Every allotment should have one

When we first started allotment gardening Helen and I were given an old bath.  We weren't quite sure what to do with it but we soon realised that if you had an allotment you also had an old bath.  People grew things in them, used them to collect rain water or made them into ponds. Some allotment people had more than one bath-- the height of luxury!  For about three years our bath was left lying at the back of the polytunnel on plot 10b amongst the weeds and brambles doing nothing.  We weren't sure if we had room for it anywhere, and I did wonder if we really needed it.  I considered getting rid of it--giving it to another allotment person.  But I looked around at the other allotments and saw that there didn't seem to be any allotment which didn't have a bath being put to good use. It was obviously the thing to do, it would be wasteful to get rid of it.

Last year we noticed our next door allotment neighbour had the most amazing strawberries growing in his bath. We would love to have strawberries like that. So we decided this was to be the year of the bath and we really must  grow something in it. We moved the bath to plot 8 and after much thought a suitable place was found for it at the back of the growhouse. A lot of work was required to get it in place because it had to fit in amongst the new drainage system which my husband was working on and this seemed to be the best place to put it.

Finally last weekend it was there in  place and I could fill it with compost and plant it up with strawberries. I have to say it looks really good and I am so looking forward to having some really juicy strawberries this year.

 

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.

Lots of mud, a wobbly tree and a disgruntled pigeon

marsh marigold

Our new wildlife pond is starting to look good. I have planted a marsh marigold an iris and a white forget me not. I just love the marsh marigold, it seems to have more flowers  every time we visit the plot and it's such a lovely bright, cheerful yellow.  We can't plant up the boggy area around the pond  yet as there are lots of weeds to be cleared away and it's quite a messy job which will take some time too. It's a job which has to take second place to other allotment work.  So in the meantime I have been looking around my garden to see what  moisture loving plants I have which can be divided, potted up and then planted when we have finished clearing and preparing the ground.  I have astilbe, hostas, rodgersia, teasels and more irises.
I have to resist the temptation to go to the garden centre and buy more, I must wait until I can see properly how much planting space there is. I really can't wait to get started on the bog garden and get our wildlife area sorted.

the pond planted up 

Richard has been clearing the old pond and redirecting the drainage pipes so that they go alongside the fence, that's another very messy, muddy job. We now have a muddy hole where the pond used to be which needs filling in. When this area is sorted we want to gravel it and put up a greenhouse or small polytunnel.

the old pond is now a muddy hole

We encountered problems over the weekend with the high winds.  With all the weeding and digging we have obviously disturbed the roots of a conifer tree which is next to the fence bordering ours and the next plot and noticed that the root ball was lifting every time there was a big gust of wind.  The only thing stopping the tree from falling over was the fence.  Another job now is to cut the tree down, but to add to our problems, when Richard started cutting out some of the branches, he discovered a pigeon sitting on a nest at the top of the tree looking down at him! We hope the pigeon isn't too upset, although we're not sure if it really was the pigeon's nest or whether it was just sitting there for a rest or maybe it was eyeing up the purple sprouting brocolli plants in the bed adjacent to the pond. They've already been attacked by pigeons. The nest doesn't look big enough for a pigeon so we are going to watch for a while before any more tree cutting is done.

 the wobbly conifer partly cut down

Planting memories

Today I planted snowdrops in the green in my garden. The snowdrops are from my brother's garden.  My brother died 5 weeks ago and this is for me a good way to remember him, because he loved gardening and he's probably one of the people who has inspired me most in my gardening.

I love to have plants in the garden which remind me of people I have known or places  I have been to. As I planted the snowdrops I shed a few tears  for the brother that I loved. Tears, sadness, dark days are much a part of my life at the moment. But I know I will work my way through it and next year in the dark days of winter when the snowdrops are flowering they will bring me hope and peace and help me to focus more on  happy memories.

Sorting out the pond

We seem to be having a lot of projects at the allotment this year. Or perhaps that's how I view these things that we do. Some of them might be just projects but some of them are real challenges too.  So our latest project challenge is the allotment pond, and it really is a challenge.

