In memoriam.

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

Be at peace Liz, we miss you.



  

It only worked.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Tidy Greenhouse

Sunny, then heavy shower, repeat several times. No point hoeing as it will just move the seedlings round, too damp to crawl round uprooting weeds, so into the greenhouse.
Removed all the overblown lettuce. Found two tiny melons, unthreaded and retied the melon plants to get more sunlight. Trimmed the experimental squash so it was no longer overshadowing melons, peppers and tomatoes. Weeded thoroughly, mostly spurges and sowthistle. Retied the tomatoes, trimmed some over enthusiastic side shoots, must be better next year at tying them in and feeding, still a crop of sorts.
Will need to dig out some of the topsoil from my L shaped bed and incorporate a load of manure as it seems under provided in the fertiliser department.

When the gardener is away the weeds will play...

....at mummies and daddies and produce millions of little weeedies.

Back Saturday from a week in Dorset, at Portisham, some nice looking allotments in Weymouth off Abbotsbury Road caught my eye, but I could not justify a visit when Lulworth Cove was calling. One village veg patch off the road up to Hardys Monument had a lovely raised bed, whole garden actually, with a drop down a beautiful stone wall to the stream that rushes down besides the street, fresh clean water on tap or rather bucket.

Back to my plots though. After driving home, sorting out the caravan, etc, I paid a brief visit on Saturday, weed seedlings by the ton, apparently we had heavy rain through the week we were away, the seedlings I had missed a couple of weeks ago are now mature plants in flower or early seed and the soil is warm and moist.

After girding my loins on Sunday I got stuck in, strimmed at home, along the main allotment track and round my plots. Mowed front and back lawns at home, then the main allotment track, four barrow loads into my hungry Daleks. (For any readers new to my blog, my house is a hundred yards from the entrance to my allotment site). Finished the boys toys bit by rough mowing the sides to the outside of the main gate and the carpark.

Weeded the bottom strawberry patch along plot seventeen, dug up two rows of Nicola second earlies, dead sticks for foliage, disappointing yield, both in quantity and size, but quite clean. Aslo sampled the carrots from my mini-raised bed, quite promising.

If Monday is dry I will continue with weeding and hoeing, plus get up the last two rows of Nicola, if it is wet the greenhouse desperately needs attention, bolted lettuce and a rampant squash have submerged the capsicums!

Looks like a week or two of steady weeding ahead. Quite annoying really as it was so clean, but that is the difference between continuous hot dry weather and rainy warm weather, germination happens in the later!

Changes

Bit of a strange week or so.
Have not done much on the allotment or in the greenhouse since coming back from Cromer.

Major surprise last week when the Town Council rang, Albert has given up ten of his fifteen rods. His brother had come up to see him and seemingly having seen how badly he was doing keeping on top of his plots had managed to persuade him to cut back a bit. They tried to move his shed from the ten rod plot to the five rod plot, however it proved immovable.

I had a look at the shed, 3x3 clad in corrugated iron, held on with six inch nails, folded over on the inside. The wood was hard as iron and stuck in the ground, which was like half cooked brick. No wonder two elderly gents had failed to move it.

So our ten person waiting list starts to move now, Alberts ten rod is marked as three, three and four rod plots, we have Laine's vacated plot also. First on the list, Nigel, has been and taken the bottom three of Alberts ten.

Am going to see what timber and stuff I can put together to make Albert a shed on his remaining plot.

On a more personal level the sweetcorn is amazing this year, well set, juicy and incredibly sweet, had twelve cobs with five-spice pork chops for tea between the four of us this evening, yum. I must get the brassicas and leeks sorted after digging up the second earlies whose foliage has now died off.

Holiday

Went to Cromer for a week.

Carefully checked everything before going, came back to bundles of ripe sweetcorn and bagfulls of climbing French Beans