A Major Milestone (or Three)

1st Week of June

In the first picture it’s looking a lot like summer!

The potatoes are galloping ahead in the warm sun and longer days. We’re also getting through the manure, just a small pile left now as the “digging marathon” end is approaching.

The tomatoes are doing well in the Polytunnel, we were very grateful that we didn’t put them in earlier as the winds and storms would certainly have brought them to an early demise.

We are now proud owners of a rechargeable strimmer which will be useful for cutting the grass. We are going to be cultivating every inch of the plot except for pathways as we want to maximise our growing capability. The strimmer will be handy for the currently uneven and less than perfect grass we are dealing with along the paths. Will need a second battery though as even with this small amount of grass, it takes 1 hour or so to cut.

Hoorah!! The 3rd quadrant of digging is finally over! June 5th - so, twice dug, manured and it has taken from October 10th 2020 to June 5th 2021 - that’s a lot of digging… but we made it!!

In the next picture you can see the 3 quadrants all nicely dug over. We are not using raised beds preferring open plan but it will be interesting to see during the summer how we are afflicted or otherwise by weeds growing through. Our intention is to keep taking out weeds, Couch grass, Bindweed, etc. as we see them pop out and just burn these directly so as to keep on top of everything. Regular weeds will just be hoed and left to compost on the soil. 

The butternuts are also now “planted out”. You can see them in the quadrant with the fire, bits of orange peel scattered around in an attempt to deter slugs (not very successfully). 

The next picture, a closer look at the outside tomatoes and the butternuts, which we will be growing along the ground this year to provide some ground cover. Notice to the right of the polytunnel we have planted out some onions into a narrow piece of ground. This bit of ground was going to be the fourth quadrant until the idea of the polytunnel came about. Now using it for our first onion crop.

The last picture is the first actual edible item we have grown on the plot - a radish and a mighty big one too! That might serve us a few salads. We intend to let some radish go to seed this year so we have plenty next year.

This time of year, the time we are spending at the allotment is increasing significantly as the days are longer, the weather nicer and there is soooo much to do!

Starting to look like an allotment

May 29th, 2021

The weather picks up once more and after a few days of hard digging as you can see in the picture the 2nd and 3rd quadrants are now racing ahead.

Check out the fire area though, look at the speed that the weeds (Couch grass in particular) has grown! This is why we needed to get our skates on - the whole area is coming alive now as Spring is coming to an end.

Check out the potatoes! We have Swiss Chard growing in front of the polytunnel too (no idea how as we didn’t plant any). Carrots, parsnips and radish all now making their presence known as well. 

In the second plot we have planted out some tomatoes. They are "Money Makers" which was a favourite of Chris' father. Let's hope these give us a good crop this year. 

We now just only have a small section of digging to do by the fire and a few rows on the 3rd quadrant to finish off. This plot had fewer weeds and so progress has been quicker.

Just in case you thought we had turned part of the plot into a pallet storage area, let me say that once the digging is over, we’re onto building a compost heap area… so these pallets are going to be the basis for this.

So far so good. Apart from the repairing of the polytunnel and the delay that it introduced into our schedule, things are progressing well. It’s been digging, digging and more digging thus far, but we can see the light at the end of that particular tunnel now.

The plot almost takes off!

 May 1st to May 14th were probably our most difficult 2 weeks on the allotment thus far…

Let me walk you through the pictures one by one. It seems as if not much has happened but in this case the pictures don't tell the story.

Check out the first picture:

Here all seems fairly normal. We’ve added to the bucket count around the polytunnel because the wind has been getting up of late. Don’t be deceived by the sun and rather pleasant pictures - we endured some 50-70 mph gusting winds and were more than a little concerned for our polytunnel which seemed a little bit “wobbly” in the face of the elements. 

Now moving onto the next picture which doesn’t tell the story at all!

We faced the gale force winds and for a time we were battered and bruised. The Polytunnel took a real pounding and when we walked up the path to see our polytunnel waving around like a white flag after a battle, we knew major league collateral damage had been wreaked upon us. 

We dug deep, we acquired Gorilla tape, we bought iron concrete stakes for support and we spent the best part of 4 days repairing our polytunnel. We were very fortunate we hadn't planted out our tomatoes before hand into the polytunnel, because there would have been precious little left of them to be honest - one saving grace. A set-back though, as time was ticking for getting our seeds growing, and mid May fast approaching. If we didn’t finish the digging soon we’d miss getting crops in the ground early enough to ripen.

Notice the piles of Couch grass and other weeds are now serving to hold down the polytunnel, as we sought to provide greater levels of anchorage just in case the winds were to visit us once more. A better solution is going to be needed going into next winter for sure!

The good news is that some of the potatoes were making their presence known with green shoots coming through.

Our fireplace got a welcome raise through additional bricks as some serious burning of the most virulent weeds is going to be needed as we progress into the hot summer months and everything dries out.

The last picture:

We got our runner beans in the ground (for the 3rd time of asking):

1st set went lanky and the weather was rubbish (too early) -died off.

2nd set went out and then the weather claimed them (too optimistic) - died off.

3rd set were late but held on for what turned out to be a fabulous crop!