Slowing down on the allotment

Autumn on the allotment is a time when I start tidying up, slowing down and preparing for the next growing year. Every year is different and all gardeners know that there are good years and bad years for crops.  It can be a result of the weather, pests and diseases, time and energy.

We are not spending as much time down on the plot now--about once a week we go down.  Although I have a long list of jobs to be done, they are not as urgent and can be tackled through the autumn and winter when the weather allows.  As I walk around the plot and see the empty spaces where the summer veg were, I am pleased to see that there are plenty more veg to see us through the winter. The brassica bed is looking good with lots of cabbages. I thought I might have overdone the planting as I always plant extra in case any get attacked by slugs or caterpillars. 

At the moment there are some really healthy looking cabbages and the kale bed looks really colourful with three types--'dwarf green curled', 'cavalo nero' and red kale.  It looks a shame to cut at them, but I do of course. 

Other veg still growing are leeks, brussels sprouts, parsnips, beetroot and purple sprouting broccolli. 

The last couple of weeks I have been weeding the fruit beds which were in a mess.  There are two cages, one with blueberries and raspberries, the other with blackcurrants and redcurrants. In addition, not in a cage are gooseberries and rhubarb. I have been working my way through these beds doing a different one each week and pruning as I go along. The raspberries are still producing fruit and every week I am always surprised and delighted to see there are still more to pick. 

The sycamore tree at the top of the plot has been dropping its leaves for a few weeks now.  They were all over the place on the paths and the beds, so sweeping them up  was another job which got done. They are now all in the leaf bin composting down.

The weather has been really rainy this week so we haven't been able to get any more done, but its good to see jobs gradually being crossed off the list.

Winter jobs on the allotment

After a busy December when all work on the allotment stopped, I have been wanting to get back to work on my plot. December is always busy at home and I don't think I ever get to do any allotment work during that time. We have managed to do a couple of visits since the start of the New Year and it's been a case of carrying on where we left off.

cabbages looking messy

When we arrived for our first visit we were greeted by a strong smell of rotten cabbages.  The cabbage bed still had two or three cabbages left in, but they were very slimy and slug eaten. I got rid of them and weeded the bed.  The rest of the bed has kale and purple sprouting broccoli growing and they looked quite healthy, but not ready for harvesting.

the asparagus bed in need of clearing up

Next I tackled the asparagus bed, cutting down the dead foliage stems and weeding. There were some Rudbekias which had kept on flowering well into November, but had finally gone over, so they got pulled up and thrown on the compost heap.  At the other end of the asparagus bed are some rows of leeks.  I weeded and earthed up the soil around them.  The bed looked very clean and tidy after all that work.  All the beds which I had weeded then got a feed with chicken manure pellets.  We normally put a layer of well rotted horse manure on the beds during the winter once they have been cleared, but our manure bins are empty.  We need to find a source of manure so that we can start storing it again.

a tidy seating area overlooking the asparagus bed

Down the lane some bark chippings have been dumped for the allotment holders to help themselves to.  Richard brought a few barrow loads of the chippings and spread them out where our table and chairs are.  It looks much tidier now and will help to keep the weeds down.  There were also some bags of leaves on the car park so we helped ourselves to some of those and put them in the leaf bin to rot down.

After clearing the vegetable beds my next job was to start weeding the fruit beds.  I made a start with the rhubarb and apple tree bed, but there is still the blueberry and blackcurrant beds to weed yet. I was pleased to see the rhubarb showing new growth already.

the rhubarb bed

There are plenty of jobs still on my to do list and the list never seems to get any shorter.  But as the days start to lengthen we can spend more time on the plot.  The weather has turned cold now and we have had snow in the last day, so we can't do any more work at the moment.  We look forward to better days.

Spring has arrived at the allotment

We've not been down to the allotment much recently, partly due to bad weather,  but also because of my ankle injury which meant that when the lane was muddy and the allotment paths slippy it was a bit of an unsafe place for me. But at last Spring arrived and fine weather, so off we went to get some much needed work done.

I was greeted by one of my favourite flowers in bloom, the marsh marigold in the pond. As I took a closer look I noticed that there was no sign of the frog spawn which had been there for a few weeks. I wondered if the rain had washed it away as the pond was pretty full up of water. But no, on closer inspection I could see little tadpoles swimming around happily. Peeping out from under the marsh marigold was a frog, I spotted another one down at the bottom of the pond. The frog was very quiet and still and didn't seem to mind me. 

