This is the first of many visits to the allotment, I had thought I was starting later than I usual do, turns out I'm a bit earlier this year than last year, and as it happens we have started most of our seeds off earlier than we have in previous years.
Doesn't look like much was done, but you have to start somewhere.I'm a bit behind with posting due to work and other things, so I'm combining the last two allotment visits into one post.
The fist video is us harvesting our borlotti beans and some squash plants, and the second video is us picking this years apple harvest, which isn't as big as it has been in previous years, but we still got enough to make some wine and juice and the rest my wife cut up and froze for pie fillings through the autumn and winter.
There's not much on the plot now, we will get some kale and chard and we should also get some sprouts for Christmas dinner, but for now the plot has been left alone and once Christmas is over I'll start fixing the fences that are damaged (and anything else that needs fixing) and come spring I'll start moving plants about, we have two gooseberry bushes in the gardens at home which are being relocated to the plot, and there are some small fruit trees on the plot that I want to move.
So look out for more allotment posts next year, and in the meantime I'll try and finish off some of the Christmas makes I've started and post / make videos about.
Picking the beans and squash -
It's been a while since I posted one of these, but here's a video of the latest visit to the plot, today I've dug up our spuds and now we have 18kg of good potatoes, not bad really.
I haven't had quite as much time lately so the plot has got a little wild, but I've started clearing and making plans for next year, and I have been back since this visit to pick beans and squash, as well as the apples.This is a little behind where things are at on the plot, this was just a quick visit to the plot to get the other bed ready and to plant some more plants (squash) out, also planted some bean plants and got the polytunnel ready for our melon plants and birdhouse gourds.
We've had a lot of rain in the last few weeks, what we really need is more sun so the pumpkins and other squashes can get going.Just a quick trip to the plot this time, planted out some beetroot plants in between the borlotti beans, which is a good use of bare space that might have not been used otherwise, also planted six salsify plants, these are a new plant for us, we're growing them at home as ornamental plants and on the plot as a crop, the whole plant is edible, but we're growing it for the root and lastly I've put in some red chard plants as a cut and come again crop.
Not much left to go into the ground, we may plant some quick crops later once things have been picked and harvested, but for now it's waiting for things to grow and keeping up with the weeding, I might even have some free time to make some stuff in my work shop.
Here's the video -
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A quick how to for making simple trellis for plant pots, this can easily be adapted for smaller or larger pots, and is great for climbing plants or just as a plant support, all you need is some garden canes and some bamboo skewers (plus a few tools)
Doesn't really get much easier to be honest, it would be easy enough to scale up for larger trellis panels and for bigger pots, you could also change the design for something more artistic.
Here's the video -
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The trips to the plot are getting more frequent now that there's more growing, this visit is mainly for getting some of the squash plants in the ground, but I also planted out the snake beans and some kohlrabi (first time growing it this year) and it seems someone has cut their way into our plot and some of the other plots on the site looking for things to steal, no real damage was done but they did knock off a load of gooseberries when they cut into the neighbouring plot.
It's worth reporting any break in or damage to your allotment plot to both your local council and the police, the chances they'll catch anyone are slim but you should always report these things, it's also a good idea not to keep anything too expensive on your plot, we only keep a few basic tools on ours anything else is kept at home and taken to the plot as and when we need it.
The latest trip -
Another trip to the plot, this time it's bean planting, I've put in two types of beans, borlotti and dwarf beans along with some russian kale, sprouts and one lonely spinach plant.
Things are doing well, we've got loads of radish coming up and I harvested more rhubarb and the gooseberry bushes are loaded with berries so it should be a good year for our fruit crops this year.A quick guide on building a bean frame for climbing beans, I've used normal bamboo canes for this frame (I've been using them for years) but any straight stick would do, like hazel, or even lengths of timber just as long as it's relatively straight and the right height, for climbing beans you'll want canes at least two metres (about six feet)
Here's the video -
Growing rhubarb? has it started to flower? have no fear, it's easy to remove the flowers, all you need is a sharp knife, trace the flower stalk down to the base of the plant and cut it off as close to the crown as you can, and that's it.
