Our Allotment in March 2022

 March a month when you finally see some flowers, but most importantly a month when we celebrate our lasses birthday and our wedding anniversary.

A birthday picnic to celebrate our lasses birthday

Spring has sprung the daffs are out

Crocus out , out front

Our first outing for the sun brolly

Our lass puts the final touches to the fence

It seemed a good idea at the time, not so when I had taken all the glass out.

Moved the grape outside, now lets pray it survives.

One of our lasses greatest finds for free from last year, this time around it gets a service new wooden side panels and our lass freshly varnished all the cold frame.

Most of the glass back in the greenhouse and all the boxes set out ready for the coming growing year

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

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

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.

Day 57 - Allotmenteering is much like playing golf.

 Now before you get your five iron and see how far you can launch your brussels just read me out. For the past few months we have been preparing the allotment for the growing season ahead, trying our best to add goodness to the ground, setting out the beds for the crops we wish to grow, making a plan on cardboard boxes as to where things will grow. Now the time is almost upon us, we constantly have the thoughts of will everything grow, have we got too much of one produce, is another going to be ready in time, how come other allotments have this done now and how come others seem to have nothing done at all, are we too early are we too late. Questions rattling through our heads and most of all will it all work out. Now a golfer must go through the same, lots of practise before the competition, then get to the course and over four days having to play as well as possible against the conditions which will be unfamiliar to them and comparing themselves to others playing around them.

We can only affect what we can do, it is in itself enjoyable to be down the allotment, so even if nothing grew, it would be very annoying, but me and our lass would have shared sunny days. There will be miss haps, there will be golf balls in the lake moments, every grower has something which won't germinate, get eaten, or simply doesn't grow as it should, but we will have chip ins from the bunker moments as well.

You might tell that I watched the golf last night after being down the allotment with our lass.

Our Lasses greenhouse is almost full, mine is almost full as well, the next lot of potatoes are in the ground, four varieties in two more to go how will it all do, well only the future can tell. But it is a future we can look forward to.

Our lass trying to make use of every bit of shelving

Our lass who always knows better, really did need the shelving I made her.

All in place, now hope it all grows.

Two more beds of potatoes in Cara and Kestrel

The daffodils are almost in flower.

Day 50 - Half way there

 Day 50, and I am sure I have clarified this before, but days are the days we have worked and pottered not simply days of having the allotment.

Another thing I have written as advice is that you need to take lots of photographs, it helps for when you are in the middle of it all, simply awaiting for your work to be fruitful so that you can actually see where you have come from compared to where you currently are. One great example of this is our lasses greenhouse, today a hive of activity for new seedlings but as you will see from the photographs below it has had a big change from where it was originally when we took it over.

We have a wheelbarrow with a new wheel which is always useful.

The potato beds for the first earlies, has been done early. I must concede that yet again our lass is, as always right and the rest of the potato bed is simply not ready (too wet), although I am as ever impatiently wanting it to be.

Our lass forever the busy little bear, has been busy with some log roll which we had, to make an edging which means flowers can be planted along side the vegetables and it also keeps the soil in.

And finally, our neighbour offered us a fennel plant, can't say it is something we would have chosen ourselves, but I like the sound of the aniseed and it reportedly has great flowers which I thought our lass would enjoy, we will keep you posted.

Our lasses green house which we took over

The hive of activity it is today

We had no choice with the colour but it is a very cheery one.

two beds are ready for the first earlies, but will the weather allow this tomorrow is another question.

Our lass reused some log roll, with wooden pole supports, makes a defined edge for some flowers.

fennel from our neighbour, I like aniseed our lass likes flowers could be good.