Pinsrap's Plot

In the summertime (supposedly)

2007-07-12T06:55:00.000+01:00

Hey Guys, thought I would put a mid-week update in for you, to show how things are going. Firstly a design issue. As you know, from the outset I started using raised beds on my plot, to try to make it easier for me to keep on top of. After the first year and a bit of doing this, I have decided to take the beds out, and work the full plot as open soil. There are a couple of reasons for this; one is having to keep the paths clear all the time, as they seem to constantly develop weeds. Now this doesn’t seem like much of a problem, but our site suffers from an infestation of Bindweed and Mares Tail, so even if I can keep the beds clear, it creeps in from the paths. The other is usage. Each of the nine beds has a path of 0.5 metres between it, just enough to get between the beds and kneel down. Doesn’t sound like much, but it equates to 4.5 metres of the plot, 18 square metres of wasted space. While we were walking home on Monday night, Paula and I were looking over neighbouring plots fences, seeing how they were doing, and I have to admit I was encouraged by the sight of so many open soil plots as against raised bed plots. So, starting with the right hand side of the plot, which is yet to be cultivated, I will start using open soil next year, instead of beds. Once the beds start to empty over the coming months, I will lift the wooden sides away and clear the paths. This will give me an opportunity to double dig the plot, clearing as much of the remaining rhizome and wicken from the weeds as possible, and get some manure dug in to the soil. Realistically, the beds that I am using at the minute haven’t had any ‘rest’ for a year and a half, and to be honest were prepared in somewhat of a hurry to enable me to get stuff growing. Now having a little experience under my belt, I am able to stand back and think long term, and plan for what will be the best way of doing things in the future. One thing I have learnt from the last eighteen months is that having and working an allotment is no where near as daunting as you first think when you get your plot, and see this vast expanse of weeds that are almost as tall as you are. I’ve also learnt that no matter how hard you try, it takes time to get results, but those results are worth waiting for.

Anyway, back to matters in hand. The extra couple of weeks that I had left the Harlequin early potatoes in the ground for have done the trick. They have gone from cherry tomato size to a nice decent size potato. They are a slightly waxy variety, with a purple/pink tinge to the skin, and taste delicious, so a couple of boilings of these were removed on Monday night, along with another few handfuls of the Charlotte potatoes. The main crop potatoes are looking very healthy, with good growth above ground. This brings me to another dilemma though. Paper sacks or Hessian sacks. Now from my days of running a supermarket fruit and veg department, I can always remember getting potatoes in 3 ply paper sacks, so would tend to lean towards them, but a lot of people seem to be using Hessian these days, so what to do. I would tend to think that the paper sacks would degrade over a period of time, so Hessian would be a better long term bet (putting the environmental hat on there, recycling and all that), but would that be detrimental to the storage of the potatoes. Your thoughts and experiences on this would be welcome, so I will start a thread on the forum regarding this, (assuming there isn’t one already, will do a search first).

The peas are coming on nicely at the moment (Greensage), with the first real picking of the pods coming on Monday night as well. There is something about fresh peas straight from the pod that takes me back to my childhood, and spending time at my Nana’s house (God, that makes me feel old, I am only 33 you know). Now I know I keep saying this, but I just can’t get over the taste difference between my own veg, and the stuff the supermarkets are selling. Why have we put up with this stuff for so long? The French beans are slowly catching up, after a very slow start (and a few nibbles from some unwanted guests), and are now starting to flower. The courgettes have suffered slightly however with the wet weather, and a couple have succumbed to blossom end rot. These have been cut off the plant, and the rest seem to be doing ok.

The greenhouse crops are coming along nicely, with all the tomato plants bearing fruit, albeit very green still. The cucumber plants are flourishing this year, after last year’s poor showing, and have plenty of fruit on. Also, the aubergine plants have started to flower, large purple flowers which look fantastic, with little aubergines poking through.

The Sweet corn and Butternut Squash plants are coming on slowly, and were treated to a feed of Fish, Blood and Bone last night, to try to help them along a little.

And finally, we had the first of the Strawberries this week as well. After a little battle with slugs and birds (I won), the plants are producing lots of Strawberries, which are ripening daily, lovely.
Well, that’s it for now. Paula and I are on holiday next week, so weather permitting, we will be spending all week on the plot, so watch out for hopefully a sizeable update next time.

Cheers Guys.

Tony

Anybody seen Noah about................

2007-07-02T21:07:00.001+01:00

Hey Guys, hope everyone is well, and this latest weather isn't causing too many problems for you all. To start off, I thougth I would just mention a little about our site here. As I am now on the blog map on the forum, you should be able to see the layout of our plots. We are quite a big allotment, split into three sites. Starting from the left, we have Chester Road Allotments, the larger of the three sites, leading to Thornhill allotments in the middle, and accross to Throston Allotments, where I reside. When I first started looking at getting an allotment, I received the usual info from the council, with maps to the various vacant plots, so I went wandering. And I have to say that everyone that I spoke to, was helpfull, polite and generally happy to talk to me. That is a spirit that is ingrained within our plots, and I am glad that I chose to take up a plot here.

Anyway, down to business. Inbetween the rain, I have managed to get a bit of work done down on t'farm so to speak. The first bit was to harvest the winter onions and shallots, as you can see, and lay them out to dry. A few were lost unfortunately, but to nothing more sinister than a tomato ragu, which went down a treat. The biggest surprise, however, was to how strong they were. I can normally chop an onion without even flinching, but I was in floods with these, my are they strong. The taste from them is in another league though, so much nicer than shop bought. Now I know that is a line you have heard from me many times, but it just reinforces the reason as to why we all do this. So, the onions and shallots are laid on a drying rack (in other words, two old freezer baskets covered in pea netting), and will stay there for about two weeks. They will then be strung up and kept in the pantry at home, to be used as and when, until the summer onions are ready. To give you an idea of size, look at this one:

This is one of the first onions that I lifted, a nice size, nice dry papery skin, and a fantastic flavour. You can see how fresh it is by the remains of the stalk, and how green it is. Believe me, it didn't last that long in the kitchen.

