by Neil Wilkinson | Mar 7, 2010 | Allotment
Ok, well maybe it hasn’t quite, but it definitely felt like it today. We spent all day at the allotment, there was the monthly meeting this morning, followed by a bit of noseying about the place and signing some new people up. By the time we got to plot 97 the morning frost had disappeared and we got to work. List of things we did:
1. Pilla planted a full bed of two types of garlic (I think this is about three times as much space as last year.
2. Pilla planted a full bed of two types of shallot (about twice as much as last year)
3. I broke down a lot of pallets to finish the fence
4. I finished the raspberry support I started last week
5. We emptied the old compost pots from the greenhouse and filled up some of the beds with it.
This last job is particularly satisfying as the dark compost gives the plot a kind of instant make over – masking the weeds and just making everything look ready for planting in.
Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I was quite looking forward to taking some but the camera batteries were dead.
by Neil Wilkinson | Sep 13, 2009 | Allotment
Another quietish day at the allotment. We didn’t plan to stay long because we didn’t think we had too much to do – there were a few tidying up jobs and a fair bit of harvesting, but nothing huge or time consuming. Whilst I was busy chopping down the spent cucumber plants in the greenhouse, Pilla was busy dealing with some overgrown chard and harvesting blueberries (sadly enough we counted how many blueberries we’ve had this year. From one plant we have had over 100, from one plant zero. Why?!)
We then set about clearing the cauliflowers. The cauliflowers were a disappointment this year, we didn’t manage to harvest a single one. They went from looking perfect, but small to bolted and flowery in a week. After taking down the netting (another thing we need to improve upon for next year) we composted the cauliflowers and put some manure on the half of the bed that we never planted anything in after our savoy cabbage seedlings failed. The manure is amazing – it’s been rotting for a good few months now and is absolutely full of worms. I don’t mean that there are a couple crawling around on the surface, I mean every trowel full has hundreds and hundreds of them. It’s quite impressive.
I then sowed some green manure on a couple of the beds we manured up last week. We then just had to harvest our goods. We are still getting loads off the plot – this week we took home blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, green & yellow courgettes, green and red peppers, chillies, aubergines, rhubarb and loads more tomatoes. Pilla put some to good use this afternoon by making tomato and chilli jam using our own tomatoes, chilli and garlic. Delicious!
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!
by Neil Wilkinson | Aug 9, 2009 | Allotment
We didn’t have long to spend at the plot this weekend with travelling to Scotland on Saturday but the time we spent there seemed very productive. Our first priority was a bit of damage limitation. The tumbling tomatoes we had outside were well and truly hit by blight which is a real shame as they were so heavy with fruit. We picked those that were blemish free in the hope that they may ripen at home, fingers crossed. The carrots have been in poor shape for a couple of weeks now. The leaves started to wilt and go brown and despite some extra watering and feeding they never revived. We are still not sure what caused this, but there are a number of possible suspects, including carrot fly, insufficient watering or poor soil quality. A mass cull was in order as most of those we pulled were soft and mushy, not characteristics usually associated with carrots! We did manage to salvage a handful but it is pretty disappointing and we hope to improve things next year.
On to the produce we are having success with, it was time to harvest the garlic. The stems had collapsed and yellowed which is a sign that they are ready, although it does briefly induce panic that they have all died! Neil dug the bulbs up keeping the stems attached for hanging purposes. There were a couple of tiddlers but the vast majority were healthy and plump. We laid them out in the greenhouse to thoroughly dry out for a week or two then we will store them in a dark cupboard at home ready for some yummy recipes! The greenhouse is looking lush with lots on the verge of being ready to harvest. Neil had to tie up a few of the aubergine plants because it was so heavy with fruit. A few will probably ready to pick next weekend if the weather stays warm. The peppers are really rocketing. Each plant has about ten or fifteen fruit with more flowers that will develop later. According to Grow Your Own magazine, each sweet pepper plant should produce between three and eight peppers so we are doing pretty well by their account. We picked a few of the bigger ones as they looked ready to eat and we didn’t want the smaller peppers to be deprived of nutrients.
The lettuces that we sowed a couple of weeks ago in the greenhouse were ready for potting on. The germination rate was really high so we were running out of room on the greenhouse staging. This lead to us planting some straight out with a sprinkling of slug pellets to deter any feasting. The timing couldn’t be better as we have used almost all of our first round of lettuces so hopefully it won’t be long before these are ready for cutting.
After a generous watering of all of the beds it was time to call it a day. Before we headed home I picked some of the sweet pea flowers. Some of the stems are looking a bit weak like they might be coming to the end of their flowering season and as they have provided some much needed colour to the plot for a good few weeks it seemed time to let them do the same at home.
by Neil Wilkinson | Aug 2, 2009 | Allotment
Despite the nice weather the allotment was pretty quiet and those two factors brought a constant companion to us today. The table we rescued from the bins is proving to be a bit of a sun trap – and at our allotment where there is sun, a place to lie and a few cat treats you will probably find Tammy. She’s a soppy little thing.
Tammy wasn’t the only creature on the plot today, we saw plenty of bees on our dahlias, a few ladybirds and about a million snails climbing up the bean frame. We are not supposed to like snails at the alloment and the bigger ones regularly get launched over the fench into the rough ground at the side of our plot, but when they look like this little fella, it’s sort of hard not to.
Again we didn’t have that much to do today. We fed the plants in the greenhouse, did some weeding and then harvested some more produce. Today we have taken home runner beans, tomatoes, courgettes (which Pilla is currently cooking up into a courgette casserole) salad leaves, mint, potatoes, cucumbers and sugar snap peas.
The beetroot is almost ready and our chillis are finally growing. I put the pictures of these together because I was talking to Ralph on Saturday, and not only did he give me a big bag full of tomatoes (thanks Ralph!), but he talked about a chilli and beetroot pickle he made last year. Pickles, beetroot and chillis – surely you can’t go wrong with that combination! We are going to have to make that this year.
Back in the greenhouse we got out first full truss of tomatoes – I think the variety is ‘Gardeners Delight’. The aubergines are growing at a fair pace and the sweet peppers have almost exploded. We have four plants and there must be 10-15 peppers on each.
Thought I’d also share the success of the growing frame (it’s known as a munty frame – I got the design from a web forum) as it is now producing tons of very straight runner beans and they are easy to pick too because they all hang down beneath the frame. Brilliant. The garlic we picked last week has dried out nicely in the greenhouse, and I think we can start digging up the rest of the garlic next week.
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