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. 

A quick guided tour of our plot.

My first attempt at a little video of our plot.

The view a year or so ago was very different to the one at the end of the video clip !

First courgettes out.

I ve had some courgette plants in the cold frame for the past few weeks and so I 'm hoping that they have hardened off enough to cope with the shock of being planted out.
I started off way too many plants and so have planted only five plants at the allotment and a couple at home.
If they all grow on we should have enough courgettes to feed an army !
I' ve tried to give the plants as much shelter as possible,planting them near the bean frames...... we'll see.  I ve got a few plants in pots as reserves in case of any losses.

The space the courgettes have gone into is quite close to a row of beetroots so I' ve put up a temporary wire fence to give the beets chance to get established without being smothered by the courgettes.

I've put a globe type plant at each end and three different traditional long variety types between including a yellow sunstripe courgette. 

This weekend will be an intense weeding session as the Warm weather has encouraged the weeds to go mad.  

The peas need staking out as well, it looks like the little spray has reduced the pea weevils sufficiently for the plants to recover......... We might get a bowl of peas yet! 

What a scorching two days it has been !

It's been like a proper summer the last two days, to the point that at lunchtime yesterday I had to retreat home from the allotment as it was just too hot to be digging.

The digging was to clear a space for our new polytunnel to go on. There was a patch of mud and couch grass that was crying out for something to cover it , so I set about clearing a 10ft x 6ft space for a small tunnel to go on. The space is the bare patch near the white post in the picture below.

 After much turf and weed removal and about half a ton of gravel and soil the space was something like. Buster acted as a foreman some of the time and a clown the rest of the time.....he is so sweet but so so annoying at times as well....bless him !

 By the end of the first day the frame was up and the wooden posts knocked in to add a bit of support to the frame.

Day two and a couple more posts added to the front, a trench dug all round and some kick boards just to protect the cover when I m cutting the grass.

  We managed to knock up a few low supports for the plants to stand on, they were from some of the bits of left over scrap pallets we had left.

 We're not expecting the cover to last very long but the frame is very sturdy, so when the cover gives up we'll fit a more sturdy poly tunnel polythene, but we should get this season out of this one.
We wrapped a long day in the sun off by putting the tomato plants and chilli plants in to bigger pots and grow bags.
I've rigged up some twine supports above the tomatoes, I just need to tie in some canes as the plants grow. 

Everything else is now starting to show some growth as well, the beetroots are just poking their heads up , as are the radishes. All the brassicas are slowly coming along and the spuds are well away. We just need a bit of rain next few days really as the ground is starting to dry out and crack in places.

That's all for now.  

a QUICK UPDATE.

We've been busy the last couple of days off from work , down on the allotment and a fair bit in the house veg garden as well.
I've raked and crumbed down the beds on the allotment that were still free of crops, so now we are ready to sow the root crops.
I've sown some carrots and spring onions at home and I've also sown a row of carrots on the allotment. The home ones are under the mesh cover, the allotment ones I m going to leave and see what happens with them.

The shed has had a coat of wood preservative today and is looking great !

I ve also sown some radish and some beetroot in the smaller beds.

 Most of today has been taken up building and filling our new cucumber and squash box and the supprt for them to grow off the growund. We're hoping that growing them this way will keep the fruits off the ground and out of harms way. Last year the squash plants sprawled out all over the place and looked scruffy, this year time will tell but things should be better. I've just got the netting to finish weaving together tomorrow.

The next battle ! So much to learn with this gardening lark !

So we seem to be constantly battling the bindweed outbreaks still but nowhere near as bad as it was.....I'm not going to tempt fate by saying anymore on that front though !

Just as you start to make some headway another problem rears its head, this time birds ! It appears that the local feathered fraternity have taken a liking to our pea shoots. The new growth has been well and truly nibbled .

So a plan was hatched and a quick trip to Wood's the builders merchants (the place that sells all), and then on to the lotty to put things into action. Oh after a call in at Wilburs for a breakfast to put me on til teatime.

We knocked together some chicken wire tunnels to keep the little nibblers at bay and maybe we might see a pea come summer......maybe !

