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?

Time to get busy

It's that time of year when suddenly everything gets really busy on the allotment. So many things to do, veg plants to get planted, seeds to sow, seedlings to transplant. You just think you've caught up when you notice something else needs doing.

Recently at the allotment I've been busy weeding, trying to get the sycamore seedlings out which are growing along the plot boundaries and up at the top of the plot. There are so many they're almost taking over. I was doing really well and quite enjoying getting areas cleared when I noticed the cabbage plants in the cold frame were getting quite big and thought I'd better get them planted before they got too big for their pots.

Then there were the peas which I'd started off in gutters, they seemed to shoot up while my back was turned and were flopping over, so in the ground they went with twiggy sticks to support them. I'd already sown some straight into the ground a few weeks earlier and these were looking a bit nibbled. Weevils or pigeons? I don't know but we decided to net all the peas in case it was pigeons. That was last week and the peas from the gutters don't seem to have been affected. The others are growing well too. 

Richard had the first of his cataract operations just over two weeks ago and he has to avoid any lifting, bending or strenuous work for a few weeks. So no heavy allotment work for a while. He still comes to the plot with me, usually just sitting or helping me with any simple jobs. He sowed some cucumber, courgette and sweetcorn seeds in pots. And he's potted on the tomato plants. It's not the sort of thing he does as he prefers to do maintenance type of jobs, building, mending or heavy work, but it's all a great help to me.  He decided not to attempt transplanting any delicate seedlings as he felt he might be a bit heavy handed.  As he walks around or sits watching me work he see jobs which he plans to do as soon as he is able to. I saw him with his tape measure the other day which made me think he's planning something. 

I've also been planting strawberries. All our strawberries are grown in containers. I'd noticed that the plants in two of the tubs had not survived, so I pulled them out and as I was turning over the compost I noticed some little white grubs. I don't know what they are and if they are the reason why the strawberries died but I emptied both tubs of compost, gave them a good clean out and refilled with new compost before planting the new strawberry plants.

The asparagus has started growing and I've been picking  spears as they get big enough. We never get very many, but it's only a small bed. It's hard to keep up with the weeding in this bed, it gets a lot of thistles and mare's tail. Once the asparagus starts to grow the weeds seem to grow more and it needs hand weeding very carefully so as not to damage spears just below the soil surface. So this is a job which has been needing  doing for a while and every time we've been to the allotment I've looked  and thought I must tackle that soon. So last week I finally got around to doing it and it didn't take long. It looks much better now but I'm sure the weeds will be back again very soon.

My kitchen windowsill has been full of seedlings for weeks now and gradually as they grow bigger, are transplanted and moved to the greenhouse at the allotment. Last week I transplanted cabbages, cauliflowers, swede, cosmos, cucumbers, courgettes and squash.  Both greenhouses are getting full now and I am gradually moving plants to the cold frame to harden off before planting out.

I got the sweet peas planted and some lettuce, then I noticed the onion bed was full of weeds. There's more lettuce, radish and carrot to sow, more peas to plant out, potatoes to earth up, flowers to plant and more brassicas too.

So lots of jobs needing doing, plenty to keep me busy for a while. And I hope I will  be able to get back to weeding out those sycamore seedlings soon before they grow into trees.

spring sowings and plantings

It's getting to be a busy time on the allotment now.  After weeks of tidying up and getting the plot ready for the new growing season suddenly everything seemed to burst into life in the flower areas bringing some lovely colour to the plot. The weeds are growing too, which is a sign that the soil is warming up and its time to start planting and sowing seeds.

Over the last few weeks my kitchen has been full of pots of seedlings and propagators. I started in February with chillies, then tomatoes followed by cabbage, kale, brussels sprouts, cauliflower and leeks. Now I am sowing flower seeds for a cutting bed in the garden or for filling in gaps in the other borders. Also for the allotment to attract the pollinators.

Down at the allotment I have two greenhouses but they are not heated so seeds which need warmth in the early days are sown at home where I can give them some extra care in the kitchen. Once they are potted on I then take them down to the allotment greenhouses.

Weeks ago I sowed broad beans and pea seeds. I planted the broad beans and peas out in the ground last week. They are looking good and its great to see something growing in the allotment beds at last.
Over the Easter weekend I sowed another lot of broad beans directly into the ground.  I shall be sowing peas soon too.

There's so much too do now. The greenhouses are filling up with seedlings. After weeks of bare soil the allotment is beginning to look like its coming to life and soon my kitchen will be clear of pots and propagators.

Sunny days, goats and a lot of seedlings

Last week  we had some lovely fine sunny days and it was  great to get down to the allotment and catch up with jobs. Working away in the warm sun is so relaxing and then to sit down with a welcome cup of tea admiring our hard work gives a great sense of well being.

The goats which belong to a man who lives nearby are becoming regular visitors, wandering about the lane. They are quite cute, especially the  baby ones, but we have to keep the plot gate shut otherwise they just wander in and eat anything. Up to now they have just eaten the ivy around the gate and we're not too bothered about that. They smell awful though and we can usually smell them before we see them.

I finally got the rest of the onion sets in the ground and then covered them with netting frames to keep the birds from pulling them out. The earlier planted ones had been started off in module trays to get some growth going. This does away with the need to cover with netting.

I planted the broad beans (The Sutton) which were started off weeks ago in cardboard tubes in the greenhouse. They made a double row. We put support sticks around them with string which should stop them from flopping over as they get bigger.

