Bad News

The spuds have blight. It was bound to happen. I'm not really surprised, just disappointed. Sounds a little like 'I'm not angry, just disappointed'. When we took over the plot it was all covered in weeds, like any other new plot. We cleared the weeds and started digging the new beds. And started to find potatoes. EVERYWHERE! I had a whole crop rotation plan going on on but there wasn't one patch of soil we didn't find potatoes. We just decided to bung them in anyway.

I don't have a picture (had planned to go back and take one but then the months-rain-in-one-day started), but it was this image from the Guardian Allotment Blog that sealed it for me. My potatoes look JUST like that. And they haven't flowered, even though everyone else's Aaron Pilot seems to have.

Oh, the deflation. What about my beautiful gardeners delight tomato plants that we've carefully planted through the black weed suppressant? Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.

The patch we don't talk about

We only managed to dig over a little over half of our allotment before the soil got a bit too dry and we ran out of digging steam. We left the other patch for a while before I finally thought to cover it in weed suppressant.

Hooo baby! Most of the green stuff died back really quickly and after a few weeks and it was easy to scrape it all off the surface. Ok, so the weed roots were left in the soil, but this was just supposed to be a quick and not-so-dirty way of still using the space and giving our backs a break. We then dug out the holes, put a nice bit dollop of well rotten horse manure in there and re-covered the soil with the weed suppressant. We cut a cross and planted some of the tomato and squash plants grown up indoors through the fabric .

I've been out since and the plants haven't died. I call that a success!

Maybe it's a Damson Tree

Dee thinks I might have a damson tree. I've googled the pictures and it looks like a good possibility. I then went to Wiki (of course) and now I've moved on the think about making my own damson jam and damson wine and other goodies. Mmmmmm.

Flowers on the Allotment

My sweet peas have started to arrive!

I don't remember what variety they were. I may have even cheated and bought a little pot full of seedlings to plant out. That's right, with my birthday money hoard. I've been picking them as they appear (only a couple so far) so that the flowers will keep on coming, and they smell lovely in the flat. I planted them in the beanie bed amongst the peas, right at the back of the allotment. I think next year I shall sow them near the door so I see and smell them straight away.

Here's something else I planted at the end of one of my vegetable beds:

I've no idea what that is either. I MUST/WILL keep better records.

Then there's marigolds in bloom now and hopefully sunflowers and lupins to come. The sunflowers have been growing extremely slowly though. Maybe I was trying to fit too much into the bed and they're not getting enough light. They are right up against the boundary hedge. Hmm. SUN-flowers. You think I'd have got the hint before sowing those!

Plum Tree?

We were away for most of the weekend but still managed to get quite a lot done late Sunday afternoon and evening. Updates will follow but first:

Is this a plum tree? They look like tiny plums to me. A friend had suggested it was a cherry tree but that was before it started showing fruit. There is only one little fruit per stalk (surely it would be two if it was cherries) and they are oval shaped.

First Produce!

I was fooled. These broad beans looked so big on the plot.

Look, I've never grown broad beans before! How was I to know they are mostly just fluff inside?

I've just realised that this picture will make the braod beans look bigger than they were because the picture is blown up and I do have VERY small hands.

They were damned tasty though. That little lot made 4 teaspoons worth of pure loveliness. mmmmmmmm.

Are we nearly there yet?

I know I'm not the worlds most patient person, but purl-eeeese! So many things look like they are almost ready, I can't wait!

The spuds look very bushy and green, but no flowers. There's a few pea pods but they're still all flat. I suddenly realise I have NO IDEA when I should pick the broad beans but they still look a bit weeny to me. Good looking but very green strawberries.

HURRY UP EVERYTHING!! I want to taste my allotment food!

So much to do!

We were away most of the weekend, only getting back early Sunday night. We rushed off to the allotment for a couple of hours and now my 'to do list' has gone crazy!

