Back from holiday and lots to do

We were away in the Lake District last week so this week it's back to work on the allotment and there's plenty to do. The weeds are trying to take over, they grow so fast at this time of year it's hard to keep up with them. The blueberry cage is full of ground elder. I cleared it all a few weeks ago, but it doesn't take long for it to come back. The other fruit cage is full of chickweed and bindweed. Different weeds grow in different parts of the allotment. The onion bed also gets taken over by chickweed, the asparagus bed has thistles and mare's tail. Richard has been tackling a bad area along the fence and the pond, weeding and cutting back some conifer and spirea, nettles and docks. It's not helped by plot neighbours who don't keep their weeds under control. They've had their plot for two years now and rarely ever do any work on it.

I have a few areas where I like to grow flowers for cutting. This week I have been planting these up with annual flowers, cornflowers lavatera, rudbeckia, cosmos, zinnia and more. 

The sweet peas are growing well and I'm hoping they will be flowering soon. 

Foxgloves self seed around the plot wherever they decide to put themselves. Sometimes I move them to better places, but mostly I leave them where they are. I do love them, and so do the bees. The one below is growing in the cold frame.

I've had poor germination with some plants this year. Cabbage and curly kale grew ok but after a couple of attempts with broccoli I only managed to get four plants. Tired of constant sowing with poor results I resorted to buying plug plants from the garden centre. I bought red cabbage and savoy cabbage.

Two rows of peas which were started off in guttering in the greenhouse before planting out are coming along nicely with pods starting to fatten up. I covered them well with netting this year after some poor years when they were got by pigeons. A third row I sowed straight in the ground and none of them germinated. So I have done some more in the guttering. That seems to be the best way to give them a good start.

Around the plot, the climbing beans are planted, onions need weeding, lettuce is doing well. Spring onions and parsnips-- guess what-- little or no germination. Perhaps it was too cold when I sowed them. In the fruit beds the strawberries are starting to ripen, rhubarb needs pulling regularly, there are plenty of blueberries to ripen.

In the next week or two I will be sowing fennel, purple sprouting broccoli, more spring onions and planting leeks. And of course tackling the weeding. 

Back to work on the allotment

There's a pattern to the work on the allotment. The same jobs are done at the same time of the year, which makes it difficult as I write my blog to find something different to say. It can become a bit boring. But I do like that repetition. I think 'oh here we go again, we did this last year'. It does make me feel good though and that I might be doing things right.

Three sessions on the plot last week made me feel good. I am making progress, but the weather at this time of year can put a stop to all that so I feel lucky that I was able to go three times in one week. Arriving on the site we saw that some wood chippings had been delivered and the path down to our plot was quite muddy as it often is at this time of year. As it's a job we often do at this time of year that was going to be Richard's job for the afternoon.  

Spreading chippings along the path is not actually working on our allotment but it does help if we get it done, it benefits some of our plot neighbours too. Unfortunately Richard ran out of time and energy to get the whole path done that afternoon, so  planned to carry on with it next time. Imagine our delight when we arrived a few days later to find that someone else had finished the job for us.

       
                                                   

I cleaned out the greenhouse, swilled the floor and left it to dry out. I have started sweeping up the leaves and scraping up moss from the paths. They get very slippy if the leaves and moss are not cleared. I didn't get them all done and realised it was a bigger job than I thought. So next time maybe.

Another job to do at this time of year is to sort all my seed packets out and order what I need for this year. So that has been done and the postman delivered  them this morning.

I also did a new allotment growing plan for this year. You can see it in the photo. It's not to scale and I might still change some things, but it's roughly what I will be doing this year.

Time to start sowing and planting

We've spent a lot of time on the allotment over the last few weeks, with all the good weather that's been around it was best to make the most of it.

The winter jobs are now done and beds are ready for sowing and planting. The first things to plant were the onion sets and it was so good to see veg growing at last. 

The first early potatoes (Rocket) were planted in bags and soon I will be planting the second earlies (Charlotte). Broad beans which I had started off indoors in cardboard tubes were planted last week followed by a double row sowed straight into the ground.

There are a lot of weed seedlings from the sycamore tree all over the allotment and what a nuisance they are. I am constantly pulling them out. I've been taking the weed membrane off the beds which I covered in the winter and what did I find underneath? More of these weeds! So much for weed membrane. 

As I've taken off the membrane I've been gradually hoeing off these weeds. Last week after clearing what is going to be the salad bed I sowed lettuce, radish and spring onion.

The greenhouse is filling up with trays of seedlings. I cleaned out the two cold frames so they are now ready for hardening off plants. 

