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.

Looking back on the allotment 2016

We went to the allotment today, the last day of the year. It was good to get down there to do some work. We haven't been to do jobs since the middle of November, just to pick vegetables. It was a bit dull and dreary at first, but we did get a trickle of sunshine later and some blue patches in the sky. We took some lunch and as we sat at the table eating our lunch we thought about the past year and what had changed.

This time last year we were busy clearing our daughter Helen's allotment ready for the new tenants to take it on and I remembered the shock of finding a dead chicken in the manure bin! That had come from the plot behind--poor chicken, we don't know how it got there. Now we just have  the one plot to look after it has been so much easier. Read about plot 10b here

We acquired two greenhouses early in the year and I have so much enjoyed growing things in there and we are now enjoying eating the chutney made from the tomatoes and chillies.

The wildlife have enjoyed our allotment this year. We had frog spawn and tadpoles in our new pond and  I rebuilt the bug hotel which was falling down. The flowers have been great especially the sweet peas.

Anyone who gardens or has an allotment will know that you have good years and bad years for crops. So some things have done well and others not. After several years trying to grow celeriac without success I have decided not to bother growing it again. But one new veg I would like to try growing is flower sprouts.

Most of the fruit has done well, we are still eating the apples which are stored in the shed, the freezer is groaning under the weight of the rhubarb and I have had blueberries for breakfast.  Strawberries and gooseberries keep us going in jams through the year, they go on my breakfast porridge.

One sadness of the year has been that we lost Ziggy the allotment cat, who came with Helen's plot and then moved to our plot. We miss her, she was always there to meet us very noisily when we arrived and miaowed constantly as we worked, wanting nothing more but food and the occasional cuddle. It's very quiet on the plot now she's gone.

So, after a year of, weeding, mulching, composting, sowing, planting, growing and harvesting, I now look forward to another year. I wish you all a happy and blessed new year, a year of good crops and very few bugs, a year to enjoy sunshine and showers, a year to enjoy your plot or your garden.

Thank you for following me.

A busy bank holiday weekend

Whilst we have been digging and clearing rubbish over on plot8, there has also been a lot of work going on over on plot10b. We were very busy over the bank holiday weekend.

We now have two cold frames, one is a cheap one from Aldi and the other a quick build made by Richard with some bricks which were lying around the plot and an old shower screen which we had been storing in our garage for a time when we might want to build a cold frame.  It's only temporary but at the moment we are needing somewhere to harden off our plants.

In the roots bed we have sown parsnips, carrots, beetroot and radish and planted more beetroot and some  spring onion.  We have planted all our onions, garlic and shallots which were started off in cell trays. The peas and broad beans which were started off in the polytunnel have now been planted in the raised beds outside.  We also sowed another row of peas, a purple podded variety.

peas supported with twiggy sticks

Cabbage, brussels sprouts and cauliflower were planted in one of  the brassica beds and these were covered with some netting frames to keep the pigeons and cabbage white butterflies off for the time being. We have a plan in mind for a better system of netting them as they get taller.

One of allotment neighbours gave us some little gem lettuce plants which we planted in between the peas and broad beans as catch crops.

Plot 10b is not a big allotment and we are carefully planning our crop rotation scheme.  There is so much to plant and sow at this time of year that we are in danger of running out of space. We are glad we took on plot 8 . Even though it's not finished yet it will help us with any overflow of plants.