Friday, April 23, 2021

Plenty of sunshine, plenty to report, still cold at night.

Recently there has been a lot of sunshine, it has been strong enough to bring on the sun tans but not enough to push the thermometer outside the green house above 16 degrees. Inside the greenhouse it has been able to reach 45 degrees and thanks to very good advice from our lass we have some greenhouse shading material arriving next week but it has all been contrasts as in the evening we have been greeted by frosts and minus 3 degrees. Makes for a very confusing balancing act to keep all the plants happy.

Can not sustain such high numbers.
Far too hot in the greenhouses to sustain the lettuce

Our lass is always good at finding a bargain and upcycling things around us. On a lone trip to the allotment our lass completed a project of surrounding an inconvenient tree stump with milk bottle plant pots, should look even better when the flowers grow from them.

Just like winter currently bare will look even better in summer when in flower.

Another great find from our lass on FaceAche, you can't beat free
Two iron gates, quite some weight to them, will be very useful

A little early but the runner beans have been sown
Will any of the leeks make their way out of the holes?

Slugs like rhubarb as much as we do, but this is the rhubarbs first year so needs as much chance as possible to get a foothold. So our lass has a cunning plan to help it survive, so far so good.

As we have been leaving the allotment we have been finding some great allotment giveaways, firstly a couple of tubs, mostly likely not wanted due to the half an hour plus it took us both to part them, but once done we now have one for beans and one for carrots. So we didn't fill it all with compost, we filled to the top with straw and horse muck from the pile at the bottom of the hill and watered down, then just used one bag of compost instead of five. French beans sown and as the straw/manure rots down hopefully a source of nourishment as well.

Trying to fill every bit of space.

Another find as we were leaving moment was the logs and off cuts you will see below, this is the second time a pile had been left, before we were naive enough to think they would be still there the next day, obviously they were not. This time even though it was a trek back up the hill for the barrow, back down the hill, and back up the hill with a full barrow, we now have stepping stones and seats for the grandkids.
Nice little haul
and finally 

As we were leaving the other day, to look back and see the clear blue sky and to take in all the feeling of potential


Thursday, April 15, 2021

Determined indetermination

 We have been up to the allotment over the past few days, our lass has been very busy moving her babies along from one tray to the next, hardening off in the cold frame, also making the cold frame as mouse proof as possible. I on the other hand have been a bit lax with posting on here and thought a slight change is in order. We can still post about our adventures down our allotment but drop the day (number) part. Almost seems like a diary from prison or in a far flung land waiting for salvation, when the allotment itself continues to be our salvation.

The title comes from not always knowing everything in life, it seems potatoes and tomatoes for that matter can be determinate (make all their tubers or fruits in one level above the originating seed tuber or all in one go in the case of tomatoes or they can be indeterminate which means they grow tubers or fruits along the main stem of the plant. With potatoes you can continually earth up and in theory get as many levels of potatoes as the stem grows up the tower you grow them in. Tomatoes will have ripened fruit at the bottom and graduations of its fruit as you work the way to the top of the plant. Didn't know this little fact and slightly annoyed when you watch most of the gardening programmes talking about earthing up and getting more from the crop. This explains when viewing neighbouring allotments and they have several buckets already full of soil with the new potato inside. You learn something new all the time so will help with formulating the growing of potatoes for next year.

Our lass spotted a green man plaque on a recent trip to the garden centre, Wiki info on Green Man all about the green man / woman, I could write waffle but why not follow the link to wiki. It looks good and hopefully bring us good fortunes for the year ahead.


Our new plaque
Our lasses full green house
We need the frosts to go, so our lass can plant.

Will it be beat it or bye bye baby for the beetroot

One potato, Two potato, Three potato, more. Well 14 rows and 4 grey buckets and a recycling bucket. Potatoes are more than sorted.




Sunday, April 11, 2021

Day 62 - Dealing with allotment inertia.

 This seems to be a difficult feeling to describe and all the words available seem to be negative which is the one thing I do not want to be. This is why inertia seemed to be the closest word to encapsulate the situation as I see it at the moment.

"inertia" definition in the field of physics

"A property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force."

We have seen great change in our allotment since taking over in August and it seemed with each visit this could be viewed, photographed and posted here, but over the past month or so, the changes have been far less noticeable and as with the definition of the word "inertia" above we await the external force of nature to change this state.

Our lass however is never inert and as you can see from the photographs below there is a greenhouse full of seedlings ready to make a difference to the allotment.


In my small part and having our lass as inspiration and the allotment as purpose I continue to increase my handy skills. We now have three more raised beds which can be moved around in the years to come, these will help for defined areas for our lasses flowers.




Sunday, April 4, 2021

Day 61 - Ability to time travel required.

There is a saying "That a society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they will never sit under". Now we have no plans to pop our clogs anytime soon, but you do have to plan for the future. Currently our rhubarb won't be ready to harvest for another year as you can only start picking on the second year. You will see in the photograph below we have erected another archway, but the climbing rose which grows underneath will take around three years to reach full height and probably five to make the full arch. So it's all about time travel, you let yourself go into the future and envisage what will be, it certainly helps as you look at the bare ground before you. These photographs here will also help us time travel back into the past, when our efforts are rewarded when we can say "Look what it used to be like"

Our lass is forever a happy digger and the last two potato beds are being prepared, they say you should have soil like cake crumbs, ours is currently like rock cakes.

Preparing for the future

Last two potato beds being prepared


Thursday, April 1, 2021

Day 60 - Do two warm days make it springtime?

We have now experienced two warm days in a row, it must be spring? mustn't it? Everything is taking hold and starting to grow, especially the weeds. All seeds and young seedlings always seem moments away from an intensive care ward for plants. The few exceptions presently is one lot of potatoes in a bucket and our lasses lettuces which haven't been potted on yet. The leeks and other seedlings are doing well, but we still have to take care, although our lass takes a lot more care than I do, the leeks were going to leave the warm greenhouse and be put outside, where our lass said they should really go in the cold frame. You will see from the pictures below that our lasses patience won out which of course was the sensible action to be taken.

Yesterday also saw our lass fall into the trap of starting one thing and the job turn into another, looking to find a place to plant a plant in the wildlife area meant digging out the grass and nettles that had returned, this then turned into a bigger area, until a third of the area is now dug over. Our lass does like digging though, our lasses next plan is to put down more wildlife seeds and hopefully they will outperform the grass and the weeds.

I did sedentary jobs yesterday being full of what we believe is hayfever/tree pollen, so I put an arch together and started an obelisk but needed tools to finish. But much like starting a job and it developing into something bigger, or going to do one job and doing another, the arch was being built to go over a climbing rose and is now instead positioned over the front gate, if proof was ever needed you don't really have plans just thoughts.

the plant to the right of the end log by the pond is what started of the digging
Leeks moving on into the cold frame
Our lass will be getting a clematis to climb up the arch hopefully
Peas in a bucket in our greenhouse starting to make their way up the canes
Wish them luck but three peas have been put out by the pea sticks, the back two rows have pea seed in the ground, no disturbance but no signs of seedlings either.