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 54 - For our babies

 I am aware that the Simply Red song is "For your babies" but this is our allotment and these are our babies. It was something our lass said as we were leaving last night from the allotment "night, night babies". Which got me to thinking, 1) How much I love our lass and how much she cares about everything 2) What we are growing does receive emotional investment into them. Much like babies.

"I don't believe in many things but in you, I do." is another line from the song, and although maybe I give our lass good reason to find this difficult to believe I do believe in her and her ways. This is even when I might seem as though I am off marathon running in my head.

Yesterday was a pottering day, our lass was potting out more of the lettuces, giving them their own space

Our Top Tip, (top tip number #1 is always take lots of photographs.) But another top tip is it may well say on the seed packet that you can sow direct into the ground then thin them out. But in all honesty are you ever going to do that? You then have the struggle of sifting weeds from seeds, unless you have a really keen eye or knowledge of every weed vs seed leaf shape it is all a great faff. Last year our lass didn't have a green house, we didn't have a lot of room, so directly sowed into a drill. The lettuces came through, but so did the weeds, they were lots of lettuces close together. So they then bunched up and started to rot, it is all a lot simpler, if you can sow them into a tray, then prick out. You can put them into pots as our lass has done, or wait until they are bigger and plant them individually. But, I would suggest keep away from just sowing in to drills.

Our lass has also been busy sowing flowers seeds around the allotment, now with these it is okay to sow freely as we do just want them to flower where they are going to land. The main focus will be, will they grow and what will it all look like. I am forever the optimist and I am sure it will all look grand.

My two little jobs were planting the tomato plants in between the onions in their final growing space. I know folks keep potting on and on, but to me, like ourselves if you are comfy and laying down roots, surely you don't want uplifting and being unsettled every few weeks. So one move from small plug to bigger tub for those that germinated and now a move to the final growing place. The green house has warmed up so I think it might just be about time, I do have some in reserve in case this all goes wrong. Job number two was knocking together a stool, we will see how long it lasts with my weight upon it.

These are very lucky lettuces as they have a pot all to themselves.

A stool, it is as safe as it looks.

First of the tomatoes planted, and it may look like a seen from the Wild West where they are being hung for their crimes, but the string is there to support them in the future.

View of the other two tomatoes from a seated position.

Could be argued one of our favourite parts of the allotment. break time.

Christmas down the allotment.

Our lass is full of great ideas, and said we could make a Christmas tree from some off cuts of wood, so we did. We also saw the first signs of re emergence from the rhubarb, and the tomato experiment had another casualty. To complete the festivities our lass brought down some snowflakes she had made. The idea was thanks to ikea I think, but our lass made them better.

Just needs some baubles and a topper,

Snow flakes over a cuppa

The first signs of new life from our rhubarb

We are down to 5 seedlings and the frosts haven't really hit yet, the one bottom right is my best bet I think but we will see.

Gateway to our happy place

Day 30 - Raspberry canes and build your own shelving.

 Our lass has been waiting for the raspberry canes for some time now, and this is only part of what was sent for. Grit has been added for the drainage, usual concerns of are they too deep, but we will see in the future.

My day was spent also doing something which our lass had been waiting some time for, converting some old shelves we had into a shelving unit for flower trays.

These

Plus these

Became this

For here

Day 19 - A new path and no more corn.

When you take on an allotment, you will find that you have growing whatever the person had before, when we took over the half allotment we inherited leeks and chard, we also got raspberries and strawberries which we have brought up to this allotment, unfortunately it wasn't the right time of year to move rhubarb. We ourselves left potatoes and leeks which weren't ready to harvest and some very nice marigolds. On this allotment we did inherit two apple trees and two pear trees which were great, but we also had sweetcorn, parsnips and Brussel sprouts. One thing we had many times before much like on our last allotment was how good the previous tenant was, Our lass said "It's much like they have died and no one wants to speak bad of them" You always being told how fertile the land is, well you still want to make your mark, so removing the old crops does that final removal of the old person which is needed.

In other news, I laid a path to the compost bin number two and three. I laid it, so expect issues in the future.

One of three bunches of marigolds we left at the old plot.

Day 17 - The path reaches the shed, and more plants are planted.

I can indeed be annoying, impossible you may think, but today was a rare day of crossed words. On the half allotment there was never enough room for everything, On this allotment, we have a large shed, greenhouses, vegetable section, fruit section, compost bins, wild life area, the list goes on. I do however have the urge to clean up, and whilst our lass had been sorting around the pond, i had got disgruntled the grass was getting mixed up in with the bark chippings. in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, It is good it is a rare event now. In what we had achieved, the tayberry (* correction needed, it is a Loganberry bush not a Tayberry) and blue berry got planted as well as strawberry plants which couldn't fit into the bed, other plants found a home, and I finally made the potting bench up, maybe as asked if I had checked it when we got it a few weeks ago, I would have noticed a part was broken and we could have got it sorted, but all the same said potting bench is made.