a result, we have some things that we will definitely have to order for next year and others that will last us for another two or three years. We have already decided a few new things that we want to try out, including swedes and broccoli and I am sure we will find other things to tempt us, so stay tuned.
by Neil Wilkinson | Sep 20, 2009 | Allotment
One of the amazing things about having the allotment is seeing how much it changed and burst into life over the summer. Well if summer was a 100m sprint autumn is more like a gentle stroll through the park. The allotment is slowly putting on it’s winter coat in the form of lots of rotted manure on the beds, followed by the sowing of some green manure.
The idea with green manure is that you plant it whenever you have bare soil. It quickly grows and you either dig it in straight away to provide some extra humus to the soil or you can leave it to help smother weeds and prevent rain from leaching away the good stuff in your soil over winter. We are leaving ours in over winter, which has the added bonus of giving our plot some much needed colour over winter.
We didn’t really have much to do today. We harvested some beetroot for tea (three types!) and a few peppers, tomatoes and chillies, tied up the apple tree (thanks to Pilla’s old tights!), fed the greenhouse plants and that was about it. Home in time to watch the derby.
by Philippa | Aug 31, 2009 | Allotment
Plot 97! Well, partially at least. This weekend brought the annual summer show and with it the hotly contested produce competition. We saw the show last year and it gave us lots of inspiration about what we might be able to enter ourselves this year. But we did not expect to have much produce to choose from so it was a surprise to be able to enter 15 items into the competition. Neil had been constantly telling me in the last few weeks that it was the taking part that counted and that we probably wouldn’t win anything, but the competitive streak in me meant I was desperate to win something, anything!
We are pleased to announce our results as follows: first place for our garlic, second place for our beetroot and runner beans and third place for our shallots, dahlia and my Victoria sponge!
We were really pleased to be taking part let alone winning any prizes so it made our hard work over the past year worthwhile. Out of all the people who won prizes in the competition we came third. Both second and third place were held by members who are in their first year of having a plot so it just goes to show what can be achieved even in the early days with a bit of enthusiasm and a lot of luck! A special mention must go to Bob, as without him I’m sure we would be floundering around not knowing what to do and when, so he definitely deserves some of the credit for our prizes.
We still had some work to do at the plot this weekend, once the victorious glow had mellowed a bit! Having dug up our onions and garlic recently we have quite a bit of empty soil on show. We didn’t really have the opportunity of spending much time improving our soil before we planted things this season due to the lack of time and so we want to remedy that for next year. We added some manure and organic soil improver to the bed that is fully cleared and after digging it through we sowed some green manure seeds. These will add nutrients, prevent leaching and reduce weed growth over winter.
I planted out some of the lettuces that had been in the coldframe and harvested more of the tomatoes that were ripe. It is nice to be planting things out rather than pulling them up as at this time of year you can start to feel nostalgic for the greenery that was bulging out of every bed only a few weeks ago. But there are still enough things growing to last us into the autumn. We have a pumpkin that is getting more swollen by the day; our blackberry bush is sending out branches metres long and the squash are starting to develop.
We cannot help but get excited already about all the things that we will be growing next spring, such is the cycle of being a budding allotmenter. Fingers crossed for more prizes next year!
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