Dull Day on the Plot

Dull? But the weather was so sunny? No, it's not a description of the weather, but the fact that the most exciting piece of work I did at the allotment was start a new compost pile. That's what passes for excitement here at present.

And here, in all it's exciting glory is...

The compost bin. Yeah, I said it was a dull day. The bin itself is filled with weeds. These weeds have not yet set any seeds and are not invasive so they make a good start. And yes that is only about a foot from the top because I spent a good couple of hours digging the damn thing out. They're mostly a combination of fresh new thistles, lambs quarters and sticky willy. Along with a shed load of other stuff I couldn't even begin to identify. After all, a weed is just a plant that growing in the wrong location.

On the subject of growing, the Grape Vine has started putting forth it's leaves.

And one of the other vigorously growing plant is the phacelia. When I say vigorous, I mean it. It's virtually taken over The Wife's flower bed. Just as well really because the bees were swarming over it today.

Work Parties, Compost and Shelves

Today was the first day of the working party. I didn't take part as I'm still trying to keep a distance from people to avoid catching the dreaded you-know-what. But I did stop buy to photograph the hard workers.

The shop has finally got a new delivery of compost in. The compost from the bins is OK, except because it didn't get to a hot temperature, it didn't fully kill any seeds that were in it. So the best compost for starting seeds is the more professional variety. So I bought four bags worth ready for the new seeds.

But as I was there I did notice a pallet that was available. Now I've used this size before to make shelves, so I knew exactly what to do with it.

So cut down the middle and then interlace the slats. Unfortunately as this was unexpected, I didn't have my power tools with me so I couldn't screw it all together at the end. But tomorrow I'll take my tools and finish it off. Of course, it can't fit in the greenhouse since there are already two of these running the full length of the 2nd greenhouse. But I can certainly use this to make some shelves for the outside of the greenhouse. I've wanted to make a growing area at the back of the greenhouse for a while now, so perhaps this will work. I'll have to see what I can work out.

Allotment Week - Day 1 - Disturbing the residents

So today I continued on digging out the compost bin. After all I'm going to be starting plenty of seeds and I need a good quantity of decent compost to start everything off. This bin has been here for two years, so sieve away.

Although some of the residents were not amused at their home being destroyed.

No, they are not Witchetty Grubs. They are in fact the larvae of one of the Chafer Beetles. Not entirely sure which one because there are over 20 different species of them. But they are pretty useful as they help break down plant matter. More to the point, they do like chomping on dead roots, which is very good for breaking down the old dead plants. They have an especial fondness for grasses... so I'm hoping they can munch of the Couch Grass.

Needless to say, they were transferred into the newer compost bins to carry on the good work. The results of which went on to be used in the sowing of Crown Prince Squash, Kelsae Onions, Sweetcorn and Peas. I'll be sowing more tomorrow.

Digging for Gold

It's the sowing season for the start of the new year. So whats the one thing that everybody needs? *

Compost. Yes, seeds need to get going. There are two schools of thought with seed compost. Some say that the seeds need as much nutrients as they can to get going ready to be planted out. Other say that they don't need nutrients as all the seeds carry their own startups suitable to get their cotyleden leaves ready to grow. No matter which side of the fence you come down on, compost is a vital part of growing your own, and there is nothing better than making your own.

So that's what I've been doing. Digging out the oldest compost bin looking for the good stuff.

The bin on the left is two years old. It's the oldest of the three bins, with the one on the right being pretty new (this year's) and not have much other than kitchen scraps in it. So I'm digging out the oldest stuff, sieving it and throwing the larger bits into the new bin. Well mostly. Any white roots that I find in there I'm just throwing out altogether as it pretty much indicates that those roots are still viable and therefore not wanted in anybodies compost.

And what do you end up with... a bucket of the good stuff...

Good for seeds? Well possibly. The problem is that this stuff may well have some old seeds that have been through it, and they may sprout. So this compost is only going to be used for something like the courgettes or squashes. For the other stuff, I'll have to resort to actual proper seed compost brought from the shop.

I guess I need to get planting now.

* OK, maybe the seeds. And pots. And a warm growing space. And time. And... oh heck everything is important for growing seeds.

A steaming pile of...

 So, during the week there has been a delivery at the allotment. I first saw it on Wednesday when I went to the allotment to water the greenhouse. But this past weekend has been a wet one. Which, after a dry April, is most welcome. But that big delivery pile is now literally steaming. Don't know that you can make it out on the photo, but it is.