DONE:

• Planted out some tiny Brussel Sprout plants through the black weed suppressant covering one of the brassicas bed. I didn't have the magic 'Vegetable Expert' book to remind me of appropriate planting distances so I just guessed. I'll check it later..
• Started clearing the big, no, HUGE pile of crap that was our weeds and branches, and taking it to the green waste allotment skip. The skip arrived on Friday and by Sunday night it was full. Clearing this space is going to take months as now we'll need to wait for the next skip.
  
• Weeded most of the other beds
  

TO DO:

• Clear the space for the two squash plants (I've given the rest away), one pumpkin, the tomatoes and the cucumber and courgette plants that were gifts. I love swapping small plants with friends. They're getting a chili and a pepper plant from us. The rest of the tomatoes went to Bonzo's parents.
• Finish off bordering the other beds (hopefully this will slow down the weeds (maybe, in my dreams..))
• Prop up the fence/hedge between us and next doors plot. It's over hanging our plot in several places and shading the beds. It's not all bad though cos we've got some of their gooseberries poking through...
• Level off the path between us and our allotment sharing buddies
• Start of the sweetcorn plants (inside or outside, just don't know)
• Pot up the chili, pepper and tomato plants

• Have a BBQ! I've been looking forward to having a BBQ down the plot for ages, I can't wait! mmmm, lamb and vegetable kebabs, jacket potatoes, salads, burgers, corn on the cob... bananas with chocolate, marshmallows on sticks... Oh, yeah.
  

We seem to be busy doing other things most weekend so most of this stuff will have to get done in the evenings. Thank god we only have a half plot!

Welcome Visitor

Look who was found mooching around the plot!

I suppose as we tidy up more and more things on the allotment he'll find fewer places to hide. We've got a load of leftover pallet bits from making the compost bin that I think I'll try to leave in the corner as a little wildlife refuge. Although, maybe all a frog really wants out of life is a nice blue tarp...

Honey, I'm ho-ome!

I've been away for a week to a conference and before that I had so m much preparation to do I couldn't get to the allotment. I've had a great time, but man, am I tired. A day down the allotment pottering around doing some weeding, cutting back the paths and sorting things out was just what I needed.

And now I have proof of growth!

We found actual broad bean pods growing in the black fly/ant infested beanie beds. There was MUCH cheering. I was starting to think we'd not get any so I was chuffed to find a few on their way.

When I grow up, I'm going to be a broad bean...

There's pea pod sign too:

When I fatten up, I'm going be full of pea loveliness...

Possibly the most eagerly anticipated strawberries in the world...

I'm going to put straw underneath the strawberries soon, and cover them with netting. I'm probably not the only one looking forward to juicy strawberries.

And finally, the long view (click on photo to enlarge). We have some space beyond the tree (in the back of the photo) but realised we wouldn't get around to preparing it this year. We've covered it in weed suppressant for now and hope to plant a few things through it but otherwise leave it to next year.

What you (can almost) see here is, 2 beanie beds, 2 carrot/beetroot/onion stuff beds, 2 brassicas beds (one of which is now mostly strawberries, the other one still empty) and 2 potato beds.

I don't need no shed

See, all you need is a bit of floor space and a good tolerance for mess and soil EVERYWHERE. I sowed some pink coneflowers, some runner beans and potted up the iddie biddy tomato plants and two squash plants. I then got a bit carried away and tried to sort out a massive house plant that looked like elves had been stealing it's soil in the night. jobsa goodn. I found it all quite satisfying actually.

I went down to the plot later and wanted to get down to some proper weeding of the beanie beds. However, every time I plunged a fork into the soil I seem to hit an ants nest and the ants would just erupt. Aggh, ants everywhere, terrifying! I can't stand them, really. I remember as kid jumping around on a bouncy castle and getting covered in ant bites. I couldn't stay and weed the beds, just the thought that one might try and run up my leg! yak! Those ants have got to go. I still can't bring myself to use insecticide though, but I came very close today.

