Allotment Update - Harvesting potatoes...

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.

Here's the latest update -

Thanks for visiting.

Allotment update - Beetroot, Salsify and Red chard...

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 - 

Thanks for visiting.

Allotment update - Strawberries,Radish,Bees and a Butterfly...

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 -

Thanks for visiting.

Allotment update (all be it belated) part 1...

So another year done, and to be honest it's been a bit of a mixed bag for us, we decided early on to focus on the new full sized plot and we've had some good results, and some not so good, but we're still learning about the new plot, even though it's on the same site the sun hits it differently, the soil is a little different as well, but stuff grows well which is the main thing.

Rather than write large posts I'm going to post some of the pictures we've taken over the last few months, split over two posts.

Things were doing well in May (we moved the shed) -

Moved the shed, quite a big job.

We put in the squashes, pumpkins, courgettes etc and the corn, the plot was looking good - 

A vast improvement on how it looked at the start of the year.

And we put some chilli's, peppers, tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, melons and butternut squashes in the polytunnel - 

Plenty of room for everything, as it turned out no there wasn't.

On to June, I made a net from rope to train one of our grape vines across - 

Needs more support now, grape vines are heavy as it turns out.

We put in some assorted brassicas (cabbages, kale etc) - 

We netted them well, still got caterpillars on them though.

Things carried on growing well, the weather was good - 

The hard work seems to be paying off.

And so onto July (which was a busy month) the plants continued to do well - 

Corn doing well, two types growing here.

Squashes doing well - 

Should get some good pumpkins this year.

And then around the beginning of July we had some bad weather, high winds and the like and our polytunnel suffered a small set back, in fact it got shredded by the wind, whether this was because I hadn't stretched the polythene tight enough or whether it wasn't up to the task I don't know, but it did set us back a little.

Some repair needed - 

There was a lot of swearing.

The plants however continued to do well, so there was that, and as we were giving up our old plot for this bigger one we decided to make a start on moving some of the plants from the old plot to the new plot, we started with the asparagus, now generally speaking it wasn't the best time to move the plants, it should be done in early spring when the plants are dormant least that's what the books say, but we weren't able to wait.

Asparagus in their new home - 

Fingers crossed they'll be happy here.

We were worried they might not survive given the weather was warm and dry and we were concerned the crowns might have suffered too much in the heat.

However they seemed to be fine, in fact they started growing again, but we'll have to wait and see how they do over winter.

Asparagus starting to grow again - 

They seem to be fine, despite the move.

We learnt that rats like to dig up and eat potatoes, so we harvested what we had which turned out to be around 35kg.

Exhibit 'A' your honour - 

You learn something new everyday, didn't know rats liked spuds.

You're not getting your paws on these Mr Ratty - 

Bagged up and ready to go, love new spuds.

We harvested some of our grape vines for leaves to make dolma (stuffed vine leaves) - 

Another way to use things we grow.

The grapes continued to grow well - 

These will end up as wine.

Our borlotti beans were coming along nicely as well, not grown these before but they did well and we grew them for drying and storing, which again is a new thing for us, but we got a lot of beans from a small amount of plants.

Borlotti beans growing - 

They look great.

Pumpkins and other assorted squashes continued to grow well and we set about fixing the polytunnel and that was it for July.

Polytunnel fixed with slightly more robust material - 

And it's still standing, and performing well.

One of a few pumpkins coming along nicely - 

Should be a good one.

And I'll leave you with a small white butterfly caterpillar eating one of our brassica plants - 

They've all gone now and most of the plants survived.

Thanks for reading and look out for part two, which should be along shortly.

First allotment update of 2017...

I had intended to do some more work on our new plot this weekend, but the weather had other ideas, so here's an update on where we're at with it all.

This is what the our new plot currently looks like -

Much improved.

Since the third of December I have mainly been sorting out fences and gates and a few other things, I'm almost ready to begin the task of digging it all over with the view to planting things in spring.

3rd of December trip.

New gate (which I made at home) fitted -

Not very pretty, but better than what was there.

I made a new gate, and I can now lock the plot up with a length of chain I found and a padlock I bought, given the choice I would have left the old gate where it was, but as I had to cut my way into the plot a new gate was a good idea.

Whilst sorting through the undergrowth I found some (very heavy) concrete slabs, there are just about enough to make a base for the shed that currently lives on our other plot, so I roughly laid out the slabs, although I'm still debating the best place for the shed, so this may change.

Slabs roughly laid out -

Subject to change.

Fixed up the back fence where an old gate used to be, I used what I had and what I found on the plot rather than buying new stuff, so it's not very nice looking, but it serves a purpose.

Old gate patched up -

I did say it wasn't pretty.

I've decided to grow blackberries up the back fence, along with some dog roses for two reasons, firstly there will be blackberries for jam and such like and the dog roses will produce rose hips which can then be turned into rose hip syrup which is very rich in vitamin c, we use it to help prevent colds, it was something people living in the country used to do in ww2 as a way of getting extra vitamins and dog roses also have nice flowers that bees and other bugs love.

The second reason is that brambles and dog roses tend to be a bit prickly and as they grow into the fence they will hopefully provide a bit of a deterrent to anyone who tries to climb over it and so to that end I've been relocating all the dog roses I've found to the back fence, along with any brambles.

Onto the next trip (10th of December)

This was just a short trip to add a bit of height to the back fence, I had a roll of old chain link fencing that I decided to use, so all I did was fix it to the fence posts at the bottom of the plot, this has raised the height of the fence to about nine or ten feet and once the dog roses and brambles get established should provide a nice sturdy growing frame.

Bit hard to see in this picture, but you can just make out the chain link - 

It was a very gloomy day.

