Peter's Allotment Blog

Big plant-out.

2010-06-06T17:36:00.006Z

Where to start on this catch up?
How about at the front of Plot 18.
Nearest camera some rather feeble looking Banana Shallots (Var Pigletwilliensis) which have been out for some weeks, over the first hurdle the Sweetcorn, four survivors from the frost at the end of May, one that lurked in the greenhouse unplanted because it would have been odd man out of the square and the more recent (re-)sowing planted out today.
To the left of that square of Sweetcorn is some Curly leafed Parlsey, beyond the next hurdle are some more Shallots and some dark purple Cornflowers, all planted out this weekend.
The strip to the left has been weedkilled due to amounts of bindweed poking its nose out.
This shot looks up towards the shed, with its new green bit on the lefthand end, across the potatoes, which are sprouting pretty well. The bit just after the potatoes had leeks in and was also weedkilled for docks, dandelions and bindweed, nestling just below the rampant Herb Patch is wire and plastic defences protecting a row of Summer Cabbages and a row of Brussel Sprouts, both of which have been out for about a month.
The detail of these defences becomes clear in this shot.
I'll have to uproot my two hurdles, rebulid the third whose top bar broke and pop them over these brassicas pretty soon or their growth will be stunted by hitting the wire.
Lurking in the greenhouse and witing for the improved defences and death of weeds are a row of Curly Kale and a row of Purple Sprouting Broccoli.
The daleks have decided to hold a parade next to the blue barrel planters, perhaps they intend to hybridise!
Two rows of Garlic next to the corrugated sheet back left, then five or six rows of onion sets, both planted out some weeks ago, hoed yesterday, finished on the right by a row of Dahlias and back left by a block of Cornflowers, both planted out yesterday.
The Peas (rusty support centre) have been out for some weeks as a row and a bit, the righthand row was completed yesterday and the whole lot weeded.
Thirty Climbing French Bean plants were planted out yesterday and gently tied in to their supporting canes. Oh how my arms love tying eighteen knots above my head.
The soft fruit had the benefit (last weekend) of another trailer load of horses doin's and (today) of a Dalek's guts.
The shed extension comprises the old garage back door (green) nailed to a framework with the door from the kids now defunct playshed hinged off a vertical attached to the first extension, the back and end are made from two gates I got off freecycle and some oddments of shedlap that Rob was going to burn, inside it has a shelf-type seat for me and a dog-type mat for my furry supervisor.
The parsnips appear to like their barrel, today I planted the only five to survive the slugs from my second RooTrainer sowing in another barrel to compare planting density.
The chicken wire seems to have detered the foxes, too high around a small area for them to jump in and hopefully too prickly to lean down.
At any rate no further damage, yet......
The construction method was to unroll sufficient chicken wire to make a hoop that just fitted inside the barrel with a couple of inches overlap, then cut along the middle of the unrolled length so the bottom has the original edge and the top the pointy cut bits, thus making two guards out of each bit, finishing in situ by folding the cut stubs back over the opposite ends uncut bits to form a hoop.
This shows the patchy Carrot growth, nice and strong at the front northenmost edge and a bit stunted further back.
This is an arial shot of the latest barrel plantup, containing Pak Choi planted out today.
The canes are weedy little jobs, just strong enough to hold the wire in place.

The other end of the bean trench has three Cuccumber plants and one left over Butternut Squash.
Now there should have been a shot of all the planted out Butternut and Queensland Blue Squash, but it seems to have gone missing since pressing the shutter on the camera.
What also went missing was rather too many of my just germinated Squash seedlings, caught in the greenhouse and fried by the recent very hot days.
Other stuff done is mostly sowing in the greenhouse this afternoon and planting out a Thyme selection from the Herb Man's Saturday Market stall outside the greenhouse and the remaining Pak Choi in the greenhouse border, additionally potted up a surprising number of self-sown Gladioli from the allotment.
In no particular order today I sowed: Crown Prince Squash, Chieftan and Harrier Butternut Squash, Yellow Zuccini, Patty Pan, Black prince Squash, Rocket, Purple Spring Onions ( the last two in the greenhouse border), Tomato Gardeners Delight, Sweet Red Pepper (last lot failed to surface), Mangetout Peas, another RooTrainer load of Parsnips.
Must remember to sit at the PC each week and blog, trouble is I now have an HTC Hero phone and for e-mail it is the poodles privates, so I tend to use the work PC all day for work and not use the home one for private stuff as I can use the phone, but it is no good for blogging.

Let's try a different Android widget.

2010-05-06T22:02:00.001Z

This one seems better, but no direct upload of pictures from phone.
Anyway, I've rebuilt and extended my shed so the dog and I can shelter from the rain. Planted out my brassicas, PSB, Summer Cabbage and Brussels Sprouts, also Sweetcorn. Yesterday I planted out about fifty seedling Shallots.
All enabled by the rain and clearing last years Curly Kale.

Hmm.

2010-04-19T20:56:00.001Z

Will try some pictures tomorrow, bit micro-blogging this.

Hmmm.

Not too sure about this widget.

Test from Android widget.

2010-04-19T20:47:00.001Z

Testing times.

Emptied a compost bin into the last bit of the bean trench and put all the spoil back on top of it.

Also trying out an Android widget for blogging.

Sun bathing pointer.

2010-04-18T20:58:00.007Z

First some catchup pictures from the last couple of weeks.
Last bit of manual digging on 7th March.

12th April the inside of the greenhouse.

Around fifty of the Banana Shallots have now been potted on.

12th April the start of the bean trench.

Anti-fox precautions.

Plot 17 on 12th April

Plot 18 on 12th April.
Shows the eight rows of potatoes

Saturday 17th April.
Started by weeding between the Herb patch and the Leeks on Plot 18.

Then used Hacken-Slash, the Merry Tiller to go through the weeded area.

Later in the day got Slicen-Dice, the Howard 350, out and went over it again to get a finer tilth.

Final mechanical bit of the day

was to use the weight and power of Hacken-Slash to do as his name suggests and cut down through the now hardset ground on Plot 17 and complete the bean trench. Initial rotovation followed be lots of shovelling broken up soil out of the trench to enable me to finish off by rotovating the somewhat softer base of the trench, some lovely thick yellow clay was revealed.

Did quite a bit of tidying on the Dalek Sanctuary and moved the double-tyre planters from front-left to rear-right as viewed from downslope.

Also took the wooden coldframe home, but have not yet set it up.

Sunday 18th april

Dug up my autumn fruiting raspberry, gained from Freecycle, out of its temporary home in the greenhouse border and installed it in one of the double-tyre beds.

Weeded my way through the half of the brassica bed next to the main path and composted the spent cabbages and brussel sprouts, leaving the Curly Kale and Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

Trevor, my three down neighbour, had a load of manure delivered round the back and some was still there today, so I asked if it was surplus to requirements, no it was to be bagged today, fair enough, don't ask don't get.

I think he ran out of bags, as late in the day his other half called to me over the allotment fence that I could have what was left, which was three barrowloads, almost finished filling the bean trench with that.

Went home to baked salmon fillet, potato wedges and fresh steamed Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

Gave Trevor as much PSB as we ended up eating as a thank you.

Scalped !

2010-04-11T21:18:00.004Z

Since my last post the weather has not smiled on me, I took some days off to do gardening and ended up doing shed work. Replaced a single shelf with a nice Ikea cupboard I got via Freecycle and did some general tidying and shed-keeping.
Also got around to some heavy engineering that I had been putting off. Slice-n-Dice my Howard 350 had become incontinent with age and widdled all his gearbox oil all over the floor of my nice new workshed, his slightly smaller twin in the grotty shed was continent but dead with a broken heart. (Engine not starting) so I did an engine swap. Undid and hoisted off the working 8.5hp Kohler using a rope and a hook in the rafters, then wheeled the chassis out. Wheeled the dead machine up and in, removed the dead 4.5hp Kohler engine and hoisted the good one on-board, tightned everything to working order, did the same to the leaky and dead collection, placing that in the grotty shed and took the now all-good set of parts for a quick test drive round to the car and used the 12v compressor to puff the tyres up.

Between whiles I have filled the bench in the greenhouse with potted up seedling; Kale, Summer Cabbage, Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Cucumbers, Sweetcorn and a whole load of other little trays of germinating seed.
Also sneaked in some manual digging in the occasional drier days or evenings and with last weeks improved weather I hit the accelerator!

Wednesday 7th April
Got home from work on a beautiful sunny evening and dug Hacken-Slash, my trusty 3.5hp Brigg and Stratton engined Merry Tiller Major out of the shed, checked the oil levels, topped up the petrol, three pulls to start and off we went. Using just a single pair of rotors I rotovated Plot 17 side to side and then up and down, nice, but still a bit lumpy and many horsey golfballs still visible.

Friday 8th April.
Deja vu, but with Slice-n-Dice and a few more pulls needed to start, really shouldn't have topped up the oil-bath air filter to the mark. Again rotovated both ways, but finished with a third pass set a bit shallower and used the handles in offset mode to avoid walking on any of the dug area.
Beautiful job, no more horse-origin golfballs.

Saturday 9th April.
Visited Homebase to return the appalling "General-Purpose Compost", which in my humble opinion was composed of "Forest-Bark" which had been used as a mulch for a couple of years, then bagged along with the waste from a dog-grooming salon. Sold as soil improver it would have been brilliant, full of un-decomposed wood flakes and unidentifiable fibres as it was, but for seed and seedling use, useless. No quibbles, paid an extra £2 and left with four 60L Westland General Purpose Compost, which has proved to be good stuff.
On my return I took Hacken-Slash, the furry supervisor and sundry tools to the allotment and after setting up a beach windbreak with carpet base for the supervisor to sunbathe in finished the preparation on Plot 17 by chicken pellet and National Growmore dosing the rotovated area and then using a spade round the path edges to give a slot for the cover to sit in and a ditch to prevent the couch grass from romping out of the path.
My son arrived and demanded a mower, which I provided and while he mowed the site paths for me I started to move all my weedproof membrane and carpet from last years squashbed on plot 18 to the now prepared 2010 squashbed on plot 17, son helped finish that job, together with re-siting all the wind weights to keep the various covers from blowing away.
So the tried to drive Hacken-Slash round last years squashbed on Plot 18, oh dear, well practice makes perfect. While I took over the rotovating he went home and mowed the lawn, then went off on his new mountain bike for a couple of hours. He returned just after I has used Hacken-Slash with the bouter (V snowplough instead of depth skid) to force out four trenches, then populate them with Charlotte seed potatoes, an energetic sixteen year old on an exercise regime is a wonderful tool for earthing up four thirty foot potato rows.
Together we did another four rows to home all the seed potatoes and packed up knackered for tea.
My furry supervisor generally approved of the windbreak as it prevented the breeze from diluting the suns warmth, though she did complain whenever one of us joined her for a sun bathe break, we finally worked out this was because her throwing ball was in the barrow and she damm well knew it was and thought we should only take breaks to throw her ball.
On the way home the ball was thrown, many many times......
Sunday 11th April.
After sons rugby training I went to the allotment and;
planted out Parsnip seedlings from Rootrainers into a blue barrel and fashioned a "prevent the ruddy fox from diogging in here" guard from chicken wire and small canes.
planted out pea seedlings at the top of Plot 17 and put up a tent of steel 2" square mesh panels for them to grow up.
planted out thirty-odd of last years Banana Shallot "Piglet Williensis" to produce seed for next year. (I have found this year that the 2008 seed has dreadfully low germination rates while the 2009 seed is great).
planted out thirty-eight Garlic cloves from three bulbs.
planted out a net of onions.
harvested some leeks and a big bag of Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

Plot 17 is now fully occupied and/or promised, bean trench is one quarter done and the current trench-spoil area is going to be outdoor tomatoes, so I now have to squeeze a lot of Banana Shallots, Parsnips, Carrots and Brassicas onto Plot 18 and this will partly have to wait for Leeks, PSB and Kale to be finished. The vacant and Hacken-Slashed ground needs a bit of drying in the sun and wind plus a fine rotovating from Slice-n-Dice before it is fit for planting anything finer than spuds.
Need to get into the big cold frame and fill it with carrot seeds, then sort out some grow bags to go in the greenhouse. Also need to get some catch crops going in the green house border before it is time to plant tomatos and peppers in there.

Oh and the reason for the post title?

I must, must, must ,remember to wear a hat when the good weather arrives or I will have a sunburnt bonce, just like I've got right now ow ow ow.

Transparent really.

2010-03-13T21:31:00.003Z

Friday 12th March.
Another day off work to garden, but this time with sufficient showers to prevent allotment digging, well not prevent exactly, but enough to have made me soggy, muddy and fed up.

So I did the greenhouse spring clean, scrubbed all glass inside and out with Jeyes Fluid solution administered via a 2.5L Hozelock pump sprayer. A long and tedious job on and 8' x 12' glasshouse.

Removed one broken pane, that had a missing corner, the replacement broke in the same way about two minutes after I put the clips in. Then I worked out that this was due to the glass in that section all being skewed slightly leaving the corner unsupported, after adjusting all the panes and clips the second replacement is still OK. Another couple of panes had slipped past their clips leaving a narrow slit, adjusted the clips with a couple of pairs of pliers and moved the glass a little before reinserting the clips.

During the week I had bought a "Stewart" heated propagator from Wilkinsons, a two standard seed tray size for £28, it and my original single tray size are now sat happily warming a variety of freshly sown seed on top of a large sheet of polystyrene on the greenhouse bench. I also bought a set of RooTrainers, a single cage, which have had Parsnips sown in them.

Saturday 13th March.
Went compost shopping and bought three 120L general purpose compost bales and "four for three" 25L bags of topsoil . The topsoil was delivered straight to the allotment, where it was later used to top up my bluebin retaining wall, hopefully to grow nice carrots as opposed to the strange ones that my clay topsoil produces.
Also bought some bags of Charlotte, Desiree and King Edward seed potatoes, which are now chitting in the frost-free shed.
Rounded off the day by, clearing the herb cum bee patch of dead growth, digging up the rest of the Jerusulem Artichokes, starting another eight foot strip of digging and then having a bonfire as all the dry waste was in the way of the digging strip.

More nice weather today.

2010-03-07T20:24:00.007Z

So after watching my son's team crash out of the Herts U16 Rugby Cup 13-12 in the first round I spent the afternoon on the allotment.
The lighter coloured bit in front of me is what I dug on Thursday and Friday all the way across.
More people on site today, I'd missed the morning rush and they were all doing the Sunday afternoon post lunch nap.
They were the loosers I think as the sun was very warm and I dug with my back to it today.
The darker hillocks of Horse's doin's is what I did today, with an hours help from my son at the end, where he got in the way for the last four feet of digging and was very useful with the wheelbarrow to distribute the manure.
Damm black plastic bags do not last on the plot for storage purposes, a bird peck or fox investigation pierce the skin and you try to pick it up and the hole just runs round the bag, leaving you up to at least your ankles in it holding an empty black plastic rag.
My furry supervisor has become too accustomed to central heating over the winter and despite me following up her Thursday and Friday shivering by putting on the thicker of her two doggie coats she still sat and shivered in my direction.
So I wore an old fleece sweatshirt as a reverse bumbag back warmer and lent her my thick padded sleeveless workmand jacket, sticking her head out one armhole.
Finally a warm and contented furry supervisor, who tucked her head towards her bum and went to sleep.

At last...

2010-03-06T22:24:00.002Z

Some sunny days when I've not been at work and the ground has not been a quagmire.
Thursday 4th March, sorted out the plot numbered posts the council had bashed in on each plot. Funny I count thus, 17, 18, 19, 20, they count 17, 18, 18, 18, 20 and omitted some divided plots, so spent a couple of hours wandering round with a sledgehammer, then rang up for some exta numbered posts. Dug and manured halfway across plot 17 on an eight foot strip. Talked to Alan about topping off a thorn tree in the boundary fence at the top of his plot.
Friday 5th March, found the extra posts in a pile, so bashed them in, then Alan arrived, so we dealt with the tree, amazing how much light a fifteen foot high thorn tree can block out. The public footpath outside the sence no longer has a tree elbow poking into it, Alan has more light and won't impale himself on thorns as he clears the old compost hillocks at the top of his plot.
Then finished my eight foot strip, all bar the last ten feet was relatively easy digging as it was potatoes last year and I leave the ground rough from harvest. The last ten feet had had shallots in it and was solid greasy stick to the spade clay.
In fact at various points across the plot, mostly in the dip between last years rows of potatoes the tip of the american style spade would bring up yellow chalky clay!
I gues double-digging would greatly improve my plot, but I'm not up for that, except in the bean trench, so it will be a long process.

Shameful really, but so what.

2009-10-18T21:50:00.003Z

Two days shy of a full month and here I am typing my latest timely blog update.

Until the rain two weeks ago my allotments had set like the proverbial cement, little old 20st me jumping up and down on the blade of my spade and more likly to bend it or force my boot in half than to actually get it into the soil.
So what have I done in those weeks, apart form non-gardening stuff.
Well, I harvested a good crop of Chilli Peppers from the Greenhouse and the majority are now festoned around the hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard and going wrinkly.
The Tomato plants in the Greenhouse have resumed growing, with fresh green shoots and teeny-tiny red fruits where the last flowers to set had not really grown away, thought at least one had fresh flowers today and the Greenhouse is wholly unheated.
Today I relocated the Sweet Winter Jasmine from the Greenhouse to inside the French Windows, here's hoping for some sweet autumn fragrance.
Plot 18 yielded up a decent number and mixture of Winter Squashes together with some Sunflower heads. In order to store them I had to spend a bit more on my shed, adding a set of shelves across most of the rear of the shed, so it now looks more like Hagrid's garden minus the HippoGryff than a workshed. Today I gathered in all the Blue Hubbard, which have me puzzled as they are defiantly and wartily Dark Green, some tending to Orange with a Grapelike bloom, any road they were vandal-visible as the 1 degree celcius Tuesday night had worked its dark and mysterious magic on the foliage.
Now that the soil is more amenable to digging today I dug a half-width strip across plot 17 about six feet wide after I'd wrestled all the dying octopii from Plot 18's Squash patch into the compost bins and bonfire pile.
The Workshed now just needs one end and some detail round the door coating in Sadolin Black to look acceptable from the outside and a great deal more sorting and ordering and placing and organising to look like a workspace inside.
Still I finished one long drawn out project this weekend, we got notice boards for all the Allotment Sites in 2007, I installed four over the last week, the last one yesterday, that entire job took an average of two months per board. In mitigations, it was impossible to get to any tools or "stuff" while we had the builders in and dealing with my late mothers estate after her death took a tad more than five minutes work, but it still seems to have taken an age.
Finished a newer project that was sprung on me a few months ago by Yahoo. They went and decided to get rid of GeoCities, their free web-hosting site and guess where I'd put our association website.
So after pottering round for many weeks trying to find a FREE web-hosting service that the association could use I finally found one that BT is providing as a community service and tonight in one straight off sitting I've resurrected our website.