So what's left? Boiling water? That'll cook the plants. Cold water? Would that do anything more than irritate them? All I know, is that they HAVE to go.

Beanie Beds: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good. I've finally rigged up the supports for the future runner beans and for the sugar snap peas. I'm still starting the seedlings inside and planting them out when they get 4" or so high. Or they are evicted to make room on the window sill for the next thing which usually happens first...

The Bad. These broad beans really don't look good. The flowers all seem to be going manky and there's small black blotches on the plants. I don't know what it is, or what to do.

The Ugly. The 3 bordered beds are completely infested with ants. I was doing a bit off weeded at one end when the soil just erupted with ants. I've read somewhere that I can put them off by watering the infected area with water that's had cloves soaking in it. Anyone got any other ideas?

Start of May

Here's how the plot looks now. We've dug 7 of the 8 main raised beds.

Two beds of potatoes. Realised the other day that we don't actually eat that many spuds. And we now have 40 potato plants. Everyone will be getting potatoes for christmas. Wrapped up nicely of course, we're not mean!

One brassica bed with only half the bed for brassicas because those strawberries needed a home and we're a long LONG way off digging the bed where they were supposed to go. The other half of the bed is housing the red cabbage plants. I was thinking we could plant radishes in the gaps between the cabbages. I wonder, perhaps the tomato plants could go in between. Does anyone know if tomatoes and red cabbage are good allotment buddies? The big grassy patch in the top photo is where the other brasscica bed will go. Eventually. Maybe.

This is the red onion, leeks and beetroot bed. Haven't seen any actual beetroot yet. Still hoping they're just bashful.

The onions from sets plus a few from seed that we;d pretty much given up on. Plus a few carrots. There was supposed to be a whole line of carrots down the middle but I can only find about 6 plants. I may have weeded out the carrots with the weeds. stupidstupid. There's also a couple of garlic plants in the corner that I accidentally dug up at one point. They seemed to be a bit better for it to (might be because it gave me the chance to put them the right way up!)

The first beanie bed. Broad beans, peas and a few sweet peas.

Massive number of flowers but still no pods...

The other bed is still empty but will have sugar snap peas and runner beans

It was such a nice evening down the plot last night. I was just pottering along, doing the watering and listening to the birds. Things might not (ever!) go according to plan but I get so much pleasure from this garden.

Hosepipes or Watering Can?

I've been wondering about buying a hose for the watering. Until now we've been going back and forth to the tap at the communal water butt with a watering can. It's time consuming and hard work but that's alright, I mean, if we wanted the easy life we wouldn't bother with the allotment at all. But would it really be so bad to use a hose? It would save a fantastic amount of time and effort. More time and effort that could be re-invested into other allotment jobs.

Bonzo is against the idea. For a start he thinks it's antisocial as it prevents other plot holders from using the tap. Then there is the issue of water wastage. I bet using a hosepipe to water your garden directly wastes a lot of water, as you move from one bed to the next and you'll probably use more water anyway than if you had to carry it yourself.

Although our allotment doesn't appear to have any special rules relating to hosepipe use, our friend's allotment bans the use of hosepipes to water gardens directly but is happy for you to use them to fill up your water butt if you then use a watering can to do the watering. It seems like a good compromise to me. But maybe Bonzo has a point about it still being antisocial to other plotholders.

Hmm. Other plot holders: What do you think? Do you use a hose? Do you prefer not to use them? If so then why? I'd really like to know...

OOOOOeeeeeeeeeeeee

I'm so excited, my first ever broad beans have flowered. How long now then aye? Are we nearly there yet? Is it nearly ready huh? Is it is it is it?

New Shoots

The replacement peas (damn you evil weevils) and the sugar peas have started to appear now

and could that just be a teeny tiny tomato seedling? I thought I'd buggered the whole tray with my home-made greenhouse affair. I covered the tray in cling film to keep the moisture and warm in but didn't think to put breathing holes in for about a week. I was worried the seeds would just go mouldy in the soil.

