Ziggy the allotment cat

When we took over our allotment last June we didn't just take on a plot of land we took on a cat too. The previous tenants asked us if we would feed her as they hadn't been able to catch her to take away with them.  Ziggy had been eating and sleeping in one of the sheds. Fortunately for her we decided to keep this shed as it was a good size and in quite good condition.  The shed smelt awful and Ziggy's area was in a terrible state, littered with empty cat food tins full of flies and maggots.Ugh!  We cleared the shed out completely of rubbish, gave it a good hose down and cleaned it with disinfectant. It is now known as 'the cat shed', even though it is used for other things too.

We didn't see much of Ziggy at first, but we put food in the shed where she could get at it. We put out dried food which was cleaner as we didn't go there every day, and gave her a new bed--a box with some clean bedding. She could get into the shed easily through a little entrance, like a cat flap but with no door. We saw her occasionally in the next door allotment, watching us, but she wouldn't came near us. The cat food  was being eaten, either by her or other cats in the vicinity, so we replenished the supply every few days.

As time passed  she got braver and came on to the plot, but kept her distance.  When we were leaving she would appear near to the shed ready to go in to get her food as soon as we had left.

Ziggy is getting to know us and seems to have worked out our comings and goings at the allotment. When we arrive at the allotment she is there waiting for us. She is still wary of us, but will come closer and will eat her food whilst we are there.   We have started to put out  proper cat food for her when we are working on the plot. She loves this and will gobble a bowl of food down in no time at all and quite often sit staring at us wanting more. I think she likes to top up her tummy with the better cat food because she knows we are not there every day! She seems to know what time we will be going home because she returns before we leave looking at us expectantly, waiting for some more food. There is also a lot of wildlife around the allotments so I'm sure she gets her share of mice and birds. 

We  worried about her in the winter as she was limping and looked quite weary, but she seemed to recover and looks clean and happy now. My daughter who is a physiotherapist cast an experienced eye over her and thought she might be a bit arthritic.  

Ziggy is still a bit timid and we can't get too close to her. She seems to have taken over our lives and I think she has now accepted that we are part of hers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

All ready for planting

As the weather has gradually improved over the last couple of weeks we have been able to do more at the allotments.  On plot 10a our potatoes are now planted up in containers.  The containers are a mixed bunch of deep pots, potato growing bags or old compost bags. They are grown in a mixture of rotted manure and multipurpose compost. We've always grown our potatoes this way and we get a lot of success.

Richard has been making  paths around the raised beds, using much of the rubble and bricks we found as we cleared the plot. It's good to be able to use the things you find around the plot.

We have been preparing our raised beds ready for planting up with veg started off in the polytunnel.  We are very fortunate on our allotment site to have a regular supply of manure delivered, so we can keep our manure bins topped up. We have also recently had a supply of soil improver available through our allotment association. Our beds are new so we have mixed  rotted manure and soil improver into the fairly heavy soil. Hopefully this will help to break the soil down over a period of time.

In the fruit beds we planted our gooseberries and blackcurrants into their final positions at the front of the plot and their new growth is starting to show now.   The rhubarb is also growing well. The winter veg are coming to an end now and although the brassicas got attacked by the pigeons we were pleased to see that the purple sprouting broccoli is recovering and we were able to harvest some at the weekend.

The raised beds are empty at the moment except for the leeks and kale, but as the sun warms the soil we are ready to get sowing and planting.  The polytunnel is full of seedlings and it's so exciting to see them growing more each day.

What's happening on your allotment/vegetable plot?

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.