Gardening v Rugby

2009-09-20T21:55:00.004Z

At the moment gardening, at any rate blogging about gardening is loosing steadily to U16 rugby administration. Gardening has been done, but not as much as I'd ideally like to do.
All Potatoes harvested, most Tomato plants just about finished, Chilli Peppers mostly red, Sweetcorn eaten, Autumn/Winter digging well under way.
Here is plot 17 and the steady progress made on digging has reached a line from the top of the raspberry canes at mid left and straight across following the weed growth.
The nice fresh horse manure is courtesy of my good friend Robert and I have also neatened up the path edge which had meandered considerably over the years.

On plot 18 some weeks ago I had to employ Derris dust on the brassicas to deal with Cabbage White caterpillars, the odd looking barrowload is squash and sweetcorn, topped off with sunflower heads. I have chopped down all the sunflowers as they were overshadowing the ripening squash and some had fallen across the path to my shed, all the leaves went in the compost bin, followed by the cut to fit sweetcorn plants.
Today I paid a flying visit to the plot and spent my gardening time picking over all the onions that have been drying in the shed at home. Some losses to rot and a few where the neck is going to succumb to rot, so they went for early consumption.
This shot is my Banana Shallots var Piglet Willensis all neatly rowed up after loosing the loose skins.
Also packed away the fourteen Crown Prince squash that had been curing on the garden table and laid out another batch from the allotment, together with (at last) some Butternut squash that had emerged from the dying squash leaves unscathed by rot.
All new squashes harvested yesterday and also got a large number of minature pumpkin type squash, can't remember the variety, but breakfast teacup sized, fluted fruits and three that looked the same, but instead of bright pumpkin colour were deep dark green. Some dark green Australian squashes are awaiting harvest.
These two shots are for Johnboy on Kitchen Garden forum, they show how the seed-bed ( left in ground from 2007 to seed) Banana Shallots have divided, each bulb growing a fresh bulb under the brown-skin next to the flower from this year.

Extreme close-up showing where the flowerstalk broke off from the new bulb.

First ever Raspberry Vodka sieved and bottled to clear. Second roasted Crown Prince squash today with roast chicken and the 80% uneaten roasted squash awaiting its conversion into Squask, Bacon and Chilli Soup featuring Onions, Shallots, Potatoes and Garlic. The same fate as last weeks one, yum.

Zoom Zoom Spud.

2009-08-20T10:06:00.004Z

Sunflower have either zoomed for the sky or snapped off, tallest is about eight feet and yet to bloom. The large bloom looming over the dog is over six feet tall and dripping nectar.

The squash have spread magnificently and hiding under the leaves are a number of steel grey Crown Prince.
The later planted Hubbard do not yet seem to have set decent fruit, but I'm not going to search and end up trampling the stems.

The onion patch has now been cleared and hoed.

This is a sample single plant of Charlotte spuds.
I have now harvested six of my eight potato rows, five Charlotte and one Desiree, sadly the biggest and best Desiree, almost without exception, had occupiers, multi or zero legged occupiers.
Dog and I spent all day Wednesday 18th and Tuesday 19th August spud harvesting, well I did, she hid in the shade most of the time, where I joined her when I got too hot. Took a while as I was having to clear the inter-row gaps of weeds before digging.
Two old fashioned metal dustbins with cheap potting compost now contain the three barrow loads of potatoes and I'll consign today's harvest to a pop-up nylon fabric weed bag/bin and order some paper potato sacks from Edwin Tuckers.
Just two 30' rows to dig now.

Scotland & Weeds.

2009-08-17T20:21:00.003Z

Last week I are mostly bin being in Scotland.
Very nice in Lundin Links, went and climbed Largo Law, an extinct volcano plug down the road with the top about 290m above sea level. Strange up on top, like wandering round on a human molar tooth, several high points and a channel across the middle. The farmer whose land it is in seems to have directed access to the steepest face, but a damm fine view all round and an OS trig point on the highest bit. The Ordnance Survey mapsite shows it neatly here.

Yesterday I are mostly bin harvesting and then processing greenhouse Tomatoes into frozen sauce base with undivided Garlic cloves.

Today I are mostly bin harvesting onions and shallots.

Started by clearing the coldframe of bolted Cos lettuce and an undercrop of creeping weeds, before digging it over.
A week away and weeds had flourished so well that the crop was half hidden, so weeding as I harvested I spent a nice afternoon in the sun.
The Banana Shallots (Pigletwilliensis) produced a level barrowful which filled four of those blue latticework plastic supermarket trays in the workshed and the rest of the various Onions produced a heaped barrowful which filled four wooden trays in the workshed.
Breathing in the workshed is now a trifle difficult if you do not like your air strongly onion flavoured.

As I have the rest of the week off work I hope to do much more at the allotment, so wait and see.

Tea was:
Sweetcorn from plot to pan to plate with butter and sea salt.
Streaky pork slices, chunked and pan fried before adding to the sauce and heating through for fifteen minutes and serving with fresh Charlotte chips.
Sauce:
Two red Chilli Peppers from the greenhouse, two undivided Garlic cloves, a bird-pecked Catshead apple, a huge Banana Shallot, six small Tomatoes from the greenhouse, one medium Patty-Pan summer squash, four mushrooms, all diced and fried in a generous glug of Olive oil, a squeeze of tomato puree and a glass of water

Pick-n-mix bar.

2009-08-02T20:36:00.006Z

On Friday 31st July my intention to spend the whole weekend was intercepted by a request to assist with an un-scheduled "make do and mend" at the Rugby Club. So Saturday 1st August I welcomed the new month in by digging out missing sections of paved paths, mixing concrete and filling in the holes with concrete and paving slabs. Finished it off with a convivial viewing of the All Blacks getting stuffed by the Saffies.
Sunday 2nd August up the allotment for a mega-picking of Purple French Beans, two carrier bags full, gave some Alan and more to three neighbours at home.
Also picked:

twenty-four Patty Pan Squash lurking under the leaves, where there were also a number of immature Crown Prince Squash.
enough Calabrese from the second planting for three to enjoy for tea.
Potatoes dug a carrier bagful of Charlotte, sorted the largest and smallest into seperate bags for use later in the week, then used the intermediate sized ones by following a recipe posted by Primrose at Kitchen Garden Forum with amendments, I used fresh Rosemary from outside the front door and fresh Garlic from last weeks picking, a large marble sized buld that had not "cloved", delicious.
the first outdoor Tomatoes, just a handful mind.
two Cucumbers, from the now rather sad and devasted plants, leaves all shrivelled up.
a 2.5lb Cos Lettuce.
six Sweetcorn cobs.

In the herb patch the Elecampane is reeking of honey scent and I counted six different types of bees on it, as well as Hoverflies.
Got a compliment from Verity on my bedding Dahlias which are covered in flowers today. The Asters are looking good, but the Gladioli have suffered from the wind and rain.
The weeds have thrived and I pulled quite a number.
Greenhouse Tomatoes are picking consistently, a handful every other day, which is good as my beloved does not really want to eat much more tomato than that. I suspect I am maltreating these plants in some way, perhaps my cordon pruning is too restrictive as many of the flower trusses are mutating into new stems at the tip.
Picked my first Greenhouse Chilli Pepper today, a hot green finger one to go into a chicken dish for tea.

Off computers a bit......

2009-07-27T20:59:00.002Z

Off computers a bit at the moment, sometimes after working at a screen all day I end up in a mood for days where I just can't be arsed to peer at a screen again in the evening, so apologies for the lack of updates.
Raspberries are now all picked out and the nets packed away, just as well because some juvenile Blackbirds had discovered the weak points last week and were always in the "cage" each time I went up the plot, funny not avian interest until the crop was over the peak, even on the unnetted rows.
Calabrese, the secondary shoots did appear, but on cooking they were VERY woody at the cut end, so just as well I'd pulled the row and picked the shoots as I put the rest of the plant into the compost bin. The second planting is just coming on, but is smaller than the first.
Potatoes continue to be very enjoyable, steamed and buttered, mmmm. Dug some last week and my beloved cooked the lot instead of an appropriate amount, so I ended up carefully slicing a dozen decent sized steamed cold spuds and sauteing them, mmmmmm mmmmmmm.
Leeks, the seedlings are established, but with some losses that either didn't like the transplant, or got pulled by the birds.
In the herb patch the Wintersweet has been pruned back hard as it was flopping out four feet in all directions and swamping other stuff. The Elecampane has finally started to put out its rich honey scent as sufficient flowers open.
Talking of flowers the bedding Dahlias are now a vibrant slash of red and yellow across plot 18 and the Asters are starting to flower along the main path end, as are the Gladioli in several locations.
Garlic was harvested this weekend as the tops had died off, a disappointing crop, nothing even reached golf ball size, despite being in well tended barrels with no competition, good loam to feed on and careful watering as needed. The surviving Elephant Garlic, all three of them, are still growing strongly.
French Beans are picking strongly, nice and easy as well with the purple pods, got seven pounds in the freezer from one picking.
Greenhouse Tomatoes are now picking, got fourteen Sunday evening when watering.
Got another load of Horse manure from my friend Robert Saturday 18th July and I emptied it along where the first row of Potatoes had been. Bloody foxes went through it in detail and played in my onions, pulling half a dozen up.
Spent most of Saturday 25th July weeding the top quarter of plot 18 among my leeks, piles of weeds. also sowed some follow on salad stuff.
Feeling a bit more computer friendly, so hopefully a better update next week.

Don't mention Raspberries.

2009-07-12T09:52:00.005Z

No really please don't, I've got a real glut at the moment, picked 16lb on Sunday 5th July and another 20lb on Saturday 11th July.

Saturday 4th July was the second "make do and mend" day at the Rugby Club, I helped install a drain to stop the patio flooding the clubhouse via the fire door during heavy rain, then watched the Lions make up for their first two dismal performances against South Africa.
Sunday 5th July I weeded all of Plot 17, dug potatoes for tea and picked; mangetout sugarsnap peas, cuccumbers, lettuces, purple french beans and raspberries.
I got Chris & Alison to help themselves to all the ones down by the coldframe, then got Terry & Sue to pick the uncovered row up on the fruit terrace, that left me just the four netted rows and they yielded 16lb.
Mary was asking about some un-picked fruit on a couple of plots, so I offered her my redcurrents and some gooseberries, she left with a mixing bowl of each and the promise to me of a couple of jars of jelly and jam.
The redcurrents looked like polished jewels lurking in the bushes.
This is how the onions and shallots looked after I had finished.

Saturday 11th July I spent two hours picking fruit.

Then I uncovered some of the brassicas to weed them, nice easy job as the soil hasn't set hard, although there were some impressive cracks.
Then I noticed that under the next set of protection my calabrese was somewhat more advanced than I had thought.

Take a look at these two.

I harvested about fifteen of these, gave one to John who couldn't quite believe his eyes, three to Bob & Tracey, two for Sunday dinner and ten for the freezer. Left some smaller ones to bulk up a bit and it looks like there might be sideshoots.
Harvested half a carrier bag of purple french beans, some for Sunday dinner the rest went in the freezer.

Dug two potato plants, which gave some small spuds for my tea, everyone else had already eaten, with a good amount for Sunday dinner.

Managed to lure Mary back to pick more redcurrents and gooseberries, another mixing bowl of each, amazing how laden the two bushes of each are this year.

Feeling fruity and catching up.

2009-06-28T21:05:00.003Z

Thursday the 18th the evening was so oppressive, weather-wise, that ended up dozing off after tea and went allotmenting around eight. Picked strawberries and raspberries, more raspberries than is decent from a few canes heeled in at random a few years ago, didn't touch the ones under netting and got two full nappy bags.
OK, yes, but I always have some nappy bags with me as they are the cheapest doggy tidying bag you can get.
Watered all my barrells, the sweetcorn and strawberries.Planted out five more sweetcorn I had found lurking at home and my last lot of Squash.
The previously planted Squash are now showing variable growth.The Butternut on the south edge are starting to voom and are nice & green, some of the others are not much different to when they were planted out. The soil is still nice and moist, not set but still showing rotovation effects being a crumby surface of at least an inch deep. Under my planting mulch of carpet the soil is moist all the way up to the carpet. I'm now hoping that with warmer nights the voom will VOOM.
Friday 19th was BSAGA committee meeting.
Saturday 20th was Rugby Club make do and mend day, spent most of it sanding external woodwork and re-fixing ariel cables. Did watch the Lions match, which was disappointing.
Sunday 21st picked yet more fruit and weeded a bit. Also dug the first new potatoes of this year, delicious.
Friday 26th much to the dogs annoyance was vaccination booster evening, followed by an early night, due to rain. The thunder skirted round us.
Saturday 27th despite the still oppressive weather I spent most of the day at the allotment, only left as it started to rain.
Hoed all open ground on Plot 18 and under one of the pigeon defences. Planted out 102 leeks, interrupted by fruit picking. Where my OH can now claim she has helped at the allotment this year, as when she brought me a cold drink and several large bowls, she then ventured under the netting with me to gather in over eight pounds of raspberries.
Did a lot of watering of various dryish looking plants, especially the lettuces and sweetcorn, which brought on the clouds overhead which started to spot.
So I harvested four potato plants, three lettuce, cos, frizzy and Little Gem and went home for tea.
Sunday 28th too hot, got up late and went for a long walk with the dog, then lay around in the shade.
Drat, forgot to water the greenhouse, so must go and do it now.

They're Pinks, I'm Pink.

2009-06-14T19:41:00.011Z

Well I'm actually puce from the sun.
Nice Pink's though, really heady rich scent from them as well.
So hot this weekend that my furry supervisor hid in the shade!

The blackbirds have been at my Redcurrents,

I wouldn't mind the odd missing current, but they always seem to pull the whole sprig off, then discard it and pull on another current.
So it was out with the net and over all the Raspberries, Currents and Gooseberries.
The Raspberry straining posts hold the net up over them
and cunning use of an old loft water tank and two Daleks holds it up over the Gooseberries and Currents.

The Climbing French Beans are between two and four feet up their supports now.

The first planting of Lettuces are looking good.

Plot 17 has been fully weeded, that was Saturday's main job.

CFB's hand weeded, Sweetcorn carefully crosshoed, Onions & Shallots ditto, everything else a combination of hoeing and trowel / hand weeding.
The fruit net was job two and I wound down by planting out twenty five more Sweetcorn and ten Sunflowers on the top of Plot 18.

Today was pigeon defence rebuilding and weeding the Brassicas, which had outgrown the Mk1 defences and were trying to push the wire skywards
For the front three rows on plot 18, Dwarf Curly Green Kale, Brussel Sprouts and Savoy Cabbage, I made some large goalposts of 2"x2" whacked into the ground with a 2"x1" crossbar and some "pond" netting at £29 for 20m, had to get if from Coopers of Stortford as the Allotment Society shop had completely sold out of netting.

For the next two rows I reused the chicken wire hoops from the Mk1 defences.

But used all of them, half down one side, half down the other, each with only one side in the ground, the other being interlaced into the opposite, like ( & ) but leaning in to touch at the top only.

The last two rows stayed untouched other than re-attaching the green netting to the Mk2 defences on the left.
Did some letting this weekend.

What a contrast between people, one made arrangemenst to view, did not keep them and then did not answer the phone or respond to voicemail messages, so moved on down the list.

The next came out today and is taking two and a half rod.

The last did eventually after some persuasion give me my arm back and look what he did to his two and a half rod jungle on Saturday and Sunday, right now he is out ther carefully burning that heap in the middle.

Rain stopped play.

2009-06-07T19:40:00.005Z

Saturday saw me faced by two soggy sticky allotment plots, can't even hoe them as the soil sticks to the hoe and the weeds just laugh as they re-root.
So, what to do then?
After rebuilding sons's rear bike wheel hub, clean and regrease bearings adjust tightness and ensure lock nuts actually lock rather than come undone, I set to manure collection, Robert had obtained seventeen bags fresh from the horses arse for me, so I collected them and stored them in three daleks, which I set up between the Climbing French Beans and the Lettuces. Mowed the main path and my side paths at the allotments, then the back lawn at home before delivering son to his friends house.
Sunday awoke to the sound of heavy rain, it cleared as I collected daughter from friends house, so I set to in the back garden, where I could work from the concrete path as I worked to weed, fork over, remove bricks, cultivate and plant up, the area between the path and the greenhouse.
The BumbleBees living under the path entertained me for most of the time, I had had to set up protection for their nest earlier in the week as the rain kept washing any loose soil down to block the entrance, some broken terracotta pot makes a nice wall and landing pad for the bees entrance lobby.
Did this V shaped bit first and planted two more Cucumbers, one clump of Chives, a dozen Piglet Willie Banana Shallots, five Pak Choi, and half a dozen Lettuces.
Relaid the three paving slabs.Relaid the one at the corner nearest to camera, then got another one from the allotment and laid it at the door.Cleared my way back from the Hazel tree to where I stood on the path to take this shot. dug up the rose from by the fence and planted it next to slab three, together with a bit of Lemon Balm I found amongst the weeds, planted my new Gorse just out of shot bottom left and to its left I planted a small Bamboo. All the bricks under the Hazel came from where the builders had loose laid them as a dumper truck runway, ending up about eight inches underground.
The greenhouse looks empty, but is very full, most of the shelving is out and the Tomatoes and Peppers are growing away, Tomatoes in the lead by quite a margin. Enjoyed a snack of fresh Sugar Snap Peas straight off the plant as I worked. Potted up some Mint I found in the weeds and both a Geranium and my succulent "Queen of the night" from the house.

Twice burnt...

