Heckington Show Here We Come!

29-30 July 2017. Remember the date, as this is when we will make our agricultural show debut. The Heckington Show is billed as the "Largest Village Show In England" and this year celebrates its 150th anniversary. Quite an achievement.

Please check out their website for all the information you could ever want: Heckington Show

Of more interest to any allotmenteers reading this may be the show categories for the vegetables, you'll find these on pages 3 to 6 here: Categories

If you're close to Heckington why not join in and have a go? This will be our first attempt so we're expecting nothing more than a sound thrashing and a good learning experience. We're planning to show some potatoes, white onions, longest runner bean(!), tomatoes, dwarf beans, runner beans, marrows, beetroot, cucumber, courgettes and radishes. Plus of course the Garden News Top Tray and the Allotment Challenge.

So come on Plot 13D, Grow Grow Grow!

Glory Awaits!

New Balls Please!

We all know that poking out your own eyeball on a stray cane is one of the perils of allotmenteering, thankfully a rare occurrence. But what do you use to prevent it happening? Old plastic bottles? Plasticine? Dolls' heads? (Is that too sinister?)

As previously described we have named our growing beds Tom, Dick and Harry. We wanted to have some eye protection but to make it a little individual and special to Plot 13D. After much discussion among the whole family I (the head gardener, obvs) decided that we would use cheap ping pong balls, and paint them to colour code the three beds. Everybody agreed, after I told them to do so....

The table tennis balls were obtained for a ridiculously low price on the Interweb, and we used our modelling paints to create our masterpieces - yellow for Tom, green for Dick and red for Harry. They certainly have brightened up our space, and I like them. We've had no opinion form our allotment neighbours yet....

Our First Attempt At Comfrey Tea

We'd heard all the rave reviews for this free wonder-food for plants, with the odd name of "comfrey tea" - what the heck is it? Well it turns out that you need a comfrey plant or two to get going (unsurprisingly) so we got one planted and it has come back thriving and healthy this year.

Step One - Find a nice clean bucket/container, with a tight lid. Alternatively a nice plastic milk bottle will do absolutely fine. Allow both parties to spend a little time together before the magic happens, so they can exchange family details etc, and generally feel comfortable in each other's company.

Remove comfrey leaves/stems about 20cm long (that's eight inches in old-fashioned), half a dozen is ideal. Comfrey leaves have a LOT of tiny soft prickles on the underside, so wearing gloves is recommended. Pop them into the bottle (or container).

Add water up to about a couple of centimetres from the top. You DO NOT need secateurs at this point, no idea why they are in this picture. Shake the bottle to agitate the leaf and water mixture.

 

Final step is to store somewhere secure. In five weeks there should be a lovely liquid plant feed, which you dilute in water to the ratio one part comfrey tea, ten parts water. What a brilliant, cheap, natural aid to help your garden grow!

 

15 Apr 17 - Long Day, Hard Work

I spent five hours working on the allotment on Saturday, the time flew by and the results are rather pleasing. The far end veg bed (aka "Harry") was completely overgrown when I arrived, but by the time I left it was cleared, levelled, fertilised and sown with a row of radish (Scarlet Globe).

We've placed some spare thick planks in between Tom, Dick and Harry, they act well as paths and add definition and good looks (in my opinion).

The strawberry box was weeded, fertilised and the strawbs given a nice new cosy bed of hay (90p per bag from the pet shop in Seaford).

The rhubarb is in full growth and was intruding onto JP's section of ground, so I dug a trench and boxed it in a little with yet another plank. I also plucked the first three stalks, and they'll be eaten later on Monday in a crumble for tea.

This chap was also spotted nestling bold as brass in amongst the garlic, we're not sure if it is harmful or not but as long as he doesn't cause any mischief we're happy for him to stay for a while...

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.

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.

28 August 2016 - Child Labour Again

 

Sam and Jacob posing with newly cut courgettes.

 

More posing! Almost looks like they're working doesn't it....

Jacob actually enjoys hoeing, believe it or not.

They ended up with a nice basket.

Meanwhile the spinach is off to a good start.

And the spring onions are looking good too.

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.

15 August 2016 - More Planting & An RAF Tribute

The allotment day began with a nice flypast by two Typhoons from RAF Coningsby, cheers chaps, nice that you acknowledge our work....

Our marrow has gone mental and we've put boards under all this kind of crop.

Super-straight seed drills for more radish and some spring onions.

Orderly planting!

And a few tates to take home for tea. Lovely.

9 August 2016 - Potatoes Ahoy!

Jacob was delighted to dig up our first potatoes....

And the pumpkins were really starting to swell and grow.

They won't beat any records but we think they're great....

27 July 2016 - Courgettes!

In just a matter of days some courgettes were ready to harvest.

We were surprised just how quickly they grow once they get going.

We decided to chop two just to see how they taste.

And they seemed to look bigger when we got them into the kitchen. Odd.

Ta-dah!

21 July 2016 - Coming Up Trumps!

After a few weeks our parsnips were coming on strong. Well, when I say "parsnips"....

The sweetcorn was booming too and little gem was tasting great.

Apparently bucking the national trend, our solitary sunflower was facing south and loving it.

Much to our surprise we even found some tiny strawberries.

The rhubarb 9donated to us, thank you) was enjoying its wide open space for expansion.

Some of the Little Gem lettuce looked pretty nice too....

And finally, the courgettes had started making baby courgettes for us. Fantastic!