We bought some wood chippings a few weeks ago from a local log supplier for a very reasonable price. We often get them dumped at the allotment site for everyone to help themselves to, but there hadn't been any for a while, of course after we had bought some they started being dumped again! Never mind at least we didn't have to share ours and they were good quality. So we have managed to cover most of the areas on our plot which needed them with chippings and it looks really tidy now. 

Richard has been busy dismantling the little greenhouse which we decided to move to our garden. It's quite small and will fit in a small corner of the patio. It will make it easier for me having a greenhouse at home as well as the allotment so I can pop out to water seedlings without having to keep going down to the allotment. I will also be able to grow two or three tomato plants there.

There's a nice big space left where it was which we have covered with wood chippings. I think it will become a storage area and perhaps a place for pots of flowers and potato bags.

This rusty old wheelbarrow was on the allotment when we took over and I've been wanting to use it as a planter but never had enough room. It's been propped up under the hedge for years. I think I will be able to use it at last. I'm going to grow flowers in it.

Some cold gardening days

It's been so cold recently I haven't wanted to go outside for too long. So garden and allotment work has been limited to short spells with lots of layers of clothing. But so much needs to be done as we move further into February.  

On the allotment we have been sorting out the storage shed. Last year, late summer the roof caved in and as the whole structure has been needing some attention for a while, it was now time to do something about it. So over the autumn and winter Richard has been working on the roof, the sides and the floor. It's almost a new shed now. It was a good opportunity to sort out all the stuff we had been storing in there. All the things we'd saved because they might be useful, but they never were. So along with lengths of rotting wood, metal and plastic items have been disposed of, leaving much more room in this storage area. We will not be hoarding things again, I hope.

The weather although very cold has been quite dry recently and the allotment is looking much better now it's not as wet and muddy. I've nearly finished getting the beds ready. This week I pulled up  the few remaining cabbages, which are not very big but might make a meal. I left the kale in as it sometimes starts growing again in the spring. Richard raked up the compost and manure in the bins and there should be enough rotted manure to finish the beds.

 I went to the garden centre last week and bought seed potatoes and onion sets. A nice indoor garden job was to start chitting the potatoes. I bought Rocket, a first early which I've grown before and always had good crops. Also I bought Charlotte which is a good popular salad potato.

The onion sets I planted in trays in modules, varieties are Sturon, Centurion and Banana. These are now in the allotment greenhouse. I grew Banana onions for the first time last year and they did really well. Chitting potatoes and planting the onion sets are usually the first jobs I do so I feel I've now made a start to the new season.

I  had a tidy up in the garden shed, sorted out my seed box and ordered what I need for this year in vegetable and flower seeds. The pots and propagators are all ready now for me to start sowing. I'll be sowing broad beans and sweet peas in the next day or two, which I will do in pots then move them to the greenhouse. I don't usually start any other seed sowing until the beginning of March. Then things will get really busy. 

The garden is looking quite messy with grass bits all over the place. So I have started clearing debris from the beds and cutting back the grasses. I quite enjoy cutting back and gathering up bundles of plant rubbish and seeing the flower beds starting to look better. I can see plants emerging and then I try to remember what they are. There are more bulbs coming through and some unexpected ones, I remember that I planted more last spring. It's nice to get surprises like that as I work round the garden.

A muddy path and planting snowdrops.

 

A few weeks ago when we arrived at the allotment we found that the path down the lane to our plot had been churned up by someone who had tried to drive a big wheeled truck down it. We weren't very pleased about that as it made the path very muddy and walking down to our plot was quite difficult. The path is not meant for vehicles to drive along. The ground is quite soft on this small stretch of the path and can soon become muddy. We had worked on improving the path a couple of years ago by putting wood chippings down and they worked quite well at soaking up the mud. I don't have a photo of the lane when it was all churned up, but in the photo above you can see on the right some of the tyre tracks, on the left is when I had started flattening them out.

So last week I set to work flattening the tyre tracks and lucky for me someone had dumped some shredded tree chippings further along the lane. So Richard and I spent the next few days collecting the chippings and spreading them out along this muddy stretch. Each time we went to the allotment we dedicated some of the time to barrowing chippings to the lane. It was hard work and my back was suffering each time. But I have to say it looks much better and is so easy to walk along now with no fear of slipping or falling over.

A nicer moment was that Richard found a clump of snowdrops amongst some garden rubbish which had been thrown in the woods across the lane where we are allowed to throw our compostable waste. He dug them up before they got covered in more rubbish. I planted them along the fence outside the plot where I already have some bulbs growing.

Back to work on the allotment

At last some better weather meant we were able to get back to work on the allotment. It's been a while since we last did any proper work on the plot. Back in November we had started clearing the beds, manuring and covering them with weed membrane. Most of them were done, just the ones with veg still growing are yet to be done. 

