Finally, the decorating is finished, now how's the allotment?

Yep, after promising to redecorate the hall, stairs and landing in May, I have finally finished, so all looking fresh, with the walls, ceiling, skirting boards, door frames and bannister's painted. Phew, what a job. Also, this weekend, before making my way to the plot, I managed to power wash the deck and get a layer of stain on it, as it really needed it. I tell you, I'm stiff all over today and feel like an old man, but great to get it all done.

Now, I was a bit wary before going to the plot, as I'd not had a chance these last few weeks to get down there, keep on top of the weeding, etc so it was with some trepidation I set off on Sunday afternoon and sure enough I had weeds growing everywhere. I spent 3 hours weeding the beds and then on the holiday Monday I once again went in the afternoon to complete the job and get the tomato plants in the raised bed, that I had grown from seed.

Anyway, let's start with the potatoes. As you can see below they are coming on well and look like a tropical rainforest!

These were planted on the last weekend of March, so in theory after 10 weeks, the First Earlies should be ready for digging up. So either next weekend or the one after should be the time to test one and see what we've got....that is if I can get the right one's as I got them muddled up when I was chitting them. Not much else to do with them, just a bit of weeding, but now they are so big, they keep the weeds down themselves.

Next, I had to weed all around the raspberries and as you can see I'm starting to get a few shoots and behind you can see the sweetcorn still looking good, which I'm pleasantly surprised at, as we, had a lot of wind (which took off half the felt from the shed roof, so I had to make a temporary plastic covering, until I get some more).


Also, Dad's salad leaves have done really well after an early problem with slugs and for the first time I took some of the leaves and I have some in my sandwich today!...not to mention the 3 bags in the fridge!

The next bed had the carrots, rocket, little gem, all year round lettuce, spinach (both types) which I grew from seed and the marigolds, tomatoes and courgette plants from Dad. These last two have done well as we've had all sorts of weather and they have so far survived and look to be getting a bit of strength to them. Here's the carrots.....



and the lettuce and spinach...growing like crazy.

(i dont know how I got the underline for the next 2 sections, but I cant' get rid of it, sorry)

The next bed had the cabbages and broccoli seeds as well as some more potatoes and tomato plants. The plants look to be fine, but the seeds got a bit overgrown with weeds and although a few survived as you can see below, I shall have to redo the spaces and see how they get on.

The next bed has the peas, dwarf french beans and climbing beans in and as you can see the the Kelvedon Wonder have shot up, but the slugs really liked the Onward so I had to redo them and they will come a little later. Also, you can see the climbing beans just shooting up and the dwarf french beans just coming through, along with the marigolds I grew from seed.

One of the other jobs was to get the raised bed cleared of weeds, put in the bags of compost I get cheap at Lidl and put the tomato plants I'd grown in. So here they are. Ellie is going to plant some flowers in the area near the front and the Allotment Society are running some children's growing competitions, so I expect we'll be entering them too.



Lastly, my strawberries have not done well at all, so that's one thing that hasn't gone too well, but luckily when I was in Lidl I saw 6 plants for £3, so bought 2 packs and put them in and we'll see how they get on. Too embarrassed to show a photo of the poor plants in that bed!!

So now I'm back on top I've a few more things to plant, then need to keep an eye on watering, feeding, etc. Also, need to refix the shed roof, make my bench/shelf unit from the wood I collected and finish staining the shed too. But that's for the next few weeks....anyway very warm and sunny weekend to do all the work then a downpour overnight and this morning to water them all, I hope they are all ok!

Dad and Mum come laden with treats

Well with the beautiful British weather all set to give us a pleasant weekend, my Mum and Dad arrived with a car full of plants Dad had grown in his greenhouse. As I said, I wasn't sure what he'd have, so you can imagine my surprise and delight to see the car full!

We set off late morning on the Saturday and set to work working out where they'd all go and with Mum weeding the patch for the sweetcorn while I planted the strawberries I'd bought from ebay and Dad began with the cabbage and marigolds.

As you can see below the sweetcorn look great and we managed to squeeze some of the lettuce and salad leaves around the edge too.


You will also notice the raspberry poles we put up in the afternoon, in the background.

From the following photo you can see the tomato plants, cabbages and marigolds we spread about in the brassica and root beds.

....and here's the small strawberry plants, with a little bit of room left in that bed for something else.



and here's a shot of the main potato bed. I did earth them up last week and now look at them. They just keep on growing!



You can only imagine my pleasure in seeing all of these plants in the plot, as it really looks great with lots of different vegetables, fruit and flowers at different stages of development. As my Dad has spent so long getting them from seed to nice healthy plants, I now have the responsibility of making sure I keep them alive, nurture them and try to get as much out of them as I can.

I've got to update my plan and research how I protect them all from the pests and frosts, so I expect to make preparations for that this week. However, I have promised that I would start decorating of the hall and landing in May, so I'm going to be a busy boy over the next month or so.

I also need to finish staining the shed, (I did do half of it on Saturday afternoon after we'd sorted the raspberry poles) and fill the raised bed with soil for some more tomato plants (which I'm growing from seed), Ellie and Tom's seeds and anything else. Not to mention all the weeding and watering depending on the weather.

