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.

Theft

So it's not like I've really had much stolen at the plot. During my time there I've lost my Fero Rod (used to light my Penny Can Stove) and now I've lost the bag of kindling used in my Ghillie Kettle. It's not so much that the allotments are actually secure. It's just that I can't respect the kind of people who are so petty minded to actually do that.

Anyway, the Pak Choi that I planted last week has responded well to their new surroundings and put on a huge spurt of growth.

Hopefully we'll get some nice crunchy goodness before long.

Also now is the time to get my Snowball Turnips out before they too go the way of the Pak Choi in their cramped germination tray. So now they have a nice home out in the beds.

Anyway, after the grumpiness of finding half my cooking wood has gone. Here's the Apple Tree in full blossom. Maybe I should get some anti-moth traps put up to keep away the grubs from the apples. Wonder if there is an anti-theft trap as well. Ah, I guess there is. I'll have to advance my Electric Allotment plans somewhat. At least now I have a 3D printer to be able to make some housings for the cameras. But I still needs to go places to buy some electric stuff... which I can't yet do. Dammit.

Potting on Pak Choi

 Looks like the Pak Choi has got off to a great start and needs a new home.

Time to get it spread out a bit more. Unfortunately I kind of underestimated exactly how many I had. I was only expecting two of the big green trays worth. But I had to steal a couple of The Wife's extra trays.

But there are still more seedlings in the greenhouse. But there are also a few which haven't done so well. For example the Tomatoes. The Sweet Millions that I sowed have failed to germinate. Same goes for the Ailsa Craig, and the which the Money Maker's only have a couple. So I planted some more to see whether I just planted them too early.

It's still not too late to get everything sown. But it looks like the Edamame have got off to a great start in their little toilet rolls and tomorrow I'll have to plant them out into beds.

We have a few of our regular courgettes on the go. As well as a reasonable amount of cucumbers. So it's not all lost.

But as for the Peas or Soya... nothing. So I still have no idea what the future will hold for the full planting. We'll just have to see.

A matter of Life or Death

 Last weekend, the Bank Holiday weekend, was pretty sunny. This weekend was... well not sunny but not overly miserable either. But between then and now there was some downright miserable weather. Not rain, but temperature wise. It got cold. So cold in fact that we had a frost.

So I have the new sweetcorns growing in a row of plug tray on a shelf at the end of the greenhouse. And sprout they have done. Pretty much all of them have sprouted. Of the 54 planted (2 trays of 3x9) all but about 4 had started. But that frost must have hit them quite bad, because the ones nearest the eaves of the greenhouse got some severe frost damage.

Really though, it doesn't matter too much. It's still early in the season, we still have plenty of sweetcorn seeds from last year's kernels, and we already have a load of extra plants anyway. So a few here or there is nothing. 

But even though it's been cold, that hasn't stopped some of the other seeds from galloping away.

This is the Snowball Turnips and the Pak Choi. They're going great guns. Soon I'll have to consider transplanting them. The Pak Choi will be put into the green trays for the other greenhouse, whilst the turnips will be put into one of the beds outside. Yes, I know the seeds say "sow outdoors" but really when you have foxes walking over the beds and cats scratching them up as well, I'd much rather give them a bit of an indoor start before raking the beds flat and planting them in.

But one set which will definitely be remaining in the greenhouse will be the cucumbers. Unlike last year when mousie had a good rummage into them and we were only left with two, this year we have at leats 4. There are two other packs of 4, but I've yet to see signs of them.

Here's hoping.

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?

Allotment Week - Under lockdown - Day 21 - Pak Choi

So today is the last day of my "Holiday" - unless you count the weekends in which case I have two more days off. I've been off work for 3 weeks now and it's been an odd sort of time. The first oddness is the amount of sunshine. We have had sunny days galore which is quite unprecedented. But the most odd has, of course, been the lockdown. This plot is the only escape I have as I can't even go shopping now due to the limitations on my circumstances.

I had two conference calls with work from the plot. The first was our regular weekly catch-up and coffee break chat but the second, and more important, was the last day of work for a colleague as he is moving on to pastures new. I'm kind of lucky in that my work is not impacted. I can effectively work from anywhere I can get access to the Internet (even the Plot). But I know a lot of people have been seriously impacted by the ongoing situation.

But as to the Plot itself. Well the Pak Choi is certainly getting a little cramped in the little seed trays so it's time to pot them on into something with a little more room. Except I need a decent amount of compost to do that. Fortunately we have had a bag of compost on the plot for the past two years that we have never used. But it has been lying down and has a few holes in the packaging which means the rain has got in and it is soaking wet. So the first thing to do is break it up and put in into trugs to make it easier to handle.

So, to eke out the meagre amount of compost left (we're going to need quite a bit of it over the next few weeks) I first put some of the old composted manure in the very bottom of the troughs before filling the rest of the way with decent stuff. Then I started diggin gout the shoots and potting them on.

