Allotment visits – Page 2 – We bought ‘The Land’!!!

Onions are nearly ready!

Last weekend, Ashley and I decided to dig up all of the onions at the allotment. We had planted red and white onions, about the same amount of each. They had started yellowing and most were looking a very good size, they spent a day or two out in the sun and then we put them in the greenhouse to finish drying as the weather has been a bit up and down. A couple had gone to seed and so hadn’t really developed a bulb but overall a good harvest. We also put in some time clearing weeds that we’re starting to take hold on the newly vacated potato bed and around the onions. I’m a little ashamed to say that we haven’t really been to the allotment much this week – the plants in the greenhouse are going to be feeling a little sorry for themselves! And I expect the weeds will have used the time to ‘stretch their legs’! When will we learn to go there more regularly?!
I’m hoping that the weather is now warm enough to get some late runner and dwarf runner beans in the empty beds, also a fresh sowing of chard and possibly some peas. There should be plenty of room in the beds for the cauliflower and kale that I thought I’d try out (that’s if the seedlings have survived the recent neglect).

I think tomorrow will have to include a visit to the poor, abandoned allotment! I expect there will be courgettes galore, Swiss chard to be picked and maybe even some peas ready for picking! We had some peas the other day in a stir fry – they were quite small so not really worth removing from the pods so I cooked them whole, they were very yummy! I wonder how long until Ashley is sick of stir fry allotment veg?! I must look up some other recipes to use the veg – I’m not the worlds best cook I’m afraid!

A ‘no dig’ bed

I thought I would share with you the process for building a ‘no dig’ bed. We have learnt this from our Charles Dowding organic veg book. I’m not sure we’re doing it quite right – Charles leaves areas covered with carpet or black plastic for months before building the bed but we have been impatient and skipped this step so that we can get growing a bit quicker. As a result, we suffer with the dock popping up all over the place. Hopefully there won’t be as much next year. We also only use wood chip and rotted manure as that’s what we have freely available, with a little of our home made compost as it’s available. Our vegetable beds probably aren’t the most nutrient rich at the moment but seems to be OK for what we are currently growing. We will be adding as much home made compost as we can when it’s available.

The first ‘layer’ is cardboard. It needs to be a decent layer with good overlapping. We probably should have used a bit more elsewhere on the plot so for this bed we made sure we didn’t scrimp on this step. The cardboard should be thoroughly soaked with water (we have found it easier to do this after laying it).

Next we added a layer of well rotted manure, then wood chip. We then built up much thicker layers of manure and wood chip until we were happy with the depth, finishing with the manure layer. The Charles Dowding book and website are well worth a look to see how he builds his beds. Looking at the bed now it’s finished, it’s a little big. The no dig method also relies on not compacting the soil by standing on it and so the beds are generally a bit smaller to facilitate this. I can reach the middle from both sides but we made this bed much deeper than all the others, so with the hight it can be a little difficult to reach properly without standing on it. I will have to make sure I always stand on a board to avoid compacting it too much.

I have plans for the leeks to go in this bed. There should be plenty of room for them and lots more besides!

Start of the harvest

A quick trip to the allotment this evening was a pleasure, even in the cool and misty weather we’ve had today. We pulled up the first potato plant and brought these beauty’s home, this should last us the week! I also picked just a few swiss chard leaves. It’s great to finally have produce to bring home, even if it is just the basics!

We planted out the leeks that have been growing away nicely in the greenhouse – they’ve been exposed to the elements for the last couple of days and now the nights are warming up, I think they will do just fine as long as the rabbit doesn’t take a shine to them!

Ashley managed to sneak a quick photo and video of the Swallows nest in the tool shed – I’ll show you what he found in another post very soon!

16th June, quick allotment visit

I popped by the allotment this morning as I was nearby.

There was a rabbit on the plot, not quite a baby but certainly small. I think I’ve figured out where he’s getting in so will have to fix that soon. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to be doing too much damage, though my herb fennel has taken quite a battering! The fleece that I covered the chard with is doing it’s job and I put some netting over the peas so they’re OK. I think the onions are too big now to really be affected by a little bunny, hopefully he’ll be too big soon to hop through the fence.

The parsnip foliage seems to be almost doubling each time I go to the allotment! I did some thinning out as they were getting a bit crowded, the chickens are now enjoying the thinnings – if it’s not composted, the chickens get it so nothing goes to waste!

Aphids had visited the pepper plants in the greenhouse so I sprayed them with water and wiped them off. I’ve heard that aphids don’t like citrus so I’ll take some lemon juice down next time I go and add it to the spray bottle. At home, I use soapy water on the roses etc but would rather not put soap on the edible stuff.

Last Friday, Ashley and I put in a new ‘no dig’ bed, I’ll show you what we did in another post soon. That was looking great today, a few weeds on the surface but it is very hot today and they had wilted anyway. I can’t wait to get planting in that one, but I don’t want to get caught out like we did before with weeds overtaking the plants so I’ll give it a few more days. The leeks are patiently waiting in the greenhouse to go in this bed. I must put them outside actually to harden off. Do you need to harden off leeks? I have no idea, but I’d rather not lose them for the sake of doing something as simple as leaving them outside somewhere sheltered for a few days.