Another welcome sight was the daffodils bordering the path, the bright lime green euphorbia under the sycamore tree and the tulips flowering in the big tub.

The last time we went to the allotment a few weeks ago, we moved the blueberry bushes from the fruit area where they were a bit overcrowded to another bed where they would have more space. They were looking fine after their move. The mulch you can see in the photo is shredded pine needles. We always shred our Christmas tree branches to keep for the blueberries as they like an acid soil. I have heard that this is a good thing to do.

Looking at the rest of the fruit bed we could see that the fruit frame was falling down, so some work will have to be done on it soon before we need to start netting the fruit against the birds. Richard dismantled the frame and repaired the support for the apple tree.

The rhubarb is growing really well and we should be pulling some of the stalks soon.

I'm a bit late planting the potatoes, I would normally have them done by now. So that was an important job to get done. We started work on preparing the potato containers with compost. I planted the first earlies in six of the potato bags. The variety is Maris Bard. I put compost in the bottom of the bags to about a third of the depth and sprinkled in a bit of bone meal. The bags are quite big so I put four potatoes in each bag. Then topped with more compost. When the potatoes start to grow and the shoots show through the compost I will top up with more compost. The next lot of potatoes to plant will be the second early Charlotte a salad potato.

Another important job was to weed the asparagus bed. I also fed it with some blood, fish and bone. I was pleased to see a few little asparagus spears starting to come through.

The fine weather didn't last long, it started to rain, but at least we got a good number of jobs done.

Changes in the fruit bed

I've been making changes to the allotment fruit bed recently.   The strawberries which had been in there a couple of years now had completely taken over the ground around and under the fruit bushes. I found it quite difficult scrambling about on my hands and knees to pick the strawberries last summer, and more recently while trying to dig up the runners. It didn't do my back  much good and the bed looked really messy.

As we already have strawberries planted up in an old bath on another part of the plot I decided that I would grow all the strawberries in containers instead of in the ground, where they take up such a lot of space. I have a variety of big containers not being used--old dustbins, dolly tubs, big plastic crates.  You know the sort of thing, that when you have an allotment you save things which might come in useful one day, things which other people are throwing away and you know they could be used on the allotment. That's how we got the old bath.  I decided that now is the time to put some of this 'junk' to good use.

Weeks ago I dug up all the strawberries in the fruit bed and selected good ones from the runners to pot up. I kept them in the cold frame for a while to protect against frost until a couple of weeks ago when Helen planted them up in two of the big containers. There are a few left and being a bit greedy for strawberries, I think I will plant up another container.

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Also in the fruit bed are an apple tree, three blackcurrants, a redcurrant, four blueberries, three rhubarb plants and another tree which has never fruited in the three years it has been there and we don't know what it is. The unknown tree has one last chance this year, if it doesn't produce anything it will be dug up. The redcurrant has been in for two years and also hasn't produced any fruit, so that too is on it's final warning, but I have noticed some flower buds appearing in the last few days, so there's hope yet.

Two of the blueberry plants are new this year and these have been planted near the other ones where some of the strawberries were. Blueberries like an acidic soil, so I put some ericaceous compost in the pIanting hole and a good mulch of shredded pine needles around them all. We love blueberries and have found them easy to grow. Finally I have some gooseberries to plant. These were brought over from Helen's old plot when she gave it up last year and were potted up into big pots until I made some room in the fruit bed. They will be planted in the next week or two, but I'm not looking forward to that as they are so prickly, I might have to use Richard's big heavy duty gloves for that job.

Here's looking forward to a fruitful summer.

Pottering around the plot

strawberries all over the place

At the allotment in the last few weeks whilst Richard has been putting up the new green house, I have been pottering around doing other things. Pottering around is about all I can do at the moment with the damp weather. 

The fruit bed badly needs sorting out. The strawberry runners are all over the place, but the ground is still too wet at the moment to do any digging up. I managed to tidy up the strawberries in the bath and that looks much better.

a bath full of strawberries

The rhubarb which had been on Helen's old plot got dug up before Christmas and I left the crowns until I had more time to divide and pot up. They have now started to show signs of new growth, so I spent some time splitting them up into smaller plants and potting up. I was amazed at how big and woody the roots are. I have planted some on the allotment and given some away to friends but there are still rather a lot left.