Anyway, not only did we have a lovely day in the Sun, but Swindon beat Bristol Rovers and managed to avoid relegation, so all in all a BIG RESULT of a weekend. Keep it coming England, I'm having a ball.

It wasn't warm and sunny 11 years ago today......

Yes, 11 years ago on Saturday 18th April , Karen and I got married and it was a cold afternoon that day. Not that it mattered of course as we had a brilliant day. Unfortunately, Karen picked up a sinus infection last week and is laid up recovering, at the moment and thus the reason I'm at the allotment with Ellie. Tom was invited to watch Crystal Palace play with one of his friends from school, so we are listening out for the score on the radio.

It's been a little while since the last update, during which we had a great week before Easter in Pembrokeshire with our friends and so with the sun and rain, the weeds and grass have grown with a vengeance, so plenty of work to do.

I have managed to pop down to do a little bit previosuly, but today, Ellie and I were planning on planting some peas and marigolds in one bed, some cabbages, leeks and broccoli in another, as well as see how the potatoes are getting on under the fleece, along with a bit of weeding.

As you can see from the next 2 photo's we've got plenty of labels in and not only was Ellie helping with the seeds, she also wrote most of the labels out too.



I took the fleece off the potatoes and by some miracle they are growing!!! Hoorah. I weeded the bed and 'earthed them up' as you can see below.


Of course, we deserved a break and Ellie got the chair, as she was supplying the mini eggs!



....and Ellie was keen to take a photo of me actually working so here's the proof.


We had a good couple of hours and have now got quite a lot of seeds in, including some carrots, lettuce and spinach which we put in last week. I'm hoping to get a few strawberry plants and put them in next week. Also, my Dad is coming over to help me with the raspberry supports and bring me some plants, with luck, so I'm excited to see what he brings!

It's all taking shape and as you may have noticed from some of the photo's a lot of the plots are being worked on now, so I expect to see more and more people around. Roll on next week.... from a happy gardener on his anniversary.

Thank you to the Boss

...before we start.....it's a bit like 'Where's Wally?'...only 'Where's the plot?' !!



It takes an understanding wife when you spend every spare minute you have at the weekend down at the allotment and thankfully that's what I have. As we're away over Easter, I knew I'd miss 2 weekends and therefore, needed to get a few things sorted so between football, jobs around the house and church I was down at the plot trying to make as much headway as I could.

Here's what I wanted to get done;-

1. Nail/screw all the wooden slats I'd managed to saw to size during the week, in the evenings. As the clocks went forward in the US 3 weeks ago, I was finishing work at 8pm and had some spare time.

2. Fix the new latch and padlock to the door, which Karen found in Wilko's for under £3.

3. Clear the area outside the shed with the mattock and dig it over to get rid of the roots and weeds, etc.

4. Saw all the lengths of wood I had to make a raised bed area and also get some more if I needed it from Ali's plot, as she had some left over.

5. Nail/screw all these together and level it off.

6. Board up the side of the path leading to the plot and level this off so there is a proper path to walk on.

7. Plant a load of the potatoes, cover with fleece and sow some carrot seeds under the cloches.


Now it doesn't seem too bad, but it's amazing just how long these things take, with all the sawing, etc and of course the hail we had on Saturday afternoon, didn't really help matters. It took me back to the times I was there over the winter digging in the rain and freezing cold.

I spent all Saturday afternoon on the plot working away and although the weather forecast was supposed to be good in the afternoon, the hail proved that wrong and curtailed my efforts. So, after church on Sunday morning, I dashed back down to finish off the raised bed and there was even more urgency as the council had deposited a huge pile of wood shavings on the site and I knew this would be perfect for the area around the shed and the path. The huge pile was getting steadily demolished and I had to get in there fast!

Here's the rear of the shed all done.


Thankfully, I completed all of this and was back home for 1pm in time for a great Sunday lunch, before collecting up the potatoes and carrot seeds and heading back down for some planting. For the first time, I met my other neighbour, David, who was working up a sweat digging some of his plot over.

Here's the raised bed, path and area sorted by the shed, with the wood shavings on the ground.



I'd taken about half of the potatoes, partly because they were ready, but also as we needed the space in the spare room to get everything ready for our holiday. The rest have been moved to the garage until I get back. Now, not really knowing how much room they would take up, I took my new book, The Essential Allotment Guide by John Harrison, which Ali very kindly bought me as a gift and is really useful. His website is on the links on the blog. I followed his instructions on the spacing, etc, used my hoe to make the trench and then put in 2 rows each of my First Earlies(Accent), Second Earlies (Charlotte) and Maincrop (Cara)....and this took up the whole bed I had set aside for ALL of the potatoes...ooops. So I'll need to squeeze the rest in elsewhere. Ahhhh, also, bit of a problem, maybe, as I forgot to label the different potatoes when they were chitting and may have got a bit confused with the First and Second Earlies, so could be a bit of trial and error when I dig up the first one to see if they are ready. Silly me, but with luck I'll get away with it and have learnt that lesson for next year.