Right. From the onions to a rather obscure crop:chickpeas. As a member of the HDRA, I am lucky enough to be taking part in a couple of the member experiments this year. The first of those is the Carbon Footprint experiment, which is ongoing throught the year, and is based around realising and reducing your carbon footprint. The other is growing Chickpeas, a crop not native to this country, and is based around wether or not they can be grown in the UK. For those of you who are not familiar with chickpeas, they are the main ingredient in Humous (one of my favourite snacks by the way), and grow in pods like their other, better known relatives. So, the peas were direct sown at the end of May, a little later than expected, but due to the weather, unavoidable. And I am happy to say that about 60% of the seeds have germinated, resulting in what are at the moment, small bushes. (You can see three of them in the picture, amongst the weeds). The rest of the experiment is based around how many pods each plant gives, peas per pod etc, and I am happy to be able to take part. I am also looking forward to harvesting the chickpeas, to make fresh humous, to go with fresh homemade pittas (ok, I'm drooling already).

Ok, so what else has been happening. Well, the crops in the greenhouse are coming on tremendously, with all the tomato plants excelling, and bearing fruit, albeight green at the moment, but showing promise for the coming weeks. The cucumber plants are bearing fruit as well, with about eight cucumbers developing across the three plants, and the aubergines starting to set. The flowers on the moneymaker aubergines are a really deep purple, akin to a pansy, very nice to look at. The pepper and chillis are also catching up, with the first signs of fruit showing on them as well. Outside, the Jemmer courgettes have come on tremendously, with some nice fruit already on the plants, as you can see. The jemmers are a yellow courgette, and are developing nicely. I am also very tempted to take a few of the flowers, and deep fry them in a tempura batter, just to try, as they are supposed to be very nice. I will let you know if this happens, and what they are like. I hope they live up to their prolific cropping reputation, as I love courgettes in stir fry, pasta etc. I have also transplanted the first of the leeks into their final growing positions. There are two varieties here, Musslebrough, which I grew last year, and Lyon. There are five rows of each in this bed (you can never have too many leeks), and the remainder wil follow the early potatoes, once they are all lifted. Speaking of potatoes, the Charlotte are

fantastic, hopefully I will get a shot of them for you at the weekend, if they survive long enough before ending up in the steamer. Yes, it's that line again, but they taste so much better then even M&S jersey royals, and that's saying something. Ok, thats it for this update. There will be more at the weekend. In the meantime, take care guys. P

About time I updated this thing.............

2007-06-03T17:03:00.000+01:00

Hey guys, hope everyone is well. As usual, it has been some time since I updated the blog, but the work has been progressing at the plot, with some favourable results. Firstly, the Garlic. You may remember that when I planted this back in October time, I started a little experiment. I bought a pack of 'Marco' garlic bulbs, specifically for growing, and also a couple of bulbs of Tesco's organic garlic from the fruit and veg counter, to see if there would be any noticeable difference when growing. As you can see from the photo here, they both seem to have grown ok, with the Marco bulbs (topmost) being slightly bigger. However, this was not the case. On closer inspection, the Tesco's garlic had not split properly, and was just a solid lump at the base of the garlic. I couldn't put this down to growing conditions, as they were both in the same bed on the plot, so the only other factor would be to leave it in the ground a bit longer. This then presents another problem, and the reason as to why I pulled all the garlic up this weekend. One of the plants looked as the leaves were dying off (as you would expect), so I pulled this bulb up to see how it was doing. A good job too, as this bulb was covered in a white fungus/mould and the skin was falling off the bulb. Obviously the few wet weeks we have had recently has caused too much of a damp environment for the garlic, so the only option was to pull it all up. Luckily, I have only lost three or four bulbs to this 'rot', with the rest being perfectly fine. So all in all, a worthwhile experiment. I will only use bulbs specific for growing in the case of garlic, with maybe some cloves saved from this crop for planting next year. And although I only have the 'Marco' garlic from the crop, this is still somewhere in the region of fifty bulbs, which should keep me going for some time.

Onto the greenhouse crops:

The greenhouse crops are coming on leaps and bounds, with Aubergine, Sweet Peppers, Chilli Peppers, Jalepenos, Cucumbers and Tomatoes taking pride of place. The Sweet and Chilli peppers are in pots on the shelving as you can see in the first picture. The sweet peppers are 'Worldbeater', hopefully giving a better crop than the 'Californian' variety that I tried last year, but without much success (which has also put me off buying B&Q own brand seeds). The two chilli plants are Jalepeno and 'Hot Stuff'. The jalepenos grew quite successfully last year, and this is the first year for the Hot Stuff, so time will tell how they turn out. You can just see in the bottom right of this first picture, three of the four Aubergine plants, these being 'Moneymaker' and 'Caliope' (I think) varieties. The moneymaker is a traditional variety, producing large purple skinned fruit, whilst the other produces creamy coloured fruit, with purple tinges around the stem. I am really looking forward to seeing how these turn out. Next to these, at the rear of the greenhouse are the cucumbers, with three plants in all. Two are 'Marketmore' with the third being 'Burpless Tasy Green'. I grew the burpless last year, but only managed to get two or three fruits of the plants before they died off, hence growing the two varieties this year. They seem to be doing ok so far, but time will tell. This brings us round to the tomatoes, which you can see some of the lower picture. There are five varieties here, those being Gardeners Delight (Cherry, 1 plant), Legend (Beef, 1 plant), Italian Plum (Donated seed, 2 plants) and Alicante (Salad, 2 plants). I grew both the Gardeners Delight and Italian plum last year, and they were fantastic, with the taste being more intense than anything that you could get in the supermarket, so am looking forward to these again, but I am also looking forward to trying the Alicante and the Legend so bring on the fruit. As you can see, the first trusses have set on these plants, so I have started to water with a tomato food every few days. Also in the greenhouse are leeks in seed trays, ready to go into the ground when I lift the early potatoes, which hopefully should only be a few weeks away, as well as a few strawberry plants that were sown in January, but didn't actually germinate until a few weeks ago, go figure.

