A productive (and exhausting) Easter Weekend

The plot is looking much better now. Yes there is still a lot to sort out, but it's getting there. Mind you, it's been "getting there" for nearly the past decade. Can you believe it's been nearly 10 years on the plot?

Digging out the couch grass is by far the worst job. But at least now the strawberry beds are all done (it'll keep The Wife happy) and most of the other beds are now very lightly weeded, so a simple forking over will deal with them. But it gives me a certain satisfaction to get things done.

All overseen by the Vulpine Princess of course...

Allotment Week - Day 4 - Curbside appeal

Of course before you put down woodchip, you have to remove the weeds first. That's a very tedious and backbreaking job. And unfortunately I have quite a few goat paths between the beds which have, shall we say, become a bit neglected.

So they need to be dealt with. Unfortunately I'm a little pressed for time as there is so much going on right now with other things which is taking a higher priority. So all I managed to do today was dig out a few of the clump of grasses and dandelions at the front and give it a new coat of woodchip.

It does look better. But there is still a long way to go.

Allotment Week - Day 3 - Tubes and Chips

So there I was at the allotment. I had just started cutting and folding the toilet rolls - I've posted about this technique before...

Then suddenly I get a whiff. A nice "pine-fresh" scent. And sure enough I look over to the woodchip bay, which is right next to the plot, and I see it. There has been a fresh new delivery. Not sure when it arrived, either yesterday afternoon, or first thing this morning. But anyway, I'm not one to turn down a gift of goodness.

So all of the planting thoughts for today went straight out the window and instead I spent a good few hours with my wonky barrow filling up all the goat paths between the beds.

Now I know some of you will be arguing that using pine (I seems that it was a fir tree of some sort) is not ideal, because it's makes a slightly acid mulch. However this really isn't a problem. The main point of the woodchip is to act as a weed suppressant and water sponge in times of rain.

And yes, there are still some beds that need fully digging out removing all the weeds. I'll get round to that. Eventually.

Allotment Week - Day 2 - Bed Prep

Ah Couch Grass, my old nemesis. We meet again.

So today I've been digging the Courgette beds and dumping a whole load of manure into them.

The hardest part is digging out the invasive couch grass. Now I've mentioned before about this stuff, and I'm pretty sure that you have some yourself... if you don't then I really envy you your situation because the damn stuff is so pernicious.

But once I managed to clear the beds of that stuff then I had to cart a few barrow loads of manure around. Which also wasn't easy, because, well, lets just say that my barrow tire has definitely seen better days.

But not all is lost. In wheeling the loads around, another plot holder offered me a replacement wheel. It's a bit sun faded, but the tire is not in bits. It's not actually inflated, and the mounting system is different, but it will certainly be a lot better that the above old thing.

It would be that when I drove home, the air pump at the garage was out of order. Ah well, at least I should be able to fix it all at some point in the future. Hopefully pretty soon, because a working wheel barrow is a must at the allotments.

"Winner is weeds"

It was The Wife who mentioned these words. This year the only winner is the weeds. The recent rains and floods has sent the weeds into overdrive. Also the fact that we've had to cull a lot of the beds due to the blight has meant that the weeds have pretty much taken over. We have a very poor harvest this year (apart from courgettes) but if we were growing weeds commercially then we'd be rich.

But the weeds are not what we want. We want food for the table and flowers (to make The Wife happy), so the weeds have to go.

Three of these beds were to tomato beds. I'm going to dump a barrow full of manure into each of them over winter and use them for beans next year.

The Chillies in the greenhouse are also suffering. They have only just started flowering, so they are way behind this year. I don't know if they'll have time to actually set some fruit, let alone actually ripening them.

And then there is the apple tree that is absolutely bursting with loads of luscious red fruit... until you get close enough to actually see the fruit up close and then... meh, not so good.

They have the usual maggots in them, but also this year they appear to have some sort of disease of blemish on the skins of them all. I suspect the rains has also had an impact on the tree. But once you cut that off and cut out the good bits they're pretty tasty. It's a shame that they're so much work to get at the very small edible portions.

