All ready for planting

As the weather has gradually improved over the last couple of weeks we have been able to do more at the allotments.  On plot 10a our potatoes are now planted up in containers.  The containers are a mixed bunch of deep pots, potato growing bags or old compost bags. They are grown in a mixture of rotted manure and multipurpose compost. We've always grown our potatoes this way and we get a lot of success.

Richard has been making  paths around the raised beds, using much of the rubble and bricks we found as we cleared the plot. It's good to be able to use the things you find around the plot.

We have been preparing our raised beds ready for planting up with veg started off in the polytunnel.  We are very fortunate on our allotment site to have a regular supply of manure delivered, so we can keep our manure bins topped up. We have also recently had a supply of soil improver available through our allotment association. Our beds are new so we have mixed  rotted manure and soil improver into the fairly heavy soil. Hopefully this will help to break the soil down over a period of time.

In the fruit beds we planted our gooseberries and blackcurrants into their final positions at the front of the plot and their new growth is starting to show now.   The rhubarb is also growing well. The winter veg are coming to an end now and although the brassicas got attacked by the pigeons we were pleased to see that the purple sprouting broccoli is recovering and we were able to harvest some at the weekend.

The raised beds are empty at the moment except for the leeks and kale, but as the sun warms the soil we are ready to get sowing and planting.  The polytunnel is full of seedlings and it's so exciting to see them growing more each day.

What's happening on your allotment/vegetable plot?

What's growing in the polytunnel?

We've finally got to the stage of growing things in our polytunnel.  Over the last couple of weeks it's gradually been filling up with seed trays and pots. We've had to find staging to put it all on and being into recycling, well that's resulted in a real hotch potch of different sorts of ways to support all these seed trays and pots. We've got staging from old abandoned grow houses, bricks supporting planks of wood or wire trays. But we love seeing all those pots and trays of things growing. 

How exciting it is to go into the polytunnel and check up on the seedlings and see how they have grown. We've got our onions and garlic growing in cell trays, they will soon be ready to plant outside. We have a big pot of carrot seeds just germinated, we struggle growing carrots in the ground because of root fly so thought we'd start some off early in pots in the warmth of the polytunnel.  Then there are brassicas--cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprout, calabrese. There are  beetroot, broad beans, courgette, leeks, lettuce, sweet peas and sunflowers.  We also have a length of guttering  planted up with pea seeds.  That's a new way of planting for us, but we're trying it out. A lot of the seedlings are covered in fleece for extra protection against the cold nights.

I went the allotment this week, I hadn't been for two days, the lettuce, beetroot and peas were all starting to come through, the brassicas had grown about an inch in height and the onions were looking ready to plant out as soon as the soil warms up. It's amazing what a few days of warmth and sunshine can do.

Coltsfoot and daffodils

Things are starting to grow down at the allotment, but it’s not vegetables it’s flowers.  We planted daffodils in the autumn under the holly bush on plot 10b and along the front of the polytunnel.  The soil was awful, it was wet, sticky, yellow clay and I wondered if the bulbs would grow at all.  But they did and they now have buds ready to burst into flower any moment and cheer us up.  Every time we go to the allotment we look at the bulbs to see how they are doing.  There's one daffodil ahead of all the rest which we've been watching carefully, and today it had burst into flower.

Over on plot 8 our new allotment there didn't look to be anything growing, it's still being cleared of rubbish and all the important jobs like drainage being sorted. But amongst all the rubbish I spotted some bright yellow flowers.  It was a pot of tete a tete daffodils.  I rescued them and brought them over to plot 10b where they could be seen. I also found some clumps of yellow Coltsfoot. This is one of my favourite wild flowers which reminds me of my childhood.  It used to grow on the land near my home.  My wildflower book tells me it is one of the first indicators of spring. It's probably classed as a weed by gardeners and allotmenteers, but I love it.

There are some people at the allotments who say ”If you can’t eat it don’t grow it”. Not me, I love to see a few flowers brightening  the place up.

Easter weekend at the allotment

rubbish on plot 8

We had some good weather over the Easter weekend, although it was cold and the mornings were frosty the sun shone most of the time. So we made the most of the fine weather, wrapped up warm and went to the allotment.

Our first jobs were on plot 10b, where the fruit bushes needed attention. We have gooseberries, blackcurrants, autumn raspberries and rhubarb. The gooseberries needed pruning and all the fruit needed some rotted manure spreading around them.  Helen did a good job of digging out the manure from the bottom of the bin.  I could only stand and watch as I still have limited movement in my wrist.

On Easter Monday we spent a full day on plot 8. It was a lovely day and there were plenty of people down there working on their plots and having bonfires. We got a fire going too because there was a lot of rubbish to be cleared. Every time I go to plot 8 I get quite despondent about the state of it. Everyone keeps reminding me about how bad plot 10b was when we took it on last June and how much progress we've made on there. I must remember that.  I think it's because I can't get stuck in to the work because of the injury to my wrist and it will take some time yet before it gets back to normal.

the fire

Helen started pulling up all the many layers of membrane, carpet and anything else which the previous tenants had used to make paths or suppress weeds. This revealed some decent looking areas of soil and some old flagged paths.  Richard carried on cutting back the conifer hedge which has been very neglected over the years and been allowed to grow too much, so cutting into the branches means it won't grow back, and it does look quite decimated.  It has given us more space along the side of the plot though, and this at the moment is going to be used to store stuff we need to keep.  Meanwhile I floated around doing what I was able to do, which was tidying up under the hedge and moving wood, pots and bricks (only one at a time unfortunately).

storage area under conifers

There are a few very flimsy raised beds on the plot which I weeded.  We will use these this year as overflow beds for any plants we don't have room for on plot 10b.  Next year I hope we will have something better in place.

The incinerator burned away as we chucked in all the conifer cuttings, old wood and dried plant material. We ended the day with a big pile of rubbish for taking to the tip and a feeling that we had made a little bit of progress.