Flowers

Even on our humble little allotments our plants give us lovely flowers to enjoy. Of course the plants don't set out with a mission to make us gardeners feel aesthetically enriched, they just want to attract insects to help them reproduce. Long may this continue!

Here are five of the most "ordinary" plants we are growing, showing off in the sunshine. A nice purple potato flower....

....very pretty French bean....

....inviting courgette....

....vibrant runner bean....

....and a strawberry. People who don't have an allotment really are missing out....

Do You Know Your Onions? We Don't!

Onions. Easy to grow. Reliable. But so cheap in the shops, why bother? There are very different schools of thought on the topic of growing your own onions....

Above is our "Avenue Of The Allium Sepa", a lovely view between our onion rows. We've gone for one row each of white and red, and we definitely think that an allotment ain't proper until there are some onions maturing nicely and quietly somewhere.

Our white onions are Senshyu Yellow, grown from sets. We planted 21 sets and miraculously all 21 of our white variety survived and thrived. So from a VFM point of view, Senshyu Yellows can't be beat. We're looking forward to trying one when they tell us that they're ready. Until then we just keep admiring them as they swell and look marvellous.

Our red onion variety this year is Electric. Of the 21 sets planted just 15 of them made it. And overall they are smaller than the white ones, but that's OK. Again, we can't wait to see how they taste.

The onions are housed between the swede and beetroot, and they seem to all be getting on very amiably. One good tip I have discovered is.....

....give the onions a top dressing of potash in June. If they get even better then brilliant, if they don't, nae bother! So, onions on the allotment, yes or no? For us it is the easiest answer - YES!

Projects....

We took on Plot 13D in May 2016, and we're pleased with our progress thus far. The plot is bisected by a path, which separates the north and south sides. The north side, which enjoys day-long sun, is where we are growing most of our crops. But the south side. Oh dear....the south side....

It's a ruddy wilderness. But it's being recovered! The pic above is looking east, and below we're looking west. I've spent many hours trying to knock this area into shape and the effort is finally paying off. In some places you can even see soil! And the raspberries along the fence will be allowed to do their juicy job this summer before moving house for next year.

At the west end we have our strawberries in their cosy wooden box, and the rhubarb. And just "this" way from there is Jacob's mini-allotment (the jury is out on whether he has another go next year). He's enthusiastic, sometimes, but seems to believe that allotmenting is a computer game and will "do itself". The real challenge for me is the area nearer to the camera, where we planned to house a greenhouse, but have changed our minds. We'll now have a seating/eating/drinking area and extra growing space! What a fabulous hobby this really is....

Another project is on the north side, where the previous occupier sited a cane lattice for his tomatoes. Now, up until last week we "thought" that this was part of our neighbours masterplan, so we have never touched it. It's now overgrown with raspberries, and that is when I mentioned it to Ivan and he said that it was actually ours. YES! As with the south side we'll keep the rasps in situ this year and move them later. And we have a stock of canes to prop other needy plants up.

We're having an absolute ball on Plot 13D this year, some things are going great guns, some have already failed, but it's a constantly surprising and always fulfilling addiction....

 

First Harvest Of 2017

It's the middle of June and Ruth and I headed to Plot 13D to make our first proper harvest of the year. Ruth's parents became addicted to our spinach last summer and are hoping for lots more of the same this year, with radishes thrown in to the deal!

And so, within a short space of time there were gaps in the rows of carrots....

....gaps in the potato patch....

....and lots of newly vacated space in the spinach and radish aisle. We ate a lot of what we harvested for Sunday dinner, and it was all absolutely delicious!

We love our allotment and at this time of year the allotment seems to return your affection, in the form of delectable produce. What a lovely selection of spinach, cos lettuce, radishes, potatoes and carrots, thank you Plot 13D!

Perfect Garden Day

What a beautiful day Sunday was, dawned warm and sunny and stayed that way all day long. For the first time this year I enjoyed the first cuppa of the day outside, among the feeding birds and a garden full of new season potential.

I just pottered in the home garden all day long (with a break to watch the Australian Grand Prix, obvs). We've decided to remove the rampant holly bushes this year, so I attacked the first blighter - which proved to be rather stronger than the aged fork that I have been using to work the compost! Ooops. Another one bites the dust.....

Next job was to empty out the pots then refill them with compost and fertiliser. Ruth will probably be all creative when it's time to plant them up.

We saved a lot of seeds from last year's tallest sunflower, so these were popped in today. Everybody loves a sunflower right? Wrong! My son Sam thinks they are the work of the devil! Hard lines Sam, we're growing them anyway.

The tomato bags were also refilled and fertilised, and moved into position. Our tomatoes last year were fabulous and gave us more fruit than we could manage. Same again in 2017 please.