Moving on to outside:

The winter onions that were planted in October last year have really come on well, and should be ready for lifting soon. Here we have 'Senshyu Yellow' and 'Red Baron' varieties, alongside a row of shallots (which I can't quite remember the variety at the minute, D'Oh). The shallots have split very well, and also should be ready to lift shortly. The bed that held the garlic is next, and has become another experiment, seeing as I didn't have time to plant all of my seed potatoes, I still had Maris Piper tubers to go in the ground. So, they have followed the garlic to become an extremely late crop (if it works, if it doesn't, ah well), along with a few Desiree tubers. Watch this space. The bed next to this has the onions that were planted in the spring, comprising 'Sturon' and 'Electric Red' cultivars, as well as shallots again. Between each row, carrots were sown, but obviously the birds have been digging in the soil, as the carrots are no longer in rows, but popping up all over the bed. Since I wasn't sure what carrots looked like when they first germinated, I didn't bother weeding this bed until they had established. I can now weed without fear of pulling up carrots by mistake. The next bed has 'Hollow Crown' parsnips in, and the same principle was used here, as I definatley didn't know what parsnips would look like when they first appeared, so this will be weeded next weekend, now the they are through and I can recognise them.

Moving up the plot, we come to the potato beds. The first being home to the earlies. The varieties here are 'Charlotte' and 'Harlequin', and as you can see, are coming along nicely. They were planted at a depth of about 6 inches in a trench that had been enriched with come chicken manure that had been forked into the bottom first. The tubers were spaced about ten inched apart, having first been chitted in the greenhouse to produce some nice, dark shoots. The trenches were then back filled and earthed up to offer protection from the frost. This has worked well, as you can see from the growth here, and I will have a little poke about at the surface in a few weeks to see if there are any ready to come up. The next bed has the Maincrop potatoes, being 'King Edwards', and they were planted in the same manner (albeit on time, not like the Maris Piper), and have started to produce some nice growth as well. We then have an empty plot (which is where the Maris Pipers and Desiree should have been, if I had time to actually finish digging it over) which has been covered for the time being to kill off a few persistent weeds, and will be used at the back end of this year, beginning of next year. At the end of this side of the allotment, we have the brassicas. Growing here we have Cauliflower 'All Year Round', Brussel Sprouts 'Of some type or other', Cabbage 'Greyhound' and Callabrese 'Romano'. These were all started off in plug trays in the greenhouse, before being transplanted into the final plot. This has been covered over to protect from birds and butterflies/caterpillers. As you can see, they look quite healthy. On the other side of the plot is a lot of black plastic, that is covering the ground until late autumn/early winter, when this ground will be prepared for next year. However, it is home to a couple of beds as well. In this patch we have French Beans, which aren't doing so well, Peas 'Greensage' , which are doing quite well however. Under these are five courgette plants of the variety 'Jemmer', which produces a yellow fruit. In front of these we have a block of Sweetcorn, which is companion planted with squash 'Butternut'.

And finally, we have the fruit bed, which is housing a Tayberry bush, a Blackberry bush, and a few Strawberry plants (ok, twenty strawberry plants), which are just starting to flower, so will be surrounded with straw to protect the fruit/deter slugs, and netted over to fend of the birds.

Well, that's about it for the minute. A lot more in the ground than last year, but it is still only the second year here, so I don't think I am doing that bad. Hope everyone else is enjoying success on their plots.

Till next time. Take Care.

Drowned Rat

2007-03-04T17:04:00.000Z

Good afternoon guys and gals. Hope the start of March finds you all well. I'm a fraid this is a text only update, as I forgot the camera again, good job breathing comes naturally. Anyhow, left the house in bright sunshine this afternoon, and arrived at the plot as it started raining, but never mind. What progress since the last update. Well, I have planted a couple of rows of carrots (Early Nantes), and a couple of rows of parsnips (Hollow Crown). I have planted the carrots with spacings to allow for onions to go in with them, to try and reduce the risk of carrot root fly. They were station sown, at spacings of around 4cm, with 3-4 seeds per station, to be thinned out once they have germinated, and reach around 2cm in height. The parsnips were sown in a simliar way, but without the spacings for onions. The onions will go in the ground next weekend hopefully.
In the greenhouse, I discovered that nobo memo board pens are no good for plant labels, as it washes off, and the condensation in the greenhouse has removed a lot of the writing off the plant labels in there. Luckily, there was enough writing left on the tags for me to recognize what was what, and re-write it in pencil. Suffice to say, my tomatoes, peppers, chilis and aubergines have germinated, so I should get a nice long season out of them.
And finally, I planted the salad and early potatoes today, after having them chitting in the greenhouse for a few weeks. The two varieties were Charlotte salad, and Harlequin first early. These were planted in a trench, approx 6in deep. After digging the trench, I put a few handfulls of pelleted chicken manure in, and dug this in, before placing the seed potatoes in the trench at spacings of around 12in between tubers. The soil that was dug out was then raked back into the trench, and earthed up, to offer protection in case we get a few late frosts over the next few weeks.

Well, that is about it for this update, and will try and remember the camera for next time.

Cheers. P.

