Grow Your Own, by the Allotment Rookie: Winter Wonderland Snow Flakes on the Apple Tree ...

Grow Your Own, by the Allotment Rookie: Winter Wonderland
Snow Flakes on the Apple Tree ...: "Winter Wonderland Snow Flakes on the Apple Tree The allotment glistens in the artic conditonds - a gardener's Narnia Imagine our Delig..."

Winter Wonderland

Snow Flakes on the Apple Tree

The allotment glistens in the artic conditonds - a gardener's Narnia

Imagine our Delight.
A Secret Santa had been to the allotments and delivered community manure!

Just before the snow fell we spread manure over the frosted land which had been roughly dug over into large sods. This should allow the frost (and snow) to break it down over winter improving the structure of the silty loam; and maybe help with drainage.

Heavy frost and snow, temperatures in double digits below freezing have taken their toll. What are left of the veg are deep frozen (carrots and leeks) but we should manage to have sprouts for Christmas dinner. Only hope some of our guests will eat them. The Christmas potatoes did not grow - just a few leaves came up, then they shrivelled (either blight or waterlogged). Kale, the hardy stuff, is still hanging in there.

Update on Drainage:

There has been much discussion and many predictions, but finally it arrived: a ten foot wide vehicle on caterpillar tracks. It trailed noisily up and down the site digging and laying drains. The soil has all been neatly put back on top - of course they haven't replanted the veggies.

Harvested (before the snow)
Carrots

Cauliflowers

Leeks

Waiting in the gargage to be planted after the snow:

Rasberry canes

Apple tree

Peach tree

Gooseberry bush

All are to be planted from November to end of March.

Wild Life this month:

One large buzzard

Two white Egrets (look like a small white heron)

Flock of field fairs

Red Shanks

Robins

Rabbits

Allotment society Christmas get together was a Jacobs Join, i.e. everyone brings some food to share. A good night with delicious food, a talented singer and sociable company. I have to report a noticed some allotment holders covertly passing a giant seeds catalogue between them. It's a competitive world even down the allotment!

Looking forward to planning what crops to grow in 2011 in the New Year and considering something exotic - artichokes perhaps.

The Calm Before the Storm

Canoodling Carrots!

What more bucolic scene could one behold?

This rural idyll was not to last though. 80mph winds from the Irish Sea raged across the allotment site last week and upturned 3 sheds (ours was one of them) and ripped the roofs off many others. It was like something out of the Wizard of Oz. Our shed had flown 15 feet and landed on its side across the main path - 2 more feet and it would have been in the ditch!

Some wonderful fellow allotmenteers helped us put it back in place. The number of people that told us it would happen, only we didn't quite believe it.You live and learn. Now have four 5ft posts drilled into the ground at each corner. Hubby is still recovering from the shock and his injured back from lifting it. All part of the adventure I suppose.

Harvesting:

Spinach - wonderful in stir frys, makes it taste authentically Chinese
Broccoli
Leeks - need a decent leek soup recipe
Kale
Sprouts doing well - looks like we may have to some!
Waiting for the one good cauli to get big enough before frosts or insects get it

Jobs done:
Chopped down pea and bean plants and dug in their roots as they apparently fix nitrogen in the soil and therefore stuff should grow well on their patch next year.
Finally gave in and put down some slug pellets - organic ones that don't affect birds (end of season bargain from Wilkinsons at 75% off)

First sighting.
After the storm it was very clear and Blackpool Tower was visible across the estuary for the first time.

Mystery on the Allotments
A kind allotment holder offered me some raspberry canes, which I accepted gratefully and waited for them to appear (she said she would leave them next to my shed). They never arrived: she had put them on the wrong plot and the other person had planted them, as you would.

Plans
Still hoping to plant some raspberry canes and currant bushes but cannot order any yet because the drainage system is nigh. Two trenches 3 yards wide are to go through the plot - will have to move some onions and just hope it doesn't look anymore like a World War I battle has been fought down there than it does now (presently mud ++).

How much leaf mould will one bin liner of leaves produce? I wonder for the first time in my life.

Week 10, A charming site

Prolific Peas

Drainage ! Drainage! Drainage! Plans are afoot to put a channel through the centre of the site; so may be able to abandon my flippers.

Planted:

Onion sets (Japanese)

Red onion sets (Electric)

Garlic (French Thermidome)

Broad beans, outside and in the greenhouse (Bunyards exhibition)

Rosemary (two cuttings)

Harvested:

Courgettes

Peas

Dwarf beans

Kale

Spinach

Lettuce

radish

Carrots

Poor result with the sweet corn: knobbly cobs (!). This was because only some of the individual kernels matured. Learned from a visitor that each kernel on a cob has to be fertilised by pollen which travels up one of the threads that hang out of the tip of a cob (looks like a horses tail). The feather like flower on the top of the plant shakes its pollen down on to the cobs below. Advice is to grow them in a square of at least 14 plants to increase the chances of pollination. Too much detail?

