Need to get down again!

I’ve been down recently – well in the last month or so. But I didn’t take any photo’s of what I’ve been doing.

I’ve been trying to get the back half of the site cleared ready for use this year, I’m going to try growing all of the Christmas presents for this years gifts – chutneys, pickles etc.

The cold weather makes clearing now very hard, as the ground is SOLID, but I managed to get plenty done a month ago (or so) and built a new compost area.

I’ll get some snaps and upload them.

Progress...

No photos for today, but managed to get down for a good 3 hours today. Roped my best friend, Chris, into this session :) I managed to weed to top half of the plot, where the spuds have gone mad, and earthed up around them. Chris weeded 5 out of 7 of the remaining beds that we have created on the first half of the plot, and a bloody good job of it he did too! We've covered that with a weed membraine and some logs to hold it down. These beds are having there crops prepped for them at home. I've sown:

6 Big MAX pumpkin seeds
Green Sprouting Calabrese
Chard - Perpetual Spinach
Cultivated Rocket
Boltardy Beetroot
Trocadero Improved Lettuce
Lollo Rossa Lettuce
Corn Salad Baval
Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli
Cucumber Long Green Ridge
Dwarf French Bean Sprite

I've ordered some plants from a couple of online nursery's:

Tomato Alicante
Tomato San Marzano
Herb Collection (Chives, Mint, Rosemary, Sage, Thyme and Sweet Marjoram)
Lettuce Little Gem
Sweet Pepper Redskin

The above are all from www.plantcollection.co.uk and were bought because I missed the sowing season for Tom's and the sweet peppers. I just chucked the rest in because I was buying ;)

Calabrese Marathon Plants
Broccoli (Sprouting) Bordeaux Plants
Brussels Sprout Brilliant Plants
Cabbage Peter Plants

These were all bought from marshalls as a set and were bought because I missed the ideal time for sowing out the brussels and my other half was really looking forward to brussels this christmas!


On top of that I've also already got Sweetcorn, Butternut Squash and Onward Pea's growing at home in preperation for a little "Three Sisters" preperation.



See, think you'll agree! A VERY productive day! :)

I'll grab some photos on Tuesday so that you can all see how we're getting on ;)

Damn! Been down again - FINALLY!

Finally - after more than 3 weeks I've made it back down to the allotment! EVERYTHING is growing :) You have no idea how happy I am about that, I was just starting to lose the faith, but it has been re-invigorated; even with all the weeding. I managed to fill an entire wheelbarrow full of weeds that were pulled out of just 4 of the beds (4ft x 4ft) - that is a lot of weed!
The above is the corner of the bed that has the parsnips in - I've not weeded it yet cause I wasn't 100% sure what the parsnips looked like - I know now, so back tomorrow after work to finish off!

I was pleasantly suprised to see that a few of the items I wasn't expecting up were in fact up! Below is a picture of the asparagus - which was a wonderful suprise under all the weeds!! Haven't eaten asparagus since I was a kid (and I didn't like it then) much less grown it - I'm hoping my taste buds have matured. Well, if I don't like it I'm sure it'll be snapped up!

Above is the Jerusalem Artichoke, I didn't really know what this was either, but a process of elimination let me work it out. I didn't plant this in rows, well not neat ones, I planted them in a rough grid - but the weeds were all around and hiding the plants really well! :D
I'm rather looking forward to seeing how these babies go - I've not eaten these before at all. Anyone else getting the idea that the allotment is my experimental playground!



Check out my nice neat rows of carrots! Sadly the red spring onions in the rows between really aren't having any fun :( I think I may have to put something else in there - maybe something else to stop the dreaded carrot fly... Or maybe, if it isn't too late, I can sow some more carrot...



Below is the one row in the bed of Parsnips that I know are Parsnips! The rest I wasn't so sure about in the failing light. I'll be down there tomorrow to sort out the other rows ;)

My final picture of success for the night is the bed with Onions, Shallots and Garlic in - they are doing really well. All of these plants are doing really well when you consider that they haven't had a drop of water or rain in 3-4 weeks! I suppose there is enough in the ground to keep em going for now - even though last time I was down there it was more like the Australian outback! The bed still needs a weeding, but because the soil in this one is less prepared and more sandy it hasn't let so much take route so deeply. That was the problem with the other beds - over preperation I suppose, the soil was really well prepared and fertilised - but it meant that the weeds were too! Still I'm on top of it now - hopefully it won't get any worse!

