by Philippa | May 3, 2014 | Allotment
Glorious sunshine on Saturday and given the forecast worsens for the rest of the bank holiday weekend and Neil has the minor distraction of another marathon to run on Monday we thought we would make the most of it today.
In a fit of giddiness of being ahead with our ‘things to do’ plan we did some more planting. The first of the seeds to be sown straight outside this year were parsnips (countess and imperial), spinach (medania and perpetual), chard (red and rainbow) and beetroot (boltardy, forono, golden and barbabietola di chioggia).
More planting in the greenhouse of green and purple basil, melon (Blenheim orange), courgette (zucchini, jemmer, tondo chiaro di nizzi and dundoo) and cucumber (gherkin and burpless tasty green). Things that had not even germinated last week, such as the cucino cucumbers or Savoy cabbages, had grown pretty tall, all in six days. Some of the brassicas were growing so well that they needed thinning out, especially as we have no need for 50 plus red cabbages! Neil got busy snipping with the scissors-cruel but necessary! He also pricked out the pak choi and in a bit of an experiment put some in black growing bags and some in a seed tray to see which fares best.
Due to the warmer weather the onions and garlic looked like they could do with some water so I watered them with some organic feed which should perk them up. I always worry about how much this feeds the weeds too as I’m sure things like mares tail must love it! We did some outside sowing of flowers too. Cornflowers were sewn in ‘deep masses’ and poppies were cast in ‘majestic drifts’ according to packet instructions. Otherwise known as fling ’em in and see what happens!
Neil, always one to be tempted by an internet purchase, had added a white marker to his order when getting some seeds online and now it had arrived was keen to try making some signs for our crops. So we used it on some slate pieces that we have previously written on with chino-graph pencil with only short term success. Apparently it is waterproof but can be easily removed with soapy water. Stand by for reviews of its progress in a few weeks time. Meanwhile Neil thinks any allotment judges will like the extra effort to make the place look nice!
Having emptied the manure bay on plot 97 with recent loads to dig into the plots, Neil filled it back up again while there was spare manure in the communal bays. He also put about 6 barrows of it at the end of plot 118 which was only cleared of the kale a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure digging it all in will appear on the ‘things to do’ list for coming weeks! So much for being ahead, there are always jobs to be done!
by Philippa | May 27, 2013 | Allotment
I managed a cheeky few hours on Wednesday this week. But something was telling me that maybe this wasn’t a good idea as it became a very weird visit! Firstly, there was a headless (needless to say dead) bird on one of the beds. I had to be brave and get rid of it. No sign of the head yet-I’m a bit dreading it turning up somewhere!
Second weirdness was the discovery of a giant buried egg! I was planting some carrots (early market, flyaway and autumn king) and beetroot (boltardy, golden, forono and barbabietola di chioggia) and gave the beds a good raking first. I uncovered what at first appeared to be a large potato, although there was no associated greenery. On closer inspection it was a large egg, entirely unbroken and buried quite deep. I left it on the surface as I carried on planting, while a magpie eyed up the egg and eventually pecked into it-what a stench! So that got a flinging too! Later research indicated it was probably a goose egg buried by a fox for snacking on later.
I retreated to the greenhouse so I could catch up on some seed planting. I planted all of our courgettes (yellow jemmer, zucchini and floridor) and our squash (butternut, metro pmr, Turks turban, crown prince, bon bon, autumn crown, marina di chioggia). I also started a few larger pots of herbs, parsley, thyme, coriander and green and purple basil. A few last pots of melon (watermelon charleston grey and Blenheim orange) and spring onions (white lisbon and red) and then the final fright was a huge hairy spider in the greenhouse! A sure sign it was time to pack up and go!
by Philippa | Jul 14, 2011 | Allotment
I have decided that I am not going to bow, or call him Chairman or Mr President, no matter how often he asks. Following the AGM today Neil was elected as Chair of the Society. This was mainly due to the lack of willing volunteers when it came time to re-elect, but he does have plenty of enthusiasm!
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The AGM did not take very long, nothing very controversial. We then had a Sow and Grow event, with planters of compost to plant up with seedlings of lettuce, cucumber, tomato and radish, so that people could learn how to plant them and take something away to nurture at home.
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The weather was a bit hit and miss for most of the day, but it didn’t get in the way too much as most of the jobs we were doing were tidying, plot admin sort of tasks. We made two visits to the tip with all the bags of rubbish, glass and other general junk that had been cluttering the place up since we got the new plot. This alone made a huge difference. We also tidied our spare plant pots that had been hanging around on the old plot and gave the shed a good tidy, it really looks like we are on top of things. Perfect timing as the allotment competition judge will be doing the rounds in the next couple of weeks, fingers crossed this will get us extra points!
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Both sets of rhubarb needed all the dead leaves removing, as it made them look like they were on their last legs, so they look a bit perkier now and can concentrate on growing for next year. The broad beans that were in over winter had finished producing pods so Neil dug them up and covered the cleared area with some of our compost. I think he used three wheelbarrows full and it all looked really good quality and had a fine, crumbly consistency. I think it’s fair to say we are pretty proud of our compost (geeks!). The second lot of broad beans we put out as a bit of a punt have started to produce pods, so we may actually have successfully extended the season pretty well.
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I potted on the melon plants that were in the old greenhouse and put the watermelon plants into the cold frame. Next time I’ll plant them outside, which surprised me as I imagined they would need to stay in a greenhouse, and they like having a ridge to grow up so a bit of digging will be required. I also planted some more savoy cabbage seeds. It may well end up being far too late but the plants that we have so far have spent too long in the greenhouse while we were away on honeymoon etc and so I don’t think they will be great, so I’ll try to catch some up and put them out as soon as possible and see what happens.
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Next week we will be looking at planting any of the late sowing varieties we have, such as peas and beans.
by Neil Wilkinson | Sep 28, 2009 | Allotment
Only a short visit again today. We had the day off (in part to recover from my triathlon. I do like to think if you were to draw a Venn diagram of twenty something, marathon running, allotment owning triathletes that I might be the sole person in the middle!) so it was nice to spend a few hours tending to the allotment when it felt like we should have been at work.
Top of the list of jobs was to harvest more of our produce – it might be almost October but we are still getting really good amounts of tomatoes, peppers, chillis, runner beans, coutgettes and aubergines. We also took our first sweetcorn home (Pilla is proudly displaying her ears in one of the pictures). The sweetcorn was absolutely delicous for lunch!
We’ve got our first little figs forming. Figs are funny things – they set their fruits late in the year, you over winter them inside so they don’t get hit by frost and they then grow on to be ready the next summer. We currently only have about three of them so we are not expecting a bumer harvest next year!
We started clearing out some of the spent plants in the greenhouse. We’ve cut down one of the tomato plants that had no fruit and also composted the disappointing melon plants. The melon plants had taken great delight in spreading leaves everywhere but had been very reluctant to produce anything remotely melon-like. We then added some manure to the front bed and planted some crocuses and snow drops – they should add a bit of colour to the plot late in the winter.
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