2009-06-01T21:15:00.002Z

Had Friday 29th May off to garden as son and I were going to watch the England Barbarians match on the 30th. It was so hot I did not get as much done as planned, but I did have a very pleasant day with the dog for company.
Fabricated more anti-pigeon defences and planted a full double row of Brassica's and another half row, bit of a mix, about a dozen Dwarf Green Curly Kale, a dozen Purple Sprouting Broccoli and the rest was Calabrese. The new defences adopted the previous last barrier nearest to the Squash plot, so weeded all thet it covered before setting out the new arrangement and underplanting.
Planted a very closely spaced line of Dahlias to separate the Brassica's from the Squash plot and also planted another Squash or two.
Cleared and cultivated the Cold Frame, added a bag of sieved topsoil and planted half up with my own plug-plant Cos Lettuces, the other half awaits some more Lettuces.
England let us down and we had to unpeel ourselves from our seats in the east stand, stuck down by sweat from the intense sunshine.
Sunday I pottered a bit, bought some string, watered the new plantings and David told me a pigeon had been strutting up and down INSIDE my new defences and that he had ushered it out. Removed various stuff from the greenhouse. which has become a bit too hot for some seedlings, watered everything in and next to it. went back to the allotment in the evening and fixed some more plastic netting over the sheep/pig wire that the pigeon must have walked through.
Oh yes, much to her disgust I washed the dog, ideal dog drying day.
Tonight, for entertainment, I went and watched the Allotment Committee of the Town Council.

Photograpic extravaganza!

2009-05-26T20:00:00.006Z

A very busy weekend with photographs taken this evening.
Over Saturday and Sunday I weeded all of both plots, the onions were hoed between rows Saturday and then the whole lot gone over with an hand onion hoe on Sunday to get any weeds still alive and green. Also planted another 104 Piglet Willie Banana Shallots.
The Brassicas have avoided any feathered attention and seem to have established themselves and I planted a closely spaced row of Dahlias between the first wire cloche and the main path.
Some bindweed is appearing near where the watering cans are in this shot. I'll allow it to grow enough to be hand sprayed with glyphosate, either next weekend or the one after. This was where the hedging plants were heeled in so did not get sprayed previously.

The greenhouse is finally emptying out as about twenty assorted squash went into the carpeted squash bed. It was so hot on Sunday when I did the last ones that after re-arranging and cutting the carpet I had to retire to the shade before popping out into the sun again to plant them.

The Potatoes are doing well, after hoeing between the rows, I watered the plants through the top of the earthing up and then re-earthed, Monday night they got another can watering using the spout rather than the rose.

The herb patch is burgeoning with lush green growth, the Elecampane leaves waving over the top of it's sheep wire support.

One of this years disappointments, the Elephant Garlic, only two of the cloves came up. Mind you a local garden centre had Unwins EG cloves on sale at half marked price, £2.99 for two solitary cloves in a poncy perforated plastic bag

The coresponding ordinary Garlic is doing well in both barrells, the soil has settled quite a few inches from the brim, but the garlic seems happy, Fox has been persistently rootling in one of the Strawberry barrells.

Climbing French Beans have not yet started to romp up the supports, but are coyly twining round the base, apart from some which insist on throwing themselves across the paths.

Between the CFB and Potatoes, bounded by the slow moving Sugar Snap Peas I planted Tomatoes "Cherry Red", Ridge Cuccumbers, Sweet Pea on a cane cone and a dozen mixed Lettuce. Sweet Corn in the background.

Tiger Tiger!

2009-05-17T20:06:00.004Z

Saturday was a rugby day, spent watching the Guinness Premiership Final at Twickenham, not a particularly technical game, but watchable and exciting, well done the Tigers.
Today, up late and did all my mowing, then checked my plots, left just as the rain restarted, so into the greenhouse for a tidy up.
Put all the Banana Shallot seedlings out to harden off and re-organised everything.
Planted out six Red Cherry Tomato's in the beds and six Carribbean Mix Chilli Peppers in two grow bags.
Attacked the Winter Jasmine, cutting out all the dead bits and then un-potted, root-pruned, and re-potted it, just visible to the left in this picture.

A bit seedy.

2009-05-13T20:44:00.003Z

Tuesday 12th May. Emptied the dog shed, some stuff to the bin, some to the kitchen (ex-caravan plastic bowls and steel cutlery), some to the shed, moved the shed and revived the whirlgig dryer. Had to prise the rusted off stub out of the ground socket, which is in a big lump of concrete, then cut the dodgy end bit off the assembly. Now have a whirligig that can take a T-shirt, but not a sheet.
In the greenhouse, I relocated the germinated Sweetpeas and Crown Prince Squash from the heated propagator to staging and sowed Sweetcorn and Futsu Squash in their place.
Pricked out more Dwarf Green Curly Kale, some Little Gen Lettuce given to me by John and some Cos Lettuce of my own sowing.
Sowed some more Cos Lettuce in a mini-plug module, I had tried some Little Gem earlier in the year without success, but believe that packet, from several years ago, had become "tired".
Did the regular watering, now have my four growbags for the floor, so when the allotment plants get planted out the staging "planks", [ section aluminim resting in an aluminium "angle-iron" frame, get lifted out to leave the frame and the growbags go underneath, using the frame to help hold the canes.
Need to rationalise the greenhouse beds as they are more than half covered with 3" pots in trays and a growbag greenhouse, so this weekend I'm looking to sort out the bit of garden between the path, end fence nd greenhouse.

Ahead of myself but behind my posts

2009-05-10T22:29:00.006Z

Wooah, just realised I have a whole week, including a Bank Holiday to catch up on.

Saturday 2nd May County did not get out of the pool, Sunday 3rd May Club A's did not get out of the pool, so son rather disappointed, though the B's did make the semi-final for the club.

Monday 4th May slept late and did the garden tidying when I got up, so the only thing left lurking in the garden is the dog shed!

Just don't look at what is between the two sheds.

Tuesday night I planted out my French Beans, one double row of about thirty-six plants.

Saturday 9th May, raked, trod down, re-raked the path end of Plot 18, then planted a short row of Dwarf Curly Green Kale, a full row of Brussels Sprouts and a full row of Savoy Cabbages. Constructed pigeon shields from sheep wire and chicken wire before taking son on Rugby Club social outing at 12:30 to go Zorbing at Westmill Farm , Zorbing or Sphering consists of being strapped inside a plastic sphere with a friend opposite you, the sphere is held within a larger sphere by many many webbing straps and the inter-sphere gap is inflated. Once inside the sphere is pushed down a hill. An alternative is unstrapped, three occupants, five buckets of water and the access hole plugged up. Son managed both.

Returned to the allotments and planted a full row of Purple Sprouting Broccoli and a full row of Calabrese, also constructed further pigeon protection and watered everything. Rejoined adult sociability for a drink or dozen....

Sunday, off to BSAGA allotment shop for four growbags and another bag of Humax MP compost. Then to the tip to dispose of the rubbish from last weekends garden clearance.

Up to the allotments around midday where I did a lot of hoeing, all of Plot 17 bar the fruit terrace, some weeding in the fruit terrace and herb patch, where the Elecampane is beginning to fill its support enclosure. The new Quince top right is looking good.

Finished off by prong hoeing and raking the path end of Plot 17 that was not planted before planting two rows of Kelsae exhibition onion seedlings, about sixty plants, the a single row of Piglet Willie Banana Shallot seedlings.

Daughter brought me a cold drink and stayed to help, she did a lot of stone picking and watering. During a nice sunny break from our labours lying on our backs with the dog in the sunshine and chatting the swifts came wheeling into our view, like bold black scimitars slicing through the pale blue sky as they twisted after insects, daughter counted ten with her young eyes.

This is a close up shot of last years seed crop of Piglet Willie Banana Shallots which survived the winter and are already set to flower.

Smashing, NOT.

2009-05-01T22:09:00.003Z

Wednesday.
When I said some mindless little oick I did not think it would look eight years old.
But if the one Steve has seen chucking stones and following a dog walker round the park yelling abuse at the chap, is the one responsible for stoning my coldframe, then that is what it looks like.
Anyway the last pane of glass was smashed Wednesday night and the grass path and the front of Carl's plot were both strewn with stones up to mug size. Picked up all the glass and used all available plastic sheeting for the sides, with the three leftovers and some plastic netting to cover the roof, together with some strategically placed chickenwire. The best bit is a sheet from a BT phonebox which got slung, or blown, over the fence a few years ago, it is incredibly strong and barring the etched BT logo is clear.
Planted pea seeds on the rest of the pea frame to come after the early seedlings.
Friday.
Had the day off work as I was helping with a Rugby festival tomorrow and son is playing for his club in a Tens Festival on Sunday. Found out during the day, poor timing and communication, that son is actually playing for the County on Saturday, looks like he was second choice and first couldn't make it, so my schedule has changed.
So being an opportunist, I buttonholed John as he walked past my door, to check if he was actually going to do anything with his plot or just give it up, he says he is going to work it, I'll reserve judgement as he has done nothing at all to date this year.
Dog and I went and looked at the allotments and decided that they were damp enough for me to end up wearing them on my boots if we did anything, so one of us chased a ball that the other threw a number of times before I did some shed stuff while the sun dried the surface.
It's relevant, in my workshop shed I built an open fronted cupboard in the back right corner, sized so some plastic storage boxes I have fit neatly on top, two, one on t'other. Painted the chipboard in the area before building the cupboard, and afterwards completely tidied and re-arranged the contents of the entire shed, including Slicen-dice who now attempts to poke entrants with his handlebars.
Went up the allotment before school out time, planted out all twentyfive sweetcorn, then lurked for a bit as school out was prime suspect for stone throwing, but no chuckers.
Came home and cut all the yellow Winter Jasmine that was shading the front of the greenhouse, ruddy stuff had grown behind the glazing clips and I lost two removing it. So had to burrow in the garage to find the box of spare clips. One day I'll have all my "stuff" organised and available without having to move any of it to reach any other bits.
The tidier shed made room for more "stuff" including the spare greenhouse glass which was on the path leaning against the "dog-shed" on the lawn.
Just a pile of construction timber and some oddments to remove from the path and a few slabs to lay before I can walk on paving from the back door into the greenhouse.

Mundane meanderings.

2009-04-28T18:08:00.003Z

Well on Monday evening I did what I threatened to do and got some free space in the greenhouse, by moving some of the Brassica seedlings and French Bean seedlings up into the roofless coldframe on Plot 17 with a bit of anti-pidgeon netting across the front half of the top and some clear plastic sheets across the back half.
Then I spent an hour or two pricking out "Pigletwilly" Banana Shallots, so I now have about 150 of them to plant out in a few weeks.
Tonight I planted peas directly into Plot 17 as a successional sowing and to fill up the support structure I had built, checked the cold frame and neither pesky pidgeons nor cold air had got at anything, yet.
Back to the greenhouse, where I sowed Squash, Crown Prince (six seeds to the packet) and mixed Sweet Peas (20 seeds to the packet) and popped their little 3" pots in the heated propagator, watered them, then balanced the lid on the pots as they wouldn't fit inside it.
Having an early night tonight as I spent the day trawling IT trade shows at Earls Court.

Can't decide weather....

2009-04-26T20:24:00.004Z

Friday evening.
Loaded the shredder I inherited from Mother into the trailer, added all the logs from the tree I felled a few weeks ago and took the whole lot to Robert, who had accumulated fifteen bin bags of horse manure for me. Had a pleasant chat with Robert over a cup of tea before taking my leave and going home via the allotment where I offloaded the bags onto the bottom end of Plot 18.
Saturday.
The weather took a while to make up its mind about what it was going to do and finally settled on "mostly sunny". Intended to mow the main path and the carpark in order to put loads of grass cuttings in the very bas of my bean trench, but it was not to be. I started the self-propelled grass collecting Hayter and it ran very well for ten minutes, allowing me to cut the grass near the shed, the path just outside the garden and one stripe of the new terrace before it died and would not restart. Took all the plastic housing, incorporating the fuel tank and air filter, off and inspected and cleaned the carburettor, no joy. So tried my Suffolk Punch, which refused to start at all and the the starter cord snapped. Fixed that and it still refused to start and to add insult to injury the brass eyelet in the plastic housing came adrift and the next pull of the cord cut a nice 1cm groove up through the housing.
Gave it all away and used the Hayterette and rake on the lawn instead, then mowed the car park.
Put six bags of fresh horse manure in the bottom narrower section of the bean trench, covered it wit a layer of soil, trod it down a bit and ran Sliecen-dice up and down the trench. Then added another six bags, evenly distributed and a bigger layer of soil and re-introduced Slicen-dice to the trench.
Left that to settle and slung my geometrically arranged molehills of well rotted horse manure on Plot 18 evenly across the surface and rotovated it in with Slicen-dice.
Sunday.
Went to the BSAGA allotment shop and bought fifty eight foot canes, ten four foot canes and another two hundred three inch square pots.
Put the rest of the decent soil back on top of the bean trench, I'm leaving the clay from the bottom spit for the moment, watered it with half a dozen cans of water to get it to settle and weather a bit quicker.
In order to do that I had to put out my membrane and carpet cover on my squash bed, so I could shovel properly, but to do the carpet etc, meant three different piles of "stuff to move, lay out, weigh down, change the arrangement....... you get the idea?
Got the Hayterette out again and mowed the main path and my side paths, planted out half a dozen more peas, but had to put up another length of pitch-roof steel mesh for them to climb, plenty of room for another sowing now.
Finished the day at the site by strimming the edges of the main path and both my plots.
Came home for tea via the greenhouse, where I potted up about forty Dahlia seedlings, forty Aster seedlings, re-potted half a dozen squash seedlings which were a bit big for their current pots and potted up ready for the terrace the Honeysuckle into a nice green glazed pot.

This coming week I need to get some free space in the greenhouse and the only way is to move some of the Brassica seedlings and French Bean seedlings up into the roofless coldframe on Plot 17 with a bit of anti-pidgeon netting across the top. Some mindless littl oick has been bunging stones and one of the last sheets of glass iin the coldframe is smashed, so I need to look around for vandal discarded estate agent boards, the plastic signs fit perfectly and the posts are very useful. Our local vandals tend to nick the whole thing and bung it into bushes in the park. With the liberated space in the greenhouse I can then resume potting up seedlings

Teenage raider.

2009-04-21T21:17:00.004Z

Paid my teenager for his assistance on Sunday, so was surprised on Monday to get a Multi-Media-Message from him on my mobile in the afternoon (school re-started today) with this photo of a weeded portion of plot and text intimating that he had been extra helpful, un-requested, and some money would be nice.

Now to be fair I had said it needed weeding, but it had my galdioli bulbs under some wretched creeping cross between couch and a pineapple and he nearly:

got all of this weed out.

turned over every spadeful of the "dug" area.

missed all of the gladioli bulbs.

didn't disassemble the Emperor of the Daleks while putting the weeds in.

did all of the area before getting bored.

didn't use all of my chicken manure pellets on a 6'x3' area.

took off his muddy shoes and shorts before scurrying back into his bedroom.

Aww Bless.

So I tidied up after him and re-turned the soil, getting the bits he missed etc, not a bad job for an unsupervised fifteen year old, especially as he must have spent half the time there texting his mates. I was told, at length, several times, by my other half that he had carried out a similar exercise in baking, but had eaten most of the evidence.

Tonight I planted out eighteen pots of pea plants after retrieving my steel mesh panels from the hedge, then dug stage two of the bean trench
ready for some mowings to be forked into the bottom of the thinner bit.

Wired!

2009-04-19T20:10:00.002Z

EDF Cup Final all day Saturday, sons side played Bedford this morning.
Decided to take advantage of son wanting to earn some extra pocket money. so, we cleared 60' of old fence where I had already set new posts and un-rolled a new roll of 6' chainlink.
The, with extra help from the four other plotholders we carried the unrolled wire into place.
Then it took me several hours to put up the straining wires and attach the chainlink to it.

God, grave, digging.

2009-04-15T21:31:00.002Z

Talked to God quite a bit on Sunday using the big white telephone.
Damm painful stomach bug, kicked in with a vengance around noon, after I'd been to the BSAGA shpo and bought 200 3" pots and 150L of Humax, MP compost.
Completely washed out on Monday, off work Tuesday.
Trouble is prolapsed lumbar discs really do not like it when their owner lies around alot and start to grumble, so late Tuesday I went and mowed the allotment path both to stetch my back and as a test to see if my bug "followed through" with exercise, it didn't, so back to work today.
Came home, changed and dug stage one of my bean trench, 30'x3' x one spit deep, cleanly shovelled out. Any potters out there want some good clay, I've got loads to dig tomorrow. Robert is collecting fresh sackfuls of horse doings from his neighbouring farm for me and I'll take some logs to him in payment. Finished the evening nicely in the greenhouse, potting up Butternut squash seedlings into 3" pots and my supervisor disgraced herself by sitting on the peas, which seem ok, offended, but OK.

Shovelling s**t!

2009-04-11T19:03:00.005Z

Today I are mostly bin shovelling manure.
Great delivery combination, Defender 110 crewcab with a twin axle electrically tipping trailer. Their terrier did what terriers do and flew around the back of the cab barking at my supervisor, who blithely ignored him.

Rough dug the inter row gap after the last planted raspberry row and liberally manured it.

Likewise all around the bush fruits, gooseberries, red and black currents.

The Elecampane is poking its leaves out on the herb patch.

Finished by distributing all the remaining manure across plot 18 in wheelbarrow load piles.

Notice the cunning use of an old length of corrugated iron to keep me down to a single footprint, used twice for each pair of heaps in the middle two rows.

On / off drizzle the whole time, I'm now out of stuff I can do in the wet on the allotment, so here's hoping for some dry weather in the next couple of days.

Noisy glass.

2009-04-10T21:21:00.003Z

Firstly, what is this bug?
The photo is the best I could get on my Phone, it stayed there for a while, then flew off elsewhere in the greenhouse. Looked to me like a cross between a wasp and a beetle, very handsome in black and yellow.

Late up this morning after planting out about three hundred onion sets last night. My back was really sore after that little lot, balancing on a plank and planting each side of it to do two rows for each traverse of the plot. Booked my £40 trailer load of horse doings in chopped hemp over breakfast.
Started Slicen-dice up in the shed and reversed him out before shutting down to check: gearbox oil, engine oil, oilbath air filter and petrol tank. Then off we went to rotovate all of plot 18, bar the Herb patch.
Poor Slicen-dice had a little mishap, after doing the well weathered half we were just setting about the lumpier half and his drive belt gave up the ghost with the rubber and cloth de-laminating.
Back home to get the spare and a selection of spanners. Happily the Howard 350 is fairly civilised when it comes to a drive belt change; remove the belt guard,unscrew the L bolt holding the clutch assembly in place, swing the clutch away, remove the old belt, loosen off the pusher bolt, undo the four nuts under the main frame which hold the plate the engine is bolted to, slide the engine back on its plate, install the new belt. put the clutch back, screw in the L bolt, slide the engine forward, half tighten the four nuts, use the pusher bold to push the engine forward until the belt tension is correct, do up the four engine plate nuts and replaces the belt guard.
Finished first pass, interesting on the big clods, keeps working at some novel angles does Slicen-dice.
Pulled the depth guide up a couple of notches and did a second pass, the engine note clearly tells how hard he is working, fast and gunny the blades are skimming or in very loose stuff, slower and deeper the blades are well in and digging hard.
Cleaned Slicen-dice and took him home into the shed, must order a new spare belt as without a belt he is immovable unless a tow team are roped up.
Returned to the plot and contemplated it for about twenty minutes, then weeded the herb patch, added several bags of shredded tree mulch, then it started raining.