My final little project was to turn the compost. Everyone else sees this as my crazy little scheme, but they will love it when we have a lovely source of homemade crumbly plant food. It's doing OK but is a little on the slimy side, so there will be much more brown stuff going in this week. Back in you go....

March Dawns

Beautiful day in South Lincolnshire and it coincided with a day off. Result! After heading to the farm shop for some high quality Lincolnshire sausages, popping to the storage to retrieve my orienteering kit for this weekend's big race, and popping to Sleaford for Friday tea for the family, I headed to the allotment. Plot 13D was warm and sunny.

We have experimented with carrots this year. We sowed seeds last summer and the seedlings have over-wintered outside, so they should - in theory - be capable of handling any weather from March onwards! We shall see. Here they are waiting to hop out of pops and into the ground.

And they're in! Good luck little plants. Eat you (hopefully) in a few months.

As with most allotmenteers we are getting the place into shape right now. We're splitting into three beds for crop rotation, which will be named Tom, Dick and Harry, a la Great Escape. Tom is at the far end here and will be home to our root veg this year. Dick is currently empty, and Harry houses our greenhouse Meccano set.

Today also saw two varieties of onion sets popping in, one red, one white. Yes it's cheap and easy to buy veg such as onions, but NOWHERE near as satisfying....

So here we are. Garlic, carrots, onions and strawberries in the ground. It's such an exciting time on the allotment!

A Shambles - And A List

I spent a relaxed couple of hours at Plot 13D yesterday, did some "very" gentle pottering then sat down to compose a list of jobs that need to be done. As you can see, the place looks terrible at the moment.

The list is as follows:

Rubbish to tip

Cut back raspberries and lift

Plant onion sets

Mark out Tom, Dick and Harry

Sort greenhouse frame into sizes

Email council - thank for cutting back trees and ask re composter

Repair strawberry netting

Repair racks and assess if OK to use

Plant 2 X strawberries in box

Plant carrot seedlings

Buy and chit potatoes

Move slabs, table and chairs and green box to Plot 13D

Pay for 2017-18

Pea spirals to house?

But 2 X steel stakes and strong wire for raspberries

Plastic protection on "public side" of greenhouse?

Sieve home made compost

More straw on strawberries

Dead rhubarb?

Weed resistant membrane under greenhouse

Buy the wheelbarrow

Bookcase from storage for greenhouse

Measure garlic plot and adjust planting plan

 

Quite a list to get the year up and running....

Garlic Progress?

We planted quite a lot of garlic last autumn....and it seems to be doing OK so far. If we manage to harvest all this lot our breath is going to be REALLY pongy....

Of course we couldn't resist digging one up to see how it's getting on - and it looks good. Nicely formed root, all we need is for them so survive winter then fill out before we harvest.

Here We Are In 2017!

And so we enter the second year of Plot 13D. The allotment hasn't done too badly, unattended, for a month or two, so we're now ready to get it prepared for spring.

From the east....with the dismantled greenhouse lurking threateningly in the foreground....

The the fence side from the east, featuring JP! The council have chopped back the huge bush just over the fence (thank you), but a lot of the branches fell onto our side (no thanks at all). Nothing there this winter so nae borra....

And from the west, with bolted spinach and spring onions closest to camera.

And the fence side from the west, sorry about the glare. The strawbs don't look great in their box....

After a couple of hours I had prepped the area and joined the bits on the top left and top centre. In between them is our garlic bed.

The greenhouse will be a real asset when it's up....but for now it just lies there, intimidatingly.

Next job is to move these aluminium struts and prep this area too.

JP has been allowed his own area this year. He marked it out today, forked it over, and can be seen here peering through the fence. No idea why!

5 September 2016 - Looking at Christmas Dinner & Beyond

We planted four nice rows of garlic cloves - wonder how many of them will make it?

There were a few unwanted visitors - tortoiseshell perhaps?

We had confusion with the carrots we sowed for winter - which were the carrot seedlings and which were weeds?

In a bid to have home-grown new potatoes we planted half a dozen maris piper tubers.

Good luck little potatoes, see you in three months!

31 August 2016 - Carrots....And The Dark Side

 

 We don't talk about this - the south side of our allotment - still pretty much a shambles. Hopefully not for too much longer.

 

The second sowing of radish is going great.

And in a bid to improve Christmas dinner, Christmas-aimed carrots.

23 August 2016 - High Summer

By this time one side of Plot 13D was looking not too bad.

We decided to pop three parsnips in. Our original "parsnips" were weeds! How did I make a mistake like that.

Jacob and I popped netting onto the strawberry bed.

And our radishes were tasting fab, way juicier and softer than supermarket versions.