Meanwhile, my Pak Choi is going from strength to strength in the greenhouse. It must be good because some annoying little bugger has got in and starting having a nibble or three.

Anyway, I found him and four of his friends and now the only person that'll like him is the local thrush. Still, I guess those plants will grow a bit more to make up for the loss.

But yes, it's rather wet down the plot at the moment so there is nothing really doing at present. I bought some more Edamame seeds to replace the ones that I put out a bit too early. So hopefully they'll germinate to make up the loss. But everything else is chugging along. Got a few more tomatoes sprouting, which makes up for the loss of the Sweet Millions which didn't germinate. OK, I tell a lie, one of them did. But that's hardly encouraging. I've had somewhat of a failure when it comes to germinating plants this year. Only 1 Crown Prince, only 1 Sweet Million, only a couple of Chillies. It's not been a good start. Maybe this month will be better.

If it stops raining that is.

Bit of a hair cut

 I need a hair cut. I haven't had it cut for over a year now. Nor have I shaved. So at present I look like the Wild Man of the Woods. I'm going to have to try and stop the birds nesting in there come spring. But that's not the only thing that needs a haircut.

The Grape Vine hasn't been trimmed since it lost all it's leaves last Autumn. So finally today the weather is good enough for me to venture out (with mask of course) to get to the allotment for a while. Needless to say the Vine was in dire need of trimming. So that was first on the To-Do list today.

So with my trusty secateurs I gave it a good going over. I also fixed the hanging roof board which you can see in the picture above.

Next job was the compost bins. I've been filling them non-stop since, I don't know when. At least a year. And they're now full. So the oldest one I unearth and started a new bin. Some of the large pieces I dug out went into the new bin and the remains I dug into some of the beds which were last seen under water. They were a bit stinky, but the soil was loose and easy to turn. With the new compost they should be OK. I was rather gratified to see a large number of worms so it looks like they'll be OK.

By the time I got round to dealing with those I got the call from The Wife to go and pick her and shopping up. So thats all for today. At least with the weather getting a little warmer and the daylight getting a little longer, I may be able to get down here a little more often. Mind you, there were a lot of people on the allotment so I'm guessing there will be a bit more company down here. Masks at the ready!

Hard day in the sun

I nearly passed out.

We went down to the plot early as we knew we had a lot of work to do. But even trying to get The Wife out of bed in the morning is quite a struggle. I've always been an early bird though. But we eventually managed to roll up to the plot at about 9am. Surprisingly there were a few others who arrived before us.

Any way I made a finish on getting the remains of the compost sieved out. The bed is now clear of compost. But it still needs a little attention regarding the grass and other detritus that spilled out from the digging.

Meanwhile The Wife was on a mission. She had to improve her Strawberry Empire. So all the little pots of plants that were scattered around the plot were rounded up and forced into trays and bigger pots. And now The Empire spans nearly half the plot.

Although I'm sure there are more hidden around, just waiting to ambush me when I turn my back.

After digging the compost, I finally finished off digging the Deep End bed No.4. The one which had all the clay in it. It did get a liberal helping of the compost that was previously recovered from the afore mentioned compost bin. But it was at this point that I started feeling very faint. I crawled away into the shade to nurse a drink of water and get my breath back. I think it was sun stroke. Or just plain exhaustion. But either way, The Wife finished off planting the 15 Crown Prince squashes into this bed.

Last, but not least, before we left for the day, we picked a whole load of non-snail eaten Pak Choi leaves. This will be tonight's dinner.

Hopefully it will replace the leaves picked with loads more tasty treats for us. Now I'll see if I can get home without passing out. Maybe it's the fact that we left early without breakfast?

The Last Compost

Last as in the Compost Bins that is. Not the last of all the compost. I still have the couple of bags that I bought a few weeks back. But those bags will be used for the Tomatoes.

No, todat is a day for digging out the final compost bin. This is the bin that's been here the longest. About 3 years if I recall correctly. So for the most part there is a load of compost in there. However the bad news is that because it's been there so long it's settled and compacted. Which means that digging it out is hard work.

Ok, the stuff on the tops is still fresh. So that simply gets moved en-mass to the new bin area. (The bed at the very front which was the old Chard bed). But the lower levels need to be dug out, sieved and so on. It's back breaking work. Especially in the hot sun.

But when the jobs done, we can relax in the sunshine, guzzle a cool drink and watch the bees humming in the flowers in The Wife's raised bed.

