Famous last words.....a rebirth

So.....having said three years ago that I was going to make my life easier and merge this blog with my main one i.e. so I only had one blog to maintain and hopefully post more often to....I've decided to do a U-turn and restart this blog.

Quite a lot has changed on the allotment since the last post here, although there haven't been many blog updates on my main blog either, so no change there!

I guess the main change is that now puberty has kicked in and schoolwork become heavier as his GCSEs get closer, there is no 'TK and' anymore, just 'me' on the plot now. He has come down occasionally to help harvest potatoes and he did come to help demolish an old shed on the plot.

Goodbye old shed....

Sadly a case of preferring destruction to construction and creation!

The other big change is the other half of our plot became available. I ummed and ahhed briefly about whether to take it on as well as our existing half plot. On the plus side, it had a shed albeit a rather decrepit one, and it would give us (me) more room to grow fruit. Our existing half plot was pretty much full to bursting each year so a bit more ground would come in handy.

On the minus side, the plot hadn't really been worked much in the time we'd been there and it was pretty overgrown with out of control raspberries in the middle of it. Basically it was going to take a lot of effort to bring it under control.

I decided it was worth the extra work and effort it would take. Didn't want to kick myself and find someone else take it on and usually you can kiss goodbye to getting another plot next to you for many years. In fact, since our allotment association took on the management of the site, plots have been let on a regular basis and we are due to have a waiting list again very soon.

Two years later, the new half plot is vaguely tamed but with still a lot of work to be done. And yes I know that two years with not a lot accomplished is terrible progress but in my defence for the first year TK was 'working' the plot for his DofE skill and I wasn't allowed to do much on it until he had finished.

I think the progress on the new half plot can form the basis of the next post!

Blog Merger

I've decided to make my life a little bit easier and am merging this blog with my quilting blog. I'll keep this one open but will be posting about our allotment on the quilting blog from now on.

Thanks for reading!

Joanna 

A New Year and All That..........

It dawned on me this morning that seeing as a new growing season will be upon us before we know it, we've kind of had it easy working on the allotment so far. These first six months have just been about the digging. Ok we managed a small harvest this year, hell we managed to survive on our own grown potatoes for four of those six months! But there hasn't really been any pressure to grow anything.

 

But with the new year just around the corner, we now need to plan ahead and make sure we plant things at the right time.

 

It starts getting serious from now on.....well not serious but it will be important to do things  at the right time. We sowed some spring cabbage seeds a couple of months too late in the hope of growing them over the winter, but at the moment they are still tiny seedlings. We'll plant them out on the plot but I have a feeling they won't amount to much. Time will tell I guess.

 

Father Christmas very kindly brought us a new spade and a composter. Thought he would have given us some seeds too but glad that he didn't as I really wanted to pick the varieties ourselves.

Seed potatoes will be available soon. Think we will have a couple of rows of main crop next year and just one of earlies.

 

So next plan of action will be to plant the spring cabbages out, erect the composter and prepare the bed for the potatoes.

It's been difficult finding the time to fit the allotment in the last week or so and the weather has been quite stormy too, but here's hoping we can get back into a routine in  the new year.

 

Can't wait!

Getting there..............slowly!

Its been a while since I've found a bit of time to post an update on our progress but I can at last say almost all of the plot has now been dug over and that for the first time it is more weed free than full of weeds........

I am realising that even though we have got rid of the worst of the weeds, they keep coming back and Bed 2 that was weed free is green again, mainly because I have neglected to keep on top of the weeds while I continued digging over the other beds.

Although now that the colder weather is here, the weeds are at least taking longer to grow back so hopefully we can put that to rights over the winter months!

 

So from the top of the plot this is where we are now.

 

Bed 1

This had potatoes in this year and I'm really pleased with our harvest.

 

We had been digging up the earlies for a short while. These were the Duke of York variety and they've been ok but I wouldn't grow them again. I think we left them in the ground a bit too long. Still we did get just under 5kg of them from one row.
We also have a row of main crop potatoes, Picasso and these have been really good. A nice tasty potato that has been good for everything. Nearly 8kg from this row.

And we haven't bought any potatoes since the end of August!

 

Bed 2

This has had runner beans, strawberries, carrots and beetroot in it this year. A mixed bag  I know but we have used this bed just so we could have a harvest this year.

We're going to dig up the strawberries and plant new ones in the perennial bed, mainly because they are completely overgrown with grass.

And we had just enough runner beans with just a handful in the freezer. The carrots were small but perfectly formed and we picked most of the beetroot when they were small too. The last of these have been pickled and will be ready in a week.

This bed still has the Swiss chard in it. Never eaten it before so we'll give it a go but we'll probably just dig the plants up when we go over this bed again which is completely green!

 

Bed 3

I finally finished digging this bed yesterday. I had hoped to have had it done by the end of October before the colder weather started but alas we hit a snag. There had been a bit of raised ground in the middle of this bed and when I got to it, I found out why. First off it was where a previous plot owner had decided to have a bonfire.........except a lot of it hadn't burnt properly so there were piles and piles of un-burnt magazines, chunks of wood, you name it. Having dug that out, I hit the next problem............carpet. Yes actual carpet. Not the matting you use to keep weeds down but actual proper carpet. It started in the middle of the plot and went on and on. It took me ages just to find the edges........it went right to the edge of the plot.

