Allotmental

They're ba-ack

2011-04-20T00:29:00.000-07:00

We had to come back. The onions have run out.

To be fair, there is still stockpile of jars in the cupboard filled with apple chutney and bramble jam - and the freezer is half full of frozen soft fruit - but in the interests of a diverse diet it's definitely time to get growing again.

We've been back on the plot since the start of April having left the site to overwinter (by which I mean the weather outside was frightful, and the fire is so delightful).

Fortunately we covered the plot with weed matting over the winter, and all the work we've put in over the last few year has made most of the site manageable, so it has taken just a couple of weeks to get it back up and running.

The top plot (last year's onions) is now weeded, dug over and replanted with garlic, courgettes, herbs, salad and nasturtiums (to ward off pests and attract bees) with room left for swede.

The strip below that has been out of action since we started thanks to someone burying half a battleship in the soil.

It took a while but I managed to dig out seven huge rusted iron sheets, dig between the roots of the blackbery bushes and clear that stretch - ready for leeks and strawberries. We've also added a couple more fruit bushes up there.

Next down the patch unused last year is cleared, dug over and filled with potatoes.

Below that a whole bed cleared, dug and filled with more than 400 onion sets.

Below that another bed cleared. Carrots and parsnips in. Space cleared for a polytunnel. This patch will also be home to brassicas and sweetcorn.

Next plot down - mostly untouched. This is where we unsuccesfully tried to grow butternut squash last year - the red ant plot.

At the end of this stretch is a rhubarb patch which has been cleared of weeds but the rest of it is yet to be tackled. A couple of days hard digging still to come. Then hopefully we'll get sqush in there again.

And finally the fruit 'cage'. This year we hope to invest in a cordless drill and get an actual cage in there, as well as some protection for the brassicas currently growing in a small greenhouse in our back garden.

So a busy few weeks - and many more to come - but it looks like the whole site is finally, almost, up and running!

The new face of evil

2010-09-03T04:10:00.000-07:00

Seems we've spent too much time worrying about pigeons and slugs. While our backs were turned, our focus on other things, a big new bad boy was munching his way through our crops.

Catterpillars.

Went up to the plot yesterday evening, glorious September warmth bathing the hillside site, only to find all our swede leaves munched away.

A bot of investigation found an infestation of furry wannabe butterflies looking fat and guilty on the stems where big green bits used to be.

Evil little grubs. Lets just say their dreams of flying came true early when I hurled them as high and far as I could into the neighbouring field.

Problem is, the net we have over the top of the patch to stop the pigeons getting in and eating the leaves also stops the pigeons getting in and eating the catterpillars.

Might try the soot trick to see if that will keep them away, but I'm thinking its too late, the damage looks pretty severe.

If these swedes were wired up to all kinds of machines on a TV hospital drama the doctors would have stopped shouting "Get me 10cc of adrenochrome stat" and the beepy machine would be making a long, constant, ominous whine.

Oh well, who likes delicious golden mashed swede on the side of a plate of Sunday roast anyway? Drenched in organic butter, a slight sprinkling of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Catterpillars=evil. Anyone got the number for Crimewatch?

Harvest

2010-08-02T03:29:00.000-07:00

I love the smell of onions in the morning, reminds me of...victory.

The crop is in, and it looks good - a barrow-full of onions which drew appreciative looks from others on the plot when I staggered with the heavy load to my car this weekend.

The car, the house and everything within a one-mile radius of my house now smells like onions.

Harvesting them was simple, they were ready to come up and an hour's work transferred them from soil to barrow.

The garlic next to them needed a bit more digging, and some of the potato plants further down were looking decidedly yellow so I took a fork to them for a bit of investigative surgery.

And they were great, much better than last year's offering - big, yellow, waxy, healthy, thin and good looking skins and very tasty when roasted for Sunday lunch.

I plan to go back this afternoon to dig up a few more...

Which leads to the main problem, what to do with the glut.

So far our freezer is full of gooseberries and raspberries, our cupboards are full of apples, the garage is full of onions and I haven't quite worked out what to do with the potatoes or blackberries yet and we're still waiting on carrots, leaks, swedes, plums and tomatos.

We have a huge jam pan on loan, and many people could be finding themselves with a jar of apple and onion chutney this Christmas.

If you want one, be nice to me. If you want two then get on my bad side.

We had apple charlotte for pudding this Sunday, as a change from gooseberry crumble which we've been eating for as long as I can remember.

But on the positive side the shopping bill was about half its usual size this week as I avoided most of the fruit and veg aisle.

Plan is to head online and find recipes and instructions for proper storage. Any suggestions of what to do with excess veg will be welcome (rude suggestions will be recycled into insults for future use)

Film with a good plot

2010-07-30T02:06:00.000-07:00

There are two words virtually guaranteed to make a film/TV show unwatchable - Omid Djalili.