Letting the flowers grow and produce seed won't hurt the plant, but it will affect the harvest you get, plus it takes a while to get a good sized crown at the very least a couple of years from seed to a plant you can get a small harvest from, it's quicker to get a crown and divide it, people often give divided crowns away so keep an eye on free websites (like freecycle etc) and if you have an allotment see if anyone has some spare, maybe swap some plants for a crown.
Here's how to remove the flowers should you already have rhubarb -
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Work is progressing on the plot, more prep work done, this time I have to deal with the rhubarb flowers, and the weeds, it does feel as though we're getting somewhere with things now, just waiting for the weather to pick up.
I've also made two simple bean frames for some of our climbing beans, it was a nice sunny day and I'm happy with the work so far, it'll soon be time to plant out the beans and squashes and all the other stuff.Finally got the fruit bed sorted out, so now the strawberries, black currants, gooseberries and rhubarb are weed free (ish) sowed some radish seed in a blank patch of earth while we decided what to do with it.
Didn't get round to moving the skirret, but as it's started to grow I'm leaving it where it is for now, and really it's just getting ready for planting stuff out, once it's grown.
We've loads of stuff on the go in the greenhouse, beans of various types, squashes of various types and a host of other things, but the weather has been a bit bad for the time of year so we're holding off on planting a lot of stuff out.
Another productive day though and I'm pleased with the results.
Here's the latest video -
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Another productive session on the plot, relocated the self seeded leeks, made a new bed for our black currant plants and discovered that some of the black currants have big bud mite, which I talk about a couple of times in the video, but basically it is a sap sucking mite that gets into the forming leaf buds and they become swollen, there is a diagram in the video that shows the difference between a good leaf bud and an infected one.
I didn't manage to move our skirret plants, so that'll have to be done on the next visit, and as the weather warms up we'll start sowing seeds for a variety of crops.
Here's the video, I hope you find it useful -
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One of the perennial weeds found on allotment plots and in gardens is dock, it's a problem plant, but it can be controlled by removing as much of it as possible, this includes the roots, which can be very long as you can see in the video below.
You can just hoe the tops off, but I prefer to dig them up using a fork which helps loosen the soil so you can get as much root out as possible.
This is how we deal with them on the allotment, and some of the other weeds.Work continues, and as the weather warms up we need to put in more hours on the plot, this time it's planting potatoes, horseradish and the tidying continues as well, and there are some bonus velvet mites, we often see them on the plot, I've seen them in garden as well.
We get a lot of other critters on the plot, some welcome, some not so much but it's all part of gardening in general.
Anyway here's what I got up to on this visit -
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Another day and another set of jobs, this time some actual planting, we've put in some shallots, onions and some broad beans and carried on tidying things up.
Probably not the best day for digging, it was very wet and muddy, but time waits for no one, all in all I'm happy with what we got done.
The days work -
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So the first actual working trip to the allotment occurred recently, it doesn't look like much was done, but the main job was sorting out the grape vines, so that's out of the way now.
We use more of a no dig method now than we did when we first started out, which is why there's weed control fabric all over the place, we started using it last year (mainly due to time constraints) but noticed a difference in the crops we got.
As an example we grew squashes in two beds on the plot, one that was dug over and prepared the usual way and the other we used weed control fabric and we got a better crop of squashes from the bed where we'd used weed control, so we've expanded the use of it for this year, and as I said it saves time.
Below is the video I took -
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It's been a while since I put an allotment update on here, so here's the first for this year.
The plot isn't as bad as I thought considering we haven't been near it since October last year and for the whole of last year we weren't able to spend a lot of time there due to work and other reasons.
It will take a bit of graft to get it ship shape, but not too much and we've changed the way we do things over the years to make it a little easier.
Anyway here's the state of our allotment plot, we'll be starting work down there soon.
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