So I took shelter in the greenhouse and over the next few hours potted myself out of pots. Tomatoes, Peppers, Curly Kale, Calabrese, Brussels Sprouts, Peas and Sweetcorn.

The bed is covered with trays of pots, the growbag house is in and full of the Tomatoes, Peppers, Sweetcorn and Squashes.

As an experiment I have planted out nine mangetout peas in the bit of bed just by the door, hope to get some very early sugar-snaps.
From the back we have, two pots of Squash in the propagator, some rampant Peas, various Onions, some insignificant looking Savoy cabbage, an old fashioned seed pan of Onions, the remainder of the Curly Kale and my Pigletwillie Banana Shallots.

Plan for the rest of the weekend:

Saturday 10;30, accept delivery of huge pile of shit.
Distribute in wheelbarrow loads on plot 18, by teenager.

Dig rest of fruit terrace, by me, with delivery of manure as needed by teenager.

Get more 3" pots, lots of them.

Get more potting compost.

Pot up more stuff in the greenhouse, especially the shallots.

Plant out the rampant Peas, with pigeon protection.
Move Dad's apple storage rack from the greenhouse into a shed.

See how it goes.......

Immoderate thoughts!

2009-04-08T20:04:00.002Z

Why is it kids see allotments as fair game?

Some bunch of scrotes unpicked the chain link, lifted a spade lying on a plot, chopped it once into an aluminium & glass cold frame on Jacky's plot, then used it to chop and pry their way through the side of Jim's shed.

So instead of planting some of my onion sets I have spent the evening, talking to the police call centre, giving Jim & Jacky the news, fixing the fence and inspecting all of the site fence for any further damage.

Our District Council in their wisdom put an asphalt square with a single basketball hoop at one side across the cycleway from the little kids play area. Guess which side backs onto the allotment? That's right, and the current crop of aspiring Meadowlark Lemon's, when making up for lack of skill with enthusiasm have been landing their ball in our site. If they can see anyone on site they do call and ask politely if they can have the ball back, but after my fence inspection I can see that they have been climbing over, often, and the chain link was much detached from the top straining wire. Attached enough for a quick glance to say all is OK, but walk and pull gently and three to six foot sections swayed and bowed.

So I'll have to TRY to get the DC to move the ruddy hoop, any gamblers out there prepared to set the odds?

Fifteen - Nil.

2009-04-07T19:06:00.005Z

Finished off the fifteen bags of manure this evening.
Dug two more inter-row gaps in the raspberries and distributed the eight remaining bags, plus around six bags of tree-surgeon shreddings.

Down at the extreme north-west of my little enclave lurks the Emperor of the Daleks, open him up and stir his guts, then watch the steam rise.

Guess what I spotted on Diddy's plot?

Yup, the first spear of Asparagus, summer is a-coming.

Fascinating, gabbing on.

2009-04-06T20:39:00.006Z

Whoa, rein in that pun, all will become clear.

These are the five rows of spuds I did on Friday night, with my Land Rover lurking in the background.

Since then I have put three more in on the side nearest the camera.

This little Vegopolis is Terry's plot, he has set to with a vengance and some wood working tools.

Immaculate doesn't really do it justice. Hat off to you chap.

Medieval warfare used Gabions and Fascines to safely approach castles.

The Sappers would sap their way up to the wall of the castle using Gabions (woven wicker baskets), Fascines ( bundles of timber) and a trench. Aim across the approach to the castle at say 45 degrees and out of gun or bow shot start a trench, put a wicker basket ahead of where you are stood digging and on the side of the trench nearest the castle, chuck the spoil into the basket, reinforce or top with bundles of timber. At a sensible point, turn and go the other way, zig-zagging your way up to the walls behind your earth filled shield. Once close enough the Sappers could hand over to the Miners who would dig and undermine the wall, or in later years to the Gunners with a seige weapon to blow the walls down, a short range massive gun.
Not having a Castle to defeat on my allotments this may seem a diversionary flight of fancy, but here is one of my latter day gabions seen from the bottom.
Here I use the removed lid of one barrell as a template for the hole.

This is todays work this one, the last in the wall.

Here it sits in the almost ready hole in the bank.

Now a trial fit.

It needed several of these to get the fit just right.

Then the spoil heap behind the template/lid goes back in after a good layer of rotted woodchip.

A shot of the last layer of wood chip.

Finally a bag of Homebase screend topsoil per barrell.

And in this one five new strawberyy plants.

After the Haynes manual on medieval warfare as adapted to allotments.

I moved into the fruit terrace and roughly turned the ground between the blackcurrents and the firts raspberry row and between that and the next row, distributing seven bags of very fresh horse manure and three wheelbarrow loads of composted woodchip as a surface mulch over the clods. Hopefully the worms and weather will work it in.

Wheely useful.

2009-04-04T20:44:00.002Z

Despite not being that good at "Springing Forward" on the clock change I have had a great week enjoying the longer period of light available to me after getting back home from work.
Monday, pottered a bit in the greenhouse, watering and checking progress, but otherwise "off gardening".
Tuesday, took the half dozen wavy topped concrete path edging pieces I had and dug them, wrong way up along half the path frontage of Plot 17. Should stop the edge of the path collapsing into the plot and the grass invading, just need to get another half dozen now.
Wednesday, set two blue barrells into place in the retaining wall of the fruit terrace, just one left to do. Good workout this, dig out the clay, test fit and extend hole, repeat several times, place in position and backfill the barrell with tree-surgeon shredding and the excavated soil.
The wheely useful bit? Hacken-slash's new adornments are brilliant. So good in fact that he wears his wheels to bed in the shed and can be driven smoothly to the allotments, where on Thursday he got fitted with steel digging rotors in place of wheels and his new baulker in place of the depth skid, then went ploughing trenches for potato planting. After doing four 30' ones, I rang Diddy who had asked about having some rotovating done on his plot and then admired the sky while waiting for him to turn up. Once we'd identified which bit needed rotovating I got to work and sorted it, then drove Hacken-slash smoothly home.
Friday, was a bit hectic, having seen the BBC weather forecast I felt I had to plant the spuds and did so. But Robert wanted me to collect the trailer so it was out of his way now that he had done the welding. Tip-top trailer repairer my friend Robert, the jockey wheel does not wobble at all now. As a bonus Robert had collected fifteen bags of manure from the neighbouring farms daily roadside "Free Manure" stand for me, so back home and up the allotment in the dark to offload. Good job the truck has excellent lights, scared some young teenagers on the access path, I think they thought I was The Law. Went in, dropped the trailer at Plot 18, drove to the end of the site where I could turn, turned and came back to light my workplace. Lugged fifteen very very fresh manure bags (smelly smelly) up to the fruit terrace and parked them.
Saturday, NO rain, unlike the BBC said, so could have taken it a bit easier on Friday evening.
Homebase 15% off day so went and got some more bagged topsoil to literally top off the blue barrells. Gathered five new strawberry plants while I was there and some more Charlotte seed potatoes. After off-loading the truck at the allotment, went home and took Hacken-slash with me to the plot. First job was to top off a couple of barrells and plonk the strawbs went into one. My unusually cooperative teenager volunteered to mow the main path and feed the Emperor of the Daleks. Once he was kitted out and working I adjusted Hacken-slash's baulker a bit, I'd found that my clay was blocking it and Hacken-slash kept sticking to dig to Oz, so I raised the baulker and moved it nearer to the rotors, which improved things considerably. Drove three good furrows, then went and did a bit of rotovating for Alison to mix a pile of sand into a 25'x10' bed, then took Hacken-slash home and collected the seed potatoes. Managed to set out two and a half more rows of spuds, before running out of them. Packed the mower away and earthed up my rows while the furry supervisor gained a spotty assistant. All three of us then went to enjoy the last home game of the season at the Rugby club, with a sunny walk home.

Condensed dates.

2009-03-29T19:33:00.002Z

Several days worth in this post.
I spent several evenings last week, well the light imbued portions thereof, weeding my soft fruit terrace, one row per evening.
Today I finished it off and dug out the three Horse Chesnut saplings I'd been nurturing, one got re-planted and two, currently hiding in plastic sacks, are on freecycle.
Had last Friday off work and spent the day sorting stuff out, mostly the back garden. Took a quantity of stuff to the tip and all the scrap wood to my friend Robert, who has a wood-burning stove. En route to the tip I thought something had shifted on the trailer and then got flashed by the Mercedes following me, so stopped and, yes, the rope lashing had come loose and half a shed wall and an aluminium window frame were about to fall off. Re-tied it and went the remaining quarter mile to the tip.
The trailer is now on holiday with Robert, who is going to do some welding around the wonky jockey wheel.
Did some odds and ends at the allotment, finishing with mowing the main path to feed the emperor of the daleks, got haild on, comprehensively, not being one to leave something once started I ended up with a second tyre of ice on the front wheels of the Hayter.
Saturday was a washout, spent relaxing and looking for some stencils, I have volunteered to re-number all the plots on my site as the council were going to get their part time handyman to do it using laminated paper signs.
Today was a much better proposition, sunny and breezy, so after watching our U15 B's play a tough well opposed match, which they won 38-0, I started by power-washing three bicycles, one greenhouse and 12' of path.
The bench in the greenhouse is a bit full now.
This is a close-up of my Banana Shallot - Piglet Willensius seeds, peer closely and they are breaking the surface.

Before cutting for her indoors, here are my meagre supply of daffodils.

Long day.

2009-03-21T21:26:00.007Z

Up and out there by 9am today, a mechanical day planned so couldn't really start any earlier.
Took my chainsaw and long handled loppers, plus a rudely awakened Hacken-Slash, who has been bought a set of diddy tractor wheels with axle extensions. The digging rotor pins were fine for the axle extensions, but the wheel "dish" was too small for them to fit the wheels, so into my workshed went I and after some rootling and hacksawing I had two bolts the correct diameter cut to fit. As I was fettling the chainsaw my son turned up and asked to be given some work to do, after I had come round I set him to rolling up the carpet from Plot 17 and piling it and all weights etc in a specific place, while I went tree felling.
A ten inch diameter tree has been overshadowing more and more of plot 9 and now that David has given up half of it and cleared that half, a golden opportunity was hovering, so I took it. Barbara knows someone with an open fire, so the logs are sorted and the branches were publicised by me as "get your pea sticks here before the council takes them away". Son helped stack everything neatly.
Back to Plot 17 where son had neatly stacked everything in the wrong place, part due to be rotovated, so we moved it all and he volunteered to weed the coldframe, managed to stay concious! Gave him some tools and he got cracking, while I cranked up Hacken-Slash and got rotovating.
When son had finished and had a drink he announced he was off to "do some revision".
When I had done all of plot 17 that needed doing in two directions I cleaned Hacken-Slash and put all the tools away, then took Hacken-Slash home on his nice new wheels and woke up Slicen-Dice, who had a little operation last year at the garden machinery hospital to install a new coil, as a result he woke up fairly quickly, but needed quite a bit of oil beforehand. I think he could do with a new exhaust some time soonish as he is getting a bit LOUD. Minced up plot 17 with varying success.
These two photo's show it pretty well.
The lighter area close to camera was last years potatoes, easy digging but some weeds, the darker middle ground with a paler bit to the right was under carpet till this morning and was last years squash, no weeds hard and wet difficult digging.

The paler square middle right was last years sweetcorn and the plants were left as overwintering nature habitat, they were dug in, hence the paler colour, it's maize straw. The top bit before the barrells was two years ago's potatoes plus barrell installation overspill and was again easy digging, bar the last two feet which were waterlogged with runoff from the terrace.
Left at two fifteen to garage Slicen-Dice and go for a freecycle pick-up.
Back at three thirty to show a prospective tenant plot 9, it went.

Terry had used some of the decking he won off his sister, very neat.

Took both my newly aquired blue barrells home and cut out a tractor seat hole in the base of each.

Mooched around and chatted to a few other plotholders.

Tidied up all the mess I had generated and assembled the Emperor of the Daleks down by the path, starting his 660L stomach off with 75L of woodchip and all the weeds and redndant stuff son had removed from the coldframe.
Took these pictures for the blog, last one is my new asparagus bed, just have to wait a few years now.

Retired to a hot bath via the greenhouse, which was parched, all that lovely sun had dried out all the seed tray, so gave them a soaking.

Cucumbers, peas, brassicas all pushing up, no sign of the peppers though.

Blue Drumming

2009-03-20T22:31:00.002Z

Worked from home today, so when I finished work, yay - no commuting.
Wearing my site agents hat I went to peg out the dividing up of a relinquished plot. Had viewer number two round last night and he reckoned five rod was too big for him and his wife, so they got a quarter plot of two and half rod, the bit nearest the main path. Had viewer number three round tonight, he and his wife are taking the other bit. Only found out the plot was free on Tuesday.
Viewer number one had the quarter plot that David has given up, he's keeping the half wih the shed and as the available bit was right in a corner next to the fence I was able to tell the lady where it was and she had a gawp over the fence at it on Wednesday, she's taking it.
After me allotment pimping activities i had a chat with Simon, whose plot is looking very well tended and reminded him of his offer to me of some black bamboo, he is sensibly growing more of what he likes after last years enthusiastic try everything approach.
Retrieved another blue barrell from the vacant plot, the plot is right next to the water trough, and as I was leaving Terry & Sue turned up just as I was going to snap the padlock shut their car appeared behind me. They had been round his sister's place and she was about to throw out her old deck, made of 20" square panels, guess what was in their car boys and girls. Did the trade I'd been longing to do with Terry, he got a good condition green waterbutt, complete with tap and lid, I got the blue barrell he was going to turn into a waterbutt. Just need one more and I can complete my "blue barrell terrace wall" holding up the edge of my fruit terrace. Thinking about releasing a few Daleks from the sanctuary this year and putting the Emperor of the Daleks down by the path so he can recieve its regular tribute of mowings.
Off to committee meeting for BSAGA, Bishop's Stortford Allotment and Garden Association at 8pm, usual stuff apart from the news that one of our other sites was turned over last week, tens of sheds burgled and the main gate locks wrenched off.

Sinking twice now.

2009-03-15T20:59:00.006Z

Today I came over all artistic and in touch with my feminine side and did some flower arranging. Being a large male lump I used a large container, lots of grit and uncut flowers.

This lovely old pantry sink used to be at my late mothers and is one of the gardening items that I removed before selling the place.
On Saturday I went to Ayletts Nursery outside St Albans, in previous years I have found that they stocked all the stuff I couldn't find elsewhere. This visit left me slightly disappointed as, although all their alpine plants were topped off with crushed rose granite, they did not stock it, so I had to make to with "Cumbrian Green" crushed stone grit. Looks OK though I think.
Every available surface had "Tete-a-tete" narcissi on it and yes, I did succumb and buy one £4.95 pot for my beloved, which on my return I potted up into one of our two nice glazed terrace pots and tidied and swept the terrace as well, before watching our 1st XV get rather stuffed by Barnes. Still nice afternoon, good company, good cold beer.......

Today was No 1 sons rugby training, followed by an hour of bar duty for me, then a shopping errand with my beloved.
Once free of all that I retrieved this sink from the allotment with assistance of son.

It contains Heather- Challenger, Heather - unamed from Wilko's X2, Heather - Ruby Slinger, Saxifrage- White Star, Arabis- Varigata and Campanula poscharskyana - "E H Frost".

Also brought back a huge "belfast" sink and started to sort it out, but have not finished it as I do not have enough plants to fill it, so it's not worth putting the grit layer on top yet. I'd saved some plants when emptying both sinks for transport the other year. This one is going at the front right (as viewed from outside) of the shed to help retain the platform the shed sits on.

Spoilt for choice?

2009-03-13T19:56:00.006Z

So much so that I went to town! Working in north London I don't get to see much of my home town, so I went and had a bit of a wander, stopped at Costa Packet for a coffee, then went via the rest of the town centre to Wilkinsons, where I bought loads of seeds, two heathers, one rhubarb, three asparagus in one packet (only £2). one honeysuckle, a large net of Sturon onion sets and a large net of Desiree seed potatoes.
Went home via Homebase collecting four for price of three 20L screened topsoil, three postcrete, one readymixed dry cement and a 20L ericaceous compost.
Picked up my allotment key and dumped the topsoil at the plot, back home, changed, collected hound and taking the asparagus, went to the plot. Met Gilert and checked if he had switched the water off last year, he hadn't but we found the stopcock and I got the tool from my site agent shed and turned the water back on, three troughs had been half empty already.
Dug up and bonfire heaped the spare raspberry canes from the raised bed, dug it over, planted the three asparagus in a shallow V pattern, then topped off with a 20L bag of topsoil, three bags left to refresh the coldframe.
Departed for the back garden with two 18" paving slabs and Alan who wanted to have a look at my greenhouse, he has just got two growbag growhouses as a present and is looking forward to tomatoes.
My beloved arrived home shortly after I did and helped to move the two person swingseat up onto the grass terrace, where I set to and create four pads to sit it on, double paving blocks at the back with a straining eye set down between each pair, into the underlying 6" of postcrete. Single 18" paving slab for each front corner set on 4" postcrete and cement mix. After it had firmed up a bit the swingseat was carefully put in place.

Tidied up, then set five stepping stone slabs across the lawn from the path to the shed door, levered out the third of the redundant swing anchor blocks, homemade concrete with the bolt-on bar set in it and tipped my spoil into the hole.

Finished my gardening day with some re-potting and sowing in the greenhouse.

Re-potted what I had bought and sowed:

Leek - Musselburgh
Kale - Dwarf Green Curled
Calabrese - Samson F1
Celeriac
Pea - round pod sugar-snap
Purple Sprouting
Broccoli - Red Arrow
Brussels Sprout - Wellington F1
Banana Shallots - home harvested seed from last year.
Pepper - hot Cayenne
Cucumber - Marketmore 76

the last two and some of the peas in the propagator, which is now switched on.Then found the hose connector was broken, so had to fix that before watering the trays and really finishing for the day.

