Asparagus bed completed

It has always been my daughter Helen's wish to grow asparagus on the allotment, but I wasn't too sure.  It sounded  to me like a difficult plant to grow.  So I kept trying to put her off the idea. However, realising we had a spare bed at the allotment on plot8 which seemed to have the right growing conditions I decided we could have a go.

As we didn't know anything about growing asparagus, I spent some time reading up on how to grow it.  The hard work seems to be in the preparation of the ground. You need a well dug, deep bed in a sunny spot and free from perennial weeds. The bed had already been well dug and weeded some time ago but  we dug it over again and removed as many of the weed roots as we could and also incorporated lots of well rotted manure.

The crowns arrived last week so we spent last weekend planting them up. We had bought  two different varieties--Backlim and Gijnlim, five crowns of each. They're a bit weird looking with all those roots.

 

We were quite keen to get the planting  right, so with our tape measure and instructions at the ready, we measured the trenches very carefully for width, depth and spacing.

 

The crowns are now in place but we will only be able to cut a couple spears from each crown this year and a few more next year. Hopefully now they are in place all the hard work has been done and they will keep on growing for several years.

 

A bit of digging and a lot of rain

The weather continues to be rainy and windy, so we're not getting as much done on the allotments as we would like. On Friday though, the weather dried up enough for us to go down and do a bit of work in the afternoon.

Last year when we took over plot 8  there were some small raised beds which were a bit rickety.  We managed to grow some beans and salad crops in them, but we decided that we would dismantle them at the end of the summer and start again with the bed.  This has left a huge bed which we will divide up into two or three smaller areas. The picture above shows the plot last summer with the raised beds to the left.

Digging nearly completed

I started digging this bed over, it was full of weeds, but the soil is quite crumbly and easy to dig.  We had dumped some soil improver in that area last year so I think that helped. The weeds came up easily and I managed to get  most of the  bed dug in an afternoon.  We went back on Saturday taking lunch with us.  An hour's work completed the digging of the bed. So that's all ready for planting when the weather is warmer. We will probably be growing, onions, garlic, carrots, parsnips and beetroot there. The bed you can see to the left at the bottom of the picture above is the next one to tackle after we've had a bonfire to get rid of all the wood. We need some dry weather first though!

We had to adjourn to the shed for our soup lunch when it started raining. It's quite cosy in there and the big window gives us a good view of the plot. The rain however continued so we decided to call it a day.

Newly dug bed

Coming along just fine

 

When we are down at the allotment working on plot 10b we are often asked by our allotment neighbours, "How's the other plot doing?" Well I'm happy to say that our other allotment--plot 8 is coming along really well.  After weeks of rubbish sorting and trips to the recycling centre, we can at last see the ground.  And after lots of back breaking digging, clearing of bricks and rubble the original layout of the plot is appearing.  There are flagged paths surrounding beds, and some fairly decent soil in them too.

We didn't expect to be growing much this year on the plot, but in the four small raised beds which were left by the previous tenant we have planted onions, climbing and dwarf french beans, radish, spring onion, beetroot and sweetcorn.  There are two small strawberry beds planted by the previous tenants which we decided to leave for this year to see how productive they were. We now have two new beds which Richard has weeded,dug over and filled with well rotted manure. One of these has been planted up with courgettes and pumpkins and will soon have some squash in there too.

There is an apple tree which was full of blossom a few weeks earlier and we will be hoping for plenty of fruit later this year. Helen and I dug over the area around the apple tree last week. We decided to make this a fruit growing area. I have a rhubarb and a couple of gooseberry plants to be planted in there.

Richard dug up a couple of conifers last week and that area is now being prepared to make two big beds either side of the drain. The soil there is very dry as it was full of roots, so it needs lots of compost and manure adding before we can grow anything.

The pond area is starting to look colourful now the yellow irises are in flower, but there is a lot of work to be done there yet. We discovered that the pond liner has cracks in it and the pond has become more of a bog than a pond.  There are frogs on the plot, but we are not sure if the tadpoles survived when the pond dried up. Sorting it out is a project for next year I think.

At the top end of the plot is a big tree and we think the best thing to do there  is have a woodland wildlife area.  It's also a lovely place for the grandchildren to play and have a den.