I've got rows of spuds in too - I forget the breeds - but I don't have photos yet - I'll grab them tomorrow and update. They are taking really well though, considering I planted them out rather late...

Got 4 beds...

Been down to the allotment all day today - plenty of coffee in the thermos to keep us going and some nice ham rolls ;)

By the end of todays work we had four 4x4 ft beds with sifted soil, added compost and manure in the ones that needed it and a nicely weed membrained, bark covered path all sorted.

We've measured out where the rest of our beds are going to go and we're pretty happy so far!

My sisters 2 came down to give us a hand - we even planted the eldest to see if he'd grow! :) No progress yet, but we are growing him organically, so no nasty quick feeds ;)

Since we knew we'd be out the WHOLE day - of near as damn it - we took to dogs out nice and early for a walk in the frosts - they were as happy as pigs in stuff :S That's Harry on the left and Duke on the right!

More next weekend on the progress at the lottie ;)

The rough plot plan

Here is the rough plot plan - it's not labelled with what goes where yet - just bed numbers as a rough plan. Gone with 4ft square beds, as the niece and nephew can help out easy then - and I can experiment with stuff ;)

More Pictures

Here are a couple more photos of the plot – not much clearer at this time as all you can see if grass on all the plots all around as well as ours – still ours is being cleared ;)

Finally, Photos!

So I finally took a camera down to take some photos, only my camera phone, but photos is photos ;)

We have already done some clearing, so it already looks so much better than it did - which doesn't say a lot!! :)

As you can see the plots either side of us are a little worse for ware as well, but hopefully someone will look at these in the summer and get things on track.

On our clearance, which is about 1/3 rd complete, we managed to uncover 5 bushes that look like gooseberry bushes. Don't think I need 5 of those, but I'll let them grow and cull the weakest I think.

I've ordered 50 metres of ground cover fabric (2 metres wide) from ebay for a bargain - this should cover the whole plot, just about, and will allow us to have the plot weed free and do the raised beds we've planned so as to keep it neat and tidy for the niece and nephew (as well as their Mum and Grandparents) to come down and give us a hand without us having to worry about where they walk etc ;) It's all planned out in my head. I'd do a proper plan, but I keep forgetting to take a tape measure down to work out the actual size of the plot!

So much to dig - so little time!!

It's taking what seems like forever to get this patch cleared for usage. If ONLY the weather would hold up for a week or 2 so that the sodden ground would dry out and make digging a little easier!

I'm going to have to rope in some external assistance I think, and bribe them with beer!! :) That normally works ;)

Well I spent a couple of hours over the weekend “testing” the soil (read as: digging it over, but finding it really hard going!) and managed to dig over a section about 2 metres square, fully weeded and conditioned and ready for sowing my garlic (and whatever else I find that I can sow now)

It’s given me quite a sense of achievement having just that small section cleared, but it really was hard work. I had to clear the long grass (with shears) rake out as much of the moss as possible (can this be dug in?) and then dig it over and clear as much of the roots that were left as I could find. I adopted “a rake top layer into a pile and then sift it with my hands” approach! Ah well it worked for that 2 SQ metre patch… I’m hiring a rotovator for the rest, it was too back breaking. The rotovator won’t help me clear all the roots etc out – but that is less back breaking and a little more therapeutic…

I’ve laid a few SQ metres of weed fabric out to kill some of the weeds etc (starving of light etc) so I’ll see if that helps too…

On a plus side – after all this hard graft we found 5 slow worms in just that small patch – so there is a lot of wildlife about. I don’t really know if slow worms will do me good in an allotment (like frogs and hedgehogs) but all wildlife has got to be good to a point ;)

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A MAMMOTH task

OK. So I’ve got the allotment, and I’ve been down a couple of times to “test the water” as it were. I’ve made rudimentary measurements of the plot and then check those on Google Earth. I make it 7 metres by about 16 metres. I don’t know whether that is a normal size or not, but all the 60 odd plots in the allotment area I have in Bracknell are about that size.