Seeing as the weather forecast was for rain, Kim escaped her shed painting duties and so after finishing the pea tunnels we made for home and whilst Kim did some "women's work " around the house I got a couple of rows of carrots and spring onions sown into the bed with the mesh cover in the house veg garden.

The rain didn't appear though, so rather than be bored this afternoon I headed back to the allotment to do battle with the wind and try to get some Sprouts, Cabbages and Cauliflowers in the ground........oh and cover them in meshing to protect them from the insects and pigeons. At times it was like flying a 6 metre mesh kite trying to get the covers attached to the hoops on my own in a very fresh South West breeze. Eventually though after a few choice words and a helping hand from Kim who called by, the covers were done and mighty fine they look as well, even if I do say so myself !

 You can just make out the rows of little plants under the blue mesh.

 Things are starting to fill more of the plot than is left empty now, still a lot to plant out though. I might do the French beans and the butter beans tomorrow morning.......or the Kale, I'll see how I feel in the morning.

 Oh and finally a few more of the spuds are sticking their heads up through the earth mounds........mix and match spuds that is !

After a couple of hours the meshing was up and the plants in the ground, I was going to plant some Kale as well but I ran out of steam so they will have to wait until next time.......maybe in the morning, definitely not tomorrow afternoon though as we are heading off to Castleford to watch the Leeds Rhino's versus Castleford Tigers superleague game.......can't wait it should be a great game and not supporting either team means we won t be upset whoever wins........come on Leeds ! ....lol

A quick update.....  Leeds won get in!
Oh and its not birds eating the peas but pea weevils my mate Trev put me right.  Apparently most plots are suffering with them.  We've sprayed ours now and they seem to be still growing so perhaps we ll have some peas yet.

At last the pallet palace is finished!

Only a brief update as I m knackered after a full day grafting away at the allotment shed.  

All the walls are finished now, guttering is on and the doors have finally been hung. Just the outside to paint now........that's a job for Kim tomorrow if it stays fine.

 

Hopefully I'll get the water butts in place tomorrow as well.

That's all for today , time for a beer and some Zzzzz's

That exciting time of year again!

So the days are getting warmer and the weeds bigger so the seasonal reminder that growing mode is upon us arrives .
It's not just the weeds that have been growing though,  the trays of our future crops are coming along nicely.  I just hope that the frosts stop soon, we had a white over ground frost here last night with the car windscreens needing scraping this morning.

Up to now we have Cabbages, Cauliflower, Kale,Sprouts (purple and green varieties), Beetroots, Courgettes,Leeks, French beans,Butter Beans and Broad beans .....oh and some varieties of lettuces in seed trays.

These are the Cabbages,Kale Sprouts  ....oh and Squashes, I forgot about them.( Spaghetti squash and baby butternut squash)

These are some more Sprouts and Cauliflowers , they are ready to be potted on , there are about 10 plants in each pot at the moment.

Then a few Broad beans just starting to show their heads, we've got two full rows direct sown at the allotment, these are to just top up on any that don't germinate. The tray in front are Boltardy Beetroots, just showing the first growth if you look carefully.

 I knocked up a coldframe yesterday and some of the plants are in there ready for hardening off before planting out in a few weeks time.

The Rhubarb forest grows on and on and on !

Kim got her Strawberry bed planted out and covered to warm them up a bit while the frosts are still dropping in occasionally.

Even the Blueberry bushes are showing some growth, we don't know at what point we will see any fruit ....maybe not until next year ?

The beds are all set for planting out, home is going to be mainly salad veg, except the covered bed and that is this year going to be the carrot fly busting bed....we hope anyway !

That's about it really , I ve done some more shed building on the allotment and have three out of the four walls clad now so the shed........or as the other plot holders call it " the pallet palace" is nearly finished.

Trev will be supplying the wine to celebrate the finish of the build ( Trev is the bloke who's taken me under his wing a little........my Dad referred to him as the 'old bloke'......Trev is 76 years young.....hee hee....old bloke says my Dad....lol )

Roll on rest days for the next day on the plot.