Chugging along

2009-03-12T21:35:00.002Z

Was busily working away today, looked up and a bloke in a raincoat and trilby hat, clutching a clipboard to his chest was wandering up the main path.
"Can I help you?" quoth I
"Oh, er, yes" mumbles he, now heading a bit more purposefully in my direction.
Now at first glance I'd though "Councillor come to inspect plot cultivation levels", this quickly passed through "Cllr X has had a damm bad haircut and gone on a diet" to "ahh you're the bloke I've noticed two evenings this week going rather furtively door to door in my road".
As he drew close I read the upside down writing on the clipboard, "Well known charity name".
"Not interested in any charities" said I before the pitch could start and then endured five vague minutes about growing veg, how do you get an allotment and surprise that it was so empty in the middle of the weekday afternoon.
My refreshment order had arrived in the carrybag of my beloved halfway through this and as he wandered off my beloved said "he knocked on the door earlier trying to get me to sign up to something for Well known charity name.".
So an attempted chugging on the plot!

Anyway enough of charity muggers, I've taken Thursday & Friday off this week to garden.
Got up some three hours later than usual for a weekday at 9am, oh the unfettered luxury, coffee and croissants with the local paper, off to the plot at 10:30.
Moved a paving slab and all my remaining bits of granite by wheelbarrow to the back garden, moved another slab, the stone and belfast sinks across the path to plot 17, all these will combine with granite grit, ericaceous compost and some plants later this year to go on the terrace.
Dug up the council provided twenty dogrose and fifty hawthorn, then went a planting. Plonked quite a few in stretches of unrelieved chainlink and concentrated most of the rest along the east fence where the District Council had murdered the previous planting with strimmers, strung a few dogroses round the corner between fence and ditch. Retrieved the clear plastic spiral tubes and wrapped them round the plants in my new hedge, got some string and tied most of them to the chainlink for purposes of verticality (come over all USA military there) and security. All this took a fair while.
Finished by digging the finally empty last corner of Plot 18, which is now completely dug, barring the permanent herb patch of course. It began to rain with four rows of spadework left, happily it was only light drizle that petered out.
Damp dog and owner then took a brisk one hour walk to stretch themselves, but only one took a hot bath afterwards, now I wonder which one?

Plot 17 will be mostly rotovated this year and it is currently much too sticky for that, so Hacken-Slash slumbers on in the shed at home.

Tomorrow, I think I am spoilt for choice in the back garden, which has lots of mess from workshop building on top of residual builders mess and "lets move stuff so its out of the way of the builders" type mess.
Possibly greenhouse stuff, or at least setting slabs to make the path into it mud free, could sort out four pads to sit the two person swingseat on, two with security hoops to tie it down to, now thats an idea.

Dig that treasure.

2009-03-07T20:50:00.003Z

Amazing what you dig up sometimes.
Plot 18 has been dug by me several times and rotovated several times, but this came out today. Housebrick for size comparison purposes only, grass not included, warning this product may contain nuts if the squirrels have been around.....
The plot had a failed potato crop two years ago and was left fallow with additions of glyphosate for bindweed last year. What happened was that I did not dig since the spuds, so the ridges were still there and as I dug in one of the furrows the tip of the spade caught the bit top left in the picture.
I had to use a fence post and some bricks to lever this thing out, even after excavating over and around it.
"Never mind that stuff" said my furry supervisor, "just take me for a walk, NOW."
Today I dug from where she is sat to the bit nearest camera, where my undug row can be seen.
Just out of shot to the bottom left is my heeled in hedging from last year, the loose soil spread nearby is where the heeled in brambles were dug up from. The brambles have been distributed to strategic locations on the site fence, I love fruitful security.
Roughly where I stood to take the photo above, this thing had been resting since it was removed from my late mothers place before we sold the house.
Interesting history, it was once the parrafin store between the vinery and greenhouse-complex boilerhouse at an Edwardian gentlemans country estate
Makes a brilliant water tank, heavily galvanised, brass tap, just a shame the only inlet is front right.
So this is probably not its final resting place, best place is the other side of the two trap shed, but at least I can measure from this when I make a more robust base than breezeblock on bare soil. Possibly four short auger holes linked by a six inch deep plank edged trench and run some re-bar in three long U shapes between the holes to hold it all together once the concrete sets. Really do not want it to topple when full, anyone care to tell me the likely capacity in gallons? To aid estimators, at the front left corner the dark bit is two housebricks.

Down on the ground, up in the air.

2009-03-01T22:04:00.004Z

Down on the ground I actually managed some allotmenteering this weekend, Saturday to be precise.
Its OK, you can pick yourselves off the floor and have a reviving cup of hot sweet tea.

I might manage some more as the year progresses, oh dear, now you've spilt your tea, I'm sure it will wash out though.

Went and dug the poor old Hayterette out, a quick brass brush of the sparkplug, a top up of the petrol tank and "One man and his dog went to mow some allotment paths.". Something so satisfying about mowing, not needing to think, a steady pace, the noise of the machine, turn, another strip done....
The first mow of the year is doubly satisfying, the fact that the grass has started to grow enough to need mowing is a harbinger of spring and the contrast as you turn at the end of that first strip and look back at what is now a scrubby mess with a neat strip, where minutes before it was just "grass, a little unmown" is striking, you pace and turn, pace and turn, then suddenly it's all neat.

That job done, I chanced my luck with what the more pc amongst us gardeners refer to as "A single person manually operated horticultural earth inverting implement.", I call it a spade and this week the clods did NOT stick to it, so I dug a decent chunk, stopping before my back protested.

Up in the air, I digress from gardening, at length, to describe, well, a damm good reason to support air ambulances.

Son's first game for his county U15 side saw us up early for a Sunday and off to Eastleigh in Hampshire. Leaving with the assumption that the M25 would be a pig, it was not, so we were early arrivals and even after killing an hour at a local coffee shop the host club still had it's Sunday training running.

Son went off with team mates and I mooched through onto the clubhouse balcony to see a "stoppage" on the furthest pitch. About ten minutes later this yellow bird arrived, fortunately the lad went by land after loosing his new "rugby skin" to NHS scissors. Mums all looking worried, smaller kids all excited about the chopper.

Now guess what happened later.

Yes, the big yellow bird liked us so much it came back and took one of our team away to Salisbury, precautionary after a neck injury with some temporary loss of feeling.

While waiting for land crews to arrive we managed to build up to three "stoppages", a dislocated shoulder after ten minutes in game one, a damaged knee and the neck knock in game two, three little anxious clusters dotted round the ground. They then decided the chopper was needed, after arriving on the clear and open far side of the ground it eventually did a very short hop across to our lad by the clubhouse, who by then resembling an orange chrysalis was slid in the back and off he went to Salisbury A&E followed on road by Mum & Dad.

The games restarted after nearly an hour and completed without further "stoppage", but just to bring the tally up another of our team managed to come out of the last phase of play with a suspected broken collarbone. The highest injury rate I have yet seen in a single day.

A bucket appeared on the bar for air ambulance donations.

This service really is something that the NHS should provide as a basic, instead of relying on donations, but it doesn't so support your local Air Ambulance.

Walkies not diggies.

2009-02-20T22:50:00.003Z

Went to do some digging today, no chance.

Surface was fine, not sticky, but the clods would not come off the spade.

After struggling with two 12' rows I gave up and went for a four hour walk with the dog.

How can a dog still manage to mark everything that takes its fancy after nearly four hours without a drink?

Not given up.

2009-02-14T12:37:00.003Z

2009, nothing started yet, beyond winter digging and cutting last years dead growth from the herbs and raspberries, with one nice hot bonfire of all the waste plus a couple of bust fence panels from home.

The site is a real frost pocket and our garden shares the location a few hundred yards along the shallow valley's south side.
Our back terrace and garden still have over an inch of frozen snow on it, but looking out of the french doors at the greenhouse down the bottom it is gleaming in the bright sunshine.

I am compensating for the poor gardening weather by building myself a workshop shed replacing the childrens playshed, which at 15 & 12 they have totally outgrown.

Catch that summer sun.

2008-06-25T23:07:00.002Z

And those damm pesky summer mothy-midges that creep on and leave blood running down your arms and legs,

Plot 23 a gave up and I hacked down the 50% of its 5 rods that was covered with ; bramble, hawthorn, blackthorn, dogwood and stuff. Took three evening sessions from home till dusk.
Finally burnt the results on Monday night when there was buggerall wind.
Had let it by then, with the understanding a bonfire was pending, and the chap had been hard at work with the pickaxe on the bramble stumps and a couple of blackthorns, I did leave decent lengths of the trees for leverage.

Louise has given up after ten years, her formerly well tended plot had not been visibly touched this year and she is busy with other stuff. Sad to see her go, but hopeful one of the twelve on the waiting list will power through the weeds.

Two "laxish" plotholders started to get on with it , one with a prod and one without, and two haven't got on with it yet........

Me, well not a good year for crops, too much going on with the extension and lack of access to the garden due to it. I have four rows of spuds and have planted out ten squash, two cukes, some courgettes, a block of Pigletwilles banana shallots to seed, six (all that made it out of the seedtray!) sweetcorn and have sown leeks, pak-choi, kale and carrots in the coldframe, all up and sprouting.

The weedkiller has done a good job and I have spent the last three evenings digging on plot 18 from the herbs towards the site path and have managed about 4m x 10m.

Last weekend I netted my fruit bushes as the blackbirds were paying it too much attentions although it was only ripening.
Fruit picking has taken about an hour a day since Sunday when I first went plucking and got about 2lb of razzies and a carrier bag full to the brim of strawbs, plus a 1lb of redcurrants.
Today made a summer pudding with all three berries.
Everyone has so many strawbs they cannot give them to other plotholders.

Plot judging on the 2nd July, my plot is an embarrassment, but it will be a tidy embarrassment.

Spray and be dammed.

2008-05-07T23:08:00.003Z

Went to the DIY sheds to get a hose and a small tool, came away with replacement chemical proof gloves, riggers leather gloves, both keenly priced, a special offer hose on a portable reel which was cheaper than the same hose, 5m longer and a magnificent White Jasmine.

Used some Roundup 3000 on weed infested Plot 18, some naughty Dandelions on 18 and the redundant strawberry plot on the fruit terrace, which was heavily colonised by Dandelions and other stuff. Found myself wishing the bindweed was doing better so I could kill it.

Took the dog for a walk and then tried a really agressive policy on the sulphur candle with the small tool, BLOWTORCH time, this made everything glow nicely, but the blue flame then seemed to go out, due to lots of fumes from what had burnt a-la blowtorch I declined the dogs order to investigate and will look again tomorrow.

Potted the Jasmine into the last og Mondays glazed pots, was too dark to disentabgle it from its cane tripod and attach it to the trellis panel edging the terrace, so will do that tomorrow with a large G-n-T.

Invade the strawbs!

2008-05-06T23:04:00.001Z

Not a command, a complaint.

Weeded the front, path end, of plot 17, which is a 3'x4' fcut flower bed, a cold frame and inbetween strawberries, guess what the damm couch was doing?

Yup, two foot straight in from the path before sprouting.

Left that nice and tidy, and took the supervisor for a walk, throwing her ball en route.

Tried a more agressive policy with the Sulphur candle, half a box of matches instead of the useless paper wick. They burnt down to the sulphur and went out. GRRRRR.

Non-moving Traffic

2008-05-05T23:00:00.000Z

Spent over an hour going from the Saxon Inn roundabout in Harlow to the other side of the M11 junction, no visible cause for the congestion, came away with some rather expensive cast aluminium garden furniture, four chairs, one table and a parasol. Also three glazed pots and a couple of decorative plants for the terrace.

Had intended to do alot more, but coming home via Ongar to avoid the congestion caused more delays, but the queue in the opposite direction went a mile or so towards Ongar itself, so avoided a mobile domestic!

Potted up the plants and tried to fumigate the greenhouse with a seemingly non-flammable Sulphur Candle.

Spuddie

2008-05-04T22:48:00.001Z

Tremendous fun on Sunday.

Spent Saturday helping at the rugby club for a TourAID tournament with teams from Botswana, India and West of Scotland.

Sunday, after an abortive two hours trying to start Slice-n-Dice I put him back in the shed and took Hacken-Slash for a spin. Mowed all of the main path with a Hayter Harrier, which means I collected the trimmings, so that took a while as it was only the second cut of the year.

Then went to work with Hacken-Slash, planting potatoes, managed four rows, still have to do my maincrop. Driving a computer does not prepare the arms for drawing out and earthing up.

Planted out my stored PigletWillie Banana Shallots to either divide up or go to seed, whichever.

Cut a good feed of Purple Sprouting Broccolli, which went down a treat with roast pork and roast potatoes with gravy.

The builders doing the terrace, different lot from those who did the extension, had finished the heavy stuff, so I was finally this weekend able to get into the greenhouse, possessing as I now do a terrace, with steps down to the lawn and no longer hosting a portaloo in front of the greenhouse door.

April Redneck

2008-04-27T21:21:00.002Z

Spent nine to five at the allotment yesterday and ghave a red neck to prove it.
So what did I do, well no actual personal allotment gardening.
As three plotholders had given up I showed four prospective tenants vacant plots, splitting one into two, all are signing up this week, including one fit and active youngster of eighty three.
Mowed the main path and some side paths.
Admired the cowslips I planted last year flowering away in the car park / eco-meadow.
Cleared the Site Agent (my) Shed of all the crap the previous site agent had accumulated, he being one of the people who had given up this year. It is amazing just how many supermarket plastic bags were in there, I mean when did Sainsburys stop doing beige bags? This clearance took the best part of four hours and I now have a good concrete shed with some roof repairs needed, but I picked up appropriate stuff off freecycle on Friday.
Shared out everything of any use between the eight or so plotholders on site at the time as a present from my predecessor.

The power!

2008-02-25T00:19:00.003Z

Of a rotovator should not be underestimated.
Got Hackenslash out today, most of his vital fluids had leaked out, so I refilled his chain case and topped up his engine with good oil and we set out to rotovate.
Did most of plot 17 and by rpior arrangement did a rod of Gaynor's plot for her.
My soil was rotovatable and Gaynor's was superbly so, on there Hackenslash almost swam, rotors out of sight except at the top of their rotation, just went six to eight inches down on 17.

The supervisor gave her grudging approval.

Two shots of the fruit terrace, showing how cold it is on the site, it sits in shade, in a frost pocket with an open east/west tunnel park which funnels the prevailing wind through.
I walked through Green Park in central London on Wednesday and their daffodils were in full bloom, not eight to ten inch high sprouts like mine.

Went home just as it started to rain.......

Got there.

2008-02-03T20:58:00.000Z

After the rhino played for the "B"s today at London Welsh, with a similar result to the national teams, he got two tries though, little high speed battering ram, anyway, I went up the allotment.

Damm cold, so I finished one side of the fruit terrace and left it at that before I got too cold.

Creme brulee.

2008-01-06T20:28:00.000Z

Yesterday I hit the sales.
Bought a bag of 25mm fencing staples and four chesnut fence posts from my local fencing supplier.
Four bags of seed potatoes, a canister of Bordeaux powder for dilution and a 75% off nice candle for her indoors from Van Hagues.
Some packets of onion seeds and a Sulphur Candle for the greenhouse from Harlow Garden Centre.

Then I went and fitted the four posts to my fruit terrace for the original raspberry row and for a new as yet unplanted row. Used some of the staples to fit a second higher wire to the existing posts and a pair of wires to the new posts.

Rhino is still barred from contact sports following his broken arm on 3rd November, cast now off, but today I went, sans Rhino, to watch the B team play Welwyn at home, they lost 22 - 5.

Back at home I weeded, de-suckered and dug over another inter-raspberry-row area, so I have now done 5/8ths of my fruit terrace.

Why creme brulee, well that was the ground conditions today, a thin crisp frost over the sticky mud, which is what defeated me today by sticking to the spade like limpets.

Two years in forty-eight hours.

2008-01-01T20:32:00.001Z

Went to the allotment again today!

It's ok blog readers, pick yourselves up and have a cup of tea.

Cut out last years canes on the three remaining rows of last years raspberry planting, just leaves the original row from three years ago which is a bit strawberry infested with some weeds also.

Removed the suckers between the rows, that is two gaps, then use some to fill in blanks in the rows, heeled the rest in in my raised bed, good friable soil in there.

Dug the gaps over,found some bindweed roots in four places so will need to have a glyphosate hand spray available next year, unwind bindweed, lay bindweed on ground, spray bindweed.

Dog preferred sitting on the damp grass the other side of Karl's allotment to watch the playground, over sitting on the cunningly constructed insulated doggy perch with less of a viewty 100L plastic bag, doubled over brillopadtype carpet underlay.

Now what will be the best way to dispose of the now unwanted strawberry bed? I have one established down in the sunlight and want to remove the one on the fruit terrace to acommodate another row of raspberries. Problem is the terrace is very heavy clay, I had to scrape the spade clean every three spits or so as otherwise the fourth spit stayed stuck to the spade. Can't beat an old handleless cheapo pressed sheet steel hoe for this job.

Out with the old

2007-12-31T20:50:00.000Z

Well with the old dead bits on the herb patch, which today had its annual trim and as per usual has left a reminder in one of my fingers. shouldn't complain, it reminded me to blog.

Also worked on the fruit terrace, cutting out the dead on a raspberry row, dug out the suckers on one side and inserted them back in the row where bits had died. Then dug another eighth of the fruit terrace, one quarter done.

Green housing.

2007-11-18T21:55:00.000Z

Today I tidied up the greenhouse and the outside gow bag house.
The frost had finally killed off the peppers and tomatoes.
So I used the secatuers and snipped them into a pop-up canvas tidy bag, then I took out the canes and put them on the supports in the roof to dry out. Put all three grow bags outside to get really cold so I can add them to non-potato non-tomato growing areas next year as soil conditioner. Weeded the in-ground beds in the greenhouse and emptied and redundant pots in with the weeds to the tidy bag. Ended up with a nice full bag which was emptied into the old coal bunker I use as a compost bin.

Now all that is needed is a nice frost and builder free area to move my onions to, so that I can light a nice sulphur candle or two in the greenhouse.

Faint remembered thing!

