Ready for our close up!

We have had notice that the judge will be visiting the plots on 22nd July and we had a few things we wanted to do beforehand to try and get as many extra points as possible compared to last year’s results.

The weather has been lovely lately and really quite dry so a water butt was the last thing on our mind but it is one of the things you can get extra points for and we have always had butts on plot 97, we just hadn’t got round to it on 118. When Neil was doing a run to B&Q (reasons for that below!) he came back with a slimline water butt perfect for the space we had by the greenhouse. With some guttering and some crafty joins it looks a treat!

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Neil’s big project that required plenty of wood was a double compost bay. Again it was something we hadn’t got points for in the 2013 judging for plot 118 as we compost all our things on plot 97 and just bring manure over by the barrow without storing it on the plot first. The space at the back of the plot wasn’t used to its best and so it was the perfect spot for a compost bay and what a beauty! Although when you then start filling it up you realise just how big they are!

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The sunny weather has meant we have had our first ripe tomatoes, just a few rather than enough for a meal just yet, our first climbing beans and a lot of the flowers are really coming into bloom.

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We finally got round to planting some lettuces, a combination of loose leaves and headed varieties. I’m hoping that the heat is not too much to prevent them germinating or thriving. I’ve planted lollo rosso and lollo biondi, radicchio (palla rossa) rocket, little gem, endive (pancalieri) and Paris White. Fingers crossed! I also planted some viola (symphonia) and antirrhinum (snap happy mixed) which a bit like the wallflowers get started now for flowering next year.

Our cherry tree had a paltry year last year and looked like it was dying off so we weren’t expecting any cherries this time around. Now it only produced in single figures so it’s nothing to get giddy about but they were pretty perfect looking and the tree in general looks really healthy which should mean better years to come.

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There will still be more weeding and tidying before the judge’s visit but we made real progress today and the plots look great.

Weeding…again (or should that be still!)

A lovely weekend at the allotment in the sunshine, several hours flew by on Saturday but that may have been in large part to lots of chatting with Bob! Neil managed a couple of hours with me on Sunday after getting his almost 3hr run out of the way.

You really cannot miss too many visits at this time of year, the weeds have gone bonkers! The high temperatures all this week have had a noticeable effect. I popped along this Tuesday and gave things a good water and weed but even despite that there were plenty of new weeds to tackle by the weekend. Neil did a mammoth weeding of the onions, which seemed to have attracted more weeds than anywhere else on plot 118.

The heat has contributed to most other things growing great guns this week. All the tomatoes needed sideshooting already. The parsnips were ready to be thinned and the beetroot also, which incidentally seems to have had a really good germination rate. You could practically watch some of the greenhouse sowings grow. I planted some pak choi (joi choi) on Tuesday and yet by Saturday they had germinated well. The climbing beans were all sprouted and so I moved them to the coldframe to go out next week. I suspect the Brussels and cauliflowers already in there will be ready to go out too, but will need netting.

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All of the cucurbits have done well and will be outgrowing their 7cm pots soon so it will probably be time to get them outside in the next week or two. I potted on all of the cucumber/gherkin varieties and also all the chillies and peppers. We always pot on more than we will end up using as chillies are really nice to give to friends and families and are generally well received!

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Outside, the strawberries on both plots look decidedly perky and you can see that they are going to crop well, as long as we beat the slugs! I gave the shallots and garlic some water and added some organic general feed to the watering can.

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Neil put in some ‘cross training’ by digging over some more of plot 118 and getting a few barrows of manure. I sowed some flower seeds, much less tiring work! We say every year that we want to plant more flowers and while we have started quite a few off, I’m not sure we’ll have many due to patchy germination. Even our marigolds, usually a winner, have been a bit off. Bob clearly took pity and generously donated some of his spares which we can be transplanting or planting out in the next few weeks. There were some marigolds, lobelia, lupins and petunias. I did have two small buddleia and a hydrangea plant I’d bought last week, so I planted these out at the rear of the left side of plot 118 along the fence. Hopefully these will add some interesting colour and height when they establish. I sowed some pansies (forerunner), Michaelmas daisy, aster (milady), chrysanthemum (mixed), ipomoea (grandpa ott) and zinnia (Oklahoma) in the greenhouse and coldframe. I also sowed some poppies outside (Shirley double mixed). The packet rather poetically suggested sowing these in drifts for a majestic display, so I did my best to cast them in majestic drifts!

We are all up to date with seed sowing now, save for lettuce varieties. I think it’s because they grow so quickly that I have a tendency to leave them until we’ve caught up with other veg, which is a bit daft really as they are a tasty and value for money crop. Anyhow, I’ll get them in sometime over the coming week!

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Roll out the red carpet

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.

Post-Glastonbury catch up

We only had a quick visit to the allotment this weekend (well, Monday really due to getting involved in the mud/sun of Glastonbury) but still ended up getting quite a bit done despite the high temperatures (30C in Manchester, who knew?).  Bob kindly looked after our greenhouse things whilst we were away (thanks Bob!).

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One of the jobs we’ve been meaning to get done is to set up the automatic watering system in the old greenhouse.  The involves hooking up quite a few tubes, then cleaning all the drip ends, before finally attaching the timer.  It also meant taking down some of the staging, which was not much fun as it was baking hot in the greenhouse.  Once I’d got it all set up it was annoying to discover we have misplaced the timer, so couldn’t really get it all working after all.

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Pilla set out planting the celery out, which we have never grown before (partly because neither of us are great fans).  This was a tricky task due to odd details on the packet (we thought we had got a self blanching type, the packet disagreed, the Internet was on our side), and involved several trips to Bob’s plot.  Much like the leeks, Pilla has gone for some trialling, and planted some deeper than others, we’ll see which turns out best.

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We harvested quite a bit and left with a full trug of raspberries, strawberries, lettuce and beetroot.  Elsewhere round the plot we have lots of fruit that looks almost ready – from cherries to plums back to blackberries.

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It’s harvest time.

Phew! What a nice day Sunday was to have an allotment. We had a list of jobs as long as your arm to get done, partly because the plots were being judged this week and partly because that’s what happens when you have an allotment. Handily enough pretty much all of the jobs were quite fun to do which worked out well as my cousin and family came down to see what we’ve been up to.
  

First up was harvesting the shallots, the stems of which had flopped over a week or two ago.  I like the way shallots grow, they spend ages plumping up, growing big and then all of a sudden they flop over like they have given up.  We had a full bed of two varieties to do and we must have got two or three times the amount compared to last year.  Me and Denise strung them up and I then hung them out to dry, first on the bird feeder then finally a combination of the greenhouse and shed.

 

Next up was the garlic, which Kieran and Aidan helped out with.  The garlic had also completely flopped over during the week which is a pretty good sign it’s ready to be picked.  Only one type, the Solent Wight, was ready and it looks great.  We spaced them out a bit more than last year and the soil is probably in better condition, but even so we weren’t expecting such a big crop.  I think every single bulb is bigger and rounder than last year, I think we have 26 bulbs in total.

 

We then set about some furtling around in the carrot bed.  I think we managed one measley carrot last year and the bed was looking very healthy so we dug up a few ….. and….. they look amazing!  We were like proud parents!  Pilla even ran off down the plot to show Bob she was so proud!  The boys then happily wandered around sharing a carrot whilst pulling up some of the huge turnips.  They have gone epic in scale.   I’ve never seen anything like them, I’ll try and take a picture next week.  Pilla got on with planting some more lettuce varieties and we tidied up some of the old lettuces which has gone to seed.  Pilla has been really good at successional sowing this year – we are on our third lettuce crop already!