In my brand spanking new window sill greenhouse I've sowed a few more tomatoes (gardeners delight), pumpkins, winter squash, chilli and sweet peppers, marigolds and sunflowers. Hmm, if the tomatoes I'd given up on in the tray all come up then I've really over done it. Still, I can hand out tomato seedlings at work. Everyone at work seems to be building new greenhouses at the moment. Everyone, sniff, except me, sniff.

Goodies

The bees are loving the rosemary.

What a good day. We arrived at the plot today and I immediately got frustrated with my crappy, way-too-big-for-me gloves so we left almost straight away again for the garden center. I remembered I had some birthday money to spend, and well, I went a little wild!

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me!

The hoard:

• One rhubarb plant. Hey, I could have waited and waited for someone to give me a little bit of root, but I am just far too impatient for that.
  
• Nine, I repeat, NINE strawberry plants. I can't wait. Ah. We wont be getting many this year I suppose. Never mind, we'll be feasting next year. We got 3 plants each of 3 different varieties
  
• One small tray of red cabbage plants. I forgot to buy the seeds and well, it IS my birthday...
• A pot of sweet pea plants to brighten up the few eating peas that made it so far (damn you evil weevils)
• Window sill propagator. This is my brand new tomato plan.
  
• AND a pair of posh gardening gloves that fit perfectly and are all soft and lovely on the inside

The trowel was from a friend. And a very nice trowel it is too, sporting a cutting edge, and a ruler.

We weeded and weeded and weeded, and I rigged up the pea support. Does it look like overkill?

Potato sign already?

I just don't know if this is a good thing or not:

They've only been in the ground a week. I hope I buried them deep enough...

Evil Weevils

19/04/07 Edited to submit evidence of weevil attack:

My poor legumes bed. I had planted out the broad beans I started up inside and sowed a few more broad beans and all my peas (a few of the peas under cloches). But disaster! The bean/pea weevil (don't know if they are the same) have been nibbling round the edges of everything that wasn't protected under a cloche. Now everything has doily leaves! The broad beans I started up inside and the peas under cloches look like they will cope but everything else? I doubt it.

I was reading around and it seems a common problem this year. It seems the only things, well, the only organic things to do is to try and squish as many as we can while we're there and start some more off inside to plant out when they're big enough to cope.

At last: PURPLE SPROUTING!

Wow. Really, wow. It took so long so arrive but now it's here we'll be eating purple sprouting til we go purple.

This is only half of the purple sprouting collected from just one evening. I plan to give a load to a friend with a big car who has ferried pallets to the plot for us.

This is one of the things we planted in the corner of a friends allotment when we (Bonzo and I) were trying out the whole allotment thing. I think the arrangement worked well for both of us. They couldn't worth over the entire plot that year anyway so they offered a patch of it to us. I'm not sure it was very fair to sow 5 purple sprouting plants though, as it's monopolised alot of their space for over a year now. The flip side is that there's enough for all of us now, and then some.

Monthly Advice

I love getting a current gardening magazine with all its seasonally relevant advice but it can get a little costly. Especially when I get carried away like I did when we first got the plot and I bought 4 (2 from the shop and 2 for the current month from last year on eBay)! So I've been checking around on the Internet for similar BUT FREE seasonal kitchen garden or allotment advice and these are a few I liked:

River Cottage

Garden Action
Garden Organic

Of course, best of all I like nosing around other peoples allotment blogs to find out what other more experienced gardeners are doing right now.

Easter Plot Fest No 2: Pea Sign!

We have Pea Sign!

Ok, so these are best two, the other 4 or 5 look a little weak (I wanted to say weedy). We used cloches to grow the peas on one side of the bed but then ran out of cloches. Peas were sown on the other side of the bed but either have yet to appear or have been had by the slugs or pigeons. We'll see if they come up. I sowed a few extra peas on the empty side over Easter, trying not to disturb the soil too much in case anything was going to come up. We'll see what happens. I might grow a few plants inside to take out.