I did a bit of clearing around the apple trees as well - 

Starting to look better.

And that was that, a week later (17th of December) I was back sorting out the compost area.

I ripped out the old pallets that were a bit worse for wear and using the parts from the other plot I set about making a new compost area, and once that was done I did a bit more clearing.

New compost area and some more clearing - 

Much better.

That was the last trip in December as it was nearly Christmas and as is usually the case we were very busy trying to get presents and such like sorted out, and we all came down with the flu so we had that to deal with as well.

So onto the first (frosty) trip of 2017, just about recovered from the flu (or what ever it was) on the 6th of Jan I decided to move one of the grape vines, it wasn't really in a practical place so I made a new frame for it to grow along, now runs parallel with the larger one that's growing along the front of the plot.

I used the two posts from it's old frame and added another post and fixed a few rows of garden wire between the posts the frame itself is bigger than a usual grape vine frame, but I want to encourage it to trail along the entire frame.

Moving the vine itself wasn't as hard as I thought, after some reading I had figured I was going to have to do a lot of digging in order to get the entire root ball out, but in the end the root ball was smaller than I thought it was going to be given the size of the plant.

Frame done and vine replanted - 

You can't see the wire, but it's there.

I also added a couple of rows of wire along the very bottom of the frame so that I can grow french beans along it as well, these won't interfere with the grape vine, if for some reason the vine doesn't survive it's relocation then I've got a nice big frame for growing runner beans up.

Extra wire for beans - 

Seemed like a waste of growing potential.

And that's it so far, I will keep an eye on the weather for next weekend and hopefully I will be able to carry on and get it in better shape for spring, but it's come a fair way since we took it on in November last year.

November last year - 

Slightly over grown.

January this year - 

Getting there.

Thanks for reading.

Allotment update - May to July...

And so how time flies, it's now almost the end of July and things are moving along at a fair rate although it did take while for things to get going, so here's what's been going on since April.

Here's the plot as of the 7th of May -

Not too bad.

Things are starting to happen, including the usual weed growth, but this year we haven't been quite so ruthless with removing them, instead we've been letting them grow up a bit and then cutting them back and allowing the cuttings to rot down.

We noticed the soil isn't a good as as it could be so this year as well as cutting the weeds back and then digging it all in we are going to have a go with some green manure to help improve the soil, it's always good to try new things.

The relocated Rhubarb is doing okay in it's new spot - 

Well it hasn't died so that's good.

The strawberries are growing some flowers - 

You can't beat freshly picked strawberries.

The Asparagus is starting to grow as well, although it did bolt (as you will see) - 

It's taken a while to grow from seed.

Broad beans showing signs of life - 

A few haven't germinated.

Spuds are sprouting as well - 

Here's to hoping for some nice spuds.

So apart from general weeding and tidying up not much else happened in May, we did more digging over and we also added another water butt to the shed for extra water storage.

More water storage - 

It's a bit of a squeeze.

And that was May done with, here's how we left the plot - 

Ready for next time.

A few weeks later it was June and here's what greeted us - 

More weeds to deal with.

The main jobs this time were to contain the weeds (as usual) and then prepare the ground for some corn and squash plants, so out with the fork and rake and off to work we go.

Corn plants in - 

Looking a bit better now.

Squash plants in - 

Almost all the plot is planted up now.

And that's how we left the plot, we've planted two lots of corn, the main crop being Wilkinsons sweetcorn (Incredible F1) the second lot of corn is from seed we saved and then sowed directly into the ground as an experiment.

We've planted a mix of squashes, courgette (Black beauty), patty pan (Unwins patty pan mix), pumpkin (Johnsons Rocket f1), Wilkinsons pumpkin (Jack o lantern), Wilkinsons butternut squash (hawk f1), Johnsons world kitchen round courgette and various squashes from saved seeds.

So onto July, and as you can see things have taken off some what - 

oops.

So the main job is weeding, to be honest it wasn't actually that bad and didn't take us long to do and once that was done we had a look at what the plants were doing.

The spuds I threw into the compost were growing quite well, so we left them and will dig them out when they're ready.

Spuds in the compost - 

Extra veg is always good.

Raspberries growing - 

Summer raspberries.

It's good the raspberry plants on the plot are fruiting as this means we'll get raspberries for longer than usual, we have a load of autumn fruiting plants in the garden at home.

Rhubarb seems to like it's new spot - 

Ready for picking.

As I mentioned we had sown some saved sweetcorn seeds directly into the ground and they have grown well, just as well as the ones we started off in the green house in fact.

Small sweetcorn patch - 

Could do with weeding.

Here's the other patch of sweet corn (started off in the greenhouse) - 

It's about the same height as the corn sown directly.

Nice fresh strawberries for picking - 

Mice have left them alone this year.

Remember the Asparagus ? - 

It bolted.

As you can see the asparagus bolted, but we're okay with this as next year the crowns will be bigger and we'll get more of a crop, and plus we'll now have more seed with which to start growing more.

Onions doing well, for a change - 

There be onions here !

We have already been harvesting various things from the plot, we've had strawberries, rhubarb, raspberries, turnips, and both round and normal courgettes and there's still a lot of things to be harvested including the spuds, onions, garlic, shallots, chard, more turnips, more rhubarb and there are a load more squashes growing and various other things.

So despite the slow start to the year things are going well, some things failed to germinate, but we've been able to sow more, we did also lose a few squash plants, but again we started more off and those are now in the ground playing catch up so it's not too bad, and we've started off some more veg for over wintering in the greenhouse at home.

The plot as of 25th of July, less weeds and more veg - 

A productive plot.

So until next time intrepid growers, thanks for reading.