by Philippa | Oct 19, 2014 | Allotment
It is now officially Autumn given we have entered October but the weather is unseasonably warm. We have picked one or two large bright red strawberries on each visit over the last week or two, along with lots of blueberries and while the squash are almost ready to be picked, the dahlias continue to bloom next to them. It is lovely to see but we can’t help but wonder what the impact on the next growing season will be!
Speaking of strawberries, we covered the asparagus bed with well rotted manure and the strawberry runners we potted on and cut off can rest there until there are ready to be planted out.
We cleared out the greenhouse beds on plot 118 and in order to make good use of all that space we buried some dahlia tubers from plants that had not lasted quite as long as some of the larger ones that were still flowering well.
Neil was on a mission, a manure mission, and put about eight barrows on the plot to be dug in at a later date. It really does feel like Autumn when the expanse of dark manure takes over from the green.
The basket of goodies has also taken an Autumnal turn, with gluts of tomatoes replaced by beetroot, apples and grapes making regular appearances. Although it is sad to think that the tomatoes, peppers, chillies and aubergines are gone for another year it is made better by the anticipation of parsnips, squash and kale and is totally forgotten in dreams of crumble and other treats to come!
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 | 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 Neil Wilkinson | May 25, 2009 | Allotment
I’m not sure where we would be on the allotment without the bank holidays – we spent two days doing allotment jobs and half a day shopping for allotment goodies this weekend. In fact, we got so much done this weekend that I think I will temporarily leave the descriptive posts we’ve been doing behind and try listing everything we got done instead.
Saturday
- Fed chickens and opened up the coop
- Bought bedding plants, flowers and organic slug pellets from garden centre
- Bought replacement trowel (my digging is so fierce I broke the first one on the very first use. Plastic and metal is no match for me) and water butt irrigation system from B&Q
Sunday
- Planted out the cauliflowers
- Planted out the lemon thyme, french thyme and oregano
- Moved the greenhouse shelves into the shed and had a general tidy up both shed and greenhouse
- With Tom, built netting around cauliflowers to protect from woodpigeons
- Set up drip irrigation system to the water butt. This should make watering our greenhouse plants a bit easier. (More information on this another week I think)
- Pilla and Nic weeded the plot
- Pilla and Nic planted out some of the bedding plants
- Neil planted out the new flowering blue scabious (sounds horrible, is very pretty)
- Pilla added some of the slug pellets
- Put chickens to bed
Monday
- Planted out all of the remaining bedding plants together with the marigolds from Sharon across the front of the plot, into two old hanging boxes we had and across the rear of the plot
- Created hanging boxes for flowers & possibly tomatoes
- Planted out three lavender plants
- Planted out runner beans onto the new munty frame
- Potted on two cucumbers to their final pots
- Potted on kale, basil, two sets of courgettes and more tomatoes
- Put dahlia, french beans and some basil into the cold frame
- Thinned out all the carrot containers
- Thinned out lettuces
- Added more manure to the poo pile
And finally done. Phew! We also have another job to do after this weekend – build somewhere shady and cool. So much of our time has been spent being cold over winter I think we completely forgot how hot allotmenting can get. We have nowhere shady to hide and I think we should try and resolve this, particularly after a little bit of sunburn for both of us yesterday in spite of our suncream!
Special thanks to Tom and Nic for their help on Sunday and for the refreshments they brought, particularly the banana muffins! Allotmenting is much more fun with friends.
by Neil Wilkinson | May 17, 2009 | Allotment
Well it had to happen. For the first time since we got the allotment we left early today because it was raining. Well I blame the rain, but us both being a bit tired and grumpy didn’t help either. I won’t say who was worse, we both know who it was and we try and operate a no blame culture on the allotment. The tiredness was caused by us both taking part in the Manchester 10km Run today so it was handily timed that we didn’t have a massive amount to do on the plot this weekend.
First up yesterday was the Saturday morning chicken feed and a brief stop to see what needed to be done on the allotment. We really should have learnt by now that ‘brief’ and ‘allotment’ don’t really fit in the same sentence. We popped back after lunch and planted out the red cabbages and in the same bed propped up some of the weaker purple sprouting broccoli we planted out last weekend. I tied up some of the sweet peas that hadn’t quite attached themselves to the strings we are growing them up and set about drilling holes in the bins we are going to put the tomatoes in. These are old bins from Pearson and with half a grow bag in each and good drainage holes they should make fairly decent homes for the toms. We grew way too many of each variety and so have been looking to give a few away, which we managed, but not without taking a few different varieties back. It’s one of the many nice things about allotment life that people are very generous about what they grow. So now we have 9 (that’s nine) varieties of tomatoes. I’m fairly sure that come the summer we’ll be able to keep half of Manchester in tomatoes and still have buckets full for ketchup. Sharon from the plot next door (that’s 3 mentions in two weeks!) very kindly gave us some marigolds which we should try and plant out next week – and Bob gave us a gooseberry bush, which despite a warning from him, still managed to attack Pilla with it’s thorns.
We spent Sunday afternoon planting lots of our tomatoes into the large pots and putting a cane in each, ready for their final positions in the greenhouse. We had a bit of a lesson in tomato growing from Bob on Saturday, so we picked out the side shoots as we potted them on. Pilla planted out the remaining beetroot – we found a forgotten seed packet last weekend, and I started planting out some of the sugarsnap peas we had growing in the greenhouse. I’m not convinced that they will be particularly successful (they were a bit leggy and we didn’t harden them off) so we planted some extra peas in with the plants just in case. I only got 4 done before the heavens opened and we hastily retreated to the greenhouse.
Unfortunately the rain meant that we couldn’t take any pictures which is a shame as we seem to have had lots successfully growing this week – in the greenhouse our courgettes, sweetcorn and lettuces have all sprouted, and our cucumbers, peppers, aubergines and dahlia’s are all looking good. With a bit of luck they will be doing just as well next week.
And finally, after months of hard graft, countless hours, and many many dirty fingernails, some produce from the plot finally landed on our plates! Step forward some spare Mizuna plants, whose leaves added a home grown touch to some salad we had on Saturday night. Ok, it’s not much but hopefully it’s a sign of things to come!
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