So that's where we are up to on plot 8.  We still need to build compost bins and Richard wants to make a shed out of some of the materials we have lying around on plot 8 and plot 10b.

It's all looking good and we are really pleased with how things are progressing.

A big pile of weeds

On Friday afternoon I left Richard in charge of the new kitchen fitters and went to the allotment. I needed to escape from all the dust and mess of the building work even though it was to see more mess at the allotment on plot 8.

Looking around the plot I did feel a bit despondent. The weeds are starting to grow in abundance now the weather is improving and we are going to have a hard job to keep on top of them. The raised beds which Helen and I had weeded and prepared  for planting a week or two ago had weeds growing in them, and there was a great big pile of rubbish from when Richard had dismantled the old compost bins. This rubbish was covering an area of land which I had wanted to start digging over. But we have only had this second plot for 11 weeks, and it did come with its fair share of problems.  I think I am in too much of a hurry to get it looking perfect--that could take years!

Well, standing looking at it all would not get the work done so I got stuck in and cut back some of the hedge at the front of the plot, a lot of it is just dead wood which snapped off as I worked at it. It has left some gaps which will take away some of our privacy, so I am going to plant some cotoneaster cuttings taken from our garden which will be good for the wildlife too. I managed to dig over one small patch of ground and cleared some of the weeds along by the fence.  The dominant weed on the plot is himalayan balsam which is quite shallow rooting and pulls up quite easily, there are nettles too. I managed to dig up a few trugs full of weeds and debris.

A robin appeared as I worked away and followed me around keeping me company, probably looking for worms amongst the soil I had dug over.  It was very peaceful and good to escape from all the chaos back home.

Progress on Plot 8

Our days down at the allotment  at the moment are divided between digging and clearing up plot8 and doing ‘proper’ allotment gardening on plot 10b.  I love working on our new plot 8 and am longing to get it reasonably straight and looking good, but there is still lots of sowing and planting and weeding to be done on plot 10b.

On plot8 we have recently cleared out the ramshackle sheds and pulled one of them down, what a mess of stuff there was in those sheds. Bags of glass, plastic, metal and general rubbish  were taken to the local recycling centre. We found quite a collection of metal tubing and connectors to make up mini greenhouses.  We have kept all these as they might be useful but they could be quite a puzzle to assemble.
We had a bonfire to burn all the rotten wood

One shed demolished and a bed dug over

Helen dug over one of the areas of ground whilst I weeded the temporary raised beds. Then we put some soil improver on the beds.  We thought we might grow some carrots and salad crops in one and peas and beans in the others.

At the front of the plot next to the gate were two big heaps which were originally compost bins, but they have had all sorts of stuff dumped on them. Richard and Helen started clearing these bins out over the bank holiday weekend.  There was a large amount of rubbish to remove first which resulted in another pile of stuff to take to the recycling centre. There seems to be no end to the rubbish we keep finding on this plot. However once the top of the bins were cleared of the rubbish, there appeared to be lots of good compost underneath.  Very useful! That will go on the newly dug over areas. Richard will probably build new compost bins in the same place when we have weeded the area.

 

clearing out the old compost bins

Although the plot is still very untidy, as areas are cleared of rubbish, we can see the paths which show the original layout of the plot. Helen and I are planning how we want our allotment to look and we now feel we are getting somewhere.

Next jobs are more rubbish clearing, more tidying and more digging.

What's going on at the allotment?

There's a lot of team work going on at our new allotment. My husband is working hard on the construction side of things, whilst my daughter, son in law and I with a little help from the grandchildren have been doing other things.

We've been digging, weeding and clearing areas. There have been bonfires to get rid of rubbish.  The first one got out of hand and nearly burnt the fence down. It burnt one of the bushes but we were glad about that, it had to go anyhow, so it was helped along.  The grandchildren thought it was great fun.

At our old allotment we are still growing crops, but we are starting to clear things away ready for when we move at the end of the year. The manure and compost bins have been emptied and all the stuff has been wheelbarrowed over to our new allotment and put in the bins there.  Fortunately it's only just along the lane, but it was still hard work.

I spent some time at the old allotment the other day.  I cleared away the last of the broad beans, took down the support frame and weeded the bed.  All that remains in that bed now is the climbing beans and a late sowing of peas.

