It's been a while since we updated this, so there's a bit to catch up on. On the right here we have the final crop of lettuce (mid-August), with the few leeks that survived on the right.

We also got a lot of potatoes and apples from the allotment this year - we'll definitely do potatoes again!

Here's the single cob of sweetcorn that we got. The rest of them seemed to have been nibbled by something...

In October, the parish council told us (and many others on the site) that the allotment wasn't neat and tidy enough, and did we really want it. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, we decided that we did still want to keep it going, but would need some more help. We think we have found such, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating - will they actually turn up?

On the right here is how it looked 2 weeks after throwing a whole load of "Round Up" at it in an attempt to get the weeds down. We're unconvinced that it was money well spent - the carpet seems to be far more effective!

As seen above, we rescued the last 8 or so leeks, along with a few cabbages, and put them all together away from the weedkiller. However, something seems to have had other ideas, and we arrived this morning to find them almost all rather nibbled. We suspect deer. We harvested what remained of the leeks - one decent one and several spring onion-like stems.


Anyway, here's Nat & Jeremy with our version of weedkiller:








Something appears to have been living under the pile of carpet that'd been there for a few weeks...




And finally, one good thing from the parish council - a pile of manure, right outside our allotment. It's not that well rotted yet, so we'll probably stow some away for a few more months before spreading it around.

Sweetcorn & caterpillars

We had fun down the allotment yesterday afternoon. Pádraig & Hilly were visiting, so we showed them round the areas and they decided to pose with each of the vegetables in turn - here they are with the marrows:





Meanwhile, the caterpillars had been busy munching through the broccoli. Note to self: Netting that close to the plants doesn't protect against caterpillars.








The onions have all "flopped", which apparently means they're ready to harvesting - excellent.







And finally, the sweetcorn are beginning to look good. There are still 5 plants, and they each have a head (?) of corn developing nicely. Here's the most photogenic one.

Ellie and I went down this afternoon. Our plan was to water everything under cover and to dig out more of the second bed. Ellie got on with the digging and I went over to water the carrots. I could see two carrots poking through the bristly ox-tongue, so I opened up the frame to do a bit of weeding.

Oops.

So, today we got three things done: Watering, digging, and rebuilding the carrot frame. Three out of two ain't bad.

The allotment is now looking rather neat in places, which is very pleasing. Here's the first area, by the gate.





The onions are finally looking like actual onions - about 2 1/2 inches across.

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I did a lot of weeding last night around the sweetcorn and artichokes, which I hope they'll thank me for by growing nicely. :)

[Left: before, after]

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Finally, the soft fruit cage is passing from the raspberries into the redcurrant season. I picked a small box of raspberries last night, but there weren't really any left after that.

Marrows!

The courgette plants have been getting on very happily for the last few weeks, especially with all the rain. We harvested about 8 large courgettes/marrows from them at the weekend, with a few normal-sized courgettes left behind for now - I expect they'll be huge when we actually get round to harvesting them.

Everything else is coming along nicely too - it's all covered in some way or another to keep the birds and rabbits from eating everything.

And the last of the cabbage went in this weekend. It's winter cabbage, I think, so it'll be a while before it's ready.

So that just leaves harvesting and continuing to fight back again encroaching weeds...

Yeay rain!

Went up to the allotment on Tuesday to do a few things, but didn't have time to water. The brussels looked a bit wilty, but the new lettuces seemed well established. Anyway, failed to go and water on Wednesday and Thursday as well. There was a sprinkling of rain but then on Thursday night it rained very heavily. Hurrah! A good bit of sun today and we'll have monster lettuce for the weekend.

Fruit update

We had intended to leave the fruit for this year as hacking our way into the fruitcage was quite an exercise. However, the raspberry canes seemed to be doing well against the weeds, so we cut our way in and harvested some. The apples are also doing very well, with quite a heavy crop beginning to appear.

Concerted effort.

Following the terrible neglect while we were away, Nat has put in a lot of work (ably assisted at various points by Nat's Dad, M-A, Kate and Jeremy, but he's been down there a lot) and the allotment is now back under some semblance of control.

The main development has been the acquisition of a hand mower, which has moved on Nat's grand plan for paths. He has a theory that if he mows paths through the weeds then the allotment will look like it's divided into plots but some (most) of them just have weeds in at the moment. He thinks this is working. There is now a very fine path up the side of the plots.

