Sunday 29 April 2018

What happened to springtime?

So just a few days ago it was brilliant sunshine, pushing 40C in the greenhouse and everything looked wonderful on the plot.

And now...

It's dreadfully dreary, damp and dismal, with a definite dreich drizzle.

But there have been some changes though. The spuds I planted have decided to emerge.

Also in the French Dwarf bed there is a single bean looking all forlorn in there.
(It also looks like the slugs have had a go at it as well).

The turnips are showing the lines well too.

But there are some flowers which are promising fruit later. Firstly there are the Blueberries...

And to keep The Wife happy, the strawberries are starting to flower.

Now if only we could get back to those sunny days, then it would be worthwhile spending a longer time down the plot. But we beat a hasty retreat to a nice hot cup of tea.

Saturday 21 April 2018

Allotment Week: Strawberries and Spuds

We've done the majority of major jobs this past week, so now we're left with a few smaller jobs just to tidy the week up.

Firstly The Wife is still amassing her Strawberry Empire. What started as 5 original plants (50p each or 5 for £2 from a car boot sale in Lincolnshire) now spans three beds, 39 individual pots, about a dozen of the 3-plant pink stacking things...


Meanwhile, I'm on leftover spud duty. We got some spare buckets at B&Q the other day. They'll do.

After that there were a few fixes to the rain water barrel, and covering up of the new courgette mound.

Plus a smattering of other odd jobs that needed doing.

Then of course there was some watering to be done. This dry weather has finally evaporated the paddy fields and kicked the turnips into growth.

And close on the heals on Yesterday's Apple Blossom, the Blueberries have started flowering.

Looks like this hot weather is coming to an end... as is Allotment Week. Picked a good week for it. More by luck than judgement.

Friday 20 April 2018

Allotment Week: Potting on

So this week has been a bit warm. We've often reached over 40C in the greenhouse, which means that the seeds in there have really got off to a great start. Now a lot of them need potting on.

First off there are the old faithful Courgettes. We start them in the small pots (right). Those that actually sprout and make it to the cotyledon stage get potted on into bigger pots.
If you look closely above, you'll notice that some of them failed to germinate.

And then we have the sweetcorn. We're growing two varieties here labelled "sweetcorn" - and unknown organic, large cob variety, and "popcorn" - our existing variety that does superbly in the popcorn maker. Some of the sweetcorn have also failed to germinate, so planted another 9 to see if we can make up the numbers.

The Edamame (Soya Beans) are doing really well. The Toilet Roll trick seems to work well with them.

Then there are the Cape Gooseberries. These are the saved berries from last year. Also they are doing well and will need potting on soon. Probably at the weekend.

Outside, there are beginnings as well. The Apple tree has started to blossom.

And I've been delving into the murky depths of one of the compost bins.

I'm sieving out the compost. All the fine stuff is going into a clay and claggy bed whilst anything larger is getting thrown onto the new courgette mound.

Soon this will get covered with weed membrane and then we'll put a few holes in it and plant the courgettes through. Wonder what this year's tally will be. Probably less than last year as we won't have as many plants.


Thursday 19 April 2018

Allotment Week: The hottest day in April since 1949

Whew, what a scorcher.

Well I guessed it was going to be hot because I keep an eye on Weather Underground. A useful little website where you can even setup alerts for potential frost warnings. No need for those today, as apparently it's the hottest April day since 1949.

Just as well I pushed The Wife out of bed at 7am so we could get down to the plot before the big heat hit. First on the cards was the third and final trough.Then, as I turned round from making that, I saw the sorry state of the shed.

One quick coat of Ronseal later and it looks so much better.

I guess the grape vine won't notice any difference. It hasn't started shooting yet, which is no surprise. It always takes an age to get started. Mind you, last year it had already started budding by the 16th April. I guess the late winter has set everything back about 2-3 weeks.

Anyway, by the time noon rolled around, we were definitely wilting under the heat, and thought it best to head for cover.

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Allotment Week: A quieter day

There's this thing called sunshine. And for some reason there appears to be a lot of it at the plot this week.

Which is no bad thing really. At least it's taking a while to dry up the paddy fields on the plot. Although now the water level has dropped sufficiently that the algae is growing all over the place and makes it smell like a swamp.

Anyway, I managed to get some legs made for the other set of shelves for the second greenhouse.

Just in time too, as the Pak Choi has been sprouting well in it's little seed tray and needs to find a new home.

So now it has pride of place as being the first produce on the new shelves.

It seems that there will be other ready for transplanting soon, as everything is trying to play catchup after the rains and late winter. Lots of things are sprouting in the greenhouse.

Tomorrow we're going to try and get there first thing in the morning to do the work. Then we can slack off back home come noon and the main heat of the day. We might pop back later in the day for a BBQ.

Tuesday 17 April 2018

Allotment Week: Can you build it? Yes we can.

If yesterday I was Samwise Gamgee, today I was Bob the Builder.

The day started out with a long trip to B&Q to look for various bits. We wanted a kind of rubber mat to put on top of the various tables that we'd built over the time. But sadly we had no luck in finding anything suitable. Certainly not in the small quantities we needed. Rolls of Lino, yes. Offcuts? Not so much.

We did buy a whole load of cheap buckets which will do for spuds, so that 10 more spud "bags" for the plot. And a new wood saw.