Put your back into it (me that is)

2007-01-30T16:44:00.000Z

Hey guys, hope everyone is well. Decided it was about time I got my finger out and started getting the plot into shape proper for this season, so took a couple of days off work this week. Monday and Tuesdays forecast looked good, and for once the forecast was right. This allowed me to get pretty much everything I had planned to do out of the way. Now, I have had this plot for a year now, which realistically means that it should be all ship shape, but there has been one major problem. The state of the ground. As you can see from this picture, it's not that good. 99.9% of the ground on my plot was like this, glass, rubble, rubbish etc all over the place. So it has not just been a case of turning the ground over, as this has been in a layer of up to a couple of inches in some places, hence it has been a long drawn out process. It is a case of raking the ground over, digging into it with a fork, raking it again to get rid of the next layer of detritus, digging it again etc. So I suppose you can forgive me for not having a completely clear plot by now. However, I had a clear goal set out for these two days, and that was to have the left hand side beds finished. This basically involved a lot of digging, raking, digging and cultivating, then creating the framework for the beds. Back breaking work, but worthwhile and very rewarding at the end of the two days. The remaining ground was cleared of glass etc, then raked over and dug. This was a patch of about 10ft by 15ft, and was dug to a spades depth. The framework for each bed was then built and fastened into the ground (barring the last two beds, as I ran out of wood), before the clods were broken up with a three pronged cultivator ( I think they are called an ibis, NFG will probably put me right on this later). Once the ground was broken up, the soil rake came out to level and reduce the size of the clumps. After the beds were level, my other rake was used, to create a fine crumb. I have to admit that this rake is one of my favourite bits of kit, purely for the fact that it used to belong to my nanna, and must be at least 30 years old. It produces fantastic results, that you can probably see from the picture. What you can also see is that the last two beds need to have the frames built, as I said earlier, and one bed is framed but needs breaking up and raking. This should be done on Sunday weather permitting. The first two beds here have had lime added to them, preparing them for the carrots and parsnips that will go in there. Once the rain has taken the lime into the soil, a top dressing of Fish blood and bone will be added. The carrots and parsnips will then be planted probably the second week in February, the carrots being companion planted with onions as a deterrent (hopefully) to carrot root fly. The next three beds are for the potatoes. The charlotte and harlequin will occupy the first bed, with the next two beds housing the king edwards, maris piper and desiree main crops. These will be interspersed with shallots between the rows. The potatoes and shallots will go into the ground mid march for the salad and earlies, and beginning of April for the main crops. The last bed on this side will take brassicas, which will consist of the all year round caulis that are currently in the greenhouse, along with cabbage and calabrese / broccoli (I think I have some of these to start off early March time). So, I think you will agree that the two days were well spent getting this patch of ground ready. Sunday will also be spent preparing the ground to the right of the picture, currently covered in plastic. The first patch, up to the level of the greenhouse will be the fruit cage. The ground will be framed off into one big 'C' shaped bed at the weekend ready for the frame to be built around it. This means that I will be able to get raspberry canes into the ground on time in March (both summer and autumn fruiting varieties), as well as strawberries which will be started from seed in the greenhouse. As there will be no fruit on them straight away, it gives me a little time to get the cage built. I also used the time over the last couple of days to organise my seeds. This basically meant labeling twelve envelopes up with the months, and then putting the seeds packets into the appropriate envelope, depending on sowing date. Oh, and I also built a new gate, which I will show on the next update. Right, that's it for now, will post the next update after Sunday.

Cheers. P

A New Season

2007-01-14T16:11:00.000Z

Hey Guys, hope today finds you all well, and the winds haven't caused you too much of a problem. I was dreading going down to the plot today, as our site is quite high and quite open. However, I was pleasantly surprised. The fence was still standing, so was the greenhouse, bar a single pane of glass. In fact the only real problem was a couple of sheets of polythene that were covering the ground had blown about a bit, so no major drama. The greenhouse is a problem that needs to be addressed however. Unfortunately, I am missing one of the roof down bars, so had to make one myself, which means, gluing the glass to said bar, which is not quite as strong as clips, hence losing the pane, so if anyone has a spare roof bar, let me know. Anyway, I would like to introduce you to the latest addition to pinsrap's plot, 'The Compost Bin'. This was born of a few old doors that were sat at home, so I decided to put them to good use. All it needs is a few holes drilling in the sides for ventilation, and it's sorted. And I'm sure it won't be long before it starts filling up. This should (hopefully) provide me with some decent compost next year. Other than that, today was mainly tidying up what the wind had blown about, then setting the seeds potatoes off to chit. The garden centre next to where I work got their seed potatoes in at the end of last week, and for a change, are not charging the earth for them. The special offer on the spuds was three bags for nie quid, which to me was quite reasonable, especially when you consider the likes of Marshalls are charging four quid a bag, plus postage. So, I went shopping for spuds and onions. Just over twelve quid saw me good for Charlotte salad potatoes (2kg bag), Mairs Piper maincrop (2.5kg bag), King Edwards maincrop (2.5kg bag), Sturon white onion sets (50 bulbs), Baron red onion sets (50 bulbs), and shallots (20 bulbs) which I can't remember the name of at the minute. Not a bad buy to be honest. So, out came the egg trays, with the protection of gardening gloves as I hate spiders and I was sure there would be some lurking. I was right. These guys would have been in the running for the lead roles in Arachnaphobia. Tehy were HUGE. However, in my mindset of organic gardening, I re-housed them in the greenhouse as predators for when I start planting up in there (I think I'm getting good at this growing lark). So, the seed potatoes have been laid out in the egg trays, and left on the shelving in the greenhouse, so they get a bit of shade from direct sunlight. They will then be planted in mid march, in trenches lined with pelleted chicken manure and grass cuttings. I am going to ridge them up with topsoil, to give the beds that extra bit of volume, so we will see how they turn out. You will also see in the picture here, the All Year Round cauli's that I started in November, ready to be planted out in April, along with the Italian salad leaves, which will be transplanted to pots on this occasion.

