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 | Apr 5, 2010 | Allotment
It’s suddenly very busy on the allotment – both with people working their plots and with the number of jobs we have to do! The seeds we planted out in the greenhouse have had mixed results. The sweetpeas, cauliflower, basil and oregano have sprouted but there is still no sign of life from the tomatoes. It is hard not to peer into everyone’s greenhouses to compare their results with your own at this time of year! We have brought some pots and compost home this week to start some tomato seeds here in the warm with the hope that they might get off to a quicker start.
On Sunday I was on light duties to preserve my muscles for my training walk the next day but I managed to clean the greenhouse out, which was very satisfying and had been bothering me for ages. Everything has had a good sweep down, ready for Neil to start constructing the extra staging that we will need in the next few weeks.
Neil was doing more heavy duty jobs on 118 while I was tidying, as he was cementing in some of the concrete posts using a dry mix of sand and cement. Although he was a bit worried about one of them being wonky, we checked on them today and the cement has hardened nicely and they are all pretty straight. Only seven more to go!
We had some exciting deliveries over the last week. Our onion sets arrived, two white varieties (Fen Early and Hytech) and one red (Hyred) and so we planted really long rows on 118. Only a few are showing signs of growth just yet but at least none have been plucked out by hungry birds or squirrels! Even more exciting to receive was our asparagus crowns (Backlim) as this is a new crop for us. Bob has some growing which he started from seed but we weren’t sure we had the patience (or the expertise!) for this, particularly given that it is recommended that you wait for three years before harvesting even from crowns to allow for them to get established. Neil dug a long trench in a raised bed on 118 and we then made a small mound all the way along the trench as the spidery crowns need to be supported rather than squashed flat. We had ten crowns so we planted them generously apart and filled the trench in and added a little bit of organic fertiliser to help them on their way. We are hopeful that they will be successful, especially as we didn’t really have any opportunity to carefully prepare the soil in the bed, so fingers crossed.
We will have a busy few visits over the coming weeks as the pile of seed packets ready to plant is quite large! But as for the things already growing, there were even more signs of life cropping up all over the place. Each visit we are looking forward to searching out the new bits of greenery and it is amazing how fast everything happens, so no slacking off for us!
PS Thanks to Debbie for her kind sponsorship for my walking marathon!
by Neil Wilkinson | Jul 19, 2009 | Allotment
Exciting times at the allotment this week – not only did we harvest almost more crops than we could carry, but Pilla got to use her new trug:
As you can see it’s pretty full up. I have to admit that the trug is quite useful – and it looks the part when Pilla is carrying it, I’m just not sure I can pull off the look! The full list of it’s content is:
- Sugar snap peas
- 3 yellow courgettes
- Runner beans
- Dwarf French beans
- Broad beans
- 3 types of lettuce
- 2 cucumbers
- A handful of carrots
- Thyme
- Raspberries
Sunday was exciting for different reasons – there was a lesson from Bob and Walter on how to prepare vegetables for the annual show. The first weekend we spent at the allotments was at the annual show last year (you can see that here) – and we did wonder if we might have produce to show this year. We probably will, but won’t be challenging for a prize (we had a sneaky peak at Debbie’s onions and shallots and they must be about three times the size of ours) and unfortunately Pilla’s appeals for a category of our own for wonky vegetables was rejected!
After the show meeting we braved the rain to rattle through our list of jobs. I added a few more strawberry runners to the first bin I cut holes from last week. We have two of these to fill and thankfully our strawberry plants are going crazy producing runners for us to use. Using these bins will give us an extra half bed for other things next year and we should have lots more strawberries than this year. Pilla was busy digging up our bed of shallots – they had got a bit of a pounding in the heavy rain this week and didn’t look likely to recover and their leaves had been yellowing for a while. We got a pretty good number from them but they are pretty small – they are currently drying out in our spare room.
We also planted out the remaining habenero chillies, melons and some more basil and sowed more of our lettuce varieties. We didn’t manage to take a lot of pictures today – a lot of the time we were hiding out in the greenhouse sheltering from the rain. I did manage to venture to the front border – the dahlia’s that Mike from work gave me are looking great. Back in the greenhouse we are about to have a glut of peppers, we have four plants and each one probably has 10 peppers on it. We also have our first proper chilli growing – finally!
In between rain showers (actually just when the rain got a bit lighter) I planted some green manure in the bed vacated by the shallots and Pilla planted our some more radishes. We were pretty damp at this point so called it day.
by Philippa | Jun 14, 2009 | Allotment
It was a long time coming but we have had our first allotment tea! In fact, the lamb was the only component that we had not grown ourselves – not worked out how to grow a lamb in a raised bed just yet! We had grilled lamb steaks with new potatoes, rocket and mizuna salad and mint and basil pesto. Dessert was ten sweet and juicy strawberries shared between us. The new potatoes were an unexpected bonus as we didn’t really know that they would be ready to harvest. However, our impatience was getting the better of us and we decided to empty one of the tubs we had planted a spare Charlotte potato in. We knew that this could have meant sacrificing this plant needlessly if the tubers were not ready but we felt that it was worth it and boy was it worth it! I counted 18 potatoes out as Neil rooted around in the soil to check we hadn’t missed any. If our other plants have such good yeilds we will have more potatoes than we know what to do with!
Quite a busy day at the plot today with lots of jobs completed, all in the scorching sunshine. We planted out the sweetcorn and the curly kale that had been hardened off in the coldframe. Both were sturdy enough not to need any support at this stage, but we will keep an eye on them for the next few weeks to make sure they continue to prosper. The sunflowers took their place in the frame for the coming week. Not quite sure where they will be planted out when the time comes as space is rapidly running out!
It was renovation time in the greenhouse due to the flourishing tomato and cucumber plants. They were all getting wider as well as taller so Neil took apart the two sides of staging and spread them out a bit more. He then used cable ties to fasten the vertical support canes to two horizontal canes rested in our greenhouse fixings. This has really strengthened them up which is important for when the plants start to fruit as they cannot hold up the weighty fruit bearing trusses without help. We potted on the aubergines and peppers and all the resulting black tubs in the greenhouse have been connected to the water butt irrigation system. There is very little left in the greenhouse now that is not staying there and what remains we potted on this afternoon – chillies, squash, basil and alpine strawberries.
There are signs of things to come all over the plot now, with more tomato nubbins, fledgling cucumbers, tiny broad bean pods and flowers blossoming. All very exciting and after seeing the tasty meal we made tonight it is enough to make your stomach rumble in anticipation!
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