The Foxgloves are just starting to flower, but the borage (I think it's borage anyway) Phacelia (Thanks Belinda) is already in full bloom, and if my camera didn't have so much issues trying to focus on the bees close up, I'd give you a photo of them too.

This sunshine isn't doing the Pak Choi any favours though. It looks like it's starting to bolt to seed already. Guess what we'll be eating over the weekend?

Compost!

I had an email during the week, from the MAGA Committee. I wasn't the only lucky recipient, they sent it to everybody. It was informing us that they have managed to obtain a couple of pallets of compost and they will be selling it for a short time on Saturday morning from 11am.

Considering that the Wood Chips and Manure bays are totally empty, then this is something that is very much in need.

So I duly joined the queue first thing. I wasn't the only one there as there were plenty ahead of me, and loads more behind.

Once I managed to claim my two bags (limited numbers) I wheeled them back on my flat-tire barrow, back to the plot. I really do need to get that tire fixed. Or get a new barrow.

Anyway, I have a lot of plants which are getting to the stage that I need to pot them on. Or plant them out. But I suspect that some of the plants, if they are put into beds, would be severely hampered by the pests. I don't want a repeat of the Slug Party.

I already seem to be suffering from some Flea Beetle issues on the turnips.

But some of the plants in the beds are making a decent showing. The beans have finally broken through and seem to be heading for the stars.

And The Wife's strawberry empire looks like it'll be coming to fruition soon enough.

Mind you, there is a lot of weeding to be done. A lot of little shoots are all poking their noses up and need to be chopped off at the roots. So guess what I spent the rest of my time at the plot doing. Yes, weeding. The planting out can wait until tomorrow I think.

Allotment Week - Under lockdown - Day 9 - Digging Compost

Today was compost day.

We've had three "Dalek" bins sitting there for a while now. The first two (black, on the left) have been there for two years. The third one (green) for only a year. It's time that they were dealt with.

(Photo taken yesterday before I dug the beds)

(Today's photo)

The problem with compost is time. Anything can, and will, turn into compost given enough time, but since this first dalek has only been here a year, there are lot of solid matter that could do with being left in the bins a little longer.

Some bits don't want to compost well at all. I am finding a lot of stuff, including:

• Egg shells - in future they need crushing before being put in.
• Avocado Shells - Nothing deal with these. They hang around for ages. I'd suggest not putting them in at all.
• Avocado Stones - See shells. Although some have split and have sent out roots. I've planted one into a pot just to see if it'll take.
• Root balls - From old pots. Yes the soil does flake away, but the actual root ball itself needs more time.
• Plastic "Biodegradable bags" - No, just no. I've given up on these altogether. They just don't work and are still hanging around way too long.
• Stick and twigs - Stalks and such from plants that we've thrown in there. They just need more time.

So the majority of the most recent bin, resumed a place in the moved bin afterwards. (See green bin below - it's full)

But the rest of the good compost/soil was dug back into the bed that they came out of.

The second black dalek had a much better yield. Of course this bin had been around a couple of years. Although the top layer was still pretty much intact and just went straight back into the bin, once I started digging down the soil was superb. I dug out my old griddle and starting sieving the soil. This fine soil was liberally sprinkled on the Strawberry beds, and bed that was dug yesterday immediately adjacent to the bins.

I suspect that this bed will be the eventual home of the Beetroot and possibly some turnips.

On the subject of Beetroot and Turnips, in the greenhouse all is looking well.

The Courgettes have now all got their cotyledon leaves.

As, do most of the other plants, although I can't tell on the Peas because they are just poking their heads through.

And the Crown Prince are just making an appearance.

But three hours digging in the sun is enough exercise for me to handle for one day. Time for home.

A slow New Year

Did nothing happen during January? Well, pretty much. January is such a cold miserable time down the plot. Nothing did really get done.

That's not to say that we didn't visit. After all there is only so much organic stuff we can keep in the kitchen before it festers into a rotting, mould strewn pile of smelly... so yes we did pop down the plot every weekend to offload or kitchen waste into the compost bin and generally keep an eye on things, but it has been just a little bit too cold and damp to do any actual work down there.

So when February rolls round, then it's time to make a start down there again. But last week was a wash out because I caught a cold and ended up snuffling and shivering in bed. Coughing so hard that I actually lost my voice. So now we have this weekend, and this time my wife is cursing, because it's her who now has my cold and can't get out and about. But I had allotment shop duty this week so I had to do my stint down there.

It all looks a little wild down there are the moment. There has definitely been an incursion of weeds into most of the beds. Hardly surprising as we haven't been around to maintain the place. But it's not so bad. Nothing a couple of hours with a spade couldn't fix.