Ok, so that is it for this week, have a good night guys, and take care.

Seasons Greetings

2006-12-17T19:48:00.000Z

Greetings, salutations, and how do!!. Hope everyone is well. Just a little update on the old plot, at this seasonal time of year. Hope everyone's christmas preperations are going well.

Personally, it is a time of preparing for next year, which I am looking forward to greatly. The plot is coming on leaps and bounds, with the left hand side turned over fully and covered, and I have got about a third of the right hand side turned over so far. The left hand side has been covered with black polythene, as per previous posts, but I am going to leave the right hand side open to the elements for a while to allow the frost to get at it and break it down a bit.
Since the last post, I have planted some 'Electric' red onions into the plot, to go with the senshyu yellow overwinter sets, to give a decent crop next year after the spring sown sets have gone. The shallots that were planted earlier in autumn have started to split, ready to provide early season goodies for next year. The garlic is also coming on leaps and bounds, with what looks like every clove germinating and sprouting. Photo's to follow next week.
I have also taken stock of the seeds that I have ready for next year, having collected them throughout the year from various offers etc, and have found that I have more than I anticipated, and am somewhat ready to start planting next year, albeight short of one or two varieties. I will be paying a visit to Arcadia and Strikes on friday once I finish work to plug the gaps. This will then leave only seed potatoes to aquire for the new season.
So, that is about it for this update, short and sweet I am afraid. However, it is all in preparation for a bumper season next year, which I am looking forward to with great gusto.
Until next week, cheers for stopping by.
P.

Things are looking good

2006-11-20T21:32:00.000Z

Hey guys, how are we all. Ok, so I forgot to charge the camera batteries again, so I'm afraid we're stuck with photo's from the mobile, so please forgive the quality. As you can see, the entire left side of the plot is now turned over and covered, ready for next season. This pretty much means I can start sowing and planting on time next year, which is an improvement on this year, when what I did sow went in late. The greenhouse has been emptied and cleaned, with shelving installed, and the cauliflowers started, as per the last entry. So what's new. Well, I have started work on turning over the right hand side of the plot, which you can just make out at the front of this picture (again, apologies about the quality). This actually turned out to be a nice surprise. After raking all the flotsam off the top, which mainly consisted of weeds, burnt wood and broken glass, the soil appeared to be in quite good nick. This was confirmed when I started to turn it over. The spade went in quite easily, and the soil falling of the spade crumbled into a nice loam. Bonus. This means a bit less work for the start of next season, as the soil will be pretty much ready to work straight away. Hopefully I should have the entire right hand side turned over by the end of the month, to allow it to be covered with plastic.

A little bit of growth progress. The picture above shows the garlic poking its head out of the soil. I have to admit to being a little sceptical about how well this would do at first, as I thought my soil may hold a little too much water, causing the cloves to rot, but the preperation work incorporating plenty of organic compost into the ground first seems to have donet he trick, with the 'Marco' cloves germinating very well, and the 'Tesco's' cloves follwing slowly but surely. The picture to the lower right of this shows the Senshyu yellow onions germinating quite well also. There are about fifty bulbs growing here, with about ten 'Jamor' shallots alongside, which should also provide around fifty shallots next year. In the greenhouse, the first of the 'All Year Round' cauli's have hatched, giving about fourteen seedlings. Another two rows of these were started on Sunday (albeight a little late, but with the mild autmun seem to be doing ok). These will be ready to plant out around April, giving early cauli's at the mid season point. I have also started off some winter salad leaves under glass, being Niche mixed and Italian mixed. These will be used on a cut and come again basis for at least a couple of months.

One last photo here. These are my musselburgh leeks, which were started in trays at about the end of June this year, then transplanted into beds following the early potatos. Shortly after this photo was taken, which is the leeks on the shed roof drying slightly after being rinsed, they found there way into a casserole, which incidently was delicious.

Well, that's it for the moment, hopefully the next update will have the ground pretty much prepared for next season.

'Till then , take it easy. P.

Getting ready for winter

2006-11-05T20:59:00.000Z

Hi guys, I'm afraid there are no photo's on this weeks update, due to the fact that I forgot to charge the batteries for the camera. (D'Oh). I promise that I will remember next week. Anyway, down to business. We had the start of our winter frosts at the back end of the week, with light frosts on Thursday and Friday morning, so I thought that I had better take appropriate action. The asparagus crowns have only been in the ground for a couple of weeks, so will be susceptable to the frost. This bed has now been covered with envirofleece. Hopefully this will be enough to protect the crowns until they become established.
Talking of becoming established, all of the 'Marco' garlic that I planted (the stuff that I bought at the garden centre) seems to have set well, as it has all started to sprout, with nice lilac/purple shoots breaking through the soil. There are a few shoots poking through from the tesco garlic as well (the stuff of the fruit and veg counter if you remember), so I am quite pleased with progress there. The frosts should benefit this, and result in nice big bulbs about next June/July.
The Senshyu onions are also starting to poke through, apart from one that I obviously planted upside down, resulting in roots poking out through the soil. This was quickly resolved, and the bulb was planted the right way round.
A bit more of the soil on the left of the plot was turned over and covered. Hopefully, I will be able to finish this next weekend, and start on the right of the plot.
Undercover, I have started off come all year round cauliflowers, ready for planting out in about April time next year. This is really the back end of the sowing time for them, but better late than never.
Well, that's it for this week. Short and sweet I know, but more to come.
Cheers.
P

Back with a vengeance!!!!

