The sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip hooray!
Finally it feels like we’ve shaken off the colder weather and this bank holiday weekend was unusually sunny for such an occasion! We’ve had a couple of trips down to the plots between us over the long weekend. Neil had a mammoth bike ride to do on Sunday morning and so I was on my own. The path on plot 97 has been in need of a good weed for some time and these last couple of weeks the weeds everywhere have gone crazy, particularly dandelions! So I did some manic weeding which then spread to outside the fence down the side and along the front also. Was quite therapeutic really and looks much better for it. The weed compost ‘dalek’ is now full to the brim!
On Monday, boy was it hot! The temperature on the car dashboard reached 22.5C which hasn’t been seen for a while! We had a productive few hours. Despite the heat and being on a triathlon training rest day Neil decided to lay some flags extending the path on plot 118. The picnic bench has been resting on pieces of slate since we got it so now it has a proper base.
Lots of the greenhouse sowings have done really well in the last week. In particular the sunflowers and tomatoes suddenly looked like they were ready for more space. Neil is away in the US for work over next weekend and I am down in London for the same week and it didn’t seem like some of these plants could wait a fortnight! So while Neil shifted the flags and wheelbarrowed some manure I potted on all of the tomatoes, Brussel sprouts and sunflowers. Neil is crazy for sunflowers. However many we grow Neil always wants to grow more! They had germinated really well so there were plenty to pot on. We now have about 20 sunflowers-Neil tells me his plan is to have four rows!
Bob has kindly agreed to water the greenhouses next weekend but we can’t wait to get back and check how things are and, fingers crossed, spend more time in the sun!
Quick visit
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!
Go go go!
The sun has arrived! This has been the first week or so where the weather has stayed consistently warm and we like it! But it has made us feel in a bit of a rush to get things planted out. With a cheeky mid week morning off work I popped along and sat in the sunshine sorting our seeds out so we know what needs planting and when. And it hit me quite how much needs to be planted now (or in reality should have been planted weeks ago when it was too cold). But at least the packets are now all neatly bundled up in piles!
The propagator seedlings were growing so quickly this week you could almost stand and watch it happen. One morning there would be a handful which had germinated, two hours later they had doubled in number! Once they were germinating it didn’t take long before they were at risk of getting too leggy. I took the tallest to the plot mid week and the last of them today. We potted them on in the greenhouse into seed trays. It’s always a panic when they flop over dramatically after they’ve been moved and you think you’ve killed them all but they had perked up by the time we left.
Neil took on a unexpected task today. He suddenly decided that as the sun was out it would be a good time to paint the front fence on 118. We didn’t even know if we had enough wood stain but after a mooch in the shed we found an almost full pot of it. It looked lots better after he was done. Although I think he got just as much stain on his face and arms! He also weeded the front as he went along, so two birds and all that.
While Neil was painting I planted some seeds-lots and lots of broad beans (masterpiece green longpod), purple podded peas, sugarsnap, early onward peas, gherkins, cauliflower (snowball and purple queen), sprouts (hastings), cucumber (burpless and cucino). There were also some seeds that needed to go straight outside so we have some neat rows of parsnips (countess and imperial crown) and rainbow chard. I loved the chard last year when we first tried growing it but we didn’t plant anywhere near enough so I made up for it this year!
There had been a big manure delivery so I filled up the depleted manure bay on 97 with plenty of trugs of it. Felt like we ticked off a lot of good jobs in the few hours we spent in the sunshine.
Top Tip!
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!
“I’m dreaming of a white Easter”
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?!
We’re Back!
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!
Compost heaven
I totally admit to being a compost geek. I love the turning, the process, the building and prodding. I like looking at it and I like the recycling, it just seems ‘right’. However over the winter I’ve let my pride and joy slip. It’s so easy to just pile on the old plants and veg in September and just leave it, but the result isn’t great – and our heap was not looking good. So today I resolved to fix it. The first task was to empty out the manure bay, this was one third full of well rotted manure and I spread it all over plot 97. I think I counted 12 trugs in the end, which is quite a huge amount on our little plot. Once that bay was empty I could start transferring the unrotted compost heap to this bay. My plan was the chop up the big pieces, mix it all up, remove the good compost at the bottom, then transfer it back.
This took a long time! The compost bay was fairly full and it’s pretty laborious chopping up it the big pieces. After a while though I got to the good stuff – a whopping five wheel barrows of the black gold at the bottom, to spread around the two plots. Once that task was done I transferred the compost back to its original bay, adding in a few trugs of manure and mixing it up with a wheelbarrow of the good compost. I then set to work filling up the manure bay with many (many) trugs of manure. I honestly cannot tell you how happy I am with the result! The compost bay looks ace, I’m quietly confident it’ll go hot over the next few days as a result of the mixing, chopping and manure. This is the holy grail of home composting – it massively speeds up the process and kills some of the seeds in there too. Result.
