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!
by Neil Wilkinson | Jul 29, 2010 | Allotment
Phew! What a nice day Sunday was to have an allotment. We had a list of jobs as long as your arm to get done, partly because the plots were being judged this week and partly because that’s what happens when you have an allotment. Handily enough pretty much all of the jobs were quite fun to do which worked out well as my cousin and family came down to see what we’ve been up to.
First up was harvesting the shallots, the stems of which had flopped over a week or two ago. I like the way shallots grow, they spend ages plumping up, growing big and then all of a sudden they flop over like they have given up. We had a full bed of two varieties to do and we must have got two or three times the amount compared to last year. Me and Denise strung them up and I then hung them out to dry, first on the bird feeder then finally a combination of the greenhouse and shed.
Next up was the garlic, which Kieran and Aidan helped out with. The garlic had also completely flopped over during the week which is a pretty good sign it’s ready to be picked. Only one type, the Solent Wight, was ready and it looks great. We spaced them out a bit more than last year and the soil is probably in better condition, but even so we weren’t expecting such a big crop. I think every single bulb is bigger and rounder than last year, I think we have 26 bulbs in total.
We then set about some furtling around in the carrot bed. I think we managed one measley carrot last year and the bed was looking very healthy so we dug up a few ….. and….. they look amazing! We were like proud parents! Pilla even ran off down the plot to show Bob she was so proud! The boys then happily wandered around sharing a carrot whilst pulling up some of the huge turnips. They have gone epic in scale. I’ve never seen anything like them, I’ll try and take a picture next week. Pilla got on with planting some more lettuce varieties and we tidied up some of the old lettuces which has gone to seed. Pilla has been really good at successional sowing this year – we are on our third lettuce crop already!
by Neil Wilkinson | May 9, 2010 | Allotment
Another long day at the allotment. We got there bright and early to find two gifts – a bottle of homemade banana and apricot wine from Chris (thanks Chris!) and Bob had rotavated all of the ground that we had turned over last week (thanks Bob!). This was a huge job giving us lots more usable space and must have taken ages because the soil was rock solid. – the soil looks perfect for planting in now. I tried on a section I had turned over on Saturday and whilst Iwas struggling with the rotavator Pilla was busy feeding and watering the garlic and shallots on plot 97.
We made a quick call in to the stores to buy netting and canes (you can never have enough canes it seems) and also returned with a massive amount of wire fencing, which should easily be enough to cover the full side and the back of our plot. After lunch I used hoops to make the tunnel covering the cauliflowers and red cabbage, while Pilla sowed a couple of rows of swedes. Hopefully this should protect them from attack better than last year as the mesh on this netting is much finer.
Back on plot 97 we planted out our sweetpeas across the front and up the bamboo arch and filled up their place in the cold frame with the runner beans and purple sprouting broccoli. I did some more weeding on plot 118 and Pilla planted out kale (dwarf green curled), savoy cabbages (tarvoy) and sweetcorn (sweet nugget and mini-pop, a mini variety from Bob) in the greenhouse and a few more lettuce varieties out in the plots. We also potted on some of remaining chilli plants.
Our first fruit shouldn’t be too long away now, the strawberry flowers will soon turn to fruit and the red current bushes already have little green berries on-exciting!
by Neil Wilkinson | Mar 21, 2010 | Allotment
Great day at the allotment today. The sun was out, there were lots of people, and thanks to Eddie coming down we got absolutely tons done. The plan was to move the two trees from plot 97 onto 118 and put up the posts to form the back fence whilst Pilla got on with sowing the years first seeds. We’ now have four types of sweet pea, three types of tomato (tigerella, marmande, vanessa), cauliflower, oregano, broad-beans and scabious all sown in the greenhouse. That reminds me, I need to increase our bench space in the greenhouse soon.
Soon enough the trees were moved (we should have done this a week or two ago as the trees have actually started growing again) and we had the four concrete fence posts in place. We used a dry cement mix the hold these in place, I’m not sure it is as strong as wet mix but it should be fine for an allotment fence. We then got to work sorting out the front fence, this was a bonus job – I had most of the parts but didn’t think we’d get it done today. I borrowed a couple of pieces of wood from Bob, and It’s still not quite done, but we have the rails attached to posts and a working gate – something this plot hasn’t had for a while. The nice looking sign we inherited is proudly in position on the gate.
Elsewhere, Pilla managed to dig over a huge section of the big plot and plant a couple of currant bushes that Debs kindly gave us. The plots are slowly coming back to life, some of the garlic and shallots are beginning to grow, and the raspberries have leaves growing again.
Bring on the summer!
by Neil Wilkinson | Mar 19, 2010 | Allotment
I’ve been meaning to get this post done all week, but just had one of those weeks. We couldn’t really spend any time at the allotment for a few reasons, one of them being a huge pile of work for Pilla, so it was just me this week. The only jobs I could do/had to do were planting the new raspberry canes and blackcurrant bush. We both love raspberries and the ones we got from the allotment last year were so tasty we’ve decided to double up this year and get some more canes. We’ve gone for a variety that fruit off this years canes (the other ones we have grow on last year’s wood, so you have to chop down this years growth, and separate the new stuff. It’s not a massive pain, but it is more work). The new variety you just chop all the canes down at the end of the year and they all grow back the following spring. This should hopefully mean we get early fruit from one set and late fruit from another – in theory we could have fruit from May until November.
The blackcurrant bush is looking a little sorry for itself – I’m not sure if there was a problem with the delivery but the one we got looked like it had been in the post a while. I’m not hugely convinced it is going to thrive. Elsewhere, I was desperately looking for signs of growth (I know there will be more this week because I had a sneaky mid-week-post-work visit) and found a couple. No signs of growth from the garlic or shallots disappointingly.
I’ve been looking at the pictures from last year and I think we must be at least three weeks behind spring last year.
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