The perils of organic gardening continue! Picked a pristine looking head of broccoli only to discover a sight like something out of the film, Alien - it was heaving with tiny green caterpillars the very same colour as the broccoli. Advised to soak in salt water to remove.

Hold the manure!

Carrots grown with too much farmyard manure grow into comic shapes - excess magnesium is the cause.

Wild Life

Saw a heartwarming sight on the allotment: some beautiful goldfinches with pretty red faces and yellow flashes on their wings chattering on a wire; this, I understand is called a charm of goldfinches.

BBQ

Great BBQ down the allotments earlier this summer. The alloteers are such a friendly bunch.

We have had an Indian summer these past few days, and the site is an idyllic place in the morning dew - off to walk my dog round and look for blue fly on the tops of my precious sprout plants!

Week six - Harvest Festival

Spectacular Spinach!

Despite biblical plagues of: caterpillars; slugs; rabbits; pigeons; and floods, we have harvested:

Spinach++

Kale

Green beans

Courgettes
Leeks

Lettuce

Radish++++

Carrot thinnings (great in stir fry)

2 pea pods

Nothing was suitable for any of the village show categories, which seemed very specific. Definitely a goal for next year.

Planted:

Onion sets (Japanese)
Apple tree

News

It's the rainy season and one corner of the plot is flooded; seriously considering growing rice.
It is also the windy season; unfortunately the apple tree was karate chopped into two by high winds. Maybe there's a way to graft the top back on to the stump?

Wildlife watch: Wonderful, large spotty fury bee on the courgette plant. The lavender is buzzing with little bees.

Too much produce? Follow links above to see recipes for spinach soup and courgette cake. Tried both and they are excellent, especially the cake.

Actually walked past the veg isle at the supermarket and didn't buy anything, which felt great. Off to collect lettuce, peas and beans!


' Seven years of weeds for every seed. ' It's an old wives tale, but will it prove to be true? If so, at this rate we will have weeds for eternity!

Christmas dinner went in today!

Planted:


Pumpkins (weeks too late so won't be ready for Halloween but may be able to make pumpkin pie by Thanks Giving [last Thursday in November])

Potatoes (Varieties:Kestrel; Beauty of Butte; Carlingford)

Gooseberry Bush (Variety: Blush)


Found seed potatoes advertised as 'Christmas cropping' so expecting to have have enough for Christmas dinner. Followed instructions in the book: 'The Vegetable Garden displayed' (what a lovely name). Dug a trench 9" deep, filled base with rotted manure, covered this with soil and placed the little babies on top, 12"inches apart; covered the lot with soil and left to cook for4months.

Allotment lingo: Volunteers

Volunteers are growing on our plot: these are spuds that sprout even though you haven't planted them. It's not a clandestine planter but left overs from a previous crop. Here's the hot debate: some say they should be removed and destroyed like clinical waste: to prevent potato blight infecting the site; others say they are a freebie and to leave them for this season. I am not sure but at least I know potatoes grow easily on the site.


Cropped:

3 courgettes
A million radish (daily radish consumption has escalated)
3 lettuce

We have grown more slugs than veg so far and are not in profit re: harvest as opposed to outlay.But it has been fun and some plots are truly bountiful and a credit to the holders who have only had their sites for 2-3 months and currently bound home all grins and their arms dragging on the ground by the weight of heavy bags of produce. Still enthusiasm is infectious!

Pictures next time.

Week four: The Shed has arrived!

Tension is mounting on the site - it is only four weeks until the village show and the original bunch of allotment holders vowed to put produce in the competition.

At last, a Crop!

Our radish(radishes?) are the best I have ever eaten; what a surprise. We have a bumper crop and have harvested at least twenty and even given some away. The variety is sparkler: a purplish red colour to about halfway down; very pretty.

One small courgette is hanging on for dear life on one of the seven courgette plants; will it survive: the insects, rabbits, and gales?

Planted:

Blueberry bush x 2 from Aldi (leaves have gone brownish, possibly due to wind)

Tabberry cane x1 from Aldi

Spring onions

Carrots (treated for carrot fly etc; bright blue coating). Given by neighbour and not sure these are truly organic

Alpine Strawberry x2 (variety=Alexandra)

And to make the plot look nice and encourage bees, a small hedge of:

Lavender x3 (variety=Munstead)

Lavender x5 (variety=Augutifolia Hidcote)

News

'It's my first ever Wendy House,' said an allotment holder as she skipped into her new shed. We were all the same; irascible at the sight of an 8ft by 6ft wooden box. Styles were compared, colours discussed, padlocks fitted. We opted for a Hipex, side door and window. Our teenage daughters (for a fee) painted it chestnut brown; they did a wonderful job and much praised by fellow holders. Looking forward to having my tea making facilities down at the plot soon.

