After the rain, the harvesting

We've continued to be busy with allotment jobs. I've kept wondering when will we ever get to the end of them. The answer if course is that you never do, there will always be plenty if work to do. 

We have at last got everything in the ground for now which needs to be planted and sown. I am doing successional sowing with salad crops, lettuce, radish, spring onions, beetroot. I have sown bulb fennel again, although I keep saying I won't. It doesn't grow well for me. After planting  kale, purple sprouting broccoli and more cabbage the beds are full. I am looking for space to plant some more leeks in a couple of weeks.

The tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and aubergines in the greenhouses are doing well. There are plenty of tomatoes to ripen and we are already picking cucumbers. I offered a new plot holder down the lane my spare tomato plants but she didn't need any. It was nice to get to know her and her friend and I came away with two melon plants.  With two already very full greenhouses I didn't know how I was going to squeeze them in, but I did and I hope they will be ok. I've never grown melons before, so that will be interesting.

After a really long dry spell we finally got the rain we wanted. The water butts got filled up and it was good though to have a break from allotment jobs while it was raining. Now we are harvesting a lot of our produce, potatoes, lettuce, cucumber, spring onions, kale, courgettes, peas and broad beans. Lovely!

Wet, windy weather and time to make plans

Last weekend we made our first visit of 2023 to the allotment.  We haven't done any work on the plot since the middle of November but we went down a couple of times after that, once to cut greenery for Christmas and again to dig up some leeks, parsnips and swede. 

The weather has been very wet this month with some very strong winds and I've been wondering when we will ever get down to the allotment. But we had a short break in the rain one afternoon at the weekend so we thought we would go to check if there was any damage from the winds. I was hoping that the greenhouses would still be standing and thinking that the membrane sheets which we had put over the beds in November might have blown away. 

                                                 

Well fortunately everything was ok apart from the garden chairs and one or two other things blown over, but no damage.   

Lottie the allotment cat came to say hello.  She always pops round to see us when we are there and we give her some food. She looks very healthy,  I know she gets food and has a nice warm shed with a bed on another plot.

As we walked around the plot I was pleased to see that the rhubarb is showing signs of new growth. This is the variety 'Timperley Early' and it always lives up to its name of starting off early. 

                                                 

The leeks are still growing although they are a bit small yet.

While we were there we assessed what work needs to be done when we eventually get some better weather and there are lots. The first and most important job is to take off all the membrane from the beds. If there are any weeds underneath they will be removed and then we will start mulching the beds with manure or compost.  

                                     

We also need to clear the greenhouses of the dead vegetation from the tomatoes and cucumbers and then give them a good clean. Other jobs which I can do at home are to sort through my seed boxes and buy what I need for this year. I also need to work out my growing plan for the beds.

The plot looks really damp and dreary and I'm longing for the weather to improve so that we can get started on all the jobs which need doing. At the moment as I write this blog there is snow outside, so no chance yet.

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

A wet plot and a new greenhouse

A new year on the allotment and there's lots to plan and look forward to. Now we just have one allotment to look after there is a sense of relief as we go down there and walk past the old plot. I must admit though there was one moment last week when we arrived at Plot 8 to find water pouring out through the gate and puddling on the beds and paths that I wondered if we had chosen the wrong plot out of the two to keep. But after scooping out the debris from the drain at the top of the plot, the water started to clear a bit. A couple of days later it had all cleared and we had a reasonably dry plot. With all the rain at the moment it will never get completely dry. 

With bad weather around there's not a lot can be done on the allotment but  this is the time of year when less urgent and  maintenance jobs can be done. It's the time to mend the fence or build new compost bins.  On our plot, as well as sorting out the drains, Richard has started work on building a greenhouse. This is a small greenhouse which we got for free from our grandson's school. The door was bent after damage from vandals, but that was easily put right. We spent a cold day last November in the school playground dismantling it. Since then it has been stored in our garage waiting for suitable weather to assemble it.

Finally the storms and heavy rains have eased off and given way to drier, colder weather.  Knowing that in a few weeks time I will be needing space to start off seeds under cover, Richard got started on the greenhouse. It is going where the old plastic growhouse was and the winter storms very kindly saved us the job of taking it down ourselves! The original base had started to rot so we replaced the wood. It's a bit of a puzzle remembering where all the pieces go back together, but Richard seems to know what he is doing, so I'm letting him get on with it. I'm sure he'll have it finished in no time.

Planting tulips

If the rain ever stops I might get some work done in the garden and at the allotment. I keep sneaking out when there is a brief dry spell to do a few jobs. Last week I managed to plant some tulip bulbs in pots. I've never grown tulips before, but I've been admiring the Sarah Raven Tulip collections and for my birthday this year my daughters bought me some. They came in two lovely hessian sacks--very useful.

I planted one lot at the allotment in a big deep plastic tub which I grew carrots in this year. The tulips  should brighten up the allotment next year.

 

The rest I wanted to plant at home in big pots. I used an old enamel bread bin for one planter and a deep pot for the other.  I planted them in layers. The first layer, near the bottom of the pot but with a two inch depth of compost below them.  Then I added more compost and placed another layer of bulbs on this. I topped with a final layer of compost, making sure that the bulbs were at least eight inches deep.

There are still plenty of bulbs left and I was running out of good sized pots, but on a recent visit to the RHS garden at Harlow Carr we spotted a 'buy one get one free' on some lovely pots which will look great planted up with tulips. The only problem was that they had 'Yorkshire pots' engraved on the side of them and we live in Lancashire! Well I'm sure the engraving will soon be covered in moss and no-one will know. So I'm now waiting for another quick dry spell when I can dash outside and get the rest of my tulips planted up.