A few days earlier my daughter and I had pulled up the onions. I weeded this bed, there are still some beetroot and carrots there and some leek seedlings which we will transplant in the next week or two into the beds at our new plot.

 I checked the cabbages for caterpillars. They are covered with a netting frame, but somehow the cabbage whites still manage to get in and lay their eggs. Apart from a few holes in their leaves the cabbages are looking quite good. The pumpkins and squash which my daughter planted are also doing really well.

The last raised bed is the fruit bed.  All the fruit will have to be moved over to the new allotment  some time before the end of the year. There are summer and autumn fruiting raspberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries and rhubarb. We've had a good crop of rhubarb this year, but I think it might be time now to stop pulling it.

Back at the new allotment, the onions from the old plot are drying nicely in the shed.  The raised beds which my husband has built are being prepared for the fruit and leeks from the old plot, and for spring cabbage, kale, swede, fennel and beetroot which I have started off at home. We also want to grow some onions through the winter.

The soil in these new beds is heavy clay, so we have incorporated well rotted manure and compost from the old plot, old compost from our potato bags and good soil from other parts of the plot.

It's good to be able to have a break from all that digging and weed clearing and do some proper allotment gardening.

What's going on at your allotment or veg garden at the moment?

Family weekend at the allotment

As we come to the end of another week's work at our new allotment, I'm happy that it's beginning to look something like an allotment.  My husband has finished building the drains, we've had a lot of rain to test them out and they seem to be working. We now have four raised beds. They have been dug over several times, and  as many stones as possible removed ( there were lots of them). We have been  incorporating some good soil from another area of the plot and some well rotted manure into these beds. We plan to use three of the them  for fruit growing as we will need to transplant the fruit bushes from our old plot in the autumn when the tenancy comes to an end.  We have been working on this section of the allotment for four weeks now and in that time it has gone from looking like this:

to this:

and this:

to this:

 

We have planted up some purple sprouting broccoli, red cabbage and brussels sprouts in one of the beds.

At the other end of the L-shaped plot, weeding is in progress, but it's a long job.

All the family got involved this weekend. We had to make it fun for the grandchildren, so I made some obstacle courses over the muddy areas.

And we tried to make a way through the jungle of weeds. We still haven't managed to get up to the top of the plot, there are so many weeds and brambles. My grandson said he thought there was a bear living in one of the bushes. Hmm I wonder!

The plot is still full of surprises, my husband found two scythes in the shed. My daughter used one of them to cut down some of these weeds. I am used to finding many stones, boulders and bricks as I dig but today I had real trouble digging, my husband helped me and we unearthed this huge piece of metal. I'm sure we'll find a use for it somewhere around the plot!

There's a tremendous amount of work to do, I know it will take a long time to get the plot looking good but after this weekend I am feeling much more hopeful. 

Preparing the ground

It's amazing what a bit of sunshine can do to lift the spirits and give you a bit of enthusiasm to get out in the garden.  We have had weeks of rain  here in Lancashire, the days have been so dark and dreary, but this weekend we had sunshine and I couldn't wait to get outside and do a few jobs in the garden.   It was quite cold and frosty so there was some doubt as to whether we would be able to do any digging.

My daughter and I went  to the garden centre first and bought our seed potatoes. We bought Foremost,  Maris Peer and Arran Pilot. These will be grown in tubs, potato growing bags and old compost bags as we don't have enough space to grow them in the ground. We  find this a good way to grow them. I've got plenty of egg boxes in the shed ready for when we start chitting the potatoes and we'll start on that soon. When we've harvested them all the old compost goes on the beds, so nothing is wasted.

At the allotment we picked some brussels sprouts and pulled up the rest of the beetroot and parsnips. There was a pile of manure left for the allotment holders to help themselves to so my husband  filled several bags of it. My daughter and I dug over the cleared areas of the  raised beds and manured. At the end of the summer I had dug over the areas where the vegetables had finished and covered them with membrane.  So despite the frost this weekend I found that when we took the membrane off that it was quite easy to dig over. The soil is now exposed so that the frost can do its work on breaking up the soil and killing off any bugs.

 I'm feeling quite pleased with the work that we have done this weekend.  It  looks well prepared and tidy now ready for the spring when all the work will commence.  Now we need to think about what we are going to grow this year and start buying seeds.