This is a view of the first plot, with happy potatoes in the background, established onions, lettuces in need of harvesting with newly planted broccoli and more lettuce. Kate and Nat tidied this up very quickly in a morning, making the whole thing look more tended.

Nat and his Dad then did some more work on the second plot, planting carrots and brussel sprouts. (Note passable path all the way to the gate - contrast with previous post). Also in this shot are the sweetcorn on the left and the broad beans on the right.


After plantings the carrots and brussels a fellow allotment-holder warned that the woodpigeons had eaten every seedling the night after he planted them, so covers were hastily arranged from anything to hand. In this case half an old chicken run protecting the carrots.

High winds over the weekend called for running repairs to the carrot cage, but all the plants seem to have survived the flattening.

Neglect!

After two weeks away from the allotment due to holiday this was the sight that greeted the first visit.

The bindweed is binding the gate shut and the nettles have gone crazy.

The leeks have disappeared entirely in a swamp of weeds and I think we'll just have to dig that patch out. On the up side the courgettes are happy and the second lot of beans are well established.



Job for the the weekend is 'cut & compost' (the allotmenter's version of slash'n'burn).

Rabbit!

The lettuce has been growing nicely, but the tops have all been nibbled off. We spotted a rabbit retreating into the brambles... Have replaced the cloches to give them some more protection. Maybe we should investigate the boundaries and make them more rabbit proof - the current theory is that it got in under part of the gate.

Nat & I went up to the allotment this afternoon. The potatoes are continuing to grow well, so we mounded them a bit more. The onions are also looking good, as is the sweetcorn. We mostly did weeding and chopping back the weeds near the beds and the edges of the allotment.

Unfortunately, something seems to have eaten almost all the dwarf bean leaves, leaving some very sorry-looking stems. I'm not sure if they'll recover from that.

When we got back, I potted out the brussels sprout and carrot seedlings into bigger pots, to let them get a bit bigger before the go in the allotment.

Watering Weds 14th May

Went down this evening and gave everything a quick water (now it'll definitely rain tomorrow!), under the watchful eyes of 4 robins, numerous rooks and I think a jay though the light was too poor to be sure. Pictures show a potato flower (several of them are flowering- are they supposed to do that?) and the beans looking slightly happier than they were last Saturday.

There were four of us today - me, Nat, Simon & Ellie. We managed to get a surprising amount done in the time. Here's Simon & Ellie earthing up the potatoes. We've got another lot of potatoes to go in some time soon as well, but the first lot had suddenly reached the point where they needed some earthing.



Ellie & Nat also set to with the shears on the weeds in the orchard area, so you can now get through to the soft fruit cage again!


The final main achievement of the day was creating a double compost heap from some wood that the hospice were clearing out last weekend. Why double? So that you've got one side rotting down nicely and one side that you're actively adding to...

Other odds & ends: I finally planted out a couple of rows of broad beans, next to the dwarf beans. The sweetcorn is now out as well - I read that it doesn't like being handled, so I hope it's not too unhappy!

One final thing: we now have a shared Google calendar to co-ordinate activity: ask M-A for details if you haven't had an email already.

We've now planted out the dwarf beans in the middle bed, near the artichokes that various other allotmenters have given us. The cougettes also went out this weekend, near the onions. The onion sets and potatoes seem to be happy, although the leeks and spring onions aren't showing many signs of life just yet.

One tomato seed seems to have sprouted, although no guarantees that it's not a weed as yet! The tarragon and second batch of sweetcorn haven't done much, though, so we've just got the 6 sweetcorn plants in the end. They seem to have survived being put into larger pots, despite all the warnings I read on the internet about them objecting to their roots being disturbed.

We've put the cabbage seedlings into pots in the back garden, and they seem to be coming along fine - we'll plant them out in a few weeks or so, I reckon.

Nat's taken the shears to some of the low-level weeds around the apple trees, which has tidied that up a bit. Still a long way to go, though - the weeds are doing terribly well!

Final thing - I planted some garlic last autumn, which is looking, well, OK. Not exactly flourishing, but hopefully we might get one or two bulbs out of it.

The apple tree is in bloom! The raspberries and redcurrants are also looking good, although we need to do some structural work to the soft fruit cage - it's all sagging at the moment.




Nat's Grandad gave us a tray of seedlings - lettuce and two (possibly) types of cabbage.






The lettuces under cloches. We had great trouble clipping the ends into the cloches, but we got there in the end.






Nat's Grandad also gave us a ridger, which will come in very handy for the potatoes! Here's Nat trying it out in his Grandad's back garden.