2006-10-29T15:20:00.000Z

Ok, so it's been a little while since I have updated the old blog (5 months, a bit of an understatement), due to work and home commitments, but I am now back in a position to work on the plot again. The plot itself is still a bit of a wilderness, due to said time restrictions, but is slowly starting to take shape. The biggest problem I face on it is the fact that there is broken glass everywhere from where the last occupants decided to destroy everything on the plot. Oh and there is also the bindweed from hell. This stuff is like the bloomin' red weed from War of the Worlds. It's everywhere. But I shall not be defeated. As you can see from the nice pic to the left, the left side of the plot is now nearly fully turned over, with most of the weeds and roots removed. This has now been covered woth weed membrane, and will stay like that until probably January / February time, when it will be marked out into beds, and prepared for planting. Once I get the last two metres or so turned over and covered, the right side of the plot will be tackled. This will be cut down, treated, turned over and then covered in the same way, in preperation for next season. The three beds on the left of the plot have been dug over, and planted. I went shopping at the local garden centre (which just happens to be right next door

to where I work , handy that), to get some produce ready to go into the ground to over winter. I am a big fan of asparagus, but not a great fan of the prices that the supermarkets charge, so this is going to be a kind of experiment. I have bought two packs, green and purple, as I love both of them. Also bought were Senshyu Yellow onion sets, Jamor Shallots, and Garlic. The garlic is going to be another experiment, as I have also bought a couple of bulbs of Tesco's organic garlic of the veg counter, to see if there is any real difference in germination etc. The first planting were the onions. They were planted about a week ago, about ten inches apart, 12 inches between rows and about an inch down. Managed two and a half rows of these, giving fifty onions in total if they all take. The shallots have been placed in another row next to these today, at about the same spacings. Could just see the first of the onions sprouting and pushing through the soil. Also gave this bed a good weeding today. The garlic bed was prepared with a good forking of organic compost, and the two varieties planted in seperate rows last week as well. The garden centre garlic (milan I think) was planted first, followed by the Tesco organic garlic. Usual planting procedure here, splitting the bulbs into cloves, and planting about an inch down. One thing I have made a point of this time around is to actually label my beds up with what I have planted, so I know what is there. Common sense I know, but I didn't do it last time. This bed was also given a good hand weeding today. And finally , the asparagus bed. This was where my early potatoes grew earlier this year, and is currently home to a row of leeks, which will be harvested in the next month or so. This will then become a permanent asparagus bed. Teh ground was prepared by forking in plenty of organic compost, and a trench dug down the centre. This was lined with more compost, and the crowns placed on top. There are six crowns in total, four Connover's Colossal (green) and two Purple Pacific (purple obviously). The trench was then filled in, and each crowns location covered with a mulch of compost. This will allow me to carry on weeding for a few weeks without damaging the crowns. Once the leeks are harvseted next month, I will cover this bed with fleece to protect the crop from frost.
Whilst I was on the plot today, I removed the Gardeners Delight tomato plants from one side of the greenhouse, weeded teh ground and covered it with a weed membrane. I then put the two shelving units in that were kindly donated from work (as is most of the stuff on my plot), ready to start seeds of in the next few weeks. The next sowing should be some All year cauliflowers which I will probably start off next week. All in all, I think I am getting to be in a good position for next year, and am looking forward to the next few months, especially those leeks.
Anyway, that's it for now, hopefully more next week, watch this space. P

The plot of the unknown vegetable

2006-05-14T15:51:00.000+01:00

At last, I have been able to get onto the plot for more than half an hour. Between work, working on the house, and watching the Giro d'Italia, the lottie has suffered the last week or so. So I made up for lost time today, the intention being to clear and plant another bed. Now it may seem that progress here is very slow, but as the entire plot is covered with a combination of nettles, dock, couch grass and mares tail, the only way forward is slow but sure. A couple of weeks ago, I turned a patch of the plot straight up and down. Today, another bed's worth (4.5 metres by 1.5 metres) was completely stripped of any form of weed and weed root. It is hard work, but god is it worthwhile. After turning it over a couple of times, using the fork like a seive, I was able to erradicate pretty much every trace of weed within this bed, and it only took a couple of hours to do (he says sarcastically). So, with the ground prepared, the timber was cut to form the raised bed. Luckily, last week I was able to borrow a van from work, so I moved a load of broken down pallets (axle box pallets and the like from work), which are about three metres long over to the allotment. So the framework quickly went together, then the rake came out, to prepare the soil. A good rake over, breaking up the lumps gave way to another prepared raised bed. 2 down, 7 to go (for the left hand side of the plot anyway).
With this plot prepared, it was time to plant it, so out came the tray of plants donated by my neighbour. Unfortunately, we do not know what these plants are. He had his granddaughter at the plot the other day, who decided to play with the plant labels, so they are either cabbage or sprouts, but who knows. I suppose I will found out when they grow.
Anyway, two rows of these cabbage/sprout plants went into the ground, as well as a row of Autumn King carrots, a row of Callabrese, and a row of Holland White Turnip. Now I know it is a bit of a mixture, but it's more of an experiment to see what actually grows, and to take photos of the shoots as they come up for future reference. As for the unknown plant, here is a bit of a close up, please feel free to leave a post on the forum if you recognise it, I sure don't, but then, this is my first year at growing. Answers on a postcard please. From the look of the stem, I would say that they are sprouts, but I could be (and most probably will be) wrong. Either way, the ground was firmed up around them just in case. As for the rest of the plot, well, the greenhouse has been planted up, I now have three plum tomato's three Gadreners Delight and three Garden Pearl tomato's in the groud, as well as two cucumber (burpless variety), three Jalepeno chilli and two Sweet Pepper plants growing. These were transplanted from pots about two weeks ago and are doing fine. They are watered every night if need be, and the greenhouse has an autovent on it, to control the temperature so they don't scorch. ( I think I'm getting quite good at this veg growing lark now). They are about two weeks behind, due to late planting, but hey, it just means I will be eating fresh tomatos and peppers a couple of weeks later in the season, no major drama. The early potatos are booming, after being earthed up at first showing, as are the shallots, as you can see below. My main crop spuds will hopefully be going in next week (assuming I can get another bed prepared in time), and I know that this is a couple of weeks later than usual, but with the weather we have had, I don't think this will be a problem.
I also managed to aquire a compost bin last week, a friends mam had had enough of it being in the back garden, so that was moved up to the plot, and is slowly filling up with veg peelings etc.