The 2021 Courgette Tally:

36

Allotment Week - Day 5 - Foxy's back!

We've been without a fox for a number of months now. The last time we saw a fox was about a year ago. So we were pretty happy when a fox blithely walked through the middle of our plot whilst we were working. We suspect he (or she! We're not sure) was a cub from last year. Certainly not one of the normal ones which we sadly haven't seen. But this one seems reasonably friendly and posed long enough for photos.

Even so, with a foxy distraction, the heat was beginning to get to us. We didn't get much done on the sweetcorn bed, but I did clear the remaining courgette bed of couch grass to allow for three of our plants that were sitting sweltering in the greenhouse to go outside.

Maybe tomorrow I'll finally finish up the sweetcorn bed and be able to plant it.

Allotment Week - Day 4 - Anatomy of a Thistle

Today I am digging the Sweetcorn bed... it's somewhat daunting.

In there are a whole slew of different weeds. Lambs Quarters (easy to pull out), some small thing that looks like a purslane but isn't (also easy to pull), couch grass (bane of my life), bind weed (bane No. 2) and Thistles!

Now the thistle is a tricky blighter. At the top are the flowers... fortunately I caught this just before they set.

Then there are the dreaded spiky bits. Let me tell you, these are not fun with thin gloves.

And down below is a tap root that wants to head deep, deep down. And this is where the problem lies. Because if you don't manage to get all of that damn root out, then it'll sprout up all over again. Case in point, I dug the thistles out of this bed a while back, but didn't get the whole root. So now they sprouted.

Well it looks like the final score is Thistles - 1, Me - nil. I was defeated in attempting to clear the bed. All the bending over to dig out the weeds made my back ache and my stomach feel somewhat queasy. 

Just about got half-way. I think retreat is the order of the day and try to marshal my forces to make another assault tomorrow.

Allotment Week - Day 1 - It's like Deja-vu all over again.

So I am forced to take holiday. I am carrying over the maximum allowed into my next year, because I haven't been able to take holiday. But that's pretty much the same for everybody.

Anyway, today is the day after rain. Yesterday (and a bit on Thursday) we had a torrential downpour, and boy do the weeds love it. So today I'm back to the same old thing... Digging weeds and beds and more weeds and...

I dug for a few hours until my back and legs started complaining. So I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but sufficient to start planting out some of the things in the greenhouse. The beds I dug were the failed Edamame ones from earlier in the year. Hopefully the replacements will be a little more robust.

But at least the Poppies are liking it. The Red and Whites are thriving around the compost bins.

And the Pinks are starting to come into flower in The Wife's flower bed. Guess I'll have to take photos of those tomorrow.

Digging, digging and more digging.

It's been another scorching hot weekend, and I am writing this blog entry on the Monday afterwards, because I was too damn exhausted to write anything at the weekend.

It didn't help that on Friday there was a long slow steady drizzle of rain that soaked everything and made the couch grass spring into life. It was too damn heavy to move stuff... especially the areas where the couch grass had settled. So you get the one and only photo that I took at the very start of the weekend...

Yeah, see all that grass? Well a lot of it is still there. But a lot of it isn't.

There are also some beds which have been cleared. Not sure if you remember the scruffy bed next to the compost bins? It had some rogue chard and beetroot in it, as seen in the top of the top photo. Well that has now been cleared too. And a whole load of other beds cleared. And the compost bin that's at the very front of the plot has been dug out and sifted.

My aching legs and back meant that when I got home on Sunday I just wanted to crawl into a bath and bed. But at least now there should be some decent soil and beds ready for the next lot of stuff that has to go outside.

We do keep on potting on some of the bits that we have in the greenhouse. Most notably the courgettes and tomatoes. But I think the chillies are next on the list for potting on... as and when I feel I could withstand the plot once more.

Bed Prep for Strawberries

 So whilst we are on this bed prep scheme, it's time to look at the Strawberry Empire. Now our Strawberry beds (we have 3 of them) are also somewhat infested with weeds, but there is also a lot of good plants in there. Fortunately Strawbs are pretty resilient beasties so we decided that the best bet would be to completely fig out the bed, separate out the strawberry plants and re-plant. So that is what The Wife did.

