More and more jobs

The heavy rain and blustery winds which we had last week changed to really cold, frosty days with snow in some places at the weekend--no snow here thankfully, it was dry and sunny so it was thermals on and down to the allotment to get more jobs done.

When we arrived at the allotment site there was a little bonfire on the car park, one of the plot holders had been burning some rubbish. We took advantage of this and added some rotting wood which we had been meaning to get rid of. I love an allotment bonfire especially in the autumn.

Richard then dug up and split the rhubarb plants on Plot 10b.  They have the most massive thick roots so I now need to find some really big pots to plant them up in.  There are far too many to plant on my allotment, but I hate to throw them away. I  did manage to give three of them to some new allotment neighbours.

This was the last big job to do on Plot 10b before we hand over to new tenants at the end of the year. The rest is just a bit of tidying up. The new tenants are lucky to be getting a good plot with beds already in place, and some fruit beds too.

Rudbekia coming to an end

On Plot 8 I  finally decided the annual flowers had to go.  I cut back the rudbekia, sweet peas, calendula, sunflowers and some wonderful scabiosa called 'Back in black'. I will definitely be growing the scabiosa again next year, it's a lovely deep, dark  red/burgundy which  looks good in a vase as a contrast to yellow, pink or blue. Most of my flower seeds were from Higgledy garden, they are really good value. Have a look at his web site if you like to grow flowers for cutting. Once I'd cleared all the flowers away, I weeded and we then spread some well rotted manure on the beds. Next year we will be growing peas and beans on this bed. The  flowers get slotted in where there is space, but they don't seem to mind.

Last of the rudbekia and scabious

You never get to the end of a jobs list at the allotment, there's always more to be done. As I was looking around feeling pleased with all the work I had done, I spotted the brassica bed, full of dead, yellow leaves lying on the soil surface. I knew I had to get rid of those before they spread any disease. Not only that, the bed needed weeding, the purple sprouting broccoli needed staking and there was a mulch of manure to be added to the areas where the cabbages had been. That done, it was getting colder and beginning to get dark.

Still more jobs to be done another time-- clear the pond of leaves,  weed and manure the asparagus bed, tidy up the strawberry bed of runners, empty the growhouse of dead tomato plants and dismantle because it's seen better days, put up the new greenhouse. More of all that on another blog.

Plot 8 looking better

Bad weather, lots to do

Heavy rain and strong winds have kept us away from the allotment recently. There's so much work I want to do down there still before the winter really sets in, so I watch the weather reports carefully and if there's any chance of a dry day I abandon any other plans and head off to get a few more jobs done. We had one dry but cold morning this week, so I packed up a bag with flasks and sandwiches--the house jobs would just have to wait.

Looking around the other allotments I could see that quite a few of our neighbours plots were looking very tidy, with beds manured and everything cleared away. I wished my plot looked so good. But then we are still in the process of moving stuff to my plot from Helen's plot which she is giving up at the end of the year. We have about six weeks left and as we never know how bad the weather may get--not just rain but frost and snow, we decided our first job would be to dig up the two gooseberry bushes which we want to replant on Plot8, my plot. It was not an easy job, as gooseberry plants are so prickly. Richard dug them out and I potted them up into large pots for the time being as the fruit bed on Plot 8 needs a tidy up before we can plant them. As usual it was a job which took much longer than I thought. The next job will be to dig up and move the rhubarb to my plot. I dug one plant up a few weeks ago and was amazed at how big the roots were. 

Gooseberry plants ready for potting up

Back on Plot 8 I looked at what needs to be done there. Some of the beds have been cleared and manured, but there's still a lot to do.

One bed weeded and manured

I cut back some of the asparagus foliage which has started to go yellow. As soon as it has all been cut back, I will weed the ground and cover with manure. The last time I was there I started to cut down the sweet peas,cosmos and other flowers which have now gone over, but ran out of time. Finishing that off is another  job for next time. The fruit bed is in a bad state with strawberry runners all over the place and of course there are now some gooseberry plants waiting to be rehoused there. 

The weather forecast says we could have snow at the weekend, I hope not.

Falling leaves

The leaves are falling fast now from the big sycamore tree at the top of the allotment and every time we go there are even more.  It's time to start sweeping them up to put in the leaf bin. It's an ongoing job at the moment as soon as we  have swept up one lot of leaves there is another layer of them covering the beds and paths. But they are too good not to save, they make such wonderful compost.

Richard spent a few days recently weeding the leaf composting  area which hasn't been emptied in the two years we have had the allotment. The weeds were mainly bindweed coming from the allotment next door, which is a sadly neglected plot and I get very cross about all the weeds which come through onto our plot.  He weeded the leaf mould,cleared as many weeds as he could which were poking through the fence from the next door plot and then  fixed an old door against the fence to try to suppress them. All these bits of wood which we save come in useful eventually!

We have recently been given two of the plastic type of compost bins. At the time I was a bit doubtful that they would be of any use and even wondered where to keep them as we have a good sized composting area already on the plot. But when you have an allotment you don't like to refuse anything which is free and could be of some use. I am pleased to say that we have now found a use for them as storage bins for the rotted down leaf mould. The leaf mould has turned into a  lovely, crumbly compost and is ready to put on the beds as a mulch over the winter.  Leaf mould is wonderful stuff and so easy to make. Now that the rotted down stuff is out of the bin we can now start collecting leaves again to make a new leaf pile.