You can probably see from the photo's that the beds have small paths between them covered with bin bags at the minute. These will be covered with bark chippings at a later date, to create maintenance free paths between the beds. Also, following a quick scout of ebay, a couple of packs of stained glass copper tape is on order,(which is exactly the same as the anti slug tape that is advertised in several places, just at a fraction of the price), at about £5.00 for 30 metres. This will be applied to all the beds when it arrives, to keep ths slugs under control until the pond is dug out.

Well, that's about it for this week. See you soon.

Tony

What a tip!!!

2006-05-01T19:09:00.000+01:00

Well, the council finally came good with the skip, arrived Friday morning. So, sleeves rolled up, and managed to get a lot of crap moved of the allotment. A couple of hours later, one skip full of broken glass, plastic bags, burnt wood and other bits of general garbage. I can finally see most of the ground on the plot. I now have the space behind the shed pretty much cleared ready to start building the compost bins, and a manure bin. The manure bin is gonna be pretty important, as a local farmer has started piling the manure at the side of one of his fields, and it's free of charge, kinda pick your own if you know what I mean.

So, a lot of ground cleared, and ready to go. Also managed to get some more of the ground turned over, ready to go in on hands and knees to clear all the weeds out.

Only a short post, but more to follow.

Cheers, Tony

Potting Up

2006-04-23T16:32:00.000+01:00

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I could really spend some time on the plot, so made the most of today. Have been going every night to make sure the seeds/plants were not drying out, but other than that, working on the house had been the priority. Had a bit of a disaster last week, the high winds we had on the Thursday night (just realised it was the 13th, typical), had pushed the greenhouse about six inches across the ground. Quite amazing really, as it was screwed down, the wind just ripped the screws out of two sides, and pushed. The only problem was that two sides were still attached, so it twisted, resulting in 6 smashed panes of glass. So spent Good Friday re-affixing the greenhouse. 3 inch srews into concrete, backed up by expanding foam filler. Believe me, it's going nowhere now, just hope I never want to move it. Also I now have two unknown variaties of tomato, as the wind blew the labels out of the seed trays, so I now have no idea which is Gardeners Delight, and which is Garden Pearl. No major drama tho', they are all doing well.

So, started off today by potting up some of the tomato's and Jalepeno chilli's. Took two of the best plants from each seed tray, and potted them into 3 1/2 inch pots. This way I have at least four of each tomato plant, and they will stay in these pots until I transplant them into the greenhouse. Also potted four chilli plants, and again, they will stay in the pots until I move them into the greenhouse (from the small plastic greenhouse that is).

Then came the major task of tackling the ground again. I had already dug over about three and a half metres, but had only turned one and a half metres into a raised bed, so the other two metres became weed city again. The plan is to have a total of nine raised beds on that side of the plot, so I thought I had better get cracking with it. By about two o'clock, I had managed to turn over about 25 square metres, not a bad days work. This has now been covered with weed control fabric (porous membrane) to try to stop the weeds coming back before I can get the raised beds built. The wood for the beds is currently at work, hopefully I will be bringing this home next weekend. It mainly consists of pallets that have been broken up. Most of the timber is about 2.5 metres long. So, not a bad days work all in all, apart from the ever growing pile of detritus that needs to go into the incinerator. Just waiting for a less windy day. The only remaining task for the day was to repair the leaking tap on the waterbutt. So, after draining the water out (luckely it was only filled from the hosepipe, otherwise I would have had to find something to drain it into), a rather large amount of silicone sealent was applied to the sides of the tap. Will wait for this to go off before I try filling the butt again. Don't want it to leak when I finaly get round to putting the drainpipe around the shed.

The time away from the allotment last week wasn't wasted. In between working on the house, I started planning the top end of the allotment out. This covers the land from the greenhouse upover, and can be seen in the image below. The opposite side of the land from the greenhouse will be a fruit cage, but other than that, I haven't really decided what I am going to do with the bottom end, other than knowing that there will be a pond in there somewhere. So, the image shows roughly what the plot will look like at the top end, with one or two changes. Beds 10 and 20 will become one long unraised bed, to accomodate a 'dead hedge'. Beds 23 and 24 will be joined together, but split to create a path down the length. This was decided after reading Sweetcorns rose arch post, so this will become the bean bed, with a 70cm path between two 40cm beds. Hopefully this will work. Bed 21 will more than likely be started as an asparagus bed, and 22 will most probably become an extension of this, and possibly the bean bed, depending on growth. The rest of the beds will be used on a rotation basis, haven't decided on wether this will be a three year or five year cycle yet, but there is plenty of time for that. The shaded area bottom left is going to be the fruit cage. This will be started once the raised beds are finished, read for next year. The shaded area that runes the length of the plot will be a drainage ditch, as our plots are on a slight slope, and I don't want to get waterlogged. Well, that's it for now. More next week hopefully. Tony

Bedding In

2006-04-01T17:30:00.000+01:00

Well, thought I would join in with Paul and Dave, and give you an idea of what I look like, so one self portrait.

Anyway, an update. The greenhouse is fully glazed at last, all it needs now are some seeds to germinate (or failing that, for me to buy some tomato plants from Strikes). But there is plenty of time for them to come through.

Ambient temperature in the greenhouse is around 22 degrees, which I am quite happy with, so no problems there.

Moved the waterbutt from the back of the house, up to the plot, and fitted the tap, so just need to run the guttering around the shed now.

