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.

Cold start to spring

So a couple of weeks back, we had nice warm temperatures. In February. But since then it's been a combination of rain, wind or the odd named storm... or two.

So trips down the allotment have been sporadic at best and mostly consisted of dashing in, dropping off the kitchen waste in the compost and then heading for home to warm up. Yesterday the weather was abysmal. But today should have been better. We it started off with a short hail storm, but there was plenty of sunshine promised.

The Daffs are in full flower. In fact this photo I grabbed last week but they're still going strong.

The Rhubarb is also starting to poke it's head out.

But if you think back a few years I had another rhubarb that was given away to friend of mine. Well look how well that one is doing on her plot.

There are many different varieties of rhubarb, and I honestly have no idea what mine is because it was already on the plot when I took it over all those years ago. All I know is that it's a regular guaranteed production which is utilised by me mostly as a jam, in combination with ginger.

We tried growing ginger this winter. We managed to get it to sprout quite well and had a stem some 20cm tall with a couple of leaves on it. But for some reason it never got any bigger and eventually died. Now we did keep it quite warm, in the kitchen, but whether it was too close to the window and got hit by a cold snap I can;t be sure, Either way, our attempt to grow our our ginger failed... for now. We'll try again later in the year and see how that goes.

Meanwhile the George that we kept in the kitchen, on top of the cupboards, had reached the end of it's "shelf" life. So it's time to cut it up and get hold of the seeds. But Muppet here, forgot to bring the knife. Fortunately a shovel does the trick, albeit one that's rather dirty.

Other than that, it's a little cold and windy out to be doing much. I did end up clearing some of the weeds in the onion bed. This bed was a sea of green, so although it doesn't look like I've taken a lot of weeds out, I removed two buckets of weeds.

By the time we'd done that (and had a good old chat over coffee with other allotmenteers) there were some serious dark clouds looming, so we thought that it would be best to call it a day. By the time we got home we had a huge hail storm, which turned the top of the car white as if it had snowed. Just as well we missed that. I can only hope that we get some decent weather soon.

Know your onions

Parts of the UK are having some terrible weather. But here in London it's been nice a sunny and warm. Albeit a bit breezy.

We've never really had much luck with onions. But we keep on trying. Either because of stubbornness or stupidity, not sure which. So here we go again with a different variety of onion to see if will fare any better.

These were being sold off cheap at the local garden centre so I thought I'd give them a go and see how well they do. After all, it's not likely to get much worse that our previous attempts.

Other than that, there's not a lot doing down the plot at the moment. We've cleared out most of the beds, leaving just carrots, beetroot, strawberries and Cape Gooseberries in place. We've got some grass that's made itself at home in the various paths, so it needs to come out. But of course, it's couch grass which is the perennial nightmare of allotmenteers.

But I'm sure there will be plenty of other jobs over the winter time. There always are.

Summer's here

1st of June. Officially the first day of the summer calendar. And of course that means Strawberries...

Not many at the moment, but there promises to be a good harvest from the Strawberry Empire.

But it looks like the Onions may be over. They have dropped all their leaves, and seem to be the worse for wear. Not sure if we should just pull them no and cut our losses.

I dug the third and final of the clay beds. There are four of the Honey Bear Squash now planted in there. Though I think we're going to have to start sprouting some more courgettes to replace the ones eaten by the slugs.

Being part of the Bread Club I have a lot of flour on hand. However some of the flour seemed to have a bit of a weevil infestation, so instead I've sprinkled the flour on the courgettes in an attempt to dissuade the slugs. I'll let you know whether the remains of the plants are saved.

Else where the turnips are in full growth...

...but after pulling one of them, they don't seem to be in any hurry to bulb up their root. May take a while.

But the trough I planted last week has started blooming quite well. Soon they'll be a cascade of petunias down the sides.

Things are looking pretty good on the plot. Though we still have to consider what to do about the tomatoes.

Maybe we'll make a decision tomorrow.

Clean up

It's been cold recently so we're way behind on getting things organised down the plot. One of the main things we need to do is clean the greenhouse. It's a bit of a mess in there.

But first, coffee...

It was rather tricky to wrestle the shelving units out now that we have the second greenhouse facing the first. But we managed to get it sorted in the end.

Though the pallet wood table was a real pig to move out. It needs a damn good clean as there are plenty of spiders making a home in out, as well as a few mouse droppings all over the place. Guess they've been after our seeds.

We pulled out the old weed membrane and decided to put down a layer of wood chip before we put in a new lot of membrane. This should give us a put of a cushion and allow us to try and level the tables a little better.

Needless to say, after a few hours cleaning, we still haven't finished. Let alone started on the second greenhouse. So at the moment a lot of stuff has been left outside overnight.