Mr Fox has been having a dig into one of the compost bins. Fortunately not the one with all the yuck in it, no this was the "soil conditioner" tub. I piled all the loose soil and some of the weeds into the bin. Mixed in with the spent soil from the potato bags should have given everything a mix through and allowed it to become useful again this year. And Mr Fox has dug a lot of the loose stuff out and broken up the dried chunks from last year so it's ready to be used in pots, trays and beds again.

The council (or at least, the company working on behalf of the council) have visited and cleared out the waste bays. However they have left the place in an absolute mess. Their equipment has churned up the central area into a muddy quagmire. There is no chance of pushing a wheelbarrow through those ruts.

On the plus side, the wood chip bay is now fully stocked with wood chips. So much so that it's overflowing into said quagmire.

But alas, I can't really stay long. A quick water of the strawberries we have over wintering in the greenhouse and I have to get back to a sick wife. I'm sure the plot will be there for a later time. There is still plenty of stuff to do... when it's warmer and we're fitter.

Very wet and miserable

They've been saying for years that Winter is coming. Winter is here and it looks very wet and miserable down the plot.

We're not overwintering anything in the ground*, and we only have a few strawberry plants in the green house. Other than that there is no real reason to visit the plot on a wet Sunday.

Except of course to drop off our collection of peelings, coffee grinds, orange rinds and other assorted detritus that accumulates when you're veggies who usually make their own meals. Since we can't get down there during the week, we have to amass everything for a single trip to dump in the compost bins. So by the end of the week things are starting to get a little smelly. We could just throw it all in the food bins here at the flats, but why waste useful goodness? Everybody should be composting, no matter what time of year it is.


* OK, we have Chard, but that grows in the bed irrespective of what is happening to the rest of the world. And there is the Strawberry bed. And I suppose you could count the fact that there are onions growing as well.

Allotment Week: Potting on

So this week has been a bit warm. We've often reached over 40C in the greenhouse, which means that the seeds in there have really got off to a great start. Now a lot of them need potting on.

First off there are the old faithful Courgettes. We start them in the small pots (right). Those that actually sprout and make it to the cotyledon stage get potted on into bigger pots.

If you look closely above, you'll notice that some of them failed to germinate.

And then we have the sweetcorn. We're growing two varieties here labelled "sweetcorn" - and unknown organic, large cob variety, and "popcorn" - our existing variety that does superbly in the popcorn maker. Some of the sweetcorn have also failed to germinate, so planted another 9 to see if we can make up the numbers.

The Edamame (Soya Beans) are doing really well. The Toilet Roll trick seems to work well with them.

Then there are the Cape Gooseberries. These are the saved berries from last year. Also they are doing well and will need potting on soon. Probably at the weekend.

Outside, there are beginnings as well. The Apple tree has started to blossom.

And I've been delving into the murky depths of one of the compost bins.

I'm sieving out the compost. All the fine stuff is going into a clay and claggy bed whilst anything larger is getting thrown onto the new courgette mound.

Soon this will get covered with weed membrane and then we'll put a few holes in it and plant the courgettes through. Wonder what this year's tally will be. Probably less than last year as we won't have as many plants.

Complicated Compost

I still have the compost pile to sort out from last week. So out with the sieve and fork and a time to dig through the year's worth of stuff.

However down at the bottom there were some nasty surprises. The first nastiness was an egg. Well there were plenty of eggshells (that I really should have smashed up better before adding to the compost). No, I mean a real egg. One which had been buried for a year. As you can imagine when the fork went through it there was a loud pop... and a stink that made me stand upwind for the rest of the digging.

Secondly I have a little complaint about "compost bags". I used Sainsbury's Compost Bags for my compost caddie, and then, when full, they were dumped into the compost bin. They've been in there for over a year, so you'd expect them to have decomposed. No. They haven't.

The packet says that they're made of potato starch. Well OK, I've got a couple of potatoes that are still relatively whole in the compost, but these bags are somewhat disappointing. Do you use compost bags at all? How do you find them?

Meanwhile the Wife is ripping out some of the weeds (and flower stems) from one arm of her raised flower bed.

So it can get a nice load of freshly sieved compost.

And I bought 20m of weed membrane to cover the extension to the plot. I'll build the beds to go in here over the winter time so they'll be ready to use next spring.

Meanwhile... courgettes. Ugh, don't they ever stop?

The 2017 Courgette Tally:

88