So there are some cabbages, kale and leeks still remaining in the ground. This week I dug up some of the leeks which were rotten, I'm not sure if the rest of them will be any good , but I will be digging them up over the next few weeks. 

We had a visitor on the plot waiting for us when we arrived on Saturday afternoon, a chicken. It had escaped from the plot behind us and was looking quite lost. Unfortunately its owner was not on his plot and we didn't have his phone number, but we knew someone who could get in touch with him. So all ended well, we were able to reunite them and I could get back to my jobs.

One of those jobs was cutting down the dead asparagus stalks. I cleared the bed of all the debris, hoed lightly to get rid of surface weeds and then spread manure over the bed. Next to the asparagus bed is the bed where I grow most of my annual flowers for cutting. I treated this in the same way.

The next few weeks are the time when I try to get on top of all the winter jobs and get the allotment tidy ready for when I start sowing and growing. The beds are mostly  done now, but there are plenty of other jobs like cleaning out the shed and one of the greenhouses, and some repair work. It all depends on the weather of course but we are hoping we can get lots done.

Allotment--A new year, bad weather, making plans

 

It's quite some time since I blogged about the allotment, but we were kept busy last year. Now a new year lies ahead and I'm thinking of what I'll be doing in the next few months. 

At the moment the weather is too bad to be able to do any sort of work. It's been really cold and wet. We had snow a couple of weeks ago with really hard overnight frosts. It's still quite cold and there is a weather warning for high winds at the weekend. So I have been staying indoors most of the time, but I'm longing to get out and start work on the allotment. 

I am often thinking about how much longer I will be able to do the allotment. Rheumatoid and osteoarthritis  slow me down now and we both get tired more easily. But we managed well last year so another year of growing lies ahead. 

At the moment the things which get me down are not my own physical difficulties, but neighbours who don't look after their plots, fly tipping seems to be happening more too and then there's the rats. On a recent visit to check over the plot we could see evidence of rats again in the shed. No matter how hard Richard tries to seal off any access holes, they will find another way to get in. This time they have been getting in through the floor.

There are changes down at the allotments as a few plots have become vacant and we wonder who we will get as neighbours. So many people take on an allotment full of enthusiasm but don't realise how much commitment is required and how much hard work is involved. Then they give up on it.

For me it's time to start planning what I will be growing this year, sorting through my seed packets and ordering more seeds. And as soon as we get some drier, warmer weather we'll be down there, mending all the holes in the shed and preparing the beds for growing. 

Spring on the allotment

 

April is a busy time on the allotment. It's time to get sowing and planting. The soil is warming up and the weeds are starting to grow. Despite the awful wet weather we've been having over the last few weeks we've managed to keep up with our winter jobs and are fairly well prepared now as once the growing season gets underway it can get to be very busy on the allotment.

I've pruned the fruit bushes, and tidied up the strawberry tubs then gave them a feed and mulch. The fruit cages needed quite a bit of weeding too. 

The shed finally got it's big spring clean out, I'd been putting it off but it's always good to see it clean and tidy again. While we were cleaning we found holes where the rats had been able to get in. And lots of  rat droppings! So Richard blocked the holes up and after cleaning I sprayed round with a peppermint oil spray which is supposed to help deter them. They don't like strong smells apparently.  Camphor, garlic, coffee grounds are other smells they don't like. Putting pots of mint around the plot is supposed to help keep them away. It won't get rid of them completely I know, but if it helps to keep them out of the shed I'll be glad. We've seen them running around outside on our plot and neighbours plots, they seem to be quite active at the moment. 

I've also cleaned the paths of debris, weeds and mud and swilled them with a cleaner. I always think that if your paths are clean and tidy it helps to make the rest of the plot look good too.

The green houses and cold frames are filling up with trays of seedlings. The broad beans and peas look almost ready for planting out. I started planting the onions a few days ago. It's a back breaking job especially for me with my back problems. I did three rows before I had to give up. That was 66 onions. There are still plenty more to plant so it could take me a while to get them all in the ground. 

The first early potatoes (Rocket) were planted in potato bags two weeks ago. I have been transplanting tomato and flower seedlings this week and  have now moved them to the allotment greenhouse because there is no more room at home.  I will be growing the flowers in the cut flower bed on the plot and anywhere else I can find space for them. I wish I had more space to grow  flowers for cutting I always seem to grow more than I have the space for.

I always seem to be going on about the weather, but it's important for gardeners to have the right conditions for sowing, planting and growing. So many people I know have got really soggy allotment plots and are finding it difficult to get started on their new seasons jobs.  So let's hope we get some drier weather soon. How are you getting on with your allotment at the moment?