The broad bean plants are looking good. I was going to say healthy but several have been nibbled round the edges and they have some suspicious little back spots.

The extra few I sowed in the gaps (my just-in-case beans) are starting to come up too.

So legume bed No.1 is well and truly on it's way!

Easter Plot Fest No 1

So much progress! It feels great. We spent a couple of hours down the plot most days over Easter in a bid to catch up with our plans, and, I think we've made it.

First up: The Spuds (First Earlies)

We finished digging and weeding the potato beds (thank god for that) and used the plan we'd cobbled together from our books and chatter on The Grapevine. I had been reading that we should have manured the beds at the end of last year which was of course not possible as we didn't have our allotment then. I asked the folks on The Grapevine and with their advice we decided to dig our spud trench a bit deeper and add a layer of horse manure and lay the spuds on top.

I was also worried we'd left planting the spuds a bit late but our splendid little book recommended early April for the North. Phew.

While we're on it, I heartily recommend this book:

Ideal size for taking with you to the allotment, it's quicker to find the information you need without trying to find the original seed packet, there's more detail than the seed packet and it's cheap at £4.99 on Amazon, or free if you have nice friends weeding out their book shelf :).

An Hour On The Plot

I've been exceptionally busy at work this last week, and will continue to be so next week too. I'm writing this from down South, where I'm visiting my parents and attending a meeting on Monday before three days in London.

The net result is that I only managed to get to the plot once in the first week of Frankie's absence, and that was only for an hour before it got dark.

The good news was that the beans seem to be flourishing after transplanting out - I think they're half as big again as they were when we put them in last weekend.

I think there may even be a hint of pea-sign. There are some tiny seed leaves poking up through the ground under the pea cloches and in the area where Frankie sowed them without cloches. I'm hoping it is actually the peas and not just some insidious weed, but there's only really one way to find out.

Talking of insidious weeds I had to hoike out a few deep-rooted dock plants that had escaped the digging and weeding of the beds. Their massive taproots where a real swine to get out as I couldn't get a very good grip on them.

I'm not going to get a chance to get down the plot until a week on Tuesday as I'm not at home, but I'm off work that week so I hope to get over a few times and make a decent amount of progress.

I'm In Charge (uh-oh!)

Frankie has gone to Europe for a month and left me in charge of the plot and the wealth of things she planted indoors before she left. Was this wise? Probably not. Especially as I'm very busy at work over the next couple of weeks and not around much. Still I've remembered to water the indoor plants a couple of times this week and the leeks in particular seem to be flourishing. In preparation for this posting I went to get the crap camera (Frankie has taken the good one), and at that point I realised she has taken all the batteries with her. So until I get a chance to buy some more you're going to have to put up with plain text, I'm afraid - sorry!

So how's it going? I've not been down the plot since she left, but I have been attending to the plants indoors. We have leeks, rocket, watercress, parsley and potatoes.

• Leeks - The leeks are doing really well, we must have over a hundred seedlings most of which are now about 5cm high and starting to unfold.


• Rocket - The rocket is still looking a bit weedy, long stems and a couple of seed leaves only.


• Watercress - I'm not sure the watercress is going to work, it's also very long stems and seed leaves and the seed leaves are tiny - just a couple of millimetres across.


• Parlsey - The parsley is also in the seed leaf stage, looking strangely similar to the rocket. It looks like weedy cress.


• Potatoes - The potatoes continue to 'chit'. They all have several sproutings on them, the sprouting bits are a dark purple and some are over 2cm long. Some of the potatoes are starting to shrivel - I'm not sure if this is a good thing?

I'm hoping to get down the plot for an hour after work tomorrow, to do a bit of digging and maybe a little weeding if it's required. I won't be down there again until a week on Tuesday as I'm away. But that week I'm off work so I hope to get a few couple of hour sessions in - get a load of digging done.