In other (non-pictorial) news - the fenugreek has sprouted, as have the potatoes and the onion sets. The seeds at home are looking good too - the courgettes are now in their own pots, and about 6" high each. The sweetcorn didn't like being puts into separate pots so much, but it's also about 6" high. The "purple queen" beans are about 8" high.

I've started off a 2nd batch of sweetcorn, some tomato seeds and some tarragon. That was a week ago, and no signs of life yet, but it's early days there.

In the back garden seed trays, the carrots finally sprouted, as did the 2nd lot of lettuce, after the first batch failed to do anything at all. There are also a few broccoli and brussels sprouts seedlings visible.

The indoor seeds have (mostly) sprouted now - courgettes, sweetcorn (top shelf) and purple beans (bottom shelf). The yellow beans (middle shelf) haven't shown any signs of doing anything yet, so I've left them wrapped up for now.

I've read that the next step is to move them into individual pots. I've got quite a few of those, from Freecycle, so that's a job for after the weekend - or earlier if anyone else fancies a go!

Life!

Things are beginning to spring into life! (above - apple trees, right - raspberry canes)


Also this weekend, Simon & Ellie dug a new bed and planted it up with Fenugreek, a green fertiliser which should be good for the soil.






Some of the weed roots we dug up...

Sunshine and snow

We had sunshine and snow during a satisfying session of digging and weeding on Sunday 6th. And I had very sore muscles the next day!

More planting...

Forgot to take a camera, so no photos but Nat and I went over to the allotment today, so I thought I'd post an update.

We planted the next batch of potatoes - Maris Piper (maincrop) - next to the first batch. And we also planted some onions in the area nearest the gate, next to the spring onions and leeks.

We also made a fair bit of progress on digging the next area, near where the path bends round the bramble. We think we'll split the bed and put tall stuff like sweetcorn on the side nearest the path, and maybe something like lettuces in the bed furthest from the path. Interestingly we didn't find any more signs of potatoes in that bed, so maybe that will be a good place to plant potatoes next year.

We also took some junk (including the very rusty green barrel and the old metal gate) down to the tip, which should tidy things up a bit. Oh, and Nat put the carpet down on the area near the orchard, so hopefully that will keep things at bay until we get there.

Maybe one of us will take some photos tomorrow anyway...

First planting

A couple of weeks ago, we were given a redcurrant bush, which has now gone in the middle of the soft fruit area. A few of the plants down there are beginning to sprout leaves, and they look a bit like raspberries, which'd be nice. There were also rumours of gooseberries, but no evidence as yet.

Thanks to various ad-hoc digging expeditions, the first area is now mostly dug over and de-rooted, so it's time to put some things in!

The area nearest the camera has got seed potatoes in, Second Early Maris Piper to be precise.

The area on the far left has leek and spring onions seeds in rows at interesting angles. The rest is only roughly dug, and not so thoroughly weeded yet.

Jeremy bought some other seed potatoes too, which are mostly being chitted (put them in the light, in the cool and wait for the sprouts to reach a few inches or so) in our garden shed. The Maris Piper earlies already had decent sprouts on them, so we thought they were worth planting.

We filled a few seed trays with compost too today, and put seeds in: brussels sprouts, carrots, lettuce, broccoli and parsnips.

That just leaves the remaining seeds as courgettes (plant Apr-Jun), Sweetcorn (Apr-May), the coloured dwarf beans (Apr-Jun), Spinach (Mar-Sep), and the other lettuce (Apr-Jul). There are also some more carrot seeds, so they can be planted in a few weeks, to get a 2nd crop.

Finally, having heard how hard onions are to grow from seed, we bought some onion sets. They're not in yet, but some time in the next couple of weeks would be good...

The plan

We looked at all the seeds we got from Paul, and chose the ones that were in date and that we fancied eating - so no peas (Jeremy's veto).

We then put together a plan of what could go where, missing out the patches of really tough weeds that can wait for later in the year.

The story so far...

The original state of the allotment - weeds 6' high. Jeremy and Nat tackled them with a hired strimmer.









The first harvest! Cheating really, but the apples were unpicked and at the end of their season when we took over the allotment.











Digging over the first section of ground, ready for planting.











We spotted a pile of wood chippings at the entrance to the allotments, and created a passable path with them.

So far, we've been burning the weeds in an incinerator that we found on Freecycle, rather than composting them, which would run the risk of the seeds surviving.