 

I took a spade down to the allotment and dug a small area – a couple of metres square – to see what the soil is like. It seems just fine! However, all of the soil is covered with a LOT of tall grass, and there is still the issue of the Bramble to clear!! I wish I hadn’t decided to do it organically really, it would have been a lot easier to clear bramble with some chemical or other, but I know its for the best really!

 

There also seems to be some Raspberry canes, I think, growing amongst the tall grass, but being new to this I can’t be sure. I need to get down the allotment whilst there is someone there who has been there for a little longer so I can confirm or reject this. It seems a shame to chop them down if I can possibly save these… I’m researching now to see if it’s doable!

 

I’ve received my newsletter from the council and, interestingly, they are splitting some of the sites into 2 or 3 smaller plots for people that can’t cope with the large size. I’m glad I got in early on mine; I would have hated to accept a smaller plot.

 

I’m heading down again this weekend to really start digging out the front 2 or 3 metres of land so that I can look at setting up some beds. It’s late in the season but I can plant some Rhubarb sets (thanks to my folks I can head over there and split some Rhubarb) and I know I can plant some varieties of pea and garlic!

Because I’m planting Rhubarb, a vegetable that doesn’t like to be moved and therefore needs a permanent bed I need to organise how I’m going to do my crop rotations. Plenty of drawing and planning to be done!

 

That’s all for now – I may remember my camera this weekend so I can update this site with some pictures!

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The Allotment is MINE!!

OK, although still on hold "in principle" I've finally been granted an allotment near (ish) my house!! :)
It is incredibly overgrown and needs some work to get it ready; and, although the house renovations are still getting in the way, I feel I have at least a little time to do some groundwork preperations!

Luckily I have a very good friend who works in a landscape gardening firm, so it's petrol strimmers at the ready to clear the land down of the overgrown grasses etc... I've not worked out what I am going to do with the 1/5th bramble that I have inherited, but I should think I can cut that back sufficiently with some thick gloves and shears. I'm a little tempted to TRY and keep some of it - I do LOVE bramble jelly!!

On hold...

Sorry people, this little project is on hold at the moment. I must finish the house of before I can even think about an allotment. Once it's done I'll have FAR more time on my hands...

Watch this space.

Crocus organic!

Well i've updated the link on the right to show the Alan Titchmarsh organic page at crocus.co.uk... Full of REALLY good information! A wealth of knowledge that will take hours to explore. Enjoy!!

Damn Dog!!!

So the first of our plants that we had in pots - the most succesful plants at that! - have been destroyed by Harry - leave him unattended for a few moments and he digs at everything.

I'm gutted - they were 3 of my strongest pepper plants (all flowering ready to fruit) gone :'(

Well it seems like I have applied for an allotment at the right time. They review the members when it comes round to paying the yearly rent. So I could find out by the end of September if I am to get an allotment this year! :D

First Post

Well people, what is this? It's another site about allotments.

I've been interested in gardening for years, but never had my own garden. Now I have a house I have the garden to go with it - however, I never had a dog either, and now I do; a 4 1/2 month old Labrador. Harry, as he is called, loves to dig - or "weeding" as he calls it, he just has a bad knowledge of horticulture. Scrap using the garden for anything other than grass at the moment.

Instead I've applied for an allotment in my local area (Bracknell Forest Borough) who knows how long it will take to finally get one - in the mean time I'm going to start learning how to grow fruit and vegetables all year round - and plant what I can in pots to learn whilst I'm about it. I've already started, I have a hanging basket full of Strawberries, one of tomatoes and an old wheelbarrow full of various peppers grown from seed. (all carefully chosen to be out of reach of Harry)

The idea, obviously from the title, is to keep the whole allotment organic and never touch anything that is chemical or harming to the environment. This needs a LOT of research (internet, magazines, tv, old wives tales and speaking to allotmenteers)

If anyone has any suggestions please feel free to leave them for me! :)