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....

Too Cold - Frustration Abounds!

It's been so cold, foggy and claggy for what seems like weeks now. Typical winter weather of course but very frustrating for the Plot 13D team! We're just itching to get down to preparing the allotment for the start of the growing season.

Instead I have to make do with the odd little job here and there. Today was washing the plant pots ready for the growing season, to get rid of any possible lingering pests or diseases lurking in dried-on soil. Didn't use fresh water of course, we used last night's bath water, nice recycling....

The compost has also been turned over and it looks like a decent drop of stuff is developing. Added the contents of the shredder to add some "brown" and put it back to bed.

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.