When we first took on Plot 8 we were pleased that it had a pond, although we might not have noticed that it had a pond if the allotment officer hadn't told us. The whole of the pond area was taken over by irises and  weeds as well as all the rubbish which you get with a new allotment.

There's a pond here amongst the weeds

We were delighted when the frog spawn appeared, but sad when the pond dried up and we realised that there was a hole in the liner. So we knew that we would need to sort the pond out as soon as we had sorted the allotment out. It's a job which has been put off a few times because of more important allotment work and also because we knew it was going to be a big job and we needed to work out how to do it. But finally this year we got started.

Richard and Helen digging out the weeds

 We decided (well my husband did ) to get rid of the old pond but put the new pond in a different place. We just wanted a wildlife pond and it didn't need to be big, so as we are into recycling and reusing things we recycled and reused an old galvanised tin bath which we had found on the allotment and which was quite sound--no holes. The area where we have placed it is a fairly wet boggy area so we can also plant up a bog garden. We are also needing some space to put a small greenhouse or polytunnel and the area where the old pond was would be ideal.

The new pond

The first job was to dig out some of those weeds and plants which had taken over. That is a big job and we still haven't cleared them all.  But the old pond is almost cleared away to just a hole in the ground and the new pond is in place.  As I said earlier this is a big  challenge so we are still working on it. There is much still to be done but it's good to see the progress we've made so far. I've been collecting plants together for the pond and bog and I can't wait to get them planted up.

Another woodland project

 

 When the council cut the trees down at the top of our plot8 allotment last year it looked like it was goodbye to the grandchildrens' woodland den. Their secret hiding place had  gone in one fell swoop of the tree cutters saw. The tree canopy had been raised, the privet hedge was cut back and the elder bushes which had provided little secret places had been cut down to the ground.

I thought they would be upset at having their den demolished but when they saw the results of the chopping down they quite liked the open space which had been created. That was a relief and when I suggested ways that we could make it into a good play area they embraced it all and got stuck in to start the work.

We raked all the debris out of the way to make a path and put some wood chips down. Some of the cut off tree branches made good seats. I managed to make some little planting areas and with the extra light created by the raising of the tree canopy  we should be able to grow some shade and woodland loving plants.

After visiting  RSPB Leighton Moss we had the idea of making another tepee as our previous attempt had been a bit messy. So we scoured the woods across the lane from the allotment and found some good sized tree branches to make a little shelter under the sycamore tree.

 I made a start on planting up the little borders with some rooted plant cuttings  from the garden. I've planted aquilegia, brunnera, foxgloves and hardy geranium. I also put in some tete a tete daffodils, muscari and bluebells. It looks really good, and is usually the first place I head for whenever I arrive on the allotment.  If the grandchildren lose interest in it then I might claim it as my own little space.

Asparagus bed completed

It has always been my daughter Helen's wish to grow asparagus on the allotment, but I wasn't too sure.  It sounded  to me like a difficult plant to grow.  So I kept trying to put her off the idea. However, realising we had a spare bed at the allotment on plot8 which seemed to have the right growing conditions I decided we could have a go.

As we didn't know anything about growing asparagus, I spent some time reading up on how to grow it.  The hard work seems to be in the preparation of the ground. You need a well dug, deep bed in a sunny spot and free from perennial weeds. The bed had already been well dug and weeded some time ago but  we dug it over again and removed as many of the weed roots as we could and also incorporated lots of well rotted manure.

The crowns arrived last week so we spent last weekend planting them up. We had bought  two different varieties--Backlim and Gijnlim, five crowns of each. They're a bit weird looking with all those roots.

 

We were quite keen to get the planting  right, so with our tape measure and instructions at the ready, we measured the trenches very carefully for width, depth and spacing.

 

The crowns are now in place but we will only be able to cut a couple spears from each crown this year and a few more next year. Hopefully now they are in place all the hard work has been done and they will keep on growing for several years.