Back on site the new saw made short work of the wood pile. So now there is a second trough to go with the first.

And I added legs to the low shelves from last year, for the second greenhouse.

Hopefully keeping things raised up will stop some of the wood louses and mice from getting at the crops.

But I'm afraid that building work stopped at that point. Not because I ran out of energy, but because my drill did. The old trusty is getting long in the tooth now, what with it being a Ni-Cad battery. It's definitely suffering.

Tomorrow hopefully I can get the second shelf done, and build the third and final trough.

Monday 16 April 2018

Allotment Week: What's 'Taters,' Precious?

I feel like Sam at the moment in that I'm seeing 'Taters' everywhere.

I've finally got the final two beds at the front sorted. It's taken a day longer because I had to dig out all the Bindweed rhizomes and the Couch Grass roots right next to the new path. It took a bit of digging but finally got it sorted.

We now have four 10ft beds along the front of the plot. The first two are strawberries. One from last year, and the second newly planted from all the mother plants over wintered in the greenhouse. The Wife definitely wants her Strawberry Empire.

The third bed will be beetroot (currently sown in the greenhouse), and the final one has been seeded directly with turnips.

A lot of the soil from the old mound got shifted into potato bags. So now it's time to plat the 'Taters.' We prefer Maris Peer potatoes rather than any of the other varieties. They may be going in a little late, but that no problem.

Although, we seem to have far more seed spuds than we thought. So I guess we'll have to find a few more places to drop the spuds in. But you can never have too many 'Taters, Precious.

It looks like tomorrow may well be a construction day. Time to get new kit and get building.

Saturday 14 April 2018

Allotment Week: Wait? What?... Sunshine?

To quote the great Richard Wilson ala Victor Meldrew, "I don't believe it!" There is sunshine. There is spring. There is lots to do on the plot.

First job of the day is dealing with the old mound at the front of the plot. The mound has done it's job and left superb quality soil behind. Now I just need to dig it out and put the ready made beds down.

The amount of soil there is quite a lot. Much of it will go to fill up other beds. But first things first, it's time to fill up the spud bags.

I've not planted the potatoes yet, as that will be a job for tomorrow. So after a couple of hours digging and wheelbarrowing heavy damp soil around the plot, I managed to get one bed ready.

Tomorrow this bed will be planted with more strawberries (like the bed to the left), and the other beds will get  sorted out. Well, the one under the carpet is already done, but I need to sort out the final bed before everything is in place properly.

Meanwhile, we're contemplating grow a rice crop in the paddy fields.

Though at least the far end bed may be OK, because that's going to be this years compost mound for the courgettes. But even that one has a moat of water around it. Damn London Clay.

On the other side of the plot though, the rhubarb is saying "Soon. Soon."

Better lay in a stock of ginger.

Back to the plot tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after. And... yeah there is a lot to be done. Fortunately I have the week off work.

Saturday 7 April 2018

Cleaning the second greehouse

It's a dry day. Which makes a change because we still have a swimming pool at the plot. However it means we can clean out the second greenhouse.

I should have taken a photo with all the junk in the greenhouse, but we got stuck straight in. The wooden pallet shelves we built did a superb job last year in supporting the tomatoes.

However one drawback of growing Toms in the greenhouse is that there is a bloom on the inside of the glass. Not only does it cut down the incoming light, but it may well harbour disease. And it also looks pretty disgusting. So we had to empty everything out and give the insides a good clean.

After we did that it's more planting time.

We started by using the old toilet roll trick for the Edamame (Soya beans).

But we also planted Foxgloves, Cape Gooseberries, Starflowers and a whole load of other flowers. "We"? Nope this was the Wife's handiwork. I did the sweetcorn. We have two varieties of sweetcorn this year. We kept some of last years crop which are perfect for popcorn making. And we now have a second variety which should be better suited to eating as a kernel as it ripens with a definite change meaning we can catch it at the right time.

Elsewhere on the plot, the Rhubarb is suggesting we ought to lay in a stock of ginger ready for jam making time.

Sunday 1 April 2018

No diving in the Deep End

Well after a couple of days of rain on this Bank Holiday, we eventually managed to dodge the showers and get down the plot.

It seems that those beds I made a few weeks back, are now swimming pools. It's not as bad as we've had before. But this new section is considerably lower than the rest of our plot.

So, we really had planned to clean out the 2nd greenhouse, but weather threatens and we decided that we may as well get started on our seriously delayed planting.

We're way behind due to the late Beast from the East (and Son of BotE). So we reckon that we're about a month behind in getting things started this year. Whether we manage to catch up is another matter. But we'll see.

Our trusty courgettes were the first to be done. We've also planted:

  • Peas
  • Dwarf Beans
  • Squash (Honey Bear)
  • Chillies (Polenia, and Apache)
  • Purple Carrots
  • Pak Choi
  • Radish
  • Leaf Beet (in the Leaf Beat bed where seeds from last year didn't take)
  • Pentunias (Mirage, and Stars & Stripes)
  • Sunflowers (Giant Russian)
  • Lobelia
  • Amaranth

And the wife planted out a whole load of the overwintering strawberries.

We still have a load of stuff to plant, such as the Cape Gooseberries, Sweetcorn, Melons. But they're going to have to wait.

Tomorrow threatens rain again. So I guess the 2nd greenhouse will have to wait until next weekend before it gets cleaned.