Meanwhile, I got busy with the remains of the wheelbarrow to start putting down more woodchips. The first task was to scrap out some of the existing wood chips from around the Flower Bed as it had composted down into a decent enough soil. The old soil was thrown into the new compost bins so finish breaking down and to infuse it with more nutrients, and new woodchip was acquired and thrown down.

I also put a few more barrowfuls on the main path.

But there is definitely signs of life on the plot. Even the Rhubarb has decided that now is the time to poke it's head above ground.

Of course it too has to deal with grass and weeds. Or rather I need to pull those out. Something for tomorrow then.

Bed Prep

It's been a glorious sunny day. So I pushed the reluctant Wife out of bed at about 11am (she likes a lie in!) to get ready to go down the plot. We have a lot of work to do.

First we need to decide what to sort out, because there is a lot to do. The Greenhouses need a good sorting. We've been using them as dumping grounds.

But we eventually decide that we may as well get on with bed prep. The beds are nice and soft after all the water we've had, so it's pretty easy to dig through all the weeds and get them sorted out. I also finish dealing with the compost which I started last week. All of the beds get a liberal bucket or three of the compost whilst all the big bits go back into the new compost bins. We've already fill one of them, but the second has plenty of room.

The beds are looking ready for the year ahead now.

Sadly though, I have to say goodbye to some old friends. I've had this pair of gloves right from the very start.

They are basic no-brand gloves, but they have survived well since 2012. They are now more hole than glove. Fortunately I have a few spares. They're not as tough as this pair, but they should still keep me going for a while.

Anyhow, The Wife has been doing her part in her raised flower bed.

So the plot is gradually coming back to life after the long winter. There are some signs of life returning.

So we're on our way. It's going to be a long haul. But we'll get there in the end.

Dealing with Couch Grass

It goes by various names... Couch Grass. Quick Grass. Quack Grass. Scutch Crass. Twitch Grass. Witch Grass. I just have my own name for it... BLOODY ANNOYING. S'cuse my French.

It has long creeping rhizomes roots which means it gets literally everywhere and is really hard to get rid of. To coin a phrase, I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I put down a load of newspapers earlier in the year and they did a reasonable job in keeping it somewhat under control. Except at the edges. The roots travel a few inches under the ground until they hit something hard, in this case the wooden beds, and then start creeping along that bed sending up tufts of grasses.

Today I spent a good few hours digging in the woodchips to find those roots and pull them out.

The woodchips are a bit compacted, but very easy to dig though, so once they're loosened up a bit it's relatively easy to pull out the rhizomes. It's just back-breaking work. And it's never ending either. So I am determined to dig over as much of the plot as possible to try and disrupt the damn plant, before once again mulching with woodchips and newspapers.

It's not going to be easy. But then we didn't get allotments thinking it was.

Breaking the 4th wall

In the Film or Theatre industry, breaking the fourth wall occurs when the actor turns to the camera/audience to say something directly.

Down the allotment, the fourth wall has been broken by a delivery of manure.

Whilst it's nice to get a manure delivery, I think they've gone a bit overboard in off loading it. The fence posts have been pushed over and many of the slats making the bays have been broken with the sheer amount of straw and other "stuff" that's been deposited.

Well I can certainly use a lot of it to re-fill the courgette beds over winter. I just need to wear wellies, climb up that mountain and start shovelling. If I make sure the beds are covered overwinter, I should be ready to go in next year for more Crown Prince.

We've decided that we really, really like the CPs so we're going to make sure that we plant more of them, and less of the normal courgettes. We will plant some of course. But this year we've had way more than we really need. Even so, today we're still getting a load of them... and a big "George".

I fear though, that we are at the end of the Tomato run. We might get the odd one or two over the next few days, but we're pretty much done with them now. We've started getting rid of some of them to that we don't have an issue with blight in the not too distant future.

But tonight, it's going to be a salad for dinner. And tomorrow... back to courgettes.

Digging (again)

So here is the missing photo from last week regarding the Courgettes.

But today is a day for digging. First thing I have to sort out is the the bed adjacent to the above three, more commonly known as Deep End 4.