just a few of the rhubarb plants

I didn't get chance to clean out the wildlife pond in the autumn, so that's another job I've done in the last couple of weeks. Armed with rubber gloves I got down on my hands and knees, scooped out the leaves, dead plant foliage and some of the silt from the bottom. A week later there was even more silt so I was back doing it all again. The silt is coming down the drain into the pond from the plot above us and with all the rain we have had recently there is  more coming down the drain than usual. I know that a certain amount of silt is needed for the pond creatures, but this is a bit excessive, I want a pond not a bog.  So my next plan is to empty the pond of all the plants and rocks, so that I can get more of the silt out and then start again with a fairly clean pond. That's if it doesn't rain too much.

murky overflowing pond

Manuring fruit beds and pulling leeks

With the cold, wet, windy weather we had in the last week, followed by snow I think most people would have been sensible to stay indoors and watch TV or read a book, but not us. We took advantage of a dry afternoon and off we went to the allotment. All we seemed to have been doing recently is manure the beds, but then that's the main job that needs doing. I decided to manure the fruit beds on plot10b, but first I had to clear up all the cat poo which Ziggy the allotment cat had kindly left for me!

We have two manure bins on each of our plots.  I used the manure from the bin on plot 10b which had been rotting down all year. In the meantime Richard went off to get more manure from the communal heap up the lane to fill up our other bin. We were rather tired after all that shovelling and barrowing, but felt pleased with all that we had achieved.

A tidy fruit bed

Ziggy  watched us constantly from her little bed of straw which I have made for her under the shed. She occasionally came out to ask for food (she's a very greedy cat). She thanked me for the food by leaving another pile of poo on my newly manured fruit bed! I think I shall have to get some cat repellent.

During the week I worked on plot 8 clearing  leeks from the big bed where we will be growing peas and beans this year. The leeks were looking messy, so I pulled them all up, cleaned and trimmed them. Some were past their best and needed throwing on the compost heap. It's a big bed and there were a good number of leeks so it took a while to do. I had intending to pull the leeks, weed and manure all in a couple of hours. That will have to wait for another day and as the weather has now turned very cold and snowy it may be sometime before we are down there again. I will be making lots of meals with leeks!

A snow covered plot 8

A new fruit bed

the fruit bed and apple tree last year

Plot 8 is progressing well and our latest addition is the fruit bed.   Last year when we took the plot on we found an apple tree amongst all the rubbish and tangled mess of weeds. In another part of the plot we found some raspberries. We decided we would have a fruit bed centred around the apple tree.  We dug over this area, moved the raspberries and recently planted strawberries around the apple tree. We also planted some rhubarb.

the new fruit bed

My daughter was given a plant which she was told was an apple tree. It was very pot bound and we have planted this in the new fruit bed. It has perked up quite a bit since being planted, we are not convinced it is an apple tree though. Also in the bed we have planted a blueberry. In the last few weeks the fruit bed has been extended and we have planted more raspberries, some gooseberries and a redcurrant. 

I'm really loving this fruit bed having seen it develop from an area full of weeds, rubble and all sorts of rubbish to a tidy controlled space. All the plants are looking happy, and we are looking forward to seeing fruit later in the year.

A bit of fair weather gardening

 The other day one of our allotment neighbours jokingly described us as fair weather gardeners.  It was a lovely day and we'd not been down there for ages because of the bad weather except to pull up a few veg and feed the allotment cat.  But there's not much to do on the allotment when the weather is as wet as it has been lately. We can't dig because the soil is wet and sticky. We can't even go in the polytunnel at the moment because the path up to it is too muddy and slippery.

I suppose we are fair weather gardeners really. We watch the weather forecasts avidly and quite often plan the week, looking for the days when it is expected to be fine and we will be able to go down to the plot.  I'm sure most gardeners are the same.

Once Christmas was over, fired with the enthusiasm of the new year I was longing to get down to the allotment. Well we were lucky last week, we had some good sunny spells.

One of the first jobs on our list planned for the allotments this month was to manure the beds.  Being fairly new allotments they still need plenty of improvement to the soil. Some of them got done last autumn, but we didn't manage to finish them before Christmas.

We have a supply of manure delivered to the allotments every week from a nearby stables.  I was really pleased to see that the bin which we had filled last year was well rotted down, so I set to work shovelling and barrowing.  I started on the rhubarb bed, where there are signs of new growth. Then I did the fruit beds and finally some of the vegetable beds.  Some of the beds still have winter veg growing, so they didn't get done and I didn't cover the ones where we plan to grow root crops this year. 

That was plot 10b done, plot 8 needs weeding and manuring yet, but I was pleased with the work done, it all looks much tidier.