2007-11-11T21:32:00.000Z

Today I remembered that I have an allotment, had some difficulty recognising it, finally realised that the brown oblong thing with green and brown things sticking out of it was mine!

Also remembered that my blog is about gardening, of which I have done odd bits since July, my how time flies. so what have I done since then:

got a day where I was able to glyphosate spray plot 18's weeds, which have (mostly) died off.
the tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse have done well and are now due for final harvest and removal before we get a real hard frost as the greenhouse is unheated.
had a pathetic squash harvest of three usable fruits, none much larger than eight inch diameter.
harvested my "Pigletwillies" with quite a variety of shapes and sizes, they are in storage for re-planting next year for a harvest and hopefully some seeds.
harvested a poor to reasonable onion crop.
watched the Kale and PSB grow nicely. Picked the first of the kale today and had it with roast beef and all the trimmings.
decided that the weather this year has really stuffed up things that normally do ok, such as carrots which were useless, sweetcorn ditto, french beans ditto, squash especially ditto.
as a committee member of the allotment association I have obtained thirteen notice boards to errect at our sites. So far I have put up two experimental ones at my site, trialing metal versus wooden posts, wood gives a sturdier result and put up two at John;s site on the other side of town.

Alot of my time has been taken up with preparation for a house extension, which is now in full swing with the ground floor walls up and steel girders laid in on Friday for the first floor walls to go up. Amazing how much stuff you find you own when you need to clear terrace, garage, shed, rooms etc for builder access.

I was anticipating only being able to squeeze odd hours in at the plot over winter and having to pick up the mess in spring with mechanical resources, but the rhino broke his arm (ulna fracture) last saturday in a school rugby match and is off rugger for six weeks at least, so that could mean sunday gardening. Mind the silly boy said consistently that it did not hurt much and subsequently played three practice sessions and another school match before ending up at A&E due to a Westie biting him hard in the leg on the way to the match, which he played with a bandage round his leg. So in A&E he asked about his arm which had started to hurt alot more during the match and an x-ray showed a lovely break.

Rhino and I went and watched his teammates play a really hard match, which they lost, against Harrow. On the way home we got a new bathroom light switch, annoying when the cord snaps off inside the switch, which I fitted when we got home. Then I went to the plot and:

took down the firework display ads from my notice boards.
pruned my two espaliers.
pruned my currents and gooseberries.
dug one eighth of my fruit terrace over roughly with a spade to prepare for a good dung mulch.
admired the growth on the raspberries and some useful looking out of row suckers.
weeded and hoed my coldframe.
weeded and hoed my raised bed.
took down and stored my bean poles.
cleared weeds from around my hopeful looking brussells.
dug up a half row of spuds.
harvested a nice wadge of curly green kale.

Hope to do more next weekend.

At last, an update.

2007-07-08T21:21:00.000Z

My surgery incisions have finally, after a post operative infection in two of them, healed sufficiently for me to take an active interest in gardening things again.

Last Monday I did manage to do all the strimming and mowing, just in time for the annual site and plot judging. Though how well they could judge in the rain remains to be seen.

Inbetween whiles I have picked raspberries and strawberries and noted the phenomanal growth the weeds are achieving this year. My sweetcorn is almost submerged in weeds and has grown poorly, my carpet mulch is working well, as usual, around my squash, which have hardly grown at all since being planted out. The chickweed and others between the potato rows have grown to the same height as the haulms. The climbing french beans emerge from the weed growth like broadcast masts from thick fog to shuffle their way to the pole tops.

Finally felt up to some proper gardening today, weeded my cut flower patch, a shamefully small single square yard and all 90 odd of my "Pigletwillies" (Banana shallots grown from seed supplied by the inestimably helpful Pigletwille on GYO forum). Some of the Pigletwillies have vanished, one looks to have been dug out by a fox in search of something, some are huge, none seem to have gone multi-bulb yet. Garnered about a daleks worth of weeds which I left to dry in the sun, however it has rained again this evening, so heigh-ho. Looking on the bright side, at least I have not had to water stuff much this year.

Moved the square of carpet I had chucked down onto an unplanted corner along to cover the next bit, revealing some convulsed white snakes of bindweed which I will allow to "green-up" before treating them to a little feed of glyphosate based weed killer. Also need to get some more spare carpet out to contain the other weeds as I do not think I will be able to dispose of them quickly enough to prevent them seeding.

When I did the strimming I topped off plot 18 ready for some glyphosate, but have not yet had a day that combined lack of rain with sufficient lack of wind.

Despite good pickings I have had more strawberries rot on the plant this year than I have picked, but on the plus side the raspberries have been superb, combining heavy fruiting with good cane growth ready for next year.

I have shamefully to admit to buying in some kale and cabbage plants from a garden centre to try and at least have some winter stuff from the plot. Not sure if I have left it too late to sow some leeks, but that is the next thing to try in this direction.

In the greenhouse today I tied in and de-shooted my tomatoes, reapplied slug control as two peppers were suffering, planted out some more peppers and watered at deluge levels as the borders were wuite dry. Also repotted the scented jasmine which was looking tired outside the front door , until the dog knocked it over yesterday and broke the pot!

Owwwww!

2007-06-12T19:54:00.000Z

Post keyhole surgery last Thursday I am just about able to supervise a single offspring picking strawberries. My wounds are bloomimg though, purple and yellow.

Steaming.

2007-06-03T23:00:00.000Z

A really busy weekend.
Friday evening I planted out the rest of my Pigletwillie banana shallots seedlings, should have done them sooner as the earlier planting has romped away compared to the pampered potted ones.
Saturday I did what should be the final two hour session of lawn mowing at my late mothers place, should exchange contracts on it by Tuesday, leaving just the inheritance tax bit to do. It was really hot and sunny. Liberated the last cowslips I'll have from where they had seeded themselves in the front lawn from the haymeadow section.
Went back home and after planting out hald the cowslips I took a couple of hours break from the sun, before I got stuck in at the allotment later on in the early evening, when I strimmed the car park / wild flower meadow. Ideal time of year for this as the hay making allows the hay meadow flowers to drop their seeds and discourages the rank weeds like nettles. From July onwards it will be regularly mowed. Then went and topped the weeds on plot 18 and edged both 17 & 18. Finished the evening with the first strawberry picking of the year with my daughter, sad to say none went home.

Sunday got on the plot around ten am and finished at four thirty to go and swap my offspring at father in laws boat, traded lovely daughter for the rhino, as she has an inset day Monday and he does not, nice way for her to spend it, sailing with Grandad.
On the plot I:

planted out most of my squash after arranging my carpet mulch.
hoed and weeded my :

flower patch.
onion bed.
banana shallot bed
sweetcorn.
french beans.
fruit terrace.
strawberry bed.
empty ground.

planted out most of my sweet peas after building a "tent" for them to climb over.
mowed the main path and my side paths.

Reading the above it does not sound like much, but it took a long time, I have a blister on my right hand from the end of the hoe handle and all the exposed bits of me are showing signs of sunshine.

So I left a largely weed free plot 17 and gained a largely empty greenhouse bench, it is too hot in there for pots now, the squash got scorched and had to be dunked to survive. I think that when I get electricity fitted to my greenhouse I will, as well as getting a larger heated propagator, get an automatic watering system. Shorter term I can feel an order to NH Kays coming on for two more vent openers.

During the week I hope to plant some more seeds, now the soil has some moisture I may be more successful than my miserable showings of earlier in the year.

Might not be much gardening action after Thursday for a few weeks as I am having my gall bladder out on Thursday afternoon.

Bit of break lately.

2007-05-28T17:33:00.000Z

Since April I have been rather busy with clearing my late mother's house prior to contract exchange. Much ebaying, freecycling and bonfiring. Thursday, Friday and Saturday were a major blitz which completed the process with a skip and a hired van.

Yesterday I had a relaxed day of not really doing anything.

On the gardening front, between my last blog and todays I have planted out my sweetcorn, climbing frencg beans and some of my Pigletwillie banana shallot seedlings.

Today I are mostly been gardening in my greenhouse.
Which, fortunately for me has only one slight drip point and is very windproof.
I have:

dismantled the inner sanctuary, removed the growbag house to the path and disconnected the temporary leccie supply.
planted four bought in tomato plants in the side bed.
planted three peppers, hot, across the side of the end bed.
planted three more peppers, hot, in a growbag in the greenhouse.
planted three more peppers, hot, in a growbag in the growbag house.
potted up all my Crown Prince seedlings from tray to 3" pots.
potted on all my Butternut from 3" to 4" pots.
potted up my Sweetpea seedlings.
un-potted and discarding any duds sorted my spring bulbs.
planted ten French Marigolds amoungst the tomatoes and peppers.
potted up my sweet pepper seedlings, discarding all the smallest ones.
planted three sweet pepper seedlings straight into a growbag in the greenhouse.
potted on my daughters pet geranium, bought a few weeks ago.
potted on my "Queen of the night" succulent cactus.
sorted out the hose and soaked all the greenhouse beds, as well as watering all my potting / plantings.
filled all my watering cans and placed them in the greenhouse to get warm.

2007-04-19T19:50:00.000Z

Starting work on the onion bed, hoeing out the potato harvesting ridges, nicely weathered by the frost.

Here it is planted out and with the transplanted garlic, just after being watered.

Also a long shot showing the four potato rows and the nicely cultivated area between them and the onions.

The Herb Patch, Dalek sanctuary and shed after the squash plot carpet had been gathered up.

The Fruit Terrace , nicely weeded.

My skip winnings.

How to insert a fence post.
First you twists the auger in the ground eight twists,

then you pull's it out.

Garlic Post

2007-04-10T23:00:00.000Z

Yet again I forgot the camera.
But, anyway, aren't the longer evenings useful?
Re-planted the garlic I had left soaking in water a couple of days ago, used the leek technique with a trowel rather than a dibber and watered in well.
Hoed with a Wolf three-claw hoe amongst the black and red currents, hmm, some difficulty here, the soil has packed down and smoothed off over the winter and the hoe barely scratched the surface of the clay. I think a session with a spade and a lot of manure may be needed.
Finished the evenings outdoor post work activity by planting another fencepost, hit a root two foot down and had to sledge it in a bit, again.
Hopefully I'll be away from these larger trees by the next fencepost, mostly dead or dying field maples.

Community Service and Potatoes

2007-04-09T23:08:00.000Z

Went up the allotment and cut up the half a tree I cut down yesterday, met a prospective tenant and let 2a to her. Noticed a Jack Russell wandering far away from any people.
Kathy and co were having problems with the clods on their three rod plot, she had asked a couple of days ago if I would rotovate it for her, I think she thought I wasn't serious with the offer, anyway I went home, came back with the Merry Tiller rotovated the plot with that and was half mugged as I went to leave, said "I haven't finished yet" and left some puzzled looking people. Jack Russell on his twentieth circuit of the park.
Who looked a bit less puzzled when I re-appeared with the Howard 350 and comprehensively minced the plot. Got given £5 for petrol and a bottle of sloe gin and a promise of help with stringing the wire on the new fence. Jack Russell still there.
Too the Howard up to my plot and fitted it with the ridger, then took my ill gotten gains back home and got my four trays of chitted potatoes and some dog biscuits.
At the allotment gate four teenagers were worried about the Jack Russell and a chap with a small dog on a lead asked me if he was my dog. So I went dog catching with the help of this chap, Mr JR was not susceptible to dog biscuits, but was susceptible to other dogs bum's and while having a good sniff, the other dog's owner got him by the collar.
Then I picked him up, one frightened nice little doggie tried half heartedly to chew my hand, then gave up when he realised the size difference and that I meant him no harm.
No tag on the collar, no sign of owner, so we went home, to be greeted with disgust by my dog, delight by my daughter and "What have you got that for?" by my wife. Who then hit the phone while I offered our little guest a drink. Great things Bank Holidays, no council dog warden available, no police interest at the county control room and the only person at our cop-shop was out getting a sarnie! Cut out the middle man and tried the Vets, who advised our local animal rescue charity, who were most helpful and took the little chap in.
After this hour or so interlude, had to retrieve stuff from empty allotment site before driving Mr JR, I resumed gardening, drew four nice furrows with the Howard and was making for the chitted spuds when my mobile went off, the wife.
Our mystery guest had been unmasked as "Gus" from about half a mile, several roads and alot of twists and turns away. The charity had spoken to the police who had already been contacted by Gus's distraught owner after his escape from their property. They were now re-united.
Satisfied with that outcome I planted two 30' rows of Charlotte and two 30' rows of Nicola, then earthed them up, removed the ridger and rotovated between the drawn up ridges, then re-rotovated the other days area, still won't break down to tilth as set hard by the sun.
Back home, mowed the lawns, ran out of petrol after one full bucket and had to go and buy some, "Doh!", re-packed everything back in the shed, had tea and finished the day off with a nice roaring hot after dark wood and perennial herb detritus bonfire.

Civil Engineering

2007-04-08T20:09:00.000Z

Noticed earlier in the weekend that my neighbour across the road was ripping out his wooden deck from his back garden, preparatory to some building works, so I had asked if I could do a bit of skip diving. Went over today with my little trolley and collected three good loads of timber, proper deck planks, structural bits from underneath, some concrete edging and a two person iron and timber garden seat. Lugged the whole lot up to the allotment, where a severe screw removal session will have to occur before I can use my booty.
After that I decided to continue with the northen fence. Managed to insert four fence posts during the afternoon. Doesn't sound like much and indeed the first two did not take long. However number three I hit a big root two foot down and could not use my auger any deeper. So I ended up banging the post down using the sledge hammer, I had no option as I could not go to either side due to obstructions.
Number four was even worse, hit a root one foot down, so moved the auger away a bit, then hit another root at just under two foot, so went to sledge it and hit a third root after another six inches. Number four is a bit high and will have to have some straining wire holes drilled in it. Grrrr.
Finished off by weeding and harvesting asparagus on the only vacant plot on the site, must contact next off my list to try and let it tomorrow.

Heavy Plant

2007-04-06T19:40:00.000Z

Plot seventeen has now had the heavy plant treatment. The middle five rod section, comprising two and a half rod covered in carpet, where last years Squash plot was, a narrow grass path and the everything else section from last year, was given a thorough going over.
Carpet and woven black plastic, gathered up and stacked up above the herb area on top of a couple of pallets. This is the utility area and Dalek Sanctuary and that work took a good couple of hours.
The remaining Bright Lights Swiss chard cut off at ground level by spade and the tops popped on an unused bit of plot eighteen to wilt. I rescued some nicely sprouting Garlic, last years planting, which had not grown due to being overshadowed by the Blackcurrent bushes and popped them in a tub of water prior to re-planting. Said Blackcurrent bushes are now no more, well they are, but elsewhere, nice when someone does the heavy uprooting for you and they get the bushes they wanted. also some Onion Sets from last years sowing had sprouted, must have been the hot dry weather last year, then this spring the dormant bulbs had enough water to burst out.
Then fetched Hacken-Slash and his friend Slicen-Dice out of the shed for their first outing of the year.
Hacken-Slash is a Merry Tiller and quite good company, though inclined to wobble a bit. Anyway he slowly hacked and slashed his way through the five rods leaving a lumpy tilth behind.
Then Slicen-Dice took over and thoroughly minced the clods. Slicen-Dice is a Howard 350 and is a very noisy chap who works very hard, very fast.
A quite noticable difference in the tilth on the dug area, the top half that was exposed is fine and seed beddy, while the bit that was covered in carpet is much lumpier as it was so much damper.
So now ready to re-do in a few days, once the lumps have dried a little bit, if I use the ridger then the spuds can go straight in.
After that lot I was knackered and my back was protesting gently, so I wne thome and had a hot bath.

Warm sunshine, strong wind.

2007-03-31T19:41:00.001Z

Strange but lovely day, wonderful warm sunshine with a cold strong easterly wind.
Two T-shirts and a fleece tied round the waist needed to keep my back happy.

The dog forced me to construct her a sheltered sunny spot using garden trolley plus coat, then she settled down to supervise my work.

I hoed out three 18' harvesting ridges from last years spuds. Leaving the soil in ridges over the winter really lets the weather work on it, this nicely weathered soil went straight to seedbed tilth. After raking in a light dusting of pelleted chicken manure I planted 120 Sturon onion sets and one 18' row of Early Nantes pelleted carrot seed, 300 seeds. Gave the carrot row one 11L rainstorm.

Then I set to work weeding my fruit terrace,. I started at the western end amoungst the "new" currant bushes where grass tufts and seed drift from my herb patch were the main offenders. As I moved east into and through the raspberries the weeds shifted to being strawberry runners, 90% strawberry runners. I have no need for more strawberries and thus nearly filled a 300L compost bin with strawberry runners plus other weeds. Towards the end of this stint I was working in the shade and my tiny hand wos frozen.

To finish my afternoons gardening I did the noisy stuff, strimmed and mowed the site drive and my plot side paths. Using the strimmer with my back to the wind was funny as I kept getting nice gusts of warmth across my arms from the exhaust.

As always my gardening is paced and I make full allowance for my bad back, half an hour of squatting to weed leads to quarter of an hour back stretching break lying straight and stretched out in the sunshine with my furry supervisor standing watch, or using me as a centrally heated windbreak.

Intentions versus reality.

2007-03-29T20:21:00.000Z

I had intended to plant my onion sets on plot seventeen, but my back insisted it did not want to get exposed to cold drizzle and biting wind.

So I went and bought ten bags of postcrete for continusing witht the northern fence replacement, as I had run out of it, so was unable to pop a post in when I had the time.

On returning home I retreated to the unheated, but sheltered greenhouse and pricked out my "Piglet Willies" aka banana shallots supplied by Pigletwillie from GYO.
From one hurried sowing in a single tray on 23rd Jan, I now have ninety-seven pots, ninety three with single seedlings and four each having an additional little sprout.

The rest of the contents of the inner sanctum (growbag house with single-tray heated propagator in) to the main bench also got reorganised.

Moved the Climbing French Bean seedlings straight onto the main bench.

Pricked out the nine best seedling Cayenne Chilli Peppers, discarded the rest and a whole mini-tray that had dried out , sowed another tray of sweet peppers. The whole lot staying in the sanctum. Pricked out the eight nice little Butternut Squash seedlings and replaced them in the sanctum. Turned the fifty nicely growing sweetcorn seedlings round, as they had a slight lean.

Watered everything, then did some site agent stuff to agree with Michelle how much of the available five rods she wanted.

The finer weather means I need to be more disciplined about watering my seedlings, the max-min thermometer shows that the inner sanctum is regularly exceeding 40 degrees and as a result I lost a tray of pepper seedlings that just plain dried out.