See you soon!

Vertical potatoes

A week ago, Ashley and I were at the allotment debating what to do with a box of chitted second early potatoes that hadn’t been planted. We had intended to have more beds put in sooner and so the potatoes should have been growing away by now. As we don’t have any room in the beds we have, I suggested trying to grow them vertically. We didn’t have much to hand but I spotted a small wooden frame that Ashley had built as part of a dust bath for the chickens that they no longer need. We cleared a small patch of ground near the polytunnel and put some cardboard down to suppress the weeds, filled the frame with compost and rotted manure and stuck the potatoes in!I have no idea whether this is enough for the potatoes or if it’s too late for them to be going in, but we will see what happens! Now we just have to find some more scraps of wood (shouldn’t be too hard at all) and make some more ‘boxes’ the same size to build up and up as the potatoes grow. with each box added, we will cover the plants with more rotted manure, compost and woodchip. This is the same box after 1 week:

The potatoes are showing through so at least they’re growing! That’s a job for Ashley sorted for the weekend whilst I’m at work; box building!

A quick visit to the allotment

I popped up to the allotment last night about 8pm to give the plants in the greenhouse a water and generally check on things as I haven’t been up there for a couple of days. Unfortunately, the birds and baby rabbits (who we discovered could get through our fencing!) have been having a nibble! The damage isn’t too bad but I needed to do something about it quickly before we lost crops. The peas and young brussel sprout plants were the worst affected, the Swiss chard had been nibbled but not too badly. Everything else seemed OK. Luckily, I had some gardening fleece in the car that was intended for the allotment anyway so I covered the affected veg with that. I had some hoops to raise the fleece off the young sprouts but the rest of it was just laid over the plants. It’s so light that it doesn’t damage the plants at all. I had to try and wrap the fleece around the pea supports. I will try to find a more suitable alternative for the peas but hopefully it will save the peas from the hungry birds for now! Thankfully, the bigger rabbits can’t get in or I don’t think there’d be much left at all!

A quick allotment tour…

Last night I headed down to our allotment to check on things and give the greenhouse a water. I thought I’d show you what we have going on so far. We started making the beds in February of this year and planting commenced in April. We have just 5 beds so far (the raised beds in the top left of the photo are someone else’s) but have fenced off a patch the same size again which will be filled with beds quite soon. As you can see, the central bed here is full of first early potatoes and doing well. I expect we can harvest some soon, as a few plants are showing flowers. Peas, beans and Swiss chard have gone in the bed to the left of that. The chard is looking great, but the beans are looking a little washed out.

I’m not sure why, possibly as it’s quite exposed at our allotment so are feeling the elements or maybe the soil conditions aren’t completely suitable.

On the right hand side of the allotment are onions, beetroot, parsnips and a few more potatoes that over spilled the first bed! We are incredibly lucky that the wonderful friends that allow us to use this field also keep horses (as you can see), so we have a ready supply of rotted horse manure to hand which has formed the main structure of the vegetable beds. Unfortunately, some of it is rather too well rotted and has collected a lot of seeds where it was sitting, which have now burst into life! On the plus side, we believe the weeds to be edible but they have out competed a lot of my beetroot seeds. The parsnip seem to have managed quite well though, and now everything’s a little bigger, it’s much easier to distinguish between the weeds and intended crop. I hope that with some constant weeding this year we will see much less of them next year! I’ve never grown parsnip before, so any words of wisdom are greatly appreciated!

The bed at the bottom of the first picture has a bit of a mixture in at the moment. I started with 2 raspberry bushes, one summer and one autumn fruiting variety. On the opposite side of that bed is a new rhubarb plant. We seem to be suffering quite badly in this bed with dock so have mulched part of it with cardboard. There is a courgette plant and a couple of small lavender plants. I don’t intend for the lavender to stay in the veg bed, but it needed a home! I want lavender dotted around the allotment because a) I love it, and b) we love bees! There doesn’t seem to be a particular shortage of bees around us but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still try to encourage them. Ashley would like to get a bee hive set up at some point… I like the idea in theory but w certainly need to do some research before jumping into that one. Do you have any experience in bee keeping? Does a bee hive need daily attention?

There is another smaller bed just out of view in the first photo, that has blackcurrant and redcurrant in. It is also acting as a nursery bed for a few more lavender plants. We have a fairly established bed of blackcurrant bushes at home, we will move them down to the allotment this autumn I think. They are getting on well and it would be daft to move them now and lose what will hopefully be our best crop to date!

In the greenhouse at the moment I have several tomato varieties, some broccoli and Brussels sprouts that are waiting for a home on the plot, and some chilli and sweet pepper plants. One of Ashley’s next jobs is to build me some benches to go in there! For now, an old vertical grower (the mini greenhouse type) that has lost its cover and an old pallet or two are serving as shelving.

Well, that’s our little allotment! I hope you have enjoyed the little tour!