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 24, 2014 | Allotment
It’s that time of year when things start slowing down towards the end of the season. We still have the summer show to go but it has felt cooler and as if it was later in the year than that. But we also have some things which are coming into their own now the height of summer has passed, such as the flourishing squashes and the grape vine that is threatening to burst out of the greenhouse.
We have still been taking full baskets of goodies home, the selection is gradually changing to the later crops. It starts to feel like planning for the next season is the focus of our time and attentions, which can be just as exciting as picking lots of treats. Neil certainly likes this time of year and it can be hard not to get itchy fingers and tear stuff down too early!
We have restrained ourselves to pulling up the broad beans, storing bags upon bags of the tasty beans in the freezer and putting the first barrows of manure out. We also cut off all the strawberry runners that we potted up a few weeks ago. When you are potting them up it always feels like you might not have enough but once they are cut free from the main plants and the pots are lined up it suddenly feels like an awful lot of strawberries! It’s a good job we love them!
by Philippa | May 25, 2014 | Allotment
We really are being spoiled with the run of three day weekends we have had since Easter, it’s a shame we have to wait until August now for the next one!
After coming back from Spain on Thursday we knew that while there had been some warm days, there had been mostly cooler temperatures and quite a bit of rain. This was to bode well for how things had got on in our absence! However, as predicted last week the tray of calabrese that had suffered in the heat had not had a miraculous recovery and so I had to sow some more calabrese green sprouting, purple sprouting and summer purple sprouting broccolis. But at least the old dried out tray did not go to waste, as we discovered the culprit in ‘cat bum gate’!
We had a lovely lunch with friends today so we only got to the plot after 4pm. We had a long list of things we wanted to get done and managed to check off quite a few items despite the late hour. The tomatoes have come on well and suddenly looked tall and full of side shoots, so Neil removed them and tied them up.
We potted on the aubergines (jackpot and long purple) and most of the courgettes. Although, oddly, the zucchini variety hadn’t germinated at all so I popped another few seeds while we potted on the rest. We also potted on the chillies (which I think we were on the third or fourth sowing of after a strange run of issues with them!) and as a result of all of these jobs, Neil had to take down one side of the staging to make extra room.
On a slightly smaller scale I sowed some more Savoy cabbages as they had some patchy germination and I pricked out some leeks (almera) into larger pots to get them a bit stronger while also sowing a large pot of the jolant variety.
In the greenhouse on 118 Neil hacked back some of the grapevine, and I do mean hacked back. It grows with abandon and I’m convinced that the harsher you treat it, the more it likes it! We try and train a central line along the apex of the greenhouse roof so that it doesn’t get too much in the way of the other produce in there but it still persists in trying to, literally, branch out!
As for outside jobs, there was lots of re-jigging of the coldframe to be done to fit in the cauliflower (snowball), zinnia, aster (milady), chrysanthemum (mixed) and celeriac (prinz) that were ready for some cooler conditions. I also gave the shallots a water, as while they didn’t need the moisture after a lot of rain in the last day or so, they did need some organic feed as they had some yellowing tips and generally looked in need of a bit of a boost.
We dug up the spinach that had most definitely gone to seed! In fact I was joking that we had been keeping it in until it grew as tall (yes I said tall!) as me. Well it had exceeded that height, so it was most definitely time for it to come out. We’ll add some manure and feed to the bed once we dig it over to get it ready for whatever is next to come.
There are still jobs left on the list for tomorrow’s bonus weekend day but we are hoping for drier conditions to get more done outside, fingers crossed.
by Philippa | May 31, 2013 | Allotment
Phew what a scorcher! Or comparatively speaking given recent weeks. As we are at Neil’s half ironman triathlon this weekend I popped to the allotment today mainly to do some watering so things would be ok in our absence. However, the weather was glorious and I could find plenty of things to do so I ended up being there for a few hours. In fact there were so many things I wanted I get done I was jumping between jobs in what was probably a bit of a disorganised manner! Still I accomplished a fair few things.
I potted on the rest of the tomatoes that are going in the greenhouse on plot 97. This was really hot work as I had to lug the grow bags around emptying them into pots while temperatures reached 44c inside the greenhouse! In previous years we have fed our tomatoes, chillies and aubergines with Miracle Gro Organic liquid feed, adding it to the watering can once a week. When we did our B&Q run last weekend to stock up on grow bags and things we went to buy a couple of bottles of food only to find it is no longer available there. I’m sure it’s still stocked elsewhere but we don’t really have time to spare tracking it down! So we bought the only organic vegetable food option they had, the Miracle Gro dry feed. You add it to the compost, dig it through and water in. It reckons one application lasts 8 weeks. So we added that to the large pots we transplanted our tomatoes into and we’ll have to wait and see how it performs.