It is full of weeds. Although that's not the biggest problem. This bed has not had any additional material added to it (unlike the other three) so only the top few inches is actually decent soil. From about 5 inches down it is solid clay, which making the digging really difficult.

In the middle (just behind the fork handle in the above photo) is a large rogue chard plant. It needs to come out. However it won't go to waste, because I'll strip the leaves and it will be tonight's dinner.
(In fact as I write this, it was dinner. And very tasty it was too).

I didn't take any more photos because I was just too knackered. But apart from the digging, we potted on the sweet corns from their little trays into reasonable sized pots. It's still too early to put them out. The Wife also increased her Strawberry Empire by potting up some of the little runners that she kept into large trays - the same size trays as the Pak Choi. Talking of which, they are coming on really well. But there appears to have been an invasion of the snail variety as a lot of the leaves have been munched on. I did pick out (and squash) all that I could find, but I'll have to keep my eyes on them.

I also planted my first lot of potatoes into bags. Not sure how well they'll do, but there is no harm in trying.

I'll be back tomorrow whilst The Wife does her usual massive shop. So drop off at the Sainsbury's Mega Centre and then back to the plot for more digging and delving.

Allotment Week - Under lockdown - Day 18 - Early Morning

Being on the plot early in the morning is very peaceful. Especially these days with no (or at least very little) traffic. The only thing you can hear is the sound of birds and an argument coming from one of the adjacent houses. I guess not everybody is enjoying the lockdown.

But at least I managed to get the last of Deep End 3 dug out. And a little of No. 4 too.

But the most impressive bit down the plot this morning is definitely the Apple Blossom.

Allotment Week - Under lockdown - Day 8 - More beds to prepare

So I decided to change my focus. Instead of doing the Deep End, which is really hard work, I moved to focus on the bottom three beds of the main bit. This lot was also underwater (was it really just a month ago?) but fortunately these beds are a little more improved over time and are easier to dig. Way easier. The Couch Grass is not as invasive, nor are the beds themselves made of clay.

Needless to say, it took less time to sort those three out, than it did to sort out either of the two beds in the Deep End.

The far bed will be for Beetroot, the closer bed I put some Runner Beans in.

Meanwhile The Wife was sorting out her Strawberry Empire.

We also planted a whole load of new seeds in the greenhouse, such as Cucumbers. This lovely sunny weather is having a good impact on the other seeds are there are sprout and seedlings appearing all over the place. I may have to start planting some of them outside before my holiday period is over.

Allotment Week - Under lockdown - Day 6 - More Digging

Deep End No. 2 is now dug out of all that Couch Grass. A whole wheelbarrowful of it.

This was the bed that had all the pond algae in it, and true to form, the ground was like clay. In fact it was clay. But I eventually managed to get it done.

Of course, I didn't make it easy for myself. Since I had raised the path up a few inches, then the base of the bed is relatively lower. Cue the serious back ache trying to get it all out. And then of course, there was the three barrows of manure to drop back in.

Bed 3 and 4 tomorrow? Or more pathway maintenance? Or maybe I should start digging out the compost bins? Who knows. Wait until tomorrow to find out.

Allotment Week - Under lockdown - Day 4 - Fixing Paths

Today the woodchips are disappearing fast.

Peter is still repairing the roadways and is using the woodchips to fill in a lot of the grooves and ruts. But I also need woodchips to re-do the pathways and raise the Deep End. But first I need to get some paper sorted.

I've been collecting Evening Standards and Metros for a while now. I intend to use the paper as a mulch to keep down the weeds. With the woodchips on top it should act as a sufficient barrier to keep them at bay. But first I have to remove all those pesky staples.

I piled up the woodchip because I really don't know when we'll get another delivery. At least this way I can do a bit more tomorrow.

Meanwhile The Wife was clearing one of the other beds. We had onions in it last year, but we don't really have a lot of luck with Onions. So much so that we have decided that we're not going to bother with them in the future. So, what few we had left remaining she pulled out. At least this way we can have some spring onions with our food.

But it does give us another bed ready for planting.