Fortunately, One-joke Djalili does get deported half-way through British comedy film Grow Your Own. Unfortunately it's just his character that gets deported leaving Omid free to make more 'aint racism funny' price comparison website adverts.

Grow Your Own (originally called The Allotment) is a 2007 film which I only got round to watching last night, and only picked up in the library because it was set in an allotment.

But I would highly recommend it. Very British in its subtle humour, moments of melancholy and hidden depths but deeply enjoyable.

Anyone who has had an allotment, been to an allotment meeting or 'enjoyed' the daily politics of allotment life will find a lot familiar here.

Of course it isn't really about allotments, but the communal garden setting is a perfect symbol for what the film is really about, and the setting is not wasted.

If too much sun or too much rain is keeping you away from the plot - track down this film and sit back for 90 minutes of entertainment.

AGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

2010-07-14T06:01:00.000-07:00

Press release just issued by the Royal Horticultural Society, to which my general reponse is AGGGHHHHH!!!!!

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is sending out a slug and snail alert. Because of the recent and prolonged dry period both slugs and snails will have been dormant. However, with the forecast of heavy rain, the charity expects them to start moving about again and to be quite hungry. Hosta plants will be particularly vulnerable.

The RHS suggests a number of ways to protect plants. For those who prefer more natural ways of control, the charity suggests that it will be necessary to water in a new batch of nematodes (Nemaslug) as any distributed previously will have died in the dry soil. The nematodes used against slugs are microscopic worm-like creatures that enter the bodies of slugs and infect them with a fatal bacterial disease. Barriers, such as copper tapes round pots or mineral granules and egg shells sprinkled around plants are also useful to discourage slugs and snails getting to the plants.

Alternatively, proprietary slug pellets containing ferric phosphate or metaldehyde can be used if the infestation is particularly bad.

For further information the RHS has a web page with more handy tips. It can be found by searching for ‘Slugs’ on the RHS site www.rhs.org.uk. RHS members can also contact the RHS Advisory Service at http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Help-advice/RHS-Advisory-Service

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One thing we have found effective is soot and ash from the fire - useful if you have an open fire or a brother in law who is a chimney sweep. A little sprinkle around the beds seems to deter the pests. May have to get up to the plot when the rain eases off to refresh the barrier.

RAIN!!!!!

2010-06-29T05:02:00.000-07:00

The rain finally came! Great news, it means I get a day off watering duty on the plot.

While the masses may be enjoying a barbecue summer, for growers it just means extra time with the hose to ensure we don't have a harvest-less autumn.

The RHS put out a release today indicating that soil dryness is now at levels normally only seen at the start of August. Read the full details here. They reckon that four inches or rain would be needed to bring levels back to normal.

So the showers we've had in the last 24 hours, while annoying for those trying to get a tan, won't really scratch the surface. The Met Office says at most we had 0.4mm in the latest 'downpour'.

That RHS release also has some greant hints about what needs watering and what can be left, and the most efficient ways of watering.

All that said, the crops continue to look great. Raspberries are red, gooseberries are almost there, onions and garlic starting to yellow up.

According to the Met Office it might rain in the next 16 to 30 days. Then again it might not. Great. Glad we sorted that out.

The one current pest is pigeons, who seem to have developed a method of teaming up which I would have put beyond their bird-brains. Best I can tell a couple of them are sitting on the nets over our brassicas to push it down, then they all nibble on the broccoli before flying off again.

We're going to need a stronger net!!!

Here we grow

2010-06-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

The rain is coming down, and the carrots are coming up. Everything is growing nicely on the plot and the hard work of earlier in the year (and last year) seems to be paying off.

While the battle with weeds goes on, among them are things which definitely look like they might be edible some time soon.

As well as carrots there are potatoes (in need of earthing up), broccoli, cabbages, sprouts, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, leeks, garlic, raspberries, gooseberries apples and plums.

There's also rhubarb (though definitely in need of a feed), the mulberry tree looks healthy, the butternut squashes are growing well and even the sunflowers and peas are reaching for the skies.

The 1.5 patches we haven't yet cultivated are under control thanks to heavy maintenance with a petrol strimmer.

All seems to be going well...maybe too well!!!

There ae still things we want to get in the ground - so I guess we better get on with it.

It came from the desert...

2010-05-19T01:21:00.000-07:00

The last time I was attacked by ants I was 15 and I was sitting in my friend Rashpal's bedroom.

They weren't even real ants, they were giant radioactive mutant ants on the Amiga 64.

That was much more fun that getting attacked on the allotment when I was planting butternut squash, plus Rashpal's dad always handed out cashew nuts from the shop downstairs.

We've put the squash in a corner down at the botom of the plot, which unfortunately is also where a nest of red ants seem to have set up home.

Red ants aren't something I'd encountered before. Previously I thought there were only two types of ants. Ants, and made-up giant radioactive ants.

But it appears there are red ants too. Which bite. And hurt. Especially when they crawl up your arm, under your jumper, and bite you all over. A lot.

Ouch.

Still, as far as we can tell they don't do any harm to the plants, so we'll leave them where they are for now - and just remember not to lean on the mud when planting more squash in future.

The plot also seems to be home to a colony of giant black wood ants, and some of those normal ordinary size black ants.

I think if I'm going to blog about ants I need to do some investigation online...or maybe just dig out It Came From The Desert on the Amiga 64 again...

Eighteen months on - a slideshow

2010-05-11T01:32:00.001-07:00

Part 3

2010-05-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

All brassica in ad protected with plastic tunnels and a netting/bamboo cage. Butternut squash planted in a newly dug patch on the bottom bed. Herb bed built, filled with soil and filled iwth chives, sage and lemon balm on the top patch under the tree. Lettuces planted next to the onions. Site strimmed (again!) and more (yes more!) carpet pulled up and consigned to the waste pile. A kilo of potatos harvested from the brassica bed. Rhubarb (donated by neighbour) made into crumble.

Another busy weekend, but a very productive one, and we finally have the plot up to (roughly) 75 per cent culivated. This is a magic number because the contarct staes that (after the first year) the plot has to be 75 per cent in use. Only fair, given how many people are waiting on a list to use a plot.

Next we have sweded seeds to plant, cauliflowers to bring on at home before planting an d we want to get some parsnip seeds in. We'll probably bring on some more butterbut squash, and all of that can go in the bottom bed along with some sunflowers.

The patch that used to be a fruit cage will now be home to salad and mange tout.

It feels like we're getting there!!!

Part 2

2010-05-08T23:58:00.000-07:00

Saturday afternoon. Raked up the strimmings then strimmed again. Pulled out junk from what will be the salad bed (used to be a fruit cage) including carpet, metal poles, chipboard and a plank of wood. Dug over most of brassica bed. Sprayed WD40 on creaky shed hinges. Dug hole for mulberry. Cleared some of path down side of plot. Raked lower bed and shifted strimmings to bottom compost heap. Done...

Childless weekend 2, part one

2010-05-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning - Brassica bed cleared and half dug over. Door to second shed fixed with new panel and bolt. Whole site strimmed thanks to loan of petrol grass trimmer by the Society. Grass cleared from between soft fruit rows. One fruit patch grubbed up to make room for mulberry tree. New tool, netting and other goodies bought from garden centre. New compost heap started at bottom of patch. Phew! Time for a cup of tea.

Square roots

2010-04-26T02:46:00.001-07:00

Our eldest was six last week and as a present from a friend she got some child-sized gardening tools, so this weekend was a perfect opportunity to try them out.

Right next to the potatoes is half a bed cleared and dug over, but waiting for seeds, so she soon took care of that with her new trowel and rake.

We measured out three rows together then she helped hoe, rake and dig them before sprinkling in a lot of carrot seeds.

She took the colourful plant markers she had been given and carefully wrote "carrots" on each one, along with the date, and stuck them at each end of the row.

A little soil, plenty of water and now we wait to see what will happen.

Part of our desire for an allotment has been to have somewhere for our children to learn plenty of life lessons, and there are few better than growing your own food and just enjoying being out with nature.

They also enjoying hunting and spotting minibeasts, visiting our neighbours chickens, identifying plants (including roobababab) and sketching what they can see around them as well as playing I spy.

Throw in the literacy (writing carrot signs and reading instructions) and numeracy (measuring and creating straight lines) and a few hours on the plot competes well with a few hours at school (plus the sprouts are MUCH better).

Making progress on the plot

2010-04-21T04:33:00.000-07:00

Two weeks off work and a bunch of great weather have done wonders for the plot, if not for my neck and shoulder muscles.

The top patch, which you may remember was cleared in our child-free weekend, was first on the agenda after the Easter break.

It was thoroughly dug (as deep as the nearby tree and raspberry roots would allow), then raked to a fine tilth (is that the word) and finally I planted a lifetime supply of garlic and onion sets in among the herb bushes.

Seriously, there must be 50 garlic cloves and several hundred onions now in the ground waiting to emerge.

I've protected the lot with netting designed to deter the pigeons, who won't eat the crop but will revel in pulling it out of the ground.

About a quarter of the patch is yet to be used, and we plan to get leeks in there and maybe spring onions. There is also room for a raised herb bed.

The patch below last year's potato patch was next up. Cleared of weeds, double dug, couple of trenches in and it's now half full of potatos. Good job, well done. The other half is covered over waiting for a few root veg seeds.

I then managed to bash a couple of panels onto the bigger of our two sheds and have brought that back into use. Still needs a plank and a lock to make it secure, but at least it is now serviceable.

Then came the rhubarb (or roobabababab as my two year old calls it). We cleared all the grass and weeds from among the four or five well-established crowns, surround the patch with some logs and have been watering away for the past few days. The stalks are shooting up and we hope to be enjoying rhubarb crumble and custard from the start of May.

Come the winter we plan to dig up half the crowns and divide them so we get even more rhubarb in the years ahead.

Next, while the other half turned her attention to starting to clear some of the growth and dead wood from around the fruit patch at the bottom, I started to dig last year's potato plot.

As predicted, the ground has been well broken up, so most of the weeds and grasses are already out of the way.

Another hour or two and it will be cleared. A quick dig, a quick rake and we hope to get cabbage, sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower in there within a week or two.

I've also found time to construct a second compost bin (courtesy of another plot holder who was chucking out some pallets) and the other half has planted a whole heap of seeds (30 different types of plant) which are busily growing at home ready to transplant when the time is right.

And she also built a wigwam for peas to grow up, and children to play in, next to the rhubarb bed.

So what's next? At the weekend we want to pick up more seeds. I'm keen to get carrots, parsnips and swede in.

There is one more big bed to clear, up near the top near the compost bins, which we hope to use for salad crops.

The fruit plot at the bottom needs a serious clear-up and we're still trying to get hold of the allotment society's petrol grass trimmer so we can clear around the plot, including the paths.

Plenty to do, but it's looking good. I'll try to get a few pictures as soon as I get a spare minute.

Double time and double digging

2010-03-28T02:42:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we managed to ship the children off to Grandma's for the weekend, and spent two days on the plot. Three to four hours on Saturday and the same again Sunday.

Result? The top patchg is now entirely free of all weed life, grass etc. We took pity on a couple of rosemary bushes, a bay tree and some lavendar - but aside from that we went Agent Orange on the place (organcially speaking).

After that, we grubbed up a row of blackberries, pulled out two delapidated fruit fences and started to re-dig last years potato patch.

It is amazing how much you can get done with a lot of focus and no children. It looked great.

This weekend I spent two hours on Saturday on the plot with my eldest, who was content to dig, wash old potatos and play in a shelter while I started double dugging that cleared top patch.

This morning there was another two hours on the patch, this time just me and my iPod.

I've managed to get a fifth of the top patch dug over now, but it's a race against time.

We want to get it in a good condition so we can get some plants in now. I reckon another nine to 12 hours and it will be good to go. The weather report doesn't look good for the week though - rain and even sleet up till Wednesday.

Next weekend, Easter, we have family down and they will be here into next week - so it could be a fortnight before we get a decent block of time.

If the weather holds, now the evenings are lighter, I'll try to get an hour or so up there each day before dark.

Plans for the top plot, which is fairly shallow thanks to tree roots, are leeks, onions and garlic.

Fingers crossed!

Sprout surprise

2010-03-08T02:04:00.000-08:00

It's been a while, but we finally managed to get back on the plot this weekend - and it wasn't as bad was we'd feared!!

There was a combination of reasons for taking a couple of months out, and the first point to make is that it wasn't planned.

We didn't get up there for a couple of days, then it rolled over to a couple of weeks, then it was a couple of months.

Behind it all was the daunting task facing us, and the relentless nature of it. No sooner have we cleared one patch, then moved on to the next, and then the first one is covered in weeds again.

After a while, a thing like that can grind you down.

On top of that, our youngest was just six months old when we first took on the plot. We'd been on the waiting list for four or five years and the offer came at the worst possible time. It meant that the whole family couldn't get up to the plot at the same time.

We tried it a couple of times, but the place just isn't baby proof. So most of the time one or the other of us was ploughing a lonely furrow.

On top of that, it was just a question of time, and life. We both work full time so weekends get very busy with everything else that isn't work. The allotment was on the to-do list most weekends, but just kept getting knocked off the end.

Any way, we're back, and the winter weather seems to have done us a favour. The few months break hasn't seen the place overcome as we'd expected, and no-one has raided our shed.

Part of the problem has been trying to fit in around the architecture of what was left behind on the plot.

It had been divided into several strips, with some fencing, half a fruit cage, some stones and bits of wood.

We've been trying to clear around that to keep anything of any use. But it just didn't work. It was a very inefficient way of clearing the plot and preparing it for planting.

So the new plan is seek and destroy. I spent Sunday afternoon redigging the top plot and taking down the fruit wire cage the divides it from the plot beneath.

It was a liberating experience, opening up the space made it seem much more logical, and gave a clearer idea of the task ahead. Now the evenings are getting lighter we will be able to spend a couple of hours a day up there and we aim to have a lot of the plot back in use within weeks, rather than months.

One pleasant surprise of the weekend trip was sprouts. The first thing I spotted on the plot was two green spikes crammed with brussels. Interesting, as when I planted them I thought they were kohol rabi.

I dug them up, took them home and we had sporouts for tea - the best tasting sprouts ever!

The benefits of an allotment - exercise, fresh air, a hobby, meeting new people and (best of all) fresh, organic, local produce you've grown and nurtured yourself from seed far outweight the hard work you have to put in.

But sometimes, when faced with an overgrown weed patch that looks like someonthing from a rainforest documentary it is hard to remember that.

Mint - it absolutely will not stop, ever.

2009-07-13T00:32:00.000-07:00

Weeds have developed a range of strategies for ensuring their survival; scratching, stinging, poisioning, stinking - even biting.

Mint seems to have gone down the route of tasting good, and smelling great when you rip it out of the ground. Not particularly effective.

It did make the weeding job last week more fragrant than usual. Perhaps the mint was thinking that by making itself useful we wouldn't pull it up. But it spreads so quickly and so far that unless you have use of industrial quantities of the stuff it must be destroyed.

I did briefly consider trying to sign a deal with Wrigley to supply flavouring for their gum, or bulk-buying vinegar to produce a liftime supply of mint sauce, but there isn't enough lamb in the world.

I'm certain it will be back, like The Terminator (though hopefully not as rubbish as Terminator 4), but for now the patch of ground between the compost bin and the potatos is clear.

It took five hours of solid digging, hacking, slashing and ripping to get it clear. Then more digging, a bit of raking and I managed to get eight more plants in - sprouting broccoli donated by Chris the Gardener.

Half of that patch is still weed-logged, but I hope to get back up there this week and finish that bit off - probably to be greeted by a patch of mint grinning back at me like I'd never picked up by fork in the first place.

A fool and his gooseberries are soon parted

2009-06-29T01:35:00.000-07:00

Hour on the plot on Sunday morning ripping out vegetation - and this time it didn't go straight to the tip.

Thanks to the netting and a contraption made from canes and bottles the fruit is safe, and I managed to harvest a kilo of gooseberries and half a kilo of raspberries.

Some of the raspberries made it to the freezer, while our one-year-old ate the majority.

The gooseberries had a quick wash, topped and tailed, simmered for half an hour in water with a little sugar then mashed and mixed with custard and cream to make a gooseberry fool.

Awesome end to our Sunday lunch with friends.

Now to start planning what to do with all those apples.

Burn while you learn

2009-06-15T00:48:00.000-07:00

The anti-weed matting is down, the canes are in place and the saved plastic milk bottles are perched on top - we now have the skeleton of a fruitcage surrounding our raspberries and gooseberries.

Once the netting is sown together we can throw that across the top, and then spend the next few weeks wondering just how the birds got inside to eat our crop.

It was a busy Saturday on the plot, resulting in not just a skeletal fruitcage but also a couple of insect bites, several scratches and a sunburn (lower back, right arm).

Our neighbour also took pity on our weed patch and donated eight infant kohlrabi to the cause. After weeding the potatos (again!) I dug the end of the final row and dropped the turnip/cabbage hybrids in there.

Previously my only experience with kohlrabi has been transfering them straight from veg-box to fridge drawer to bin, but if they grow, we'll eat em!

Taking a break from getting sunburn, lunch on the plot was spent in the shade of our tree, looking down to the seafront, eating a steak pasty and a cake.

This has to be the real goal of the allotment, to get it into such a state where we can go up there and do nothing! Isn't that what it's all about?

Perhaps the most productive part of the weekend was finally discovering what the holes in a fork are for - apparently they are designed to let weeds through.

No matter how I use it, the only thing a fork seems capable of lifting is good quality topsoil, while the weeds stay firmly in the ground.

I finally gave in and resorted to ripping the evil plants out by hand - very satisfying and you get the whole root.

I thought we may have secured a victory several weeks ago when we liberated the potatos from the tyranny of weed rule, but every time we go back there are increasing attacks from enemy insurgents.

Grass is bad, bindweed is worse but what I really fear is IED (Improvised Explosive Dandelions). I'm fairly convinced if we don't get them all before they turn to seed we'll be picking dandelions from the plot till the end of time.

Not that it's driving me insane or anything but while earthing up the potatos I was moulding the mounds into Close Encounter mountain shapes.

Ah well, back to work for a bit of a rest.

Get by with a little help...

2009-06-07T23:53:00.001-07:00

We finally found the only tool that works on an allotment as overgrown as ours - help.
Last weekend the mother-in-law gave us a whole day of her expertise and labour and really turned things around.
Not only does she have university-level gardening knowledge, she also has a lifteime of experience and an abundance of enthusiasm.
The potatos are fully weeded and earthed up, and a whole load of new plants are now in place, while a whole bunch of weeds have breathed their last.
This weekend a couple of friends gave up half their Sunday to help us out.
Chris is a professional gardener who usually charges £12 an hour. I think we may get off with a Sunday lunch and a bottle of wine.
Chris and Bev cleared out what was once the flower and herb bed but had rapidly become one of many of our weed beds.
Having a couple of experts on the scene is great news. Not only do they get the job done, they show us how to do it and dole out plenty of advice that will prove useful for years to come.
MIL helped us identify a lot of plants - including those with irriant sap, and those which may produce nice flowers but would only last for a day or two.
She also showed us a whole host of gardening techniques.
Chris let us borrow his petrol strimmer to take down another patch of weeds, while he put in the hard labour turing out that patch at the top of the allotment.
Inspired by the surge forward, I built the compost bin on Sunday and filled it with the assorted vegetation we've pulled up over the last couple of weeks.
We've also managed to clear out all the weeds (mostly grass) from among the well-established raspberries, blackberries and gooseberries.
I've ripped out all the carpet that was laid between the rows. No doubt at first it kept the weeds away but in recent years it seems to have become nothing short of the perfect growing medium.
Now we need to get weed-proof membrane and a fruit cage over the lot asap.
It was also a good weekend on the plot for the young ones, with a lot of wildlife on hand to keep them entertained. Crickets, grasshoppers, ladybirds, butterflies, frogs - they loved the lot.
The fruit harvest is starting to look very impressive, so the priority now is protecting it all from the birds - I'll let you know how that goes (just like The Apprentice you can guess the outcome, the birds will win).

Weed Wars

2009-05-11T00:27:00.000-07:00

There was a time when I wondered what the difference was between a weed and anything else.
Now I have an allotment the answer is obvious. A weed will grow where you don't want it, a plant won't grow where you do.
Back on the plot in the glorious sunshine this weekend for weeding duty.
The potatoes are coming up nicely, but are surounded by couch grass and bindweed.
After trying a hoe, a spade and a fork I found the best way was to get my hands in the mud and rip out the offending vegetation by the roots.
Hopefully another two or three years of this treatment and they will give up.
The patches we haven't yet given so much attention to are now thriving - though again with weeds.
Among the tall grasses and brambles we are fairly certain there is a substantial growth of raspberries and gooseberries.
I'm itching to get in there with an industrial strimmer, a flamethrower and a rotavator - but the other half has her heart set on cultivating the crop for a year's supply of jam and frozen fruit.
Hmph.
Now the weather has warmed up it looks like we'll need to get up on the plot at least once every couple of days just to keep the weeds in check, let alone getting any more plants and seeds in place.
At least my recent birthday brought in a crop of anti-weed mats, so if we do get the jungle back in check we will at least have a fighting chance of keeping it that way.
We did manage to harvest a good crop of mint and rhubarb this weekend - so it looks like we'll be eating some mint-based fruit crumble dish for the rest of May.
I'd say Heston Blumenthal eat your heart out, but he probably would.

Planting and harvesting

2009-04-15T03:40:00.000-07:00

All the potatoes are finally in! It was a hard task, digging through the soil for a fourth time to get out as many of the couch grass roots as possible before replacing them with roots of our own.

There are four rows, two of Lady Balfour and two of salads, so we'll give it a few weeks and see what comes up. No doubt lots of grass, but hopefully we'll be able to keep on top of it.

Now we can move on to the patches either side of the potatoes, which are less clogged, and start getting some seeds in.

The one below will be given over to root veg - parsnips, swedes and carrots. The patch above (where the brambles were) will be mostly given over to a compost bin and green house.

Last night also saw us enjoying the fruit of (other people's) work on the allotment. We had a chicken and leek pie with a leek donated by allotment representative Christine, followed by a rhubard crumble with rhubarb someone else planted on our plot several years ago.

A taste of things to come, hopefully.

Trench warfare

2009-04-06T02:04:00.000-07:00

Four months in to our allotment project and we finally managed to get something into the ground.
To be fair, a couple of weeks back we did bury a gooseberry and a raspberry plant, but digging a small hole and dropping in a pot hardly counts.
On Saturday we got serious. Now the ground is clear we are able to actually see the mud, and dig it up.
After clearing away the grass that had started to grow back, I dug a trench. I tried to follow the instructions on the (Endsleigh-bought) pack of organic seed potatoes. 10cm deep, 35cm apart in the trench, each row 75cm apart.
But somehow I seem to have got a little enthusiastic. Climbing out of the first trench was like re-enacting the final scene from Blackadder Goes Forth.
No matter, I put the seed potatoes in their place, and moved on to trench two - using the soil I dug out of that to fill in trench one.
The soil was hard and heavy, full of roots and weeds so it was slow going but we made a family day of it.
The young ones played in a tent further down the plot while the other half and I did the hoeing, digging and burying. Then we all took a turn at the watering.
Before we knew it it was 6pm and we had to head for home, but we aim to get back as soon as possible to get the last two trenches in.
Saturday also saw me wield a machete to hack away the very last of the brambles. That now clears enough room to throw together the pallets and make a compost bin.
And last week we took delivery of a second-hand greenhouse. I say greenhouse, right now it is a pile of indecipherable glass and metal - but hopefully we'll put it together in the next few days.
After that, we have enough seeds to start a second (organic vegetable based) Eden Project and this is the time to get them in the ground.
On the plus side, the fruit trees are all in blossom and the gooseberry we planted seems to be sprouting plenty of green shoots - so fingers crossed for a crop of something later in the year.

Green-ness envy

2009-03-09T01:27:00.001-07:00

Back on the plot this weekend and after one huge bonfire and three trips to the tip (two with overloaded trailer) it is finally clear.
The sheer amount of rubbish left on the plot has been weighing us down since we took over the site in December so it feels like a weight is now off our shoulders.
We had to conscript the help of family to borrow a trailer but now all the waste is gone (including a huge amount of glass, a lot of rusted metal, enough carpet for a small hotel and a chemical toilet) it feels like we can get on and plant.
And we have to do it quickly. Walking past all the other plots to ours it is amazing to see how quickly they are sprouting - while ours is a reddy brown mess.
So there is a long way to go, much too long to sit around being jealous of how green everyone else's patch is.
About a third of our plot is about ready for planting. The overgrowth and rubbish are gone. It has been dug over. Now it needs a thorough double dig and then we can get the crops in.
Everyone keeps telling us to use root crops to break up the soil and bring it back into use - so potatoes, carrots and parsnips will feature heavily alongside swede and possibily turnips and beetroot.
We've already got a lot of rapsberries and blackberries on the site and we've planted another raspberry and a gooseberry - so we'll see how they do, alongside the two or three (hard to tell under the growth) established apple trees.
The sheds are also now empty so one of them (the one without the huge whole in the wall) is about to be treated to a padlock so we can keep our tools up there instead of lugging them backwards and forwards.
After a winter of discontent, hopefully spring has now sprung and we can start making a real difference on the plot.

Smoke gets in your eyes

2009-01-18T01:22:00.000-08:00

Back on the patch yesterday after the winter (ie, its too darn cold) break, and managed to make a huge dent in the clean-up.
There was a community spring clean organised by the allotment association, so we helped trim back all the overgrowth around the borders and burn the waste, while also burning our own waste and shifting some of the junk dumped at the bottom of our plot.
The others chipped in to help us burn our pile of waste and the whole day had a great community feel.
We all sat down for a lunch of jacket potatoes, chilli and biscuits before tackling the rest of the site in the afternoon.
The bad news is someone seems to have taken our fruitcage - very annoying after we spent so long freeing it up and preparing it for planting.
Others on the plot say they have also had things stolen in the last few days and weeks - including a set of table and chairs.
After years of the site being free from theft they blame the credit crunch for the recent attacks - and they warn it'll get worse when the crops start to come through.
The good news is that the association has been awarded more than £1,000 which will allow them to build a composting toilet on the site - if they can decide where to put it.

Cold comfort farm

2008-11-29T06:34:00.000-08:00

Too cold to dig this weekend. Well, for me at least.
The other half spent two hours up on the plot, thinning out the brambles to find the cultivated brambles beneath.

...dig, dig, dig

2008-11-22T06:32:00.000-08:00

Digging, digging and more digging

Dig, dig, dig...

2008-11-17T03:25:00.000-08:00

Two more days on the plot this weekend, and two days of solid digging.
The plot is well divided into different areas, so we're working on clearing them one at a time.
At the top, under the shade of a large tree, is a herb garden, followed by a fruit cage with a compost bin next to it.
After this is the area we've been working on, three beds which will be perfect for crop rotation.
We've cleared the middle one back to bare earth and the one above it is now being dug over, after the grass was cut back from four-feet high.
The manuals are divided on digging, with many organic gardeners recommending against it. But With so much vegetation above ground and so many roots below, I don't think we have a lot of choice.
The bottom patch is next on the list.
With so much greenery, and so much bindweed, the only option has been a bonfire.
So last night I burnt about half the waste. Now we just have to wait for a few dry, windless days to get rid of the rest.