We'll be back tomorrow. Well, I will be anyway. The Wife is off gallivanting about with her friends. I think she calls it "shopping".

Meanwhile, we tried an old trick to get some melon seeds started. Wet newspaper wrapped in plastic. Things seem to have started ok.

Of course, it's going to be too cold to leave these fragile things at the allotment, so all we did is pot them up ready to be taken back home to a nice warm kitchen. We can't even consider starting seeds yet. It's just too damn cold.

But that hasn't seemed to affect the onions...

Or the rhubarb...

Trimming the Tree and Building Beds

One normally "trims the tree" for xmas. But in this case it's the Apple Tree that needs a drastic haircut. Especially as it overhangs the new path.

The pictures aren't really clear as to how much has been trimmed, but it's sufficient to say that there are now a lot less branches that cross over each other. Pruning opens up the centre of the tree to more light and more airflow. And as an added benefit, makes harvesting easier too.

I've also built a new bed at the front of the plot which will become a second strawberry bed, right next to the existing one.

Second? Probably third. Possibly fourth. Yeah, the Wife wants a few more strawberry growing areas. What with those in the greenhouse, the stackable trays... Note to self; lay in super large stocks of cream for summer.

We've also re-potted our blueberries into larger pots. They probably need to be pruned as well. But the Wife mentioned something about taking cuttings from them to try and create more blueberry plants. Do I see yet more berries in my future?

And the onions have been planted too.

Onions left, Blueberries right.

Elsewhere on the plot, the old greenhouse has had a mini-clean. It will get a full clean later in the year. As will the new greenhouse. It has a thin green film on the inside of the glass as a remnant of last year's Tomatoes. I also need to build a table inside so we have a raised area better suited to putting seedlings and plants on.

Oh, and I need to make more beds as well. So much work to do... and I haven't even ordered this years seeds yet.

Best crack on...

The courgette tsunami has begun

Somethings we manage to do quite well with. Courgettes for example. But we've not had much luck with others.

Onions is one that we have a reasonable result. But it looks like this years onions have started to go over. The leaves are starting to die off.

So we decided to pull them all, and plant in some of our spare Cape Gooseberries.

Meanwhile I finished off dealing with the tomatoes in the 2nd greenhouse. It's Tom City in there now. (Oh, and the Chillies)

The the weeding and general plot maintenance. But it didn't stop us getting a small harvest.

It looks like I'm going to have to re-instate the Courgette Counter. So far this year we're at...

The 2017 Courgette Tally:

7

All work but nothing to show for it

Ever had one of those days when you've worked your butt off, but have very little to show for at the end of the day? Today has been one of those days for us.

There are a few signs though. More seeds sown and warming in the greenhouse. Potato bags dotted around.

A tidied up green house and bone yard (where all the pallet wood and such is dumped).

A big carpet covering the new courgette mound ready for planting in around May:

Mean while things are starting to grow:
Onions:

Pak Choi:

Sweetcorn:

And even the Strawberries in the greenhouse are starting to put forth blossoms:

Hopefully this year will be as productive are previous years.

Flooded!

As the ravers attending the mud-fest known as Glastonbury will attest to, we've had a little bit of rain recently. So it's with a little bit of trepidation that I parked the car in the car park and headed to the plot...

And yes, like last time, most of it is under water.

The onions are totally drowned. They'll have to come out otherwise they'll rot in the ground.

The Beetroot are also flooded, but they will probably survive.

Even the greenhouse is underwater (again).

Actually, I tried moving that bag of compost... boy was it heavy. It had obviously slurped up the rain water.

But did it stop there? No, whilst we were dashing around trying to tidy everything up, it started throwing it down again. Into the greenhouse to keep us (relatively) dry.

Not much we can do in conditions like this except head for home and try to dry out.

The 2016 Courgette Tally:

3

First visit of the New Year

It's not raining today. Makes a change. So It's time to go to the plot to see how flooded we are and to see how everything is getting on.

So, we're only a little bit flooded. Nothing like the major floods of previous years. But then Winter hasn't finished with us yet.

The onions planted back in November are starting to get off to a good start.

And the strawberries that are over wintering in the greenhouse are also holding their own.

Still haven't separated the runner from the mother plants at present. S where we did have about 5 mature plants, we now have about 20 overall. Bodes well for a decent harvest.

The Strawberries that are outside are looking a little worse for wear. They're still alive, just a little frost bitten (yes we did have a frost) and almost drowned. But they should recover. Hopefully this year I'll be building a proper strawberry bed for them, where they can permanently reside...

... but only if it warms up and stops raining.

Meanwhile we have a new resident who thinks we really should start getting some food for him.

I think he was watching to see if we'd turn over some ground and expose a few worms or bugs. Sorry little feller, perhaps next time.