I was reading in the book all about the wireworm and apparently it's pretty prevalent in grassland, so with all the roots, grass and brambles that were on the plot, I'm just hoping these pesky little monkeys don't eat through all of the spuds before I get a chance to dig them up, but fingers crossed, as there isn't a lot I can do about it now.

Here's all the potatoes, nice and cosy under the fleece (thanks to my Dad for that).


Finally, under the cloches I sowed a row of Early Nantes 5 carrots, so we'll see if they do anything when we get back from our trip. A finishing touch was Ellie's rabbit plaster caste mould she had painted which nicely marked the row. Hopefully, that will be the only rabbit that gets near them!

Here's one final photo looking West down the plot. I took all of the photo's on the way home from work on Monday, as I forgot to take the camera with me on Sunday.


Well that's it until mid April when I plan to sort out the bed for the legumes, get some strawberry plants, stain the shed, make a table from an old pallet I have, fill the raised bed ready for some plants and most important of all get a chair to sit on and enjoy the sunshine with Radio 5 live on, hopefully listening to Swindon avoiding relegation......

Rome wasn't built in a day, but.......

....the shed almost was!

What a lucky boy I am. Nice sunny day to erect the shed. After dropping Tom off at his football, I stopped off at a house on the way home to recycle some of the wood they had in their skips from the roof extension they are having done. I then dropped this off at the allotment and drove home to let Karen have the car and pick Tom up later.

So with my trusty Ikea bag full of all the tools I thought I'd need I set off down to 94a and began the Grand Design. The base was quite rotten, so having replaced some of it and used some of the wood to reinforce it, I then repaired some of the panels and then man handled it all up. As you can see from the photo below, I ended up with 2 ends with space for doors!

Then it was a case of screwing the roof panels on, using the felt Michael gave me to cover it and then use all the bits of wood I had to fix that on. Thankfully, I had just enough of the felt and pieces to finish it off. Also, I did have one door and screwed this into place...


Almost looks like new from this side! Ellie was making us all lunch today, so I had to dash off to make sure I wasn't late. In the afternoon, Ellie and Tom decided to come down and have an explore about as it was such a lovely day. I carried on with the fixing and also sawing and screwing into place some supports to fill in the other door space...and so this is how I left it on Saturday.



Just in time for the 'Inspectors' arriving on Sunday afternoon after our Mother's Day lunch!!

So, quite a productive Saturday and now I need to finish that end of the shed off next week, stain the wood and then set to putting the raised bed in by the shed too. I think I'll have to revisit those skips to get some more wood first! Also, I think I'll try sowing some carrots and maybe some of the potatoes that have been happily chitting away, before we go away for Easter. Plenty to do, but oh what fun!!!! Happy Springtime.

Sheds and bases

Just a short update today after a great British Spring weekend of weather, with some of it spent down at the allotments, including the official opening of the Trading Hut by the mayor on Sunday afternoon in the warm sunshine.

I mentioned last time about the shed and the base, well Ali, my neighbour had a double shed she managed to get from that brilliant website,'freecycle' and decided to only use half and have a greenhouse as well, so she very kindly offered all the other bits she wouldn't need, to me. As a result, her good friend Jo agreed to come with his mixer and do both of the shed bases and also construct Ali's shed and greenhouse, with some help from everyone on the allotments.

I offered my limited services for some of the time, but Jo was an absolute trooper and with his two boys sorted out the shed bases on the Saturday and then on Sunday got Ali's shed up in no time and then started with the many pieces of the greenhouse. I was on hand in the morning, but had to leave him with lots of labelled pieces and plenty of nuts and bolts. What a job that is going to be. Ali's plot is really starting to take shape now as you can see from the photo's.

Please click on the link on the side of the blog, where you see Ali's allotment blog for Plot 144 and she has lots of photo's of the two days with all the activity.

Here's a photo of Karen, Ellie and Tom on Sunday afternoon at the 'official' opening with the shed parts piled up at the back....oh and my homemade cloches warming the soil before some early carrot planting.




..and here's the base with the bottom of the shed drying out on it....PPHHHEWWW..it fits!


So you can guess what the next job is going to be! I'm hoping to sort this all out soon , get the shed up and put a raised bed area next to it, as well as planting the potatoes sometime in April as they are happily chitting in the spare room at the moment...a few more beautiful weekends like this and we'll be sorted.

FINISHED !

Well this weekend saw the completion of the digging, so after a full 4 months since my first visit to the plot, I have managed to clear it, mark it out and double dig it (with help from Mike of course). HOOOORRRRAAAAYYY. Here's the way 94a looks now.



I also found an old photo I took on the first visit and you can see how much it has changed from the next 2 photo's.

BEFORE


AFTER

It was a final push this weekend, with Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, just to get it done and also make some preparations for the shed too. I now have a clear plot and can look forward to the next test...the plants and seeds!

I've got a pretty good idea what I'm going to grow, but now need to get all the information together, to make sure I'm clear on when, how and where to sow, plant, etc each vegetable. So that's my next job.

In the meantime, with a little bit of luck, I'll be able to get rid of all the bags of rubbish and old carpet I don't need, down to the local recycle centre and then see about the shed, but more on that later. Here's the base for it anyway.