At last a nice day when I can garden.

2007-03-12T21:44:00.000Z

Sunday 11th.
Rhino bruised his elbow at school during the week, suspected break, but just bruising, anyway, he only lasted at rugby training up to the first tackle he made on someone in the practice game.

So I got an extra hour at the allotment.
However had to be careful as I carried a bit of kit at work from one building to another, it was well within my lifting limits, however my back objected and ten minutes after sitting down at my desk it started to "squirm".

Dug off the neolithic barrow from last post I set up on the fence to the position for the next one, dug the hole and set it using the very last bag of postcrete. Need to get some more, plus reciept.
Attempted to tidy the sunniest strawberry bed, oh dear oh dear.
Note to self, this year I must cut back the plants hard once they finish fruiting to prevent runners. The furthest I found was six feet outside the bed. I ended up weeding out a good hundred plants along the edges, then raked the dead stuff and oak leaves off the rest of the bed, dug out some weeds and left the higgledy-piggledy plants as they were.
Took a rest with my supervisor, the dog, nearly went to sleep lying on my plastic bag and old scourer underlay bed in the sun, noisy kids made me look up and there was my furry little guard keeping watch. About five other people there all the time, though different ones at any given time.
Removed the last of the carrots from the raised bed, why is it commercial carrots have so little flavour? It can't be like commercial tomatoes, where hendling qualities outweigh flavour and texture, carrots are hard and resilient veggies.
Weeded about half the plot used by last years early potatoes, then decided discretion was the better part of valour and went home to a beer, a hot bath and a roast pork dinner.

Monday 12th
Great days these as the daylight zone starts to extend into the evening.
Got home early enough to go up the allotment and spray the resurgent couch grass on plot 18.
About four other people up there enjoying the warm sunlight.

I've started, hopefully I'll finish.

2007-03-03T19:12:00.000Z

On Monday February 5th my mother passed away, the old peoples friend pneumonia took her quickly, after a long illness. I have therefore been a little busy with non-gardening matters. To compound things when I have had time the weather has removed my inclination as the plot has been way too soggy.

However, last friday 23rd feb, I had some spare time after dealing with some legal paperwork, so I ran an extension lead, off an RCD, down to the greenhouse and initiated plan "Frost-free".
Inside the greenhouse is a complete plastic covered "growbag" greenhouse, inside that is a single tray electric propagator.
I sowed last years seed : butternut squash, peppers, tomatoes, climbing french bean and sweetcorn and this years seed; some banana shallot seed from the most excellent Pigletwillie, a good KG and GYO forum friend.
Today I took these pictures.
The growbag house in the greenhouse.

The butternut seedlings, cover removed for photographic purposes, the peppers and tomatoes not yet showing clearly, but on the way.

This slightly fuzzy phot is of Pigletwillies banana shallots.

Just outside the greenhouse door I have this lovely display of lenten roses.

Inside on the bench various flowering bulbs, which were repotted last friday 23rd Feb.
Just visible in the foreground are my lettuce seedlings

Sunny Day

2007-02-03T22:26:00.000Z

Due to the weather I have had to mow and strim the main path of the allotment site today. The grass was over six inches in places.
The dug about thirty square yards of plot 18. Damm bindweed is still in there.

Hope this nice weather holds and I'll do some more Sunday.

It certainly brought out the plot holders, had six up there most of the afternoon.

Dig that!

2007-01-28T21:49:00.000Z

Great day today, son's rugby went well.

Showed Simon the bit of plot 1 that will become vacant soon, he wants it, so I need to drop a note through Peter's door so they can get in touch and arrange takeover.

Started digging on plot 18 and got through about 20 sq yd.
Had to clean the spade every five uses, I have a "cheapie" dutch hoe head (handle went years ago) and that is perfect for spade cleaning as it is thin pressed sheetmetal.

Gaynor & OH appeared while I was digging, so was able to explain the soil heaps and show where I am heading with the fence, they said they would clear the odds & sods blocking the next section when they are next down on site.

Moved on to cut down all the dead stuff on my herb patch, while I was doing that "D" appeared, I had offered him my blackcurrant bushes as I want to get rid of them. I have a row across the plot which are in the way of rotovating etc, so I want them out. Anyway "D" dug up three and barrowed them off ot his plot, he may come back for the rest. Now that is a result, someone else does the hard work for a change! Cleared all the dead stuff and piled it up.

It has dried out alot since I last posted, I no longer have seepage running across my plots, but it is still pure grease just by my shed door.

Yesterday I made major progress on getting all the bits needed to be able to use my Howard rotovator as a plough, now I just need the one bit I'll probably never find.
The wheel axle extension that allows the wheels to straddle the plugh cut and earth roll.

Free plot - taken plot.

2007-01-21T23:04:00.000Z

Had a phone call from the landlord during the week.
Diane was giving up plot 12a as they had never managed to get to grips with it and they had a prospective tenant already off the waiting list.
Phoned him yesterday, he pottered down in sensible hobby-nobby boots within half an hour of being rung, showed him round and he took it.
100% occupancy again.

Earth moving posting.

2007-01-19T22:23:00.000Z

After Thursday's transportation debacle it was my good fortune to have previously booked Friday off, so I have had a nice day.

It took five minutes to walk home from the allotment site.

Dog and I took darling daughter to school, then dog and I walked to the bakers where I got some fresh ginger danish, macaroons and a freshly baked loaf, while the dog had a dump en-route. We went home where I had a cup of tea and a ginger danish, while the dog drooled a bit and then had a lump off the end of my danish. Then we both went gardening.

The soil on my plots is as axle grease, this is due to their location. Not to put too fine a point on it my two plots are a disgrace, as each has a stream running through it, To the south a primary school lies at the top of the hill, then its playing field slopes down to a wooded bank, where a public footpath lies between the school fence and allotment site fence. Inside the site fence a bank drop roughly two to three foot to the top of my plots.All the rain, runoff and soak-in comes down the slope and into my plots. On plot eighteen it is oozing out of the bank and down through the herbs into the cultivated area. On plot seventeen it oozes out behind the shed, runs under and leaves it standing in a pool. The shed is up on bricks so is ok, but the water then trickles through the fruit terrace and on ito the cultivated area.

So not really up to doing much beyond a quick inspection, plants transplanted from mothers garden are OK, bluebells up, primroses flowering. Bought in daffodils are up, leaves are anyway.

So continued my fencing, over on the other side of the site, plot 1, which is next to the old main gate. Where as it is under the hedge next to the ditch, it was quite dry, - for a given value of dry at least.

To be able to remove the old fence, (not yet, but ready to) and to insert my day's target of three new posts, I had to clear 30' x 2' x 10" of lovely crumbly moistly dry soil, this was the result of the previous plot tenants weed and rubbish disposal policy, "pile it against the fence". I guestimate I moved somewhere between two and three tons, in half barrow loads nicely balanced for my back.

The weather was a complete contrast to the stormy winds of Thursday, bright sunshine, light breeze, in fact so warm I was able to work in boots, trousers and T-shirt.

Once the target was reached I packed up and as the dog had behaved so well we went for a walk . I lay out an large old plastic compost sack and a piece of "pan scourer" carpet underlay doubled over on top of that, dog sits or lies on it depending on what is going on around us. Today she resisted the lure of looking for squirrels and did not come and stick her nose in the way of the spade.

To tell how wet it is generally round here, the noise of her running in the public green spaces we walk in was akin to someone playing the bongos with an inch of thickset custard on them. Much to her disgust she got bathed when we got home.

Finished the day by doing the weekly shop, then went to an allotment society committee meeting, but that is a whole different story.

Stuck in trains, rather than gardening, a rant.

2007-01-18T21:55:00.000Z

Thursday was "interesting" as in I wish it had not been so.
Started around late morning when the cafe facia opposite work exploded out of its frame, leaving the flourescent tubes undamaged, the plastic sheet shattered as it went across the pavement and some of the largest bits whacked into the rear quarter of a passing doubledecker bus. How the passing pedestrians and bu passengers avoided injury amazes me. The plastic whilst translucent was quite thick and sturdy, must have been fairly rigid as it snapped rather than bent.
We were all advised around four to leave work early if we used trains, sadly that advice came too late for me. Went at five, via the usual two tube lines to Tottenham to find the One station shut with no relief buses and no prospect of trains running again that day. Bit hard to fix overhead power cables while the wind that brought them down is still blowing. So I took a cooks tour of the underground, extended by Liverpool Street being shut due to a fire alert, to Monument where I walked to Bank and then took two Central Line trains to Debden and finally to Epping. At Epping eventually got a one-man-operated singledecker bus, poor chap took nigh on twenty minutes to process some of the queue into a stuffed to the gills bus and off our bus groaned to Harlow, where a deserted and windy bus station awaited us. After a longer wait a bus heading for the general vicinity of Stortford. Got dropped off half a mile from home, on my normal route to walk down to the station, so walked home.

What takes somewhere between an hour on a good day and an hour and a half normally, took four hours.

A dry day at last.

2007-01-14T19:54:00.000Z

Rhino had a rugby match this morning, a hard fought and honourable 5 - 5 draw against Harpenden.
Light wind, compared to yesterday, no rain, even reasonable light 1/10th cloud with nice sunlight.
When I came home decided to set out for the allotment site to fence, as my plots are both still too greasy to permit any useful work.

Just took the tools in the trolley to start with as I was unsure how greasy the ground might be. Decided the best thing to do would be the next braced, or straining, post. This turned out to be the worst post of the whole fence, could not do it inside the old fence as Cath & Colin have a raised mound in front of the old fence, so had to work outside the old fence, which was tricky as I had no flat ground to start with. What I had to work with was a six to seven foot deep ditch, with a foot wide ledge just outside the fence, which until I got to work with the spade was a slope down into the side of the ditch. Not as bad as it sounds because there were some field maple and blackthorn up to 2" diameter to give me some footholds.

Once I'd made a platform to work on progress was rapid, barring the ditch negotiation each time I needed to fetch stuff or get back to work. I had the upright's hole done within half an hour, went and got the upright on my shoulder and it slotted in just right. The brace holes preparation was done within another half hour, then back home with the empty trolley to get the braces and three bags of ready-mix concrete. As per usual the brace holes needed more taking out to fit and as per usual the old posts reinforcing concrete intruded, meaning I should really have been a foot further to the left, but it was managable.

Once all that lot was bolted together and concreted in I still has enough daylight left to finish off the fifteen foot length. Planted two dog-roses in the gap between the new fence and the deliberately left length of old fence, then sewed both fences together at each end of the old length. All the gale force wind of recent weeks had taken the bramble and pushed it over, so what I'd trimmed to vertical was leaning away into the ditch at fortyfive degrees.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable afternoons exercise with some concrete results.
Now there is the small matter of the eleven upright posts needed to fill in between the two bits of work described above.

How did it go?

2006-12-29T00:44:00.000Z

Pretty much to plan, actually.
Fifteen foot of six foot high chainlink in and ready, three hundred to go.

All posts in, all straining wire strained and all chainlink attached to starining bars and wire.

However, it all took alot longer than I intended and I ended up doing the straining wires and clipping the chainlink to them in the dark. The nearby streetlamp and a person who always has his halogen floodlamps on allowed me to see reasonably once it was properly dark. One of those silly things isn't it, it has to be really dark for a torch to be of use.

It was just too dark to join the remaining bit of old wire to my new wire, so that can await another day. It is firmly behind brambles to anyone on the outside. Fortunately that six odd feet is in good nick, further along it has rotted away.

Next job is to get some conversion bits from the fencing supplier, they had run out of two way braced, so supplied some corner ones with conversion brackets. Problem is they gave me enough brackets to do one post, but gave me three corners.

It is supposed to rain Friday, when I next have a dryish day, I'll fit another two-way-braced post at the next kink in the line of the fence and then start to fit the plain uprights, as there are a good dozen or so, that will take a while.

Exciting Pictures!

2006-12-29T00:01:00.000Z

Not really.

This is me arriving with my nice new garden trolley from Coopers of Stortford. That's three nine foot angle iron posts, three bags of ready-mix postcrete, two spades, a bag of hand tools and a post hole borer in there.

Just to the left is the post fitted the other day.

Here is that post in close up, braced across to the original gatepost.

The work plan was to replace the two rusty posts visible to the left and right of the round metal pipe front right. Then to replace the chainlink, leaving a section of the old chainlink running from the original gatepost across to roughly the first rusty post, where it is to be clipped to the new chainlink.

Nice big pile of bramble trimmings, plus some bits of apple tree.
When I took the photo I had intended it to show the fence, but all that shows up are the rusty posts and then only if you look carefully.

This show the composted neolithic burial mound with a spade for scale.

The brambles had scaled the fence and arched down to land about where the spade is, there are occasional roots nearer the fence, but the majority are to the right.

This is a detail showing the scale of rot in the wire, you can see the pig wire patching.

Below is a movie clip of the length of replacement I have targetted. The sound is not galloping horse sound effects, it is a tape measure and some bolts, plus a couple of brackets in my pocket, bashing into each other.

Steady as a rock.

2006-12-27T22:51:00.000Z

Did a bit more today. The old bit of fence where I'm working is |\ | /|\ then lots of |. The first braced post has one half of the original main gate on it, so that stays and next to it about ten inches in is my new braced post. Twelve foot along is the next original double braced post and today I removed it's braces, a hacksaw and lump hammer job. Both came out of the ground easily, one had only about a bricks worth of concrete on it! One brace got doctored with hacksaw and brace-and-bit to make a cross-piece between the gatepost and my new post. All manual labour as, doh, I'd not recharged my rechargeable electric drill, amazing how slow drilling metal by hand is compared to electric assistance. Result satisfyingly unshiftable, steady as a rock.

May get some more done tomorrow and take some pictures.

Civil Engineering

2006-12-24T19:50:00.000Z

Well, I must not let so much time slip by between posts.
Keep thinking, "oh that's not worth doing a blog-post" and before I know it a month has gone by and I'm trying to remember all the little snippets, so here goes.

I measured up for hedging and it did NOT rain on me.

Only thing to happen in the greenhouse is the peppers have died. A whole week of frosty fog has seen them off, not too surprising as I do not heat my greenhouse.

Slugs have been a real problem as all my winter carrots seem to get attacked, suppose I should be used to this by now, but I keep forgetting and trying to keep them in the ground and harvest as needed through the winter.

Apart from that the plot is embarrassingly bare, the winter brassicas have been a failure, I have about ten small cabbages and some very undersized kale plants, together with some really poor red brussel sprouts, markerpen thick stalks and no sign of sprouts.

Two weeks ago the hedging arrived, together with canes and spiral guards. Of course the weather has either been soggy or frosty fog and so I have heeled the whole lot in on the allotment and will await more suitable planting weather.

Thursday my £900-odd worth of chainlink fencing was delivered.

Yesterday I set to with a vengance and put in the first braced end post by Gaynor's plot. More work needed than should have been as her predecessor on the plot had a reather casual attitude to weeds. OK I've pulled up this huge pile of weeds, ah that chainlink looks like a good place to pile them up against. End result the profile of the plot goes ; Main path, ten inch vertical drop, cultivated (not recently) area, then another ten inch higher bit in a gently arching mound, with the original fence embedded in it a full spade deep. It is like an elongated stonage burial mound

The one-peter operated post hole boreing corkscrew is really good, twelve turns, lever it up and pull out with 6-8" of loose soil on top and a plug stuck round the spike. The top of the corkscrew is like a T and I wedge a tool handle end in the old fence and under the T and pull the end up. Saves the back.

Today I cleared ready to start work along two thirds of Gaynor's plot, cut back the brambles and overhanging selfseeded apple tree to allow clear view of the existing fence. Then I dug off the burial mound alnong to where the next braced post will go. This is only about twenty feet as there is a kink early on in this run. To do the rest of the burial mound I'll need the barrow to wheel the spoil to the only bit of the plot that's relatively weed free. Gaynor should benefit as the soil that's coming out is soft and crumbly, unlike the rest of the plot and very unlike the yellow-brown clay that came out of the bottom of the post holes. Just hope she does not freak out at the pile of bramble & apple trimmings, will have to ask the council to take that away in the new year.

Tomorrow will be round the out-laws and the day after will be hitting the sales, so no more posting of either sort for a few days.

Should I change my name to Travis?

2006-11-25T23:47:00.000Z

Why does it always rain on me?
Rhino's school rugger match this morning cancelled due to standing water on all their pitches, could play, but the pitches would be un-usable probably for months.

So off the dog and I went to divide a ten rod plot and show a prospective tenant "her" bit of it.
Cut up some old galvanised metal water pipe and an estate agents post (gifted over the fence by person(s) unknown), then it rained, so we sheltered in our shed.
Went to Plot 11 and measured the front edge, got the three posts in, then it rained, so we sheltered in the shed.
Gaynor, her other half and his dad went by to start in Plot 1a, went and had a chat about the brambles and how I would get the fence sorted if they were going to clear them etc.
Went back to Plot 11 and measured the side, got the first two posts in, then it rained, so we sheltered in the shed.
Returned to Plot 11 and measured the rest of that side, got the rest of the posts in, then it rained, so we sheltered in the shed.
Back to Plot 11 and measured the other side, got one post in, then it really really rained, so we sheltered in the shed.
Went back to Plot 11 again and got the last posts in, then it rained, so we sheltered in the shed.
Gaynor and her working party gave up and went home, no shed.
The lady, Lisa, turned up while it was still raining, so while her twins amused the baby in its well hooded buggy we got wet looking at a patch of soggy muddy couch grass. Do her credit, she is taking it on, it is a Christmas present for her husband as the children are evicting him from growing veg in the garden at home.

Need to contact Uma and surprise her with a choice of two plots, rather than the last one.

Measured up the rest of the north fence that needs replacement, Gaynor didn't run away screaming when I spoke about the fence, the landlord might, reckon it needs four rolls of chainlink, four expensive braced posts, thirty plain posts and lots of postcrete.

It started raining hard again so I gave up and went home, dog dumped on the way and standing in the puddle next to the dog-poo bin I found the heel of my right wellie had split open.

Will try and estimate replacement hedging material tomorow. What chance it rains on me?

In-activity - activity.

2006-11-23T22:53:00.000Z

In-activity.
Greenhouse, nothing done.
Area around the greenhouse, laid a pallet down to get from concrete to door mud-free.
Allotments, dug up some carrots.
Too wet and soggy\on the clay for much else at the moment.