We had been coveting a magical implement belonging to another holder: a hoe of sorts, with little toothed wheels, called a soil miller by Wolf, a German company. Great for weeding and leaves the soil deliciously crumbly. Thoroughly recommend it.

Lots of swallows swooping and darting over the site which I am told means rain; since the hose pipe ban we have had rain daily.

Allotment Society meeting: much concern re: non-regulation sheds and the possibility of it becoming a shanty town.

Steeping manure into liquid fertiliser as I type.

Week Three: Manure Madness

Much encouraged - stuff actually growing!

Planted
Outside:
Cabbage plants

Inside mini plastic green house:
Rhubarb seeds from Italy (rubarbaro)
Pumpkin seeds by daughter
Rosemary cuttings

Peas and dwarf bean spouting well. Strawberries have given up fruiting, now throwing out runners. Pumpkins sprouted - should be ready for christmas.

The poop hunt:
After much pestering of horsey types I secured a supply of manure. I arrived at the horse owners place expecting the manure to be bagged or at least in a pile - how naive. We spent the afternoon searching the fields for the nuggets of brown gold - a treasure hunt of a different kind. We had a good laugh and enjoyed the thrill of the hunt for; teenage daughter was very embarrassed and stayed in the car. Now have bags of it.

I had read up about organic fertilisers and so made a 'tea' by steeping some manure in a bucket of water. I watered the plants with the home brew fertiliser to good effect. I buried small plant pots beside each plant as advised by friend and now the courgettes have leaves.

News

It is rumoured that the rabbits are so clever that they are sitting on the nets to squash them down then nibbling at the plants that stick through.

P.S. The shed are coming!

Week 2

The mood on the new allotment site is still one of giggly excitment and everyone is friendly and supportive.

Planted this week:

4 Strawberry plants

Peas-Hurst Green shaft

Dwarf Beans -Ferrari

Spinach

Broccoli -Purple sprouting and calabrase

Radish-Sparkler

Activities: Netted all veg against rabbits and pigeons They have eaten all the replanted (wrong distance apart) sprouts and kale - may have rescued kale.


Weeds growing well, lots of hoeing.


Went to Allotment Society meeting - a bit boring, though I now know about: the shed and water supply situation; rabbit plague; permaculture site - still not sure what that is, etc.

Peas and beans shooting - hurray!

Weather - Rain and sun, but mainly rain.

Harvested: I strawberry



Quote of the week: 'Hey up, see whats landed!'

Said when by fellow lotti when someone else moved their own shed on to an allotment. Sheds are supposed to be of an agreed type and all the same - to save the place from looking like a shanty town; but the official sheds have not arrived yet and understandably someone has made an executive decision and planted their own shed.

News

• Have a partner on the allotment - Hubby - great digger.
• After a long search and much pestering I have been offered a continuous supply of manure, I have won the lottery!

Week One

One week ago when I was allocated one of the brand new allotments in our village, I was excited and more than a little apprehensive. Do I have enough knowledge ?- definitely not, but so far the other allotment holders (alloti) have helped out -not in a patronising way as experts can be, but gently offering their years of experience. So this morning I went down and replanted the kale and sprouts further apart, as advised.

It is late in the season now, the sensible thing would be to turn the ground over and wait until autumn to plant; spending time planning would reap success - but that is not my style, I am impatient by nature. So armed with a few plants generously given to me by neighbouring alloti and the the few dried up stragglers left at the garden centre, I have planted: lettuce; cabbage;kale;sweet corn; strawberries; sprouts;asparagus;leeks;peas; and dwarf beans.

The allotments are on the Poor Marsh, an area of land which belongs to the parish council for use by the residents of the village. Previously it was divided into about ten large allotments, requiring tractors etc, and only a few were in use.Now, it is to be made into 40 regular allotments (20 so far). There were, understandably objections to the change, from the original holders, who have been offered a new smaller one and from the people whose homes back on to the site, who feared it would look like a shanty town. Up to now it all looks respectable and there is a real sense of community on the site and mixing of generations: the age range of those involved is from 8 to 80.All three of my teenage children have done some digging on the site(though I did have to pay one minimum wage and the other two don't know!).

Question asked by teenager on the allotment today: 'Do you use this to kill vampires when they mess around on the allotment?'
He was refering to a dibber - 'Twilight' generation.

Rabbits have been eating my kale - off to buy some netting.