They Call Me Mellow Yellow

by | Jul 13, 2009 | Allotment

  

Colour all round at the allotment and mainly sunshine yellow hues! We have blooming sunflowers, opening courgette flowers and a pre-allotment breakfast of little eggs from the chickens. After the monthly allotment meeting yesterday we got straight to work. I was potting on the chillies into the florist buckets as they had started to flower and the hope is that with a bit more room we might get some fruit on them at the end of the season. We ran out of compost before I could do the same for all of the habaneros so this remains on the list of things to do. Meanwhile, Neil put his DIY skills to the test and set about drilling large holes out of a tall bin which he then partially filled with compost. He then carefully planted the strawberry plants Bob gave us so that theyare hanging out of the holes. The bin will be further filled once the runners in our strawberry beds are established. These won’t fruit until next year but they really couldn’t wait in their small pots any longer.

  

Exciting things happening in the greenhouse. We have a few little sweet peppers emerging, see above for our largest specimen thus far. If they continue at this rate we will get a good return from our four plants which will be a bonus as I think we were sceptical we would get anything at all. Neil had some aubergine tickling to do, with the help of a second hand paint brush. This followed a week of research in which opinion seemed to be divided. Some aubergines are apparently self pollinating whilst others require a bit of a helping hand. Not knowing whether ours were the former or the latter we thought it was better to play it safe and give them a tickle inside their flowers to distribute their pollen. Fingers crossed for the results! It was also time to plant out the dill and sage that had been started in the greenhouse. They are both looking a bit leggy so hopefully some fresh air will strengthen them up. A special mention goes to a new addition to our allotment equipment in the form of an old desk we recycled from beside the bins in our flat! Very useful for potting and DIY tasks but it may need a coat of varnish so it doesn’t perish.

It has been a good week for harvesting produce with a lots of lettuce and beans to bring home and I must say it is making us feel very healthy and virtuous! There is nothing quite like the taste of a fresh homegrown raspberry. 

   

 

Sowing the seeds, the birds and the bees.

by | Apr 12, 2009 | Allotment

We didn’t really have any major jobs to do this weekend (and last Monday too) but it started to dawn on us during the week that we had set a lot of our seeds aside to be planted in April and now we are almost halfway through the month.  This prompted a burst of planting activity today.  On Friday we delicately transported the batch of seeds we’d started in the flat over the last few weeks and already today they seemed to be much happier in the greenhouse, they definitely get more light there than on our windowsill.

We are still really just guessing when to plant things and we like to get caught up in the slight panic that seems to sweep over the plots at this time of year (“oh, they have potatoes in, should we put ours in?”). So today we have sown, in no particular order:

  • Parsnips
  • Leaf beet
  • Sugarsnap peas
  • French dwarf beans
  • Runner beans
  • Dill
  • Sage
  • Basil
  • Thyme
  • Sunflowers
  • Fuschia
  • Tomatoes

We’ve had limited success starting off peppers & chillies indoors at home so we are trying some more in the greenhouse.  Over the last week we have also put our potatoes in.  We are experimenting with them, we have some in the beds and some in tubs.

 

We probably would have got more done but we had to buy some supplies from Bob at the store which entailed a walk across the site.  This is not a fast process at the best of times as you tend to have a bit of a chat (and I’ll be honest here, a bit of a nosey at what everyone else is doing with their plots) but when Philippa is with you AND she is giving out shortbread then the 5 minute walk turns into an hour long meander.  This is not an exaggeration.

We took the opportunity to plant some bee attracting plants that Mum gave me (thanks Mum) although one of them is looking a little bit lonely at the moment:

  

 The rest of the plot is getting slightly more colourful everytime we go, although I have cheated slightly by taking super close up’s of these: 

 

Garlic and shallots: