Well we got it.

We got the second half plot .....finally after nearly a month of weed growing waiting !

Today was 6 hours of hard weeding and digging over.....we really cracked on though as we've got about a third of the plot dug so far. That's it though until next week as we're off on on our ollidays on Friday ....yippee !

The progress so far on 18A our new half plot.

At the start :

After today's efforts :

Nearly full circle already !

Well what a year this has been on the plot, from a patch of waste land to winning the newcomer half plot prize and now as the air feels cooler giving a hint that we are moving towards the end of summer, the plot is emptying and the digging starting over all again.

We've learned a lot this year, a few mis-haps towards the end of the season......planting too close together to cram as much in as we could , that has been the biggest point to take forward for next year.

We've had good crops of onions,carrots,peas,broadbeans, potatoes, squashes, lettuces , cabbages, cauilflower, chillies and a few tomatoes....plus too many courgettes !!! So we can't complain. Perhaps a little more thought with succession planting so we don't get the glut of some crops that we have had this year.

Anyway, so far we've got all the spuds lifted and stored then the bed dug over. I lifted the last row of beetroot and the remains of the failed swedes yesterday, then weeded and dug over most of bed four. The day before I dug over and weeded bed three all but one corer where the sprouts are still growing.
Hopefully this dig as we lift regime will ease the job of the back end of the year digging ritual. Plus we have put our names down for a second half plot that is next but one to us, so by getting stuck into the plot we have now,if we do get the second half we'll have the time to get it in order. We're jusrt waiting for the allocations officer to get his finger out and give us the nod ! What a system .....it's if your face fits or he thinks you should have a plot.....nothing of a system, which if we are rejected I'll be taking issue with at the AGM in November.......in the meantime the empty plot is just geting over run with weeds, when we could be working it !

Rant over.....lol

Here's how the plot is looking, with the sunflowers now smiling over the plot.

  
Just a quick update, soon be time for the fishing season to start again and so the lotty will take second place in the priority of spare time use.

23/07/14 update.

Everything is growing really well, the wet then sunny then wet again weather has been bringing all the crops on in leaps and bounds. There have been a few upsets though, the warm wet weather has caused the diseases on the allotment site to go into overdrive. Blight has hit most of the plots potatoes, we hopefully cut the tops off at the first sighting on our spuds so we're hoping the ones still under ground will be ok.

Next door (the witch) has started to show the failings in their gardening, the lack of work they have put in coupled with no weeding has meant that most of their crops are either stunted or just about killed off with various pests and diseases ! We're having to be vigilant though having them next door is less than ideal as we have to battle with the same pests migrating across.

Our onions were hit with powdery mildew but we lifted them and disposed of the infected leaves, next door didn't and theirs have gone black now.......I just hope that our leeks escape the disease.....we'll just have to wait and see.

This week has seen us eating our veg and salad at just about every meal....I'm loving the taste of organically grown fresh veg.....nothing like it and so satisfying knowing that it all came from our own hard work !

So updated pics of the plot :

 

Now the onions are lifted I've put in some late Purple Sprouting Broccoli.  

 

At long last the Caulis are developing curds, this is the biggest so far , I ve snapped a couple of leaves over the white to keep it clean. I'm really pleased that they are finally coming on.....I'd just about given up on them.....I'm pleased I just left them be now.

The onions are drying on top of mesh, another few days and they'll be ready to hang up on strings in the shed.

 

The best bit, a nice brew and then sit back in the deckchair and admire the fruits of our labours ! 

 

Some of the Beetroot crop is now in jars, some spiced pickled the rest into sweet chutney.....I tried some with a nogging of Cheddar Cheese.....WOW ! It's really tasty...yum yum !  

 

Some of our Courgette glut has been started off as wine....the self sufficiency is starting to increase.....hopefully we'll save a bit of money on the shopping bills over the next few months as well as having a big happy smile and full bellies to show from our plot. 

 

Another bag of lovely fresh food brought back today.....I'm having a big plate of veg in a giant Yorkshire pud for my tea....no need for any meat , the veg are so tasty.

   That's it for now, watch this space in a couple of weeks time.

11/07/2014 update.

We're just coming to the end of a fantastic fortnight off work.......we've been able to spend loads of time down on the plot getting everything in order and generally enjoying the allotment garden.

The annual judging has taken place this week and guess what ? We only went and won best newcomer, we also marked higher than the best long term half plot but the committee decided to make us best new comers because we didn't enter last year due to not getting the plot early enough.

The hard work early on in the year is starting top pay off now with most of the crops going really mad, plus the wet weather coupled with sunny spells has put mega growth on just about everything.

The only down this week is to discover light on the spuds.......a lot of the plots are suffering with it. We've managed to lift the effected spuds and they are not too bad, certainly good enough for eating now, just not for storing.

Working along the plot from the top end.

In the polytunnel the chilli plants are all now bearing fruits, with the cherry bomb cilli being the one most heavily adorned in fruits up to now.

We lost a tomato plant recently but all the others seem to be doing ok with fruits now forming on the trusses. The beef steak plants are doing really well.

I ve got some herbs coming along in pots inside the polytunnel and also a few other trays of seedlings of parsnips,swedes and chinese cabbages.

I'm going to have to put down some beer traps as slugs have been eating the leaves of one of the pepper plants, I don't want the other plants ravaged by the little slimey critters !

Moving back outside, I ve been trying to make use of the wall space with a few bottle planters of Chinese cabbage, the bottles tied off to some lumps of scrap branches.

The rest of the plot is looking really good with steady growth on everything, even the carrots are coming along........who knows if the carrot flies have been busy , only time will tell there.
Oh and we've added a new plot sign....Bob the whirligig bee (plot 19 Bee !)

So there you go a quick round up of where things are at , still plenty of summer left and then the winter digging to look forward to !
Work tomorrow....Boo ! But we're finishing the hols off with a trip over to Leeds....come on the Rhinos ! 


 

18/06/2014 update.

The plot is coming along nicely with everything putting some growth on. We've had the first crop of radish and the courgettes are now starting to bear fruit.The warm wet weather has put everything into overdrive .....including the weeds though !

The only downside to the allotment has been neighbour trouble. One side decided to start to dig up the shared up path to extend his plot onto the path ! That resulted in the first confrontation.....all the members of the allotment committee have visited and told him that he is to maintain the path as it is not dig it up. So with him first stealing from our plot and then trying to claim the path as growing ground, he needs to be kept a careful eye on......he's had my calm version of confrontation...not the next time though !

Then yesterday the other side decided she would launch at us in a completely out of the blue, it came from nowhere this rant , again over paths. This neighbour doesn't want a dividing path between the allotments, she thinks its ok to dig up to the boundary and then walk on our plot. She is going to be hauled in front of the committee as she refused to see sense yesterday and just ranted and raved at us and the secretary of the allotment association !Kim tried to speak to her, I gave up and rather have a row I left her to her insane logic.

The white sticks were put in by the allotment association to mark the centre of the pathway when the original plot was divided into two half plots. There is supposed to be a  path at least two feet wide so a foot either side of the centre line.
That then gives both parties room to tend their beds and have access with a wheel barrow. Except the loony next door has dug up and planted up to the centre line ! If we'd done the same then we'd be walking on each others crops every time we needed to walk along the end of the beds.

This was how it was marked out when we took over the plot :

  

 Then as it is today, a half path down our side and no path down the loony's side. The funny thing is she said she didn't have to maintain a path because she could use Pete's path that he keeps neat and tidy, so why did she need a path when she could use his ! ....Priceless !

Why do we have to be sandwiched between a thief at one side and a complete moron at the other ?
Oh well, not to worry, it did cross my mind last night to execute a midnight stealth glyphosate weedkiller raid on both neighbours crops, kill off their crops and hope that they gave it all up as a bad job.....only joking...honest  ;0)

We got the whole plot weeded yesterday in between arguments...lol and even helped the association by clearing a stretch of the road verge to give folk some more parking space.The bushes were out to the level with the container before.

Sylvia (our back neighbour) brought us a couple of steak pies to have for tea as a thank you....they were lovely and at least we've got some nice plot neighbours.I did ask her if she could move in next to us as a swap for the idiot....but she just laughed and said she liked being on the end because then she had only half the worry of a bad neighbour.

A  few pics of where things are at :

Our first beefsteak tomato.

The sunflowers should be ready to go outside next week (chicken feed as well as adding some colour to the plot)

 

The first chilli starting to develop, all the other plants are just starting to flower so fruits should follow.

 Even the struggling Pear tree has put on some new growth, so there is hope yet. We'll need to put another pear tree in though as we did't read the lable and this one needs another to fertilize it ....so no pears until it gets a mate.

The squashes are going mad, new growth is appearing daily and they are just starting to climb up the netting.

 

The onions are coming along and now bulbing up nicely. The first crop of radish made way for a couple of rows of spring onions.

Courgettes and a couple of rows of beetroots. The beets need thinning today before they get too big.

The butter beans are just about touching the top of the frame now, no flowers as such on them. The dwarf beans at the other side are all flowering now so we should start to get some french beans very soon.

 

The swedes are struggling a little with something eating the tops, I'm not sure if its birds, slugs or flea beetles but something is nibbling away at the leaves. The turnips next to them are just showing above the soil surface now.

All the brassicas  are doing fine under the mesh. The purple sprouts I'm really hoping do well.

We tied the peas up as they were starting to flop about and look untidy. I think I might sow another couple of rows of peas into bed two where the failed parsnips were growing but have now been dug over.

 

Last but not least the mixed spuds are just in flower. I'm having to try hard not to dig some up for new potatoes. I'll give it another couple of weeks before lifting a plant just to see.

So that's about it really, it's just coming up 5am and I've been up an hour or so as I just couldn't sleep......I think I might have a wander round to the allotment before breakfast and do an hour or so then back for a butty when Kim has woken from a nightly coma !

31/05/14 How things are coming along.

We've had a good few days of rain and heavy showers and the garden has really shown that it needed it, with green appearing everywhere.......mostly weeds though. !

So the last two days have been spent mainly weeding and tidying up the edges of the beds at the allotment.
We've got 125 Leeks planted out now so if they all grow we'll have enought to see us through until next year I hope. they are only small at the moment , but they all seem to be growing now they are in the ground.

The peas and Broad beans are steadily coming along, the pea weevils don't seem as much of a problem now the plants are getting established. I've sown another row of Broad beans from some seeds that I had chitted at home to give them a leg up to grow. I've squeezed them in between the peas. We should definitely have sown the peas thicker than we did.....oh well a lesson learned there for next year.

 

The Butter beans had started to flop across the ground instead of climbing up the frame, so this morning I 've been tying in some more vertical supports of string and wrapping the beans around the string. That should take care of the beans wandering nature....I hope. 

 The plantings of the variety of courgettes seem to be doing ok, I've given them a dressing of poultry pellets today to see if that helps them come along any quicker. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the round 'Globe' type courgettes do as we've not tried those before. 

At least the cucumbers are getting over the shock of being moved and are showing some new leaf growth, as are the two Spaghetti squash plants. Nothing growing anywhere near the lattice work frame yet though. Maybe the sunshine that is forecast over the next week will help matters.

It looks like moving the onions from bed 2 was the right thing to do, they are starting to swell as bulbs now and have enjoyed me having a thoroughly good set to with the weeding. We've only lost a couple in the move , so I'm quite happy with that.

 Overall the bottom half of the plot is looking a lot better and starting to fill up with crops now.

Over in the little polytunnel:
The Kohl Rabi are looking good, I've got green and purple types coming along in the little polytunnel. I did have the Swedes in there as well but they are looking nearly big enough to plant out so I've brought them home and put them in the cold frame to harden off for a couple of weeks before they go back to the lotty to go in the ground. The Swedes at home that we grew last year did really well, so I hope the soil is up to a good good crop from the allotment.

We had a failure with Spring onions last year and so this year I've followed a clip on Youtube by Quickcrop and sown the Spring onions into moddules in bunches of 8-10 seeds. They are just starting to poke their heads up (if you look closely you can see the little bunches just poking out of the compost).Doing them this way will mean I can plant the module bunch straight into the ground as they come out of the module trays. Then just pull a bunch at a time to eat, as and when we need them. We've got about 40 or so bunches sown and as soon as they go in the ground I'll start a few more, we do eat a lot of salad onions !  

 I was natering to my mate Trev......well actually read that as picking his brains on tomato growing and also scrounging a hoe from him, as I bust mine the other day. He's a good lad is ole Trev. I was asking him about how he keeps the pests off his tomatoes and he said he always grows a few marigolds in the greenhouse with his tomatoes and the green and white fly just seem to stay away when the marigolds are there. If it's good enough for Trev then it will do me.....so I popped along to the garden centre and bought a few marigold plants. They are now living happily with our toms.
The tomato plants are growing now, I have been pinching out the side shoots and watering regularly....time will tell if we going to get any fruit on them

The chilli plants are just starting to show some flower buds, that must be a good sign. I m not watering them very much, just keeping the soil on the dry side of moist. All that I ve read says to treat em mean and they will reward you with firey hot plentiful chillies ! I just wish we had started a few more plants off early on this year......another to add to the list of must do's for next year. 

Back at home the veg garden is slowly filling up. We've got lettuces,radishes, including Mooli radish , courgettes, mini butternut squashes and a load of shallots planted out. The shallots are from seed and I'd just about given up on them but they seem to be away now. I reckon it will be late on though when they are ready.

 Buster wasn't bothered what was going on in the veg garden, he was more interested in knocking out a few Zzzz's.........at least he was settled....for once !

 The chickens however were keen to make the most of some rest from the big brown chicken chaser (he was asleep after all !) and so they were wanting to be in the veg garden helping out !

 That's about all really.....some more carrots were sown and some climbing beans to go on the frame at home for a later crop of beans. We're definitely a lot more on top of things than we were last year. I'm finding the allotment a real pleasure now not a chore and we've got crops growing at home as well. It was hard work at first but now we just seem to be keeping on top by doing a little bit often, rather than leaving it and then trying to play catch up.
Our allotment neighbours are struggling this year as all three of them have the weeds getting the better of their plots....mainly down to the same mistakes we made last year, too much rotavating and then too little weeding and not going down there enough. We made that mistake last year. An hour or so a couple of times a week is definitely better than a day every other week !
Roll on a few days sunshine and the next update should show a considerable difference in things at home and the lotty.

TTFN.