Spring Woods and Whalley Abbey

Last weekend our daughter and family travelled up north to us for a visit.  We always try to get out and about when they visit. We decided on a walk. Spring Woods, one of our local beauty spots, is at Whalley near Clitheroe.  It looks its best when the bluebells are out and is often known as bluebell woods. The wild garlic is another flower which grows in abundance from late spring onwards and you can smell it just driving past. There were no bluebells or wild garlic in flower yet of course but we could see them poking their green shoots out of the ground. Not surprising after all the rain we've had recently, it was very muddy. A number of trees down was evidence of the windy weather we've also had.

 We saw some interesting fungi too:

After our walk around the woods we went into Whalley to the abbey.  Whalley Abbey is a former 14th century Cistercian abbey, most of which was demolished after the dissolution of the monasteries. 

A country house was built on the site and today this is used as a conference and retreat house. The ruins of the abbey remain and it is a very beautiful, peaceful place to walk around. 

Making a woodland garden

The first day of the half term holidays, Helen and the grandchildren arrived to whisk me off to the allotment.  I was surprised. Firstly because it was raining and secondly because the children are not usually so enthusiastic about going to the allotment.  Gardening with children is often a bit hit and miss, so when they are keen to go it's best to encourage them. And I had a few jobs for them to do which I thought they would enjoy.

Last year I helped them to make a woodland den at the top of plot 8. It's an area where we can't grow any fruit or vegetables, there's a big sycamore tree, an elder bush and a holly, with a privet hedge along the plot boundary at the top and lots of ivy. The ground slopes down from the privet hedge forming a steep bank. Last year this bank was full of weeds, but I thought we could make a woodland wildlife garden here.  There are a lot of birds about in the trees and shrubs, we have put bird feeders up around the plot and built a bug house.

A couple of weeks ago I tried digging the soil in this area. As I expected, it was full of roots from the trees and shrubs, but after getting rid of some weeds I did find some pockets of soil where I could dig to some depth. So I cleared a few patches where I thought we could grow some woodland plants and made a start by planting some pots of spring bulbs, crocus, snowdrops, tete a tete narcissus and also some bluebells which Richard had dug up last year when he was clearing some of the ground in another part of the plot.

When we arrived at the allotment this week the grandchildren were quite enthusiastic about having a garden area in and around their den.  They set to work defining these planting spots with stones and pebbles and making paths.  Somehow I managed to end up being the labourer, collecting buckets of stones. We also planted up another little border with spring flowers.

By the time they had finished their jobs, it was all looking really good. I'm looking forward to seeing the woodland garden spring into life soon and we will be adding more plants as time goes on.

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

January progress

January is not a good month for getting work done on the allotment. Snow and ice is often the problem, this month is has been rain and wind.  But there have been bright spells.  We've watched the weather forecasts to decide if it's been safe to go to the allotment for an hour or two.  We've managed that a few times this month and every little helps.

At the start of the month the job was to tidy up some of the rubbish still lying around on plot 8. This was mainly stuff cleared out of the old shed and wood from the demolishing of the shed. We spent a few fine days sorting through the rubbish, deciding what we wanted to keep (it might come in useful one day). We ended up with several bags of glass, plastic, metal and general rubbish which went to the local recycling centre. There is now a pile of wood waiting for the right day to have a bonfire and stacked up at the back of the shed out of the way is all the wood which we want to keep. There's always something to be made or repaired on an allotment so it's useful to have some decent pieces of wood.

We gained a few useful items as well as wood--lots of plant pots, a folding wooden garden chair, several sheets of membrane fabric, loads and loads of tubular poles and connectors which were probably once assembled as grow houses and staging. One day we will sort through them and see if we can make anything with them. It will be quite a puzzle I'm sure.

I started to clear the weeds from the new beds which had been dug over at the end of the summer. There's still lots of  weeding to be done but it's a start.

The next job was to top the raised beds on plot 10b with composted manure. This was a job we started in the autumn but stopped as Christmas took over. First job was the rhubarb bed then the blackcurrant and gooseberry bed. Finally the old roots bed which will have peas and beans in later this year. The raised beds on plot 10b now look very tidy.

The polytunnel was in need of some attention and I made a start on cleaning the inside with Algon.  I then  tackled the borders which are heavy clay soil.  I topped the beds with some manure and compost.

In the meantime Richard has made a start on building the path up to the polytunnel. This area has been causing some problems in wet weather because the soil is clay and becomes very wet and slippery. He's making some long steps up the slight slope. So far he has made a wooden frame (using our supply of spare wood of course) and is now filling in with hardcore before the final gravel topping.

 

As we come to the end of the month, the weather is not just rainy but extremely cold too. I'm glad we made the most of the fine days to get those jobs done.

Growing plans

My daughter Helen and I have been thinking about what we want to grow on our allotments this year. When making our plans we thought about what mistakes were made last year, what didn't do well and why, what we thought was a waste of time or what we didn't like.

We had a few gluts last year, so we want to make sure we don't grow too much of some things. We get a bit greedy sometimes faced with a tray of seedlings and instead of planting just the healthiest ones we always want to plant them all. That's our downfall. Like the many little gem lettuces which went to seed in the hot weather. The kale grew well and still is doing, but again we put too many plants in. And the chard, well that grew enormous and once more there were too many planted. We couldn't keep up with it. Beetroot was another which we couldn't keep up with, as well as turnips which grew absolutely massive in a short space of time. I should have picked them as baby turnips.

We definitely won't be growing runner beans again. It was my 7 year old grandson who insisted that was what he wanted to grow. They grew up into the sky, he was really pleased, but we prefer the stringless French beans which we also grew. So as you can imagine we were overrun with beans. I know we could have frozen them, but we ran out of freezer space, it was full of allotment fruit. We'll have to steer him towards growing something different this year.

Other mistakes were the purple podded peas. It wasn't a mistake to grow them, we loved the taste and colour of them, but we didn't realise how tall they grow. They were flopping about all over the place. So this year we will put up a better support frame. The cabbages were great, given to us by an allotment neighbour. But I forgot to sow more for the autumn and winter. We need to think ahead and grow more at intervals.

So for our first proper year of allotment growing we made a few mistakes. This year we will grow less of  some things but maybe try some new types of vegetables. I'd like to try celeriac again, I grew it when we had our starter plot a few years ago, but it didn't do well. We thought we might also try growing some baby sweet corn.

Our seeds, ordered through the allotment society,  have arrived and I can't wait to get sowing them. As for the spare seedlings, well we can always give them away or put them on the compost heap.

Soup and silence

Food is becoming quite important to us at the allotment. Yes I know it's important because we grow it, but I mean the food we take to keep us going for a long day of digging and hard slog.  I've written about food before so I may be in danger of repeating myself, but the right food can make the day so much better.

Cake is essential. Nothing sticky or messy--a wholesome fruit cake or banana loaf is ideal. The sort of thing you can munch on whilst wandering around looking how your seedlings are doing or counting the caterpillars on the brassicas or admiring the sweet peas.

Last week we had lunch down there. I took soup--home made leek and potato--made with our allotment leeks. It was perfect for a chilly day. We sat just outside our home made shed in the winter sunshine, enjoying the soup, watching the long tailed tits on the fence and listening to the silence. It was all very good, so good I just had to tell you about it.

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.