And what was worse it had at least 6 inches of soil on top of it and weeds, like mallow, growing through it in places.

 

It was an absolute nightmare and just as I was starting to feel like I was never going to get it up, I had a breakthrough! I was also having to pull it up in bits as it was so large I was never going to be able to lift it in one go.
We then had a stroke of luck as the site had a skip so that a spare plot could be cleared and the manager of the site very kindly took all that horrible carpet and put it in the skip for me!

So having cleared the carpet I was then able to dig the second half of this bed which seems to have taken an eternity!

 

Bed 4

The mesh tunnels arrived in September and so we planted the onions; one row of Shakespeare and one of Troy.

 

 

They took a while to get going, over a month, but are now firmly established.

 

We've planted a second batch with another row of Shakespeare and one of Senshu Yellow we swapped with a friend. These are just starting to sprout now. Its amazing that despite being covered they have still been pushed up in places, must be worms!
As you can see we also have some scaffolding boards for paths now too.

 

Perennial Bed

This is going to be TK's bed as he wants to grow things that keep on growing basically. So he has the rhubarb which was looking really healthy........

 

 

Until we had the storm that never was a few weeks ago.........

 

 

When it took a bit of a beating.

 

We've moved the blackcurrant bush next to it and will move the redcurrant bush in the next week or so.

Then we'll make a new strawberry bed and also prepare a section for some asparagus which I ordered online for delivery next spring.

 

He'll have a bit of space left which we might use for herbs.

 

And the only other news is we have some manure to spread out on a couple of the beds..........four barrows' full for starters.

 

 

So all in all not bad for our first six months!

 

Progess at last!

We really seem to have managed to make good progress with the digging over the last month. The perennial bed is dug, although weeds, particularly couch grass, pops up again just as quickly. It seems to be called twitch grass by other plot holders. It can be a bit disheartening to go over to the allotment and find a lot of it looking green again and not in a good way

I finished digging Bed 4 yesterday. This will hold legumes next year and onions. I bought some onion sets from the shed shop last Sunday. Two varieties: Shakespeare and Troy. All these little beauties for the princely sum of £1!

 

We actually have too many Shakespeare so we're going to swap some with a friend.

As soon as the micro mesh tunnels arrive we'll get these planted. They'll need protecting from the pigeons.

 

So I've started digging Bed 3 which technically is the last bed we need to dig over. Its also the worst. However Bed 2 which we planted some things in is looking a bit weedy again but hopefully it won't take as long to go over it a second time.

 

The parsnips that were already growing in the potato bed (Bed 1) have continued to grow. Some did die back but a few have green leaves still. We pulled one up the other week to see what it looked like and hey presto! We had a parsnip!

 

The runner beans are still going but slowing down. I did have to freeze some the other day though as there were too many for me in one day.

 

We pulled a couple of carrots the other evening and although small, it was reassuring to see they were nice and straight!

 

 

TK complained yesterday that I am making to many homemade things which is bizarre as he likes to help making them! This year we have made strawberry jam and raspberry jam. I used the raspberry jam to make this Gainsborough tart which is something my nana used to make. It has a coconut top

 

 

And yesterday I made millionaires shortbread

 

 

Yum!

Let Harvesting Commence!

We may not have planted much on our allotment. It may still be half covered in weeds. But amazingly we are now managing to harvest some fruits of our labours.

 

Not huge amounts but just enough for a meal as and when we need it. And that's how it should be, rather than having a glut of something and getting fed up with eating it or having to give most of it away.

 

So the first runner beans are ready, just a few a time, but that's ok as that's enough for me. Even though they are melt in your mouth yummy, I haven't been able to persuade TK to try one yet.

 

We decided the first earlies might actually be ready a week or so early seeing as the foliage was starting to die back on them. And we were right!

This is the harvest from the first plant we dug up

 

 

TK has said he will eat the tiny one.......

Again just enough potatoes there for a meal or two for us. We dug up another plant a day or so ago and will try and do that every few days and work our way through them

 

So potatoes, runner beans and now the first beetroot. I decided one looked large enough and it was. So here is our haul from the other day.

 

 

So all in all we're really pleased with what we have achieved in a few months. The shed shop should be getting some onion sets in soon so hopefully we will have enough free ground to plant these.

I did work out a crop rotation plan the other day so need to make sure the right area is clear for them!

In the meantime, its back to the digging before the weather starts to turn.

Picture Post

So here is where we are nearly three months into our allotment adventure

 

The first earlies are almost ready I think

 

 

The first few runner beans will be ready soon too

 

 

Swiss chard

 

 

Beetroot looking good and carrots coming on slowly

 

 

And finally what will be our perennial bed

 

 

And when you look at all the bits we have planted in isolation, things don't look too bad do they? So we'll ignore the big bit in the middle that is still weeds!