June 2021, and summer continues!

As the good weather shines down on us, the work proceeds unabated. The plot is starting to fill up although there is a long way to go.

The potatoes are doing really well, some flowers even beginning to show on one or two. The outside tomatoes are doing well, as are the courgettes and butternuts. Hard to tell at the moment what is what in the Brassica section but everything seems to be growing well, with only the odd one or two signs of slugs… 

We have a small mound of sifted soil, on the fire quadrant and we still have the last dregs of manure left to move from where it was piled up as work will start there soon, after the compost heaps are finished.

Another picture of the top ⅓ of the plot. We have now relocated the pallets to here and arranged 5 of them into our basic structure for the compost heap. The other two still laying down are for the doors which will close the structure and keep everything inside. We will need a further two pallets for the two lids which will sit on top of these vertical pallets.

You can see the remains of the manure we had which was piled up from the water tap to the remnants you can see here. The rather nice looking long leaved green plant on the leftmost side of our plot is Horseradish. It is the root of this plant that you harvest (if you can wrestle it out of the ground), peel, mash, add some other bits and pieces and you've made a potent condiment for beef or eggs, or to add a bit of oomph to something like mayonnaise. Anyway we’re not harvesting any right now. It’s a bit of a prolific grower, so getting rid of some of it might be the first port of call.

Notice the sheet of corrugated plastic roofing material inside the polytunnel - an innovation designed to keep some furry intruders out who seem to have developed a penchant for seeds pots inside. 3 sets of courgettes needed sowing as previous attempts had been systematically consumed.

In the next picture the runner beans finally have taken and are reaching out for their poles. You can see the compost heap construction a little better in this one: just pallets tied together with electric wiring, but will be screwed together as more work is undertaken. 

The last of the dehydrating couch grass, bind weed, and horseradish on spare remaining pallets. Most of this has now been dried, burnt and returned to the soil in the form of ash. These weeds are not easy to compost and we’ve had a lot of them! 

Note the horseradish is going well over here as well. We can see us doing battle with this little lot during the summer / autumn seasons. Our seating area consisting of pallets and buckets has been relocated now to this area, away from the growing sections.

Grow, grow, grow!

 3rd Week of June 2021

Some tomato seeds planted, and a few lettuce - more of those will follow. Nice to be getting off into the growing season, proper. So far we have dug, dug, and done more digging, so the primary work on forming the outline of the allotment is complete!

The next stage is to begin the building phase to make the plot fully operational.

You can see under the white netting (just about see) plenty of cabbages are now planted, as well as cauliflower, sprouts, kale and broccoli. Outside of the netting, in that small patch, we have leeks, which are just tiny thin strips at the moment.

The potatoes are flourishing with lots of greenery going on there, although a couple of rows just haven’t emerged at all. We are thinking that the potatoes we used for seed were just not up to the task, maybe… Never mind, next year!

The one radish we left for seeds is also galloping ahead, carrots are up, as are a few parsnips too. The courgettes have also been planted out behind the pallets, although it is difficult to see them at the moment. All in all, a good start.

Notice the Orange peel laying on the ground. It is supposed to help keep slugs at bay, but to be honest, we haven’t seen a lot of evidence of that yet!

The renewed / repaired polytunnel is doing its thing - the tomatoes are doing really well in there with blossoms already appearing. We’re hoping for a bumper crop of beef tomatoes this year! 

We only managed four French beans this year. Here are two of them, the others were planted out behind the polytunnel on some spare stakes we had put in for the runner beans, that we didn’t need in the end. (Some more Orange peel to act as a decoy, not very successfully...)

A random shot of “roadside” not much been going on here thus far, but the incumbent horseradish are making a play already by the “weed drying-out area”. Nice Tap!!
More to see here as we begin to develop things. There are “loose” plans!

"Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!"

2nd Week of June 2021

The weather is galloping away with a very warm start to June, so much so that the hose is now making an entrance. It is absolutely amazing how the allotment can go from "being damp and not requiring water" to “having to water", because the ground is becoming so dry.

The white netting makes an appearance as we prepare the final plot to receive the Brassicas. We are growing Cabbage (lots of Cabbage), Cauliflower, Brussels, Kale, and Broccoli on that plot. With some space also for leeks we hope…. 

Desi is attending to the Tomatoes which like the potatoes are benefitting from this sunny period, after what was a turbulent May.

We may get a good crop of pallets too with 6 or so coming along nicely. We are collecting them together to make our compost bins for which we’ll be needing 9 altogether, so a good start with these.

At the top of the allotment next to the road we have spread out the couch grass, bind weed and other difficult-to-remove weeds, hoping the sun will dry them out and then they'll be easier to burn. We also want to reclaim the soil that the weeds were attached to.

The lovely green leaves you can see making their appearance in the bottom right corner are horseradish plants - not something we planted, however we are going to try to control and cultivate. We’ve heard that horseradish takes over if you let it, so we'll be very careful with it as we build around this area. It is the final part of the allotment yet to be tilled, weeded and dealt with, but we have ideas and thoughts (mainly Chris has these) about what we could possibly do in this area.

The next picture gives a different perspective of this weed drying process. Once dried, we will separate the weed from the soil and then burn it. The ash will then be put back into the soil: a good source of phosphorus which is great for plants.

Taken from the road, you can see the whole allotment in the next picture. It is gradually taking shape from a “weedy field” to a working plot. Still huge amounts to do, as we have big ideas (no plans). We are taking this as it comes, the allotment itself guiding us at every step…

The last picture from behind the rather battered polytunnel. The runner beans are doing well. They are going to make it!  

Notice in the black buckets some Jerusalem Artichokes we have been given - allegedly like small potatoes going by the funny nick-name of "Fartichokes"... we’ll let you know about them.

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!

Taking Shape

 April 24th - The plot is really taking shape now

Looks like we’re having summer early this year!

Lots of lovely sunny days, they are getting longer and warmer too. And as spring is advancing quickly, we need to get these vegetable plots sorted out so we can begin planting out our first crops, although we’re probably still 6 weeks away from that.

Even though time moves slowly and each day lasts 24 hours, the days and weeks soon slip by and nature waits for no one - this is one truth we are learning every day. As you can see on these pictures, despite the fact that we have planted the potatoes already, along with some carrots, parsnips and radishes, the second quadrant is only half dug, and the 3rd has only been just started. Some serious digging sessions are needed to get these dug, weeded and the manure dug in… 

The paths and perimeter grass border is beginning to take shape. Disregarding the fact that the grass is really a collection of weeds, uneven and patchy, it is now under control and is an effective surround to our plot as it begins to take shape. We are now experiencing gratitude for Chris' wisdom and his initial step to define the borders - this is making things much simpler at this moment. It is getting obvious that a strimmer is going to be helpful going forward!

 

The soil is becoming quite dry already with all the sun, and this is making breaking down the soil to take our weeds progressively more difficult. Hands are starting to hurt and crumbling down the soil feels like tackling concrete at times. Each row of the patch nearest to the bonfire is taking circa 2 hours to complete: (1) being very thorough with the weed extraction (2) digging in manure (3) challenge of the soil being so hard, so early in the year. Just more visits and more hours needed!

Little did we know what was coming next...

Check out the greenhouse (not ours) in the lower plot…