Sunday, May 30, 2021

Grand day down at the allotment.

 Well you wait a few weeks for a blog post and then you get two in one day. Bank holiday weekend and whilst you will see photographs of beaches being swollen with folks, we had our plot all to ourselves, we took a picnic and the hours flew by. The crowning glory to the day is that we finally saw a frog residing in the pond. It is all the little things which make life good.

A grand day to go to the allotment
The sunshine brought the alliums out to flower
Our lass put out the reserve sweetcorn, having bought some thinking the first lot might fail we now have two lots, but they have replaced a row of raspberry canes which were simply twigs.
All the seedlings in, now lets see if they will flower, I am sure our lasses creation will be a success
My one job, putting the shade netting on my greenhouse, now lets see if it stays on.
And finally, a frog in the wildlife pond.







When the weeds start growing start sowing.

 The header to this post has been inspired by a quote from Adam Frost (shame he doesn't present more on Gardeners World) and the past few months have been strange. April being very cold with continual frosts nearly every night and May being very wet, so at the point the ground would have been warm enough it became too wet. On the subject of weeds though, this blog has/had become a metaphor for this, you do have to keep on top of the weeds and you do have to keep on top of the posts otherwise you get to a point where it looks all too daunting to get back on track.

One thing our lass does like though is weeding, especially the ability to look back and see what you have actually done. Unlike the steady millimetre by millimetre or inch by inch growth of what is in the allotment which normally means only seeing your rewards of what you have done days or weeks later.

All clear of grass along the fence


The first shade cover for the green house didn't quite fit as you can see someone sent the wrong size out, but it has come in useful as a side shade for our lasses Greenhouse
Our lass is full of great ideas and this is starting to take shape for the flower pot of heads, update to come as it has moved on since

I am known to be quite daft really and whilst following an experiment our lass had seen online managed to cut myself not on the stanley knife but on the hose pipe.




We had been expecting high winds and the netting over the purple sprouting broccoli needed some extra help to be kept in place, so if you cut down some old hose pipe then wrap it around a cane it keeps the netting in place. That is the simple idea and whilst being very careful with the knife. It was only when prizing the hose pipe apart i managed to slash my finger. Warning hose can cut.....

Courgette and Pumpkin protection

We have managed to germinate and grow one of each of the Courgettes and Pumpkins, in reality you don't need that many courgette plants, but it does put a lot of pressure on this one to be successful. I had hoped to grow two pumpkins but there again only one germinated so it seems the grandkids will have to share. As this is the sum of our production for these plants we really do not want the slugs to get them. So, we have encircled them with grit and after about five days we have seen minimal activity from the slugs on these plants.

Tidy green house and new seating so I can sit and inspire the veg

The pansies our lass grew are looking great
Lettuce in a bucket
15 shades of sweetcorn




Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Allotments can help you grow yourself, not just fruit and veg.

There has been a few weeks since the last blog post, not because we haven't been down to the allotment but because you do discover that sometimes it is not all about look at me look at what we have done, please give me your approval by liking what I post or write about. This allotment is for me and our lass, whether or not someone else approves or not, likes or dislikes it is for us and we do what we do.

You do however have to love/like what you are doing, with the long dry spell we have had been through recently and frosts over night it became increasingly difficult to do this. Mental health is something which is mentioned a lot in regards to gardening and the ability to get out has been of a great help to me and our lass. There is however another side you have to fight with and that fight is mostly with yourself. You invest a lot of thought and emotion into what you grow, to see it wither, not germinate, bolt or basically not do what it should, can be a source of immense frustration which may lead depending on how you are yourself to a depressive thought process.

"These are easy to grow" is something you will hear or read depending on how you take in your gardening information, those words echo in the back of your mind as you look upon a bedraggled array of seedlings or a eight by four seed tray and only three seem to have germinated and you are sure after six weeks something should have come out of the other pods. It can be frustrating with all the positive vibes of getting yourself out being drowned by the negativity of what have I done wrong? You see weeds seemingly making their way through concrete but your easy to grow seeds can't make it out of the module because it is too wet, to dry, to warm, to cold, not enough light, too much light. So if it is not the seed it must be the grower, what is wrong with me? Especially if they are so easy to grow as everyone else states.

This is where you grow yourself, you learn to say "Well, we are doing our best, what will be will be" we have also said "This is our first full year on the plot so lets see what happens" both statements you repeat as a mantra but are difficult to square up with the withering or non existent seedlings you are looking over. But the past few days have improved emotionally with the improvement in the weather. Heat is slowly coming back into the days and we ain't going to shout this too loudly but we think this is the last of the frosts until winter comes around again.

A lot of what we have been doing over the past few weeks is triaging the allotment but we have as you will see from the photographs below moved forward in certain areas, but the biggest move forward is within ourselves.

The wire mesh was a free find from another allotment, bottle tops to help the birds not crash into it, now here is hoping the sweetpeas make their way upwards
The wild flowers/life area, our lass has put a seed bomb over the uncovered ground and support for the clematis all we need now is flowers.
Early purple sprouting broccoli has been a bowl of contention for our lass, when do you put it out? But the seedlings have several leaves, so our lass has put it out now, this is a slow burner and if the weather, pests or nature in general doesn't have for it, we could have some broccoli next spring.