Had to attach a couple of bungee's to it, as when I arrived this morning, it was half way up the plot. Won't be a problem once it's got some water in, but until then, I don't want it blowing away again.

Additional to this, I am going to try to lay my hands on another two butts, one for either side of the greenhouse, as this seems to channel quite a bit of water in a downpour (which there were several during the course of today).

Also managed to get hold of a sheet of perspex from work, so now have a window in the shed, which came in quite handy today, as I had to have the door closed a few times when the heavens opened, so that was a worthwhile job today. The first and second earlies have been chitting nicely, and have nice sprouts on them.

Only problem is, I forgot to label which were which, so not sure which are the first earlies and which are the second. Will find out once they grow however, as the second earlies are pixie, which are a salad potato, whislt the first earlies are shearers express (or something along those lines).

If they come out allright, I will be very impressed, this being the first year, first sowing etc. Kinda makes it all worthwhile, so fingers crossed for that.

Next came the big job of the day, starting to turn the ground over, intention for today was to get two beds worth cleared and dug, even though I was only planning on planting in one today. Started by raking off the weeds, dead stuff etc, off the top of the ground, and putting this through the incinerator (which was an absolute nightmare to light for some reason), before getting the fork into the ground.

So started to dig in, and found the couchgrass roots from hell, these things were going down nearly two foot. The bloomin' stuff is everywhere. This was no easy task, but needed doing, so set to. The plan here was to dig three and a half metres wide by 4.3 metres long. This gives me two beds of 1.5 metres wide, with a .5 metre path between them. After about two hours of digging, pulling up couch grass roots, raking, removing the stones, digging, removing more couch grass roots, and snapping one of the tines off my fork ( typical, last time I'm buying a fork from homebases' own range, Spear and Jackson next time methinks), I finally had the area near enough cleared. Only had enough timber to lay out one bed unfortunately, so the other bed will have to wait for a trip to the lumber yard. So one raised bed layed out, 1.5metres by 4.3 metres, ready top plant. Gave it a good rake over to get the soil to a fine tilth, then in with the first and second earlies and shallots.

So now have a bit of progress on what at first was a bomb site of a plot. The seed trays from the plastic shelter have been moved into the greenhouse to help them germinate, and there are three rows of potatoes and a row of shallots in the first raised bed. Not a bad bit of progress for only just over a month I think. Next week I'll get the next raised bed layed out, ready for my maincrop potatoes and leeks, with another next to it for my carrots and parsnips.

Getting Down To It

2006-03-19T12:17:00.000Z

Finally, a break in the weather, and a chance to get some work done on the allotment. Unfortunately, following an accident during the week, resulting in a sprained wrist and damaged tendons, not much heavy work for me this week, bugger!!

So, decided to work on the old shed area, getting the new hosepipe installed, and ready for the waterbutt, which will be moved to the allotment next weekend. Have ran a pipe from the standpipe outside my fence, along the internal fence, down to the ground, up the side of my shed, along to my new hosepipe. I can then just throw the end over the fence, and connect to the standpipe as and when necessary.
The blue upturned thingy is to stand the waterbutt on, then I can put some drainpipe round the shed, with a downpipe into the top of the butt.
The little green poly house has been moved from my back yard to here. Using it to start seeds of in, as the frosts seem to have now gone.

Have started of some seeds in there, Gardeners Delight tomatoes, cherry tomatoes (can't remember the variety at the minute) and Jalepeno chilli's. These will be potted up into 4 inch pots, ready to be transplanted into the greenhouse in a few weeks time (hopefully).

The greenhouse should be finished next week. Only about 8 panes of glass left to go into it. Have fitted an automatic vent unit to the top vent, and the west side has the bubble wrap ready in place. Put a few bags of topsoil into the beds, and mixed it in with the organic compost that I put down the other week. Should make for a nice growing medium.
After that, I turned to the left hand side bed, and as you can see from the photo, it is quite overgrown.
This is a mixture of weeds, brambles, nettles and rubbish, so set to work. All the rubbish picked up and moved to behind the shed, ready for bagging up and being taken to the tip. I then took to the tall stuff with a spade, in the form of a scythe, seemed the best thing to do. Ten minutes later, no tall stuff. A visit to Wilko's this weekend for an incinerator will take care of the cut down stuff, and then it will be ready for raking over to remove the top growth, and then dig over.
So, with the top growth cut down, you can actually see from the other end of the plot. Hopefully by next week, I should have a fair bit of the ground turned over, ready to be marked out into raised beds.
incidentally, the brambles will be dug out as best as I can, and transplanted into troughs, to be grown at the back of the plot. The troughs should keep them under control, and I will put a mesh panel up behind them, and try to train them to grow up it. Can't beat apple and bramble pie.

P.

Glazing Stuff

2006-03-04T18:10:00.000Z

Woke up this morning to a nice white vista. Didn't think I was going to get anything done, but by lunchtime the snow had started to melt.

Finished putting the remaining glass into the greenhouse so I could see how many pieces I was missing (or had broken in transit). Then started turning the ground over.

Two hours and three bags of organic soil conditioning compost later, the greenhouse is almost there. A couple of bags of topsoil will go in in about two weeks time, and be mixed in with the compost.

Hopefully I will have the rest of the glass for the greenhouse by the time my seeds are ready to move from the cold frame into the greenhouse.

Pinsrap

Starting Out

2006-03-01T11:39:00.000Z

Hi, welcome and thanks for dropping by.

I took over this plot at the beginning of February, and as you can see I have got my work cut out for me.

The two sheds and three greenhouse were kindly donated by a friend in exchange for a case of Carling, which seemed like a fair swap to me.

The plot will be entirely organic, and is my first attempt at any type of gardening really, so should be an experience.

Pinsrap