Disaster at the allotment

Today we had awful weather, sunny spells which deceive you into thinking you can get outside to do some gardening and then the next minute the sky clouding over and the rain bucketing down.  But we decided to risk it and go to the allotment because we had some jobs which could be done in the shed.  My jobs were quite important--I had seedlings ready to be potted on and as we are away next weekend I didn't want to leave them to get any bigger in their trays. However this was not to be.

We arrived at the allotment to find that disaster had struck on plot 8.  The strong winds of the last couple of days had caused the tubular staging in the growhouse to come apart. Well we knew the growhouse was a bit flimsy and there was a risk with it. All the trays of seeds waiting to germinate and others which had been pricked out had toppled off the shelf and were all over the floor and on top of the seedlings on the shelf below.  It was total chaos.

I didn't know how to start sorting them out and felt very tearful.  All my work of the last few weeks seemed to have gone to waste.  I started gathering up the compost and attempting to recover seedlings. I phoned my daughter Helen for assistance.  She was recovering from her son's birthday party earlier in the day, but came over to help.

Gradually we sorted through the plants and seedlings, some had to be thrown away, others could be replanted.  Most of them were flower seedlings which I had been growing for my new cut flower beds. With the growhouse emptied and swept up, Richard arrived with his drill and bag of screws to do a modification to the staging.  I have been reassured that the staging is now safe, so have put the tidied up trays back in the growhouse.

We were soaking wet when we'd finished, the rain had continued throughout but order has been restored. Let's hope it stays that way. What I really need is a proper greenhouse.

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

Rain

 

There are times when the allotment is best viewed from the inside of the shed. Sunday was one of those days.  We went to the allotment mainly to take some tomato and purple sprouting broccoli plants which I had potted on to grow in the polytunnel. But we thought the rain might ease off so we stayed for a while.  We weeded the soil in the polytunnel borders, sorted out the plants in there, thinned out the carrots in the tub and then decided to venture outside.

There were some giant mare’s tail weeds growing in the raised beds so we went round pulling them out. We cut the emerging flowers off the rhubarb plants, admired the blackcurrants, examined the raspberries for more growth, put some shredded paper and cardboard on the compost heap and generally got very wet.

But we came away having harvested some baby leeks, chard and the last of the kale. And Ziggy the allotment cat was happy because she got fed twice.

Selling plants in the rain

It poured with rain for the school summer fair.  Our plant stall was out in the school yard, in between the bouncy castle and the barbecue. My daughter and I coped as best as we could, sheltering under a gazebo, taking turns to go inside school to try out the bottle stall and  the tombola, get ourselves a warm drink or try to persuade people to come outside and buy some plants.

There seemed to be very few customers.  Some came to chat to us, some to just look, some to shelter from the rain.  But this being the third year we've done a plant stall, we now have some regular customers.  Amazingly this turned out to be our best year yet for takings, we raised over £100 and money is still coming in.  I don't know how we did it, but we were pleased.  It made standing around in the rain for several hours worthwhile.

Now I'm wondering what to do for next year. I feel it's time for something different, but what that is, well I haven't decided.  So watch this space.

Not a good day

Yesterday was a bad day for me.  It rained and rained all day, horrible drizzly rain, and it was windy too. I got wet and cold taking the grandchildren to school even though we went in the car ( we normally walk as it's not far).  I got wet again when I went out to the shops. My waterproof was dripping wet, my jeans were soaked, my trainers were wet and so was my hair.  I had to change my clothes, dry my hair and hang my waterproof to drip dry next to the radiator.

Later, I had to go up to school again for the children. We battled against the wind, rushing to get to the car, trying to keep our hoods over our heads, my grandson ignoring my request for him not to splash in the puddles. Then I realised he had left his lunch bag in school and we had to go back to get it. Aargh!

Finally  home, the children decided to annoy me in a big way.  I did at one point wonder if they had eaten or drank something at school which had put their hyperactive levels up. Well anyway, it got me wound up. Later when they had gone home and I reflected on the day, I felt bad for having got so cross with them. Maybe I was tired, or perhaps the rain had got too much for me.

So tomorrow when they are with me again I will try to be a better Nana and have more patience. I also hope it doesn't rain.

After the rain

I don't remember when we last had any rain. Its not really mattered for  a while. I've just been enjoying the sunshine. I've gardened with the sun on my back, planted new plants, divided my perennials, sowed my peas and broad beans, hoed the borders.  And when I've needed a break I've sat down in the sunshine with a cup of tea and enjoyed.

But after a while the lack of rain has become a  problem, the veg plot and newly planted perennials were looking dry and in need of more moisture. Getting the hose pipe out every evening  was becoming a chore. I was looking forward to some rain.

The rain finally arrived and after weeks of being outside I had to do indoor things, like ironing and tidying up, tackling those jobs which had been piling up.

I get a bit restless when I have to be inside for too long, so when the rain eased off and the sun started to shine later in the afternoon, I was glad to get outside and potter around the garden.

It was when I got outside that I noticed the difference. There was a freshness to the garden, the lush green of the plants contrasted well against the dark damp soil.  Plants which had been a bit sad looking had perked up.

But best of all was the smell. The smell of the soil, the greenery, the lilacs, was just wonderful, almost intoxicating. Hosepipes are good but you can't beat a good shower of rain.