 As the soil is warming up now I decided to sow a row of carrot seeds directly in the ground. We don't have a lot of luck growing carrots. We have tried different ways but the carrot fly always seems to get at them. I think sowing too many is one mistake we have made as when the first carrots are pulled that's when the root fly dives in and gets at the remaining ones. This time I sowed the seed very thinly so there will be no need to thin out. I then covered the row with a fleece cloche and secured it well to the ground. Hopefully the root fly won't be able to get underneath. I will be sowing some more carrots in a deep container in another week or two. This sometimes helps as the root fly doesn't fly over a certain height.

In the asparagus bed we've spotted a couple of  spears poking through the soil. We've also spotted Ziggy the cat sunning herself on top of the bed. So before any more asparagus appears and gets squashed I have covered the bed with prickly holly branches to try to keep her off.

We planted up another big tub of strawberries at the weekend and still had a good number left over, but our grandson's school gardening club were happy to take them off our hands.
 

The greenhouse is a busy place at the moment. It's a constant job, sowing seeds, potting on seedlings, watering and regularly checking to see how they are all doing.  There are trays of seedlings all over the place and I wonder if I will run out of space. I always pot on a lot more seedlings than I will need, some will be spare just in case any die off.  Others will be given away to allotment neighbours or donated to the plant stall at the Church Coffee morning later in May.

Easter Monday on the plot

With lots of family things going on over the last week, we haven't had time to get down to the allotment to do any work, apart from occasional visits to feed Ziggy the cat and to check the seedlings in the greenhouses. So it was good to be reunited with my plot on Easter Monday. I had a long list of jobs to do.

Ziggy was there as usual wanting to be fed. I think she would eat until she burst if we kept feeding her. She certainly doesn't look underfed. And she now lets us stroke her. When we first adopted her she wouldn't come anywhere near us and didn't have a voice, just a snarl. Now she follows me around as I work and meows all the time which can be a bit annoying, but I am learning to ignore it.

 I am really loving my two new greenhouses. The seedlings are coming along great and I never fail to get excited when I see new seeds coming through. There is something so amazing about new growth. I was especially pleased to see that the peas I sowed in a length of guttering a few weeks ago are now starting to come through.

 One of my allotment neighbours gave me some cabbage 'golden acre' seedlings which I potted on and put in the greenhouse. I also had some spring cabbage plants which I'd started off at the end of last summer. These were ready to plant out, the first plantings this year. I covered them with some netting frames to protect from the pigeons which are constantly flying around the plots.

Whilst I was doing this Richard did some weeding. Now the weather is warming up the weeds are starting to grow and there are lots of sycamore seedlings from the tree at the top of the garden. We are also seeing some Himalayan balsam seedlings starting to appear. This is an awful weed which can take over if not kept under control. Unfortunately the plot next to us is not well looked after and the seeds are blown over from there, which causes much annoyance to us and several of the neighbouring plots.

The grand children's woodland den is looking very spring like with tete a tete daffodils, blue pulmonaria and anemone. The daffodils which I rescued from Helen's old plot are just starting to flower too.

I managed to tick one or two jobs off my list before it started to rain, but I'm hoping to get down to the plot again this week to get more done.

Growing

With the coming of Spring and warmer weather everything is coming to life at the allotment.  The weeds are growing fast now, those little sycamore seed pods which fell on the plot in the autumn are now sprouting all over the place, the Himalayan balsam which grows all over the lane and explodes its seed pods everywhere is now germinating all over the plot.  They're all easy to pull out but they are a nuisance and it means I have to spend a lot of time on my hands and knees or worse still I'm constantly bending down to pull them out. No wonder I have back problems!   The sight of these weeds seeds tells me that the soil is warming up and I can now start planting some things outdoors.

We planted the first early potatoes last weekend--in bags and pots.  The onion sets which we started off in cell modules weeks ago have now been planted out. I sowed broad beans direct into the ground a couple of weeks ago and this week planted out some which I'd started off in the polytunnel in cardboard tubes.  We also sowed salad leaves, radish and spring onion last weekend.

I've been sowing seeds under cover for weeks now and I'm watching them carefully every time I go to the plot to see if any have germinated. Some take weeks to come through and when I've  almost given up hope there they are with their little green shoots emerging.

I never fail to get excited over seeing things grow, this is such a lovely time of year.

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.

Sowing seeds and planting out

 

We had some lovely days down at the allotment recently.  The weather has been fine, dry and sunny.  It was surprisingly quiet over Easter, I thought there would be more people down there working on their plots.  Although I like to chat to our neighbours, it was good to have that time of peace and quiet. I could have stayed there just listening to the birdsong and enjoying the tranquillity.  But there was work to be done. 

My daughter Helen and I have done lots of seed sowing and transplanting of seedlings. It's a job which I find really relaxing and on warm days I set the trays out on the outside table to work in the sunshine. The polytunnel and new growhouse are filling up with seed trays and each time I go down to the allotment I excitedly check for signs of new growth. The early sowings of brassicas which I started off at home were a bit disappointing so I've done another lot in the polytunnel which are growing well now. The salad bowl lettuce are nearly ready for planting out. I must not make the same mistake as last year by planting too many. We had some tomato plants given to us a few weeks back--Roma and Golden Sunrise. I have also sown some seeds myself. These are Moneymaker, Ailsa Craig,  Sweet million and Red Cherry.

We've planted and sown out in the ground too--broad beans, peas, parsnip, radish and lettuce.  The onions are all planted and most of the potatoes are now in their containers.  There's so much to do now, making sure everything is planted and sown at the right time, it can be hard to keep up. But gardening is to be enjoyed so that's what I'm doing.

We seem to have been adopted by a robin on plot 8. He's a very happy robin who follows us around as we work. We're keeping him supplied with plenty of worms. As long as he leaves some for the soil we don't mind sharing.

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.