From the two small seed trays I managed to get 5 troughs. Though I did throw away some of the smaller seedlings.

So we'll see how these go.

Back on the plot

When last I was down the plot, things were just getting started. Now... the only things which have started and run away are the weeds.

The plot looks a mess. Hardly surprising when neither myself nor The Wife can get to the plot to keep it tidy. Fortunately not all is lost. The seedlings in the greenhouses have been regularly watered by our wonderful plot neighbours. So they're relatively safe, albeit a bit pot bound. But now that I'm feeling a little better I can get down the plot a bit more regularly. But I still can't do much.

At first glance it doesn't look too bad.

But as you look a bit closer you can see that the grasses, thistles  and bindweed is everywhere.

The onion bed by the shed is now just a mess of thistles. No chance of getting through this any time soon.

And the wild area at the back under the apple tree is now a wildflower haven.

Which is not so bad really as the bees absolutely love the Phacelia.

It's going to take a while to get things more manageable. I think we have to give up on the apple tree area this year. No way we can do anything with it without major intervention. Something we cannot do for the foreseeable future.

But we can make a start on the courgette bed areas. So we did. We managed to clear them. Or I should say, The Wife managed to clear them. Though I did dig the holes to plant the courgettes. Even this action left me short of breath. Not easy working on 40% lung capacity.

In the greenhouse the Pak Choi had bolted to seed. We did manage to get some of it before it went, so it's not a total loss. We've chopped it as a "cut and come again" option, so we may get second helpings if we're lucky.

But there is one consolation. It's now strawberry season. And The Wife's Strawberry Empire is really starting to prove it's worth.

The first of many to come...

Allotment Week: Day 1

Allotment "Week"? Well due to the stupidity of figuring out religious festivals based on changing solar circumstances, this holiday is in close proximity to the May Bank Holiday. So much so that for taking a few days off work, you can get almost 3 weeks of holiday. Works for me.

So today I need to assess exactly what I need to do over the next couple of weeks and there is quite a bit to do.

Firstly, the compost bins are full (well two of them are) and need to sieved and sorted. Thats going to be a long boring task.

Secondly the new portion of the plot is still plagued with couch grass and dock. That needs a good digging out.

Thirdly there is the wild area at the very back of the plot that was previously used as a courgette mound a couple of years back, and last year became a storage space for many, many strawberry plants.

Just what I'm going to do with this section, I don't know at the moment. Other than clearing the couch grass out, and whatever wild flowers seem to have self-sowed themselves.

Meanwhile I need to get a start on dealing with the seeds.

The bushy tray in the middle of the above photo is the Pak Choi which has shot off to a great start. So now I need to prick out the seedlings into something a little more capable of growing on the results.

The other seedlings can wait a couple of weeks.

Elsewhere there are flowers starting to bloom. In the greenhouse, there are strawberries flowering.

And outside the Apple Tree is starting to blossom.

I think there is always the rest of the fortnight to work on the three major issues. But I have no idea what I'm going to build for the back section around the apple tree and artichoke. Maybe it'll come to me in time.

Pathway maintenance

A few weeks back we did the working party to fix one of the main paths across the allotment. However the path to the left of my plot is becoming a little overgrown from the plot next door.

Well a fork, wheelbarrow, and a whole load of woodchips later, I dug out the grass and bindweed by their roots and laid down a new walkway. I'm sure you'll agree that it's much tidier now.

Meanwhile in the greenhouse, the Pak Choi has started to bolt due to the heat.

There are still a few plants there which are destined for the pot though. But since the Pak Choi this year has been relatively successful, we're going to try and collect the seeds and try again next year.

But there are some good sides to the heat. The Wife's flowers have started blooming everywhere.

And the bees are now visiting. Though they're a little hard to photo because they're just too busy.

I think we need to be a little less busy. Garcon! A large cool one over here please.

No room. No room.

"The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: `No room! No room!' they cried out when they saw Alice coming."

Yeah, I feel like that now. The Greenhouses are packed to the gunnels with stuff and there doesn't seem to be any room left.

Fortunately I can make a little more room by planting out the courgettes into the new mound.

Now the next lot to go out will have to be the sweetcorns, but the spot for them is currently hard packed clay. It will take some serious work to get those beds ready, but I suspect that will be a job for next week.

But now with most things out and growing, the plot is beginning to look quite productive.

The trough, in the clay packed sweetcorn bed, will be planted with cascading petunias, once they've grown on a bit. As will the other two troughs that are in the middle of the plot.

But at least we have dinner...

...and dessert..

Actually, I'm really surprised by the Pak Choi this year. In previous years it's not done very well and either failed to mature or bolted straight away. This year it seems to have made a pleasant change. I even said to The Wife earlier in the year that this is the last of the seed and the last chance for it. Well it seems we've finally hit on the proper growing method for it.