While in the greenhouses I realised there were a few other things that probably needed potting on or there was a risk they wouldn’t last until we had time to get to them. So I potted on the Brussels sprouts (hastings) and cauliflowers (snowball) and pit them straight out into the coldframe.
I pulled up some old sprouting broccoli and curly kale that was going to seed and dismantled the tunnel they were in. I also did some wedding of the larger weeds, so things looked much neater which is always my preferred way to leave things when we are away.
Some chippings had been delivered to the car park from the council. I put a couple of wheelbarrows over some patchy areas of plot 118 where you could see membrane peeping through. But I stopped after two as the chippings were largely green matter so it seemed a bit pointless to exert too much energy on it.
Having admired how far on some of Bob’s beetroot was and having only planted ours out a couple of weeks ago he revealed he had started his in the greenhouse as plugs. So instead of sowing more beetroot and chard straight outside on plot 118 I started some off in trays. Another plus is the neat lines we’ll have without inconsistent germination!
Lots of things are coming on in the sunshine. The grapevine has little grape buds on it and the plum tree looks like it will have a bumper crop after last years rest. The asparagus has produced seven spears of varying heights in the last week alone. I’m desperate to eat some this year but once again Neil says we have to wait! It doesn’t seem like it’s growing any thicker this year than last so I’m not sure what we are waiting for or what we could be doing to help it along, but oh well. I vote that if it doesn’t make big improvements next year we eat it and use the space for something else!
by Philippa | May 27, 2013 | Allotment
We had a pretty busy bank holiday weekend-Neil had a five hour bike ride and then on Sunday did twice round the Manchester 10km race. Monday was our day of allotmenting and we were really looking forward to it. The weekend had been pretty warm and sunny but Monday was a bit cooler but that’s ok for a full day on the plots getting stuff done. And boy did we get stuff done!
The front of both plots were weeded and we planted out some evergreen plants I’d bought a couple of weeks ago. The front of plot 97 doesn’t have many evergreen things in it which means it has times in the year when it looks pretty shabby and I wanted something a bit neater and more manageable year round. Well that has been improved and it will look even more lovely when things have established.
The coldframe was stuffed to the brim and everything needed planting out as they were at risk of being straggly. We planted out the broadbeans (masterpiece green longpod) in blocks and also planted some more seeds so we have some successional cropping. We also put out the pea varieties on the wire mesh (early onward, purple prodded and sugarsnap) and some more seeds in the planting trench. The germination was pretty inconsistent but hopefully they will all catch up with each other. As usual they all looked very floopy after they were planted out but with the windy weather we have been having they will strengthen up in no time.
We had done a mega B&Q run before getting to the plots for grow bags and multipurpose compost and it was good timing as the tomatoes needed potting on immediately. Neil did all 8 varieties in the greenhouse on plot 118 so they are in the final large pots and also potted on the aubergines to intermediate pots. The sunflowers were taking up lots of bench space so Neil put them out in our makeshift coldframe using some classy old shower panels! Good recycling at work there! Neil also gave the grapevine a good pruning as it is really getting going and there were too many little bunches to have all made it to full fruit.
The weather started to get a bit drizzly so I retreated to the greenhouse on plot 97 for some more planting of seeds. We are pretty much on target with most things now, accounting for the fact that the weather is about a month behind usual temperatures. I planted climbing French beans and red knight runner beans, three varieties of borecole (dwarf green curled, scarlet and cavolo nero), savoy versus cabbage and some sprouting broccoli varieties (purple sprouting, summer purple sprouting, green calabrese and red arrow). While I was doing that Neil started a job I don’t think he had planned to do but once he started he wanted to finish! The paths on plot 97 have for the last year or so been getting quite mossy and weedy. It’s ok to keep on top of the weeds every few weeks but the moss is a bit more tricky and also gets very slippy when wet. So Neil scraped off the top layer of the paths and it looks really neat. Hopefully it will last for a while!
In general this last week has seen a sudden influx of green and everything looks a lot fuller. We will definitely be sorted for redcurrants this year! We might also see our first gooseberries after planting out a bush that was in a pot for four years doing nothing and which I think we both thought was on its last legs! Next week will have even more going on. Love this time of year!
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