Whilst I was obsessing over the compost, Pilla was quietly getting to grips with seed planting. We now have a ton of flower seeds and veg sown in the greenhouse with hopefully more to come tomorrow. We also managed to break for a delicious bean chili for lunch in the new shed.
Planting season
Every year it happens – you have loads of jobs to do over winter and tons of time to do them. Well, December is busy so we’ll definitely start after Christmas. January is too cold, so we’ll wait. February, well we’ll just give the plot a bit of tidy and then crack on with the jobs. Ah oh well, it’s now almost April and our worthy list of jobs remains mostly untouched!
With that being said we’ve had a great couple of days at the plot. Philippa managed to get in some sneaky midweek plot time and used it well by digging over a patch of ground that had the netting on for the cabbages last year. I cannot complete big jobs like this – I get bored very easily and move onto other jobs, returning to do other bits during the day. I get there eventually, but Pilla managed to do it in one go. Pilla also helped out relaying car park number 2 with the regular gang of volunteers on Saturday whilst I was out on my long run (if you wanted to sponsor me my page is http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/neilwilkinson – thanks!).
On Sunday we got to the plot very early – Pilla had an idea to have breakfast there, so we tucked into a very tasty bacon sandwich and cup of tea outside, food is always better that way! We then got on with a few jobs, Pilla potted on some of the tomato seeds we had germinated inside, they had got very leggy but tomato’s quite like being planted deep, so you can recover leggy seedlings pretty easily! I dug over the last bit of plot that needed it. It’s quite therapeutic – every time you pull a piece of mares tail root out you think “yesss, one less this year!” Hopefully we might be able to borrow Bob’s rotavator at some point coming up to cheat at making our soil as fine as his! I also weeded the asparagus bed. So far we have not taken a single spear home and judging by the paltry state of the plants last year I don’t think we’ll have any this year either.
So spring is definitely here, our fruit trees are only a couple of weeks away from blossoming and we have things growing in the ground. The weather has been beautiful all week, from a running point of view I want the weekend coming up to be cool, slightly damp and overcast. From an allotment point of view I’d like more sun please! One final note Bob has planted his potatoes, as Bob is our official ‘if he’s done it, we should probably do it now’ allotmenter, we’ll probably put those in next weekend!
Winter update
Well, it’s been a quiet winter on the allotment. We’ve not had a huge amount of time to get down there and the weather has not been kind when we did have time. Just lately we have been able to get a few hours down there and have managed to start getting the plot ready for the year.
[flickr]photo:6786056506[/flickr]
Last week Pilla planted the garlic, this should ideally have been a couple of weeks earlier – it is said to thrive on a cold snap and supposedly relies on a frost to split the cloves properly but our previous attempt at planting found the ground still frozen! We might have missed the cold snap so it’s fingers crossed this year for it. It did give her a chance to use a rather fancy measuring stick we made last year. Bit of old pallet, glossed white and then drawn on with a Sharpie and it’s made a good planting guide for those allotmenters who are challenged when it comes to estimating distances!
[flickr]photo:6786056956[/flickr]
We dug up the old leeks today, the winter had made a bit of a mess of them, so they have gone to bulk out our compost. I had a bit of a tidy of the plots today; you tend to accumulate quite a bit of junk at an allotment when you take one over, from old plastic containers, to rotten wood, to all the bits of glass and rubble you find in the soil – it all adds up. One car full to the brim of the stuff and it’s now all gone and the plots look much better for it. I’ve also picked up quite a lot of 2×3 flags, my plan is to finish the path round the back of the shed and put the bench we have on a little patio area which should stop the weeds from picking through. These flags have been a pain – the plot looks loads better for having a proper path, but they are heavy and you need to shift them quite a long way from the car park to our plot.
[flickr]photo:6786068390[/flickr]
Pilla dug over one side of the big plot today whilst I was loading the car. We added about a tonne and half of compost to the plot in October and a casting of chicken mannure pellets last week and the soil is looking pretty good. Hopefully next week we’ll dig over the other side and this plot will be good to go for the season.
We remembered to bring the seeds back from the shed today along with some compost so we are going to have a look at what needs planting today in the heated propagator. I can’t remember from last year when we started, but we must be close to planting some chillis (and we have remembered we still have a load of chilli seeds from Shelley to plant this year – last year they got forgotten about in the fridge until after we got back from the wedding!).
Winter jobs
Well it might be a bit odd to start thinking about things we can do over winter on the plots but we don’t want to forget so, here goes:
- Paint shed (blue!)
- Sand down and oil up greenhouse
- Clean glass on both greenhouses
- Paint the raised beds on both plots
- Paint the fences on both plots
- Buy some compost from Fairfield
- Frame to train grapevines
- Build new cold frame
- Fix the back gate
- Make path in new greenhouse
- Sort out area around pond (new bed maybe?)
Recent Comments