In other news: Snow! I heard on the radio that there was a risk of snow this weekend. I'm not actually going to be here - I'll be down South visiting my parents and helping out on their plot. Hopefully it won't happen, but I fear those early peas that Frankie put in may be goners.

A New Home for the Broad Beans

While I left Bonzo digging (so much digging left to do!) I pottered around doing the fun stuff like planting out the broad beans we started off indoors. Someone at work said the pigeons love the young shoots so we rigged a temporary cover for them with netting and sticks.



Seeing as we were making this cover up as we went along I think we did pretty well. I'm guessing that the shoots will only be this vulnerable when they're short (Bonzo reckons pigeons will be too lazy to nibble them on the wing) so as they grow we'll use the netting for the new peas. Mind you, I might have been a bit too over eager when I sowed the peas. Maybe we should sow a few more...

I also sowed a line of carrots the length of one bed and either side sowed a line of bedfordshire onions on one side and on the other, garlic (hope it isn't too late to sow garlic!) and red onions.

Now, we seem to be the only people sowing onions, everyone else is using sets. This worries me. Is growing bulb onions from seeds just impossible? I might buy some sets too just to be on the safe side.

I'm off (away, not off from work unfortunately) now for a month which I know is bad timing as it feels like the allotment is just getting gowing now. Bonzo Baby has promised to dig the last beds while I'm gone and I'm hoping he'll sow the rest of the carrots, the parsnips and leeks. Crikey, I've left him with a lot of work! We haven't even started on the spud beds!

So, I hand you over to the 'King of Spades': Bonzo.

Three Beds Good

We made it down the plot today (Saturday) for a good few hours and got enough done to be pleased with ourselves without our backs hurting too much.

We started and finished the third raised bed. We are now a happy three bed allotment family.



The top two beds will be for the legumes and I started them off by (possibly rashly) sowing peas today.

We've still plenty more digging to do... But I feel like we're getting there. Especially as Bonzo goes down tomorrow (I have to work, sulk sulk).



I also thought I'd show you the finished compost bins too (we finished them last week when it was too wet to dig- but also too wet for photos).



I like Bonzo's design. He sank the bottom of the pallets into the ground for extra stability and uses sawn off pallet sections for the adjustable front. We have one bin for filling now and one to fill next year while the first lot rots down. I don't think we'll get that much compost from the bins to use in the allotment (there are only 2 of us filling it) but it feels so much better than sending it all to landfill and that's more the point to us.

Potatoes are GO!

We bought early potatoes from our allotment shop and on Monday I arranged them in egg boxes that I'd collected from friends with their 'eyes' pointing up, as the allotment bible told me to.



Here's hoping!

A-Haaaarrrr me hearties...

Apparently allotment owners must sound like pirates.

We headed down on Sunday to give the place a good going over.

Here's the top end of the plot.



Why didn't I take more 'before the makeover' shots, grrr. Anyway, can you see that rosemary? It was growing all over the path so I chopped it back a bit (well, we are supposed to be sharing that path and it was taking over). Free rosemary? Excellent excuse for roast lamb for dinner mmmmmmmm. It also looks like we've inherited some kind of fruit tree too but we haven't a clue what it is (except that it probably doesn't usually grow coats).

We cleared out all the crap from the back of the plot which left us with plenty of room for this marvelous new pair of compost bins built by Bonzo's own fair hands.



AND, finished our first raised bed. Ahhh, lookie: My First Raised Bed! I added about half a barrow full of compost from our allotment shop for good measure. I'll mix it up a bit next time we're down there.



I can't wait to get planting now.

Hooray: We Are In!

Finally, the long wait for our own little plot is over. We are the proud (well, nothing to be proud over yet exactly) caretakers of half a plot. Ok, so it’s not the half with the shed but we are very pleased with it anyway. The fence is in good-ish repair and the brambles need some attention but other than that, it’s time to get digging!

To help us on our way we have:

The Allotment Handbook by Caroline Foley

Grow Your Own magazine, March

From here we intend to keep track of and share our evil gardening plans and progress. Wish us luck…