The plot unthickens

2008-11-11T06:34:00.000-08:00

I've never been much of fan of apples before, seemed like a lot of chewing for not much flavour.
Today I was converted. The only way to eat an apple is to bite into it just seconds after plucking it from the branch.
Wow!
The plot may be 'well-established', but that has it's advantages. As well as the apple we've also sampled raspberries and blackberries and we've harvested a few potatos.
We've had plenty of warnings from books and other allotmenteers about the disappointment of failed harvests, but if all the food that does survive tastes this good, we're in for a treat.

The paths down either side of the plot are now clear. This seemed to be a good idea as I'm guessing the second rule of Allotment Society is 'keep your neighbours happy'.
The first rule of Allotment Society is you don't talk about Allotment Society.
We've also started to spread the brown among the green. The patch above the bit in the middle, which we've already cleared and started to use for a pile of rubbish, is now hacked back and we've made a start on turning over the soil.
I also found the door to the fruit cage today, so no more clambering through the hole in the net to get inside, and I fixed the door to the larger shed, so no more having to clamber through the hole in the side.
Of course, fixed is a relative term. In this case fixed now means that it is open unless you wedge it shut, rather than shut with no chance of pushing it open.

The most productive thing we've done so far is speak to a few neighbours. Ian and Jane two plots down took over their site 30 months ago so they are full of advice about the best way to clear the plot, what they've had success and failure with and how to pace yourself.

One more plot down is Alan, who took on his allotment the same year I was born. A hive of information he's grown just about everything on his patch in it's time. Except peas, but he takes that as a personal failure rather than a failure of the plot. Thanks to Alan, Ian and Jane we now know to watch out for catterpillars, foxes, slugs and badgers as well as blight.

They all tell us the key is to take things slowly, tackle a bit at a time, and the best way to learn is to experiment, try and fail. Alan revealed he is still learning 34 years on, having just failed to grow any raspberries on one particular stretch - because he grew raspberries there last year.
Still, he knows what went wrong, and it won't happen again.

Sounds like there may be a few failures ahead for us, but if we harvest more marrows than mistakes then I guess we'll be ahead of the game.

Day One. Ground Zero.

2008-11-10T03:37:00.000-08:00

I was never a big one for gardening. It may have something to do with the fact the only thing our garden grew when I was young was enough nettles to keep Yarg in cheese-wrappers for a year.
Not to say I wasn't aware of where our fresh food came from. It was either the shop on the corner or Gary Lineker's fruit and veg stall on Leicester Market.
But a couple of years ago I was struck with an urge to start growing my own produce. Not sure where it came from, but maybe watching too many re-runs of River Cottage.
Fortunately Hugh FW hasn't left me with a desire to jack it all in and move to Dorset, nor do I feel the need to picket Tesco over the price of their chickens while foraging for nuts in a hedgerow.
But the desire to grow, to get mud under my fingernails and a kink in my spine, is still there.
So when the email dropped into my inbox offering me a tenancy agreement on a plot, I leapt at the chance.
Having seen the amount of digging it's going to take to get the plot into shape, it may be the last leaping I ever do without extensive chiropractic intervention.
So this weekend we made our first trip to the plot as official allotment tenants, burdened with all the garden tools we have and a couple of pasties.
I'm not sure how long the plot has been left untended. The couple two plots down have been on theirs for two-and-a-half years and they say them seem to remember someone being on our patch when they first arrived.
So how best to described the plot? I could start by saying I wouldn't be too surprised if I came across a previous tenant trapped in the undergrowth.
We've had lots of advice from people on how best to clear the site, mostly involving flamethrowers, and I must admit it is very tempting to go 'jungle warfare'. I've investigated the pros and cons of Agent Orange or maybe just an airstrike involving Daisy Cutters and napalm.
I love the smell of napalm in the morning, reminds me of...vegetables.
Perhaps not.
Anyway, all the books (and we've borrowed enough from the library to strengthen our backs for the digging task ahead) say it's important to clear the ground by hand with a spade to get to know your soil.
Getting to know your soil, not sure if that sounds hippy-ish or Jeremy Kyle-ish.
After a half-hour digging and hacking on Saturday morning, we decided to ditch the fork, and try the pasties instead.
Then a couple more hours with the pruning and the digging and the building a huge pile of junk in the middle of the plot.
We also cleared a path to the two sheds, where we found, amongst other things, a chemical toilet, a large patio table with parasol and chairs and a hand-plough the type of which hasn't been used since the 14th century.
OK, enough, we give up - to assorted comments from our allotmenting neighbours.
Sunday saw more of the same, with the added benefit of heavy showers and high winds. But at least one small patch in the middle of the site is now reddy-brown, instead of green, and the fruit cage now has just plants in it, instead of plants, glass, rotten chipboard and rusted spikes.
Over the next few weeks, months....years, I'll let you know how we get on clearing the plot and eventually planting a few, er, planty-things and finally digging them up and eating them.
Any advice, thoughts and comments will be appreciated.