Activity.
Showing new tenants around the vacant plots.
Plot 1a has been let to Gaynor.
Plot 11 is being divided into four 2.5 rod plots and should be let to Madaline, another lady and Uma, Thelma is sending me another waiter for the last bit as one person changed their mind.
Michelle and Steve are going to each take half of Plot 1 when the current tenant gives up in April as he has told me. Michelle has already met him and negotiated digging rights on the empty bits etc. Plot 2 is also supposed to be giving up in April, but not managed to see him yet, have a tenant lined up for it though.

Hedge and Fence.
Have agreement in principal from the landlord to spend some more money on materials for both, provided I do the installation. Sigh.
Still I have a cunning plan involving the new tenant of Plot 1a where the fence wire exhibits extreme religious devotion. (Its very holy)
If I help them cut back the brambles currently hiding the holes and half the plot, then produce the tools and materials it should be in their interest to help me put a few posts in and run some wire.

That pretty much covers the last few weeks.

Coming weekend.
Show the lady without a firstname above her putative plot.
Put some posts/pegs in to mark the limits of the four subplots of Plot 11.
Measure up for and cost out some posts, wire, postcrete, saplings and sapling-guards.

Brrrrrrrr!

2006-11-02T21:08:00.000Z

First frost this morning.

White shed roofs, frosted rear window on the car, patches all the way down the railway line into Liverpool Street, sun was burning it off double quick though.

Not at work today due to morning into early afternoon appointment in central London, it finished on time so I managed to glean the afternoon to gardening.

Still quite cold and it got a lot colder as dusk approached, still that should reduce the risk of store rot. It has been so warm and damp recently that this is a nice change.

Cleared the greenhouse of remaining geraniums and succulents as well as onions, garlic, potatoes and squash. Cleared a hole in the garage, turned the upright freezer round to make the entire hole usable, then put the framework of my older growbag planthouse in the hole. The knackered cover went in the bin and the squash, onions garlic and some potatoes went on the shelves.

Cleaned the greenhouse thoroughly, inside and out, well all the bits I could reach on the outside. Managed to hit the end of my middle finger into one of the glazing bars hard enough to open a half centimetre gash just next to the nail.

In the process of all this I accidentally cleaned the back terrace, so the wife approved.

Tomato clearance

2006-10-31T20:00:00.000Z

Not at work, due to a private meeting this morning, so spent a couple of hours this afternoon clearing the tomato plants from the greenhouse. Got one last bowl of tom's for her indoors, annoyingly she posts any flawed ones down the dog.

Dug over the bed and moved the newer of my growbag planthouses into the middle of the greenhouse floor.

I have an un-subtle plan to make a house within a house by constructing a soil-warmed box with this little house on top of it.

Plastic potatoes

2006-10-28T21:51:00.000Z

Dug the three one-third rows covered by plastic. In my haste I overestimated how much the plastic covered, but on pacing it out today it was only just over one third length. Lower yield, but lower loss rate on these three. Left them in the greenhouse on racks to dry off, must remember to sack them by Monday night at the latest or they will be green. Moved the plastic across to the last three untouched rows, the bit I'm concentrating on at the moment gets less light (drying effect) as it is up-slope to the south and nearer the hedge.

Cleared the French Beans and put the canes away. Shelled a pound of almost dry beans and left the pods that were too alive in the greenhouse to dry off. Quite a high loss rate of the mature pods due to fungal attack, it's just too damp this year.

Dug some carrots and little parsnips for sunday lunch and cleared the last of the beetroot. Gave the beetroot to Iris and got a jar of homemade marmalade in return.

Cut down the sunflowers, birds had already cleaned alot of the seed, they were shading the leeks a bit.

Summary a soggy plot, quite lethally so up by the shed, almost greased in fact.

Wet, wet, wet, mices!

2006-10-27T21:16:00.000Z

The weather has kept everything nice and wet, so nothing has happened on the plot. The plastic is still in place, so hopefully as we have now had a couple of days without rain, I may be able to get some more spuds up tomorrow.

I am having trouble with those I have dug up as they are not getting any drier than when they were dug up.

My tally of mice now stands at eight, all caught in the same square foot of the greenhouse.

Mouse and Potato Pie.

2006-10-15T21:53:00.000Z

Thursday night caught a mouse.
Friday night caught two mice.
No more since. Yet!

Saturday, weeded where I temporarily had Alberts shed and planted thirty leeks from Gilbert. Where I had harvested the Garlic I planted a dozen Curly Kale, most green, some red. The soil is so sticky, had to keep peeling it off the trowel. Gave up in the end and went and watched the 1st IV score a convincing win over Guildford whilst downing a couple of pints.

Sunday, lifted the first two thirty foot rows of spuds, a little drier going today. Not sure what variety, as I have not found the label yet. Needless to say, about half will not keep, traces of blight and loads of holes. In fact the biggest and best, worth baking candidates, had the worst collection of holes. About one full sack of keepers (maybe) and one full sack of use quickly, plus a half sack of into the council composting bin. Left a big sheet of weighted down plastic covering three half rows of the remaining six thirties, perhaps it will make that bit easier if the forecast rain shows up during the week.

Another one bites the bait

2006-10-11T22:37:00.000Z

Second mouse caught.

Shed and potato pie?

2006-10-10T21:09:00.000Z

Well a very busy weekend has whizzed by.

Saturday I mowed the paths and put the shed up on Alberts plot.
Steve and Stan helped me move it down from my plot, quite easy really. We tipped it onto its roof on the main path then took a bottom edge and shuffled backwards, towing it along the grass on the apex of the roof curve.
Put another posthole next to the doorframe and used a bit of dexion and the last of the postcrete. Screwed the wooden sub-base onto the dexion. Used some odds and ends of wood and bricks to level it on the plot.
Finished off with a pallet inside and put all Alberts stuff in from where it was laid round about.

Sunday after the rhino's rugby training, interrupted by another boys broken wrist,I got stuck into potato harvesting. Oh boy, hard work, from about one o'clock to half past six. Eight eighteen foot rows at about twenty-five minutes per row, then some sorting time after each lot had dried off in the sun a bit. Overall a bit disappointing, but not surprising given this years weather pattern.

Dunbar Standard, a good sackful from two rows, but the usual (second year) infestation problem, every really decent baker had a hole in it with millipede thingys crawling about.
Just about to start the next lot when Albert hove into view, so took a short break to check he was Ok with the shed, oh yus he was very OK. Stan was working away opposite him and later on Stan told me I was "flavour of the month".
Arran Victory, could be potatoes by Maybellene of NYC, such a vivid lilac colour. Impressive yield, two rows, two sacks, lots of resurgent root growth despite the fully deceased foliage.
Nicola, two rows, no foliage left, disappointing yield visually when digging, much smaller than previous years, but some fair sized ones, once sacked at home still came to a full sack.

Took them all home by barrow and plastic two-handled bucket, re-sorted into sacks and into the dogshed. Need to recheck them this weekend in case of ; damp, blight missed damaged ones.

That means eight by thirty foot rows still to harvest and it's rained hard since the weekend.

Also rebaited all the traps I had set all round the greenhouse during the week, to get my now resident (green)house-mouse. Came out and watched me doing the floor a couple of weeks ago.

Tonight I checked and I'd got one, no bait left on any other traps, so there must be more. Re-baited again.

Eeek, I've been distracted from blogging.

2006-10-05T21:57:00.000Z

For rather longer than I had realised.
Shall I just say "things are a bit interesting at work" and leave it at that for now.

Well lets play catch up.

Crops.
Cleared the squash plot, the plants were dying off and the recent very wet weather had me worried about rot and slugs. Got another dozen or so good sized Crown Prince. A lacklustre assortment of Butternuts, some un-ripe. A reasonable showing of Vegetable Spagetti. On clearing the vegetation I found two rotted squash and several good ones had grown inside a pallet, between the boards, fortunately it was an old softening one so I did my jailbreak bit on them.
Dug some nice carrots, cut some nice sunflowers.
Found some overlooked sweetcorn cobs and managed to get a respectable bag of kernels off the cobs, not too sure about drying then properly, last time I used the airing cupboard and a month into storage in a jar the whole lot went mouldy, oven this time I think.

Storage.
Have tidied the onions after they dried out nicely on the greenhouse staging, the tidied ones arte still there, the soft leafy ones went in the recycling bin and some that had a bit too much mould under the discarded skin layers went in the "ready-use" locker.
The greenhouse and swing seat are covered with squashes.

Greenhouse
Aside from being a drying and squash curing area not much vegetable stuff has gone on in here. Tidied the staging of flowering pot plants, "survivor" material to overwinter indoors.
I have however in a burst of activity on Saturday 30th Sept paved half the floor space. (That is non-bed area.) This took four square municipal sized paving slabs with a ten inch concrete border under the staging. I have used sleeper off cuts to make a step up to the other half, which has all the "tut" on it at the moment. Maybe this weekend that half will get done, with all the forecast rain its going to be odds on. Then I'll need some more slabs to get from my concrete path to the door!

Plots
Just too much rain recently to dig either for cultivation or to harvest my spuds. But I'll have to dig the spuds before long, rain or no rain.
Found that I do actually have some Kale seedlings, the rampant Fat Hen was hiding them and Gilbert has gifted me some large Leek seedlings. This warm wet September has seen an absolute explosion of weeds. The summer was easy for weeds, so dry they did not germinate. I even have some of my herb patch autumn volunteers flowering, Sweet Cicely I think.
Need to order some manure.

Site
Should have fifteen rod vacant soon, due to non-cultivation.
Probably just dip the waiting list, seems as thought two come on the list for every one who gets a plot. Mowed all the paths on Wednesday 27th, now growing back very quick and lush.

Shed
Managed to see Albert on the 27th, quite embarrassing in a way, never seen him so surprised or choked up before. Did rather spring it on him, I came up to mow the paths and he was digging away, stopped for a chat and said, come along with me, I've got something to show you. I shot off and was unlocking the door when he caught up, said "What do you think of that then?", "Very nice" replied Albert, "Well it's yours Albert" I said.
Could have knocked him over with a puff of air I reckon.
Went back to his plot and agreed which way round to put it.

Cooking.
First two Squash, potato, carrot and whatever meat we have soups have been done. Bacon, smoked, mmmmmmm. Chicken, carcass, ok.
Rhino-mark bakeries produced, Cheese-n-onion pasties, I don't like cooked cheese, but his granny scoffed them and Bakewell tarts which were delicious and too few in number.

Other Stuff
The rhino had its first game in the local RFU club league, they did not play well, but managed to win, just. I did not see the game after the first fifteen minutes as I got a terrible pain in my side and had to be ferried home by my OH, throwing up en-route. Turns out I have a kidney stone a-wandering.

Dandelions and onions.

2006-09-17T22:42:00.000Z

Busy day's Sundays now the rugby season has started. Off to Shelford with my thirteen year old pet rhinoceros, it managed to drive an assistant coach some ten yards after hitting at high speed, the backup were left some distance behind. The friendly match of four quarters to test out teams was good, sunny weather and he got a try with seven assorted opposition hanging onto him.

On returning home and after mowing the back lawn, I took the dog to the allotment and found that all three new tenants of the old plot 14, now 14 a, b and c, were all hard at work.

Fettled the shed, took some tools home, brought back some dry readymix and set a bit of old dexion as a security post on the corner ready for when I install it. Nigel was halfway through 14a, Kate and friends were making a start on 14c, while Tracey and partner had just about finished 14b. So I offered to put the Howard 350 through the freshly weeded 14b, they accepted, so home empty shed to get 350 out the door, started first time and dug well. Partner impressed that I had done in ten minutes what had taken them days, however as I replied, if they had not done the days of weeding and breaking up the compaction then the 350 would not have done the mincing.

Put the 350 away and decided to put off potato lifting for another week, so dug up my garlic (planted very late) and spring onion sets. Very disappointed with the red onions, lots gone to flower. Also very annoyed that in harvesting the onions I also removed more by volume and possibly also weight of ruddy dandelions. Still thats another couple of rod weeded and cropped.

The rhino has taken on Worral-Thompson pretensions and had dug out our food processor from under the stairs in order to make home-made beef burgers, which he accompanied with spaghetti in tomato and pepper sauce, anyway I was rung and informed that "Dinner would be served at 6pm", missed by a few minutes as I had to put the onions from wheelbarrow onto wooden slatted trays and re-arrange the greenhouse staging to accommodate those.

Shedding

2006-09-17T22:37:00.000Z

Here is a photo of my Freecycle shed, before fettling.

It has now got ;
a door attached with new hinges.
a sub-base of 3 by 2 tannalised timber.
a working padlock hasp.
a first fixing post at its destination.

Just need to see Albert before depositing it on his plot, or he'll think that someone is fly tipping and ask the council to tip it!

In memoriam.

2006-09-14T22:32:00.000Z

Last night it was six months since my beloved big sister died.

Be at peace Liz, we miss you.

It only worked.

2006-09-14T22:18:00.000Z

Well, my faith in human nature has recieved a boost. My sweet talking worked, I went up to my plots last night and sitting on the empty bit of 18 was the shed.
Means I have a bit of work to do now, needs new door hinges and hasp for a padlock, then some treated 2"X2" timber to sit the metal on and secure to as well as cement some angle-iron in and secure to that too. A big thank you to all concerned. Hope Albert likes it.

Last night I also weighed my impromtu harvets with the following results.
Ten Crown Prince
Weights, 5kg, 4kg, 5kg, 4,5kg, 3.75kg, 4kg, 4.25 kg,5kg and 4.75kg, plus one I gave to Chris after he gave me a bundle of cuccumbers.

Six Vegetable spagetti
Weights, 3kg 2kg and four at 1kg each.

Rescue job.

2006-09-11T22:33:00.000Z

One Peter and his dog went to mow an allotment path and found that two areas of their Squash patch had died and gone crispy. So while the dog got on with the mowing the Peter had to go and get a wheelbarrow for ten Crown Prince and half a dozen Vegetable Spaggetti. The rest of the patch is still lush and green and hiding the fruits from prying eyes, for the moment anyway.

There was a lovely layered mist lying over the site this morning when I went to catch my train, so I guess our frost pocket is living true to type.

Finished the main path and side paths for my plots and plot 14.

Saw Chris and reminded him of my offer of strawberries, showed him where to help himself from.

I'm not as idle as my posts may seem!

2006-09-10T21:15:00.000Z

I have been doing quite a bit of allotment and garden related stuff, but not actual gardening.
I have been doing most of the Site Agents work for some time now, as the actual Site Agent has not been well. He has now given up ten of his fifteen rod's, plot 14 and retained the nice sunny 5 rod plot down by the park, unfortunately this means he is shedless on his plot.
Ian and I have been plotting and accumulating stuff so we can make him a shed, but a complete shed has come my way for free. Corrugated aluminium workmans shed, just missing the night watchman and his glowing brazier! Problem is, its is on the other side of town, too big for my trailer and would need dismantling or lifting over a four to five foot fence to get out of it's current garden. So I have two choices, sweettalk our lovely Landlord into doing their venerable Site Agent a little favour in recognition of his years of hard work and get their workmen to spend a brief hour with their corporate Transit van pickup, or dismantle it with father-in-law next weekend. Will go for both in that order.
Laine has given up 21a, not sure why, but there had been no movement since spring cultivation, no planting, so suggested to the council they contact her and she told them she was relinquishing it.
So at the council's behest I moved smartly into dividing plot 14 and letting it with plot 21a. Would have liked to make plot 14 into four 2.5 rod plots, but the lie of the land conspired against that. So the flat (almost) six rod from the main path was divided into two three rod plots (14a and 14b) by the insertion of two scaffold marking posts. The narrow cross-path followed by a steeply rising two foot bank with goosebrry bushes on top makes a natural divide for the four rod (14c) at the top.
Our waiting list has gone down by five now. Nigel has taken 14a, Paul has taken 21a, Tracey has taken 14b, one lady's circumstances had changed so she no longer wanted a plot and therefore Kate is about to take 14c.
Now there are just four people waiting for a plot on our site. Can be hard to explain this to people when they look at an untended or unloved plot, 'cos they automatically think these are vacant and are then incredulous when told, oh no "Aurthura De-Ville-Masterton-Smythe" has that plot.
Hey-ho.
A week of weeding and conspiring to relocate sheds beckons.
Oh and work also.

Back on the plot at last.

2006-09-10T21:08:00.000Z

Am now at last able to pick tomatoes from the greenhouse, detestable things, but the OH likes them. Some nice peppers colouring up well. Melon experiment a bit poor, two plants, two sub-tennisball melons.

So many weeds after the recent rain and warm weather it was difficult to know where to start, so I picked the fruit terrace.

Started at the shed side, weeded around the red/black currants and the gooseberries. Moved on to the rasberries, pruned out this years dead/dying wood, tied in the taller new growths and weeded between the first three rows. Too near tea-time to attack the strawberry infested remainder of the fruit terrace, so I backtracked hoing with a Wolf three pronged cultivator.

The strawberry plants have gone mental, there are more runners than at the London Marathon. Still that is two thirds of the fruit terrace cleaned up.

Will try to sort some photos next week.

Annual Show.

2006-09-03T20:31:00.000Z

Did nothing much during the week after coming back from Dorset other than prepare for our little Association Show. So Thursday was see what I can show and do the entry form and Friday was haul it out of the plot and clean it prepare it etc, ready for Saturday.
Last year I was an apprentice steward, this year I made journeyman steward.
Did not help set up tables as I was taking the caravan to be serviced.
Tabled my entries after the OH had dropped me off, took a call saying the caravan had galloping damp and would I come and collect it please if I did not want the expensive repairs doing. Sorted that by defering to Monday. Went round with the vegetable judge, quite educating really. Stayed for the afternoon helping Anne, our social secretary, woman the tea and cakes hatch. This was something we had decided to trial and we sold thirty six tea and a cake deals, made the hall seem mutch busier than last year. If you want to see some photo's of our show then visit our association website at http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/bsaga/index.htm and look at the Photo Gallery.
Helped clear up and reset the hall for our annual supper. Went home for s***/shower/shave and back for seven-thirty. A good evening, our charity auction of unclaimed show entries after the meal raised £93 for

I won 1st's for Beetroot and Squash, 2nd for Apples, 3rd's for Sunflower, White Potatoes and Carrots. Daughter won 1st for flower arrangement in an eggcup, so she got the only cup in the family this year.

Finished the day by sweeping the hall and hauling back home a collection of cut flowers that filled the car boot.