Showing posts with label Leeks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leeks. Show all posts

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 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.






Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Day 58 - Windy Allotment, little wind in our sails.

Of all the weather conditions we face up at the allotment, I think wind is one of the most demoralising. Rain can nourish the ground, cold can break up the soil and even a dull dank day means you just potter and await the sun. But wind always leaves you in a double job mode, it isn't just doing the work you want to do, but then you have to tie everything down you wish to use which helps with the activity. Forget, and you can be chasing down the allotment for your hat or worse still picking up a broken pot or lifting a pallet off a bed which fell over for that split second you thought "Oh it will be safe.......".

Sweetcorn needs the wind for pollination, or at least a breeze, you also need it for your metaphorical sails. But when it goes calm in your world this also can be disheartening, (take lots of photographs so you can cheer yourself up with the difference you have made) this also happened today whilst doing the day to day jobs of getting the allotment ready, our lass can see all her seedlings trying to grow, but viewing them day on day you see very little difference, the only difference really shows when one of them takes a dive. The same happens in my greenhouse, growth seems gradual, declines seems instant. (Weeds seem spontaneous) The leeks which were my second attempt have been growing slowly and have finally had to be moved to a shelf below as their tops were touching the green house roof (they were on the top shelf) So where visible growth was not seen it must have happened and did hearten me a little. This is where televisual gardeners don't help, the "here is one I made earlier" or "I had sown these three months ago, just look at them now" gives the impression of instant success, they rarely mention failures and rarely do week by week reports on growing vegetables or flowers, at most you have three or four stages. So as all we have to view is the slowly growing seedlings, if they have decided to germinate, you are holding onto a lot of hope that all will end fruitfully.
A pleasant surprise for our lass, someone on the allotment didn't need it so we are now it's proud owners.
Waiting for them to be as thick as pencils but they are getting there.
Our lasses busy green house
Courgette and pumpkin, mark2
Finally sun and no wind, just as we finished for the day.





Friday, February 26, 2021

Day 44 - Trug? What's a trug?

The very thing which I have thought (not planned) would get done is still to be done which is to move some of the top layer from our horse/straw manure piles just see all is breaking down well, and mix it in with the other compost pile we have. But, going to the allotment and what you do there in, is not a fixed art. You really don't have to go with plans, thoughts or ideas, you simply be. Our lass reached this state yesterday, which is nothing more than you can really ask for. Well, we would like everything to grow and not be eaten by the wildlife, but to just be will be a great start.

We seem to still be on the tidying stage of the allotment cycle, maybe that process never ends, maybe that is it with allotments you forever tidy. But we are quite looking forward to the growing stage which is not too far away now, our lass set a range of flowers seeds away on their first journey of being put into seed trays, and the leeks have taken a little longer than first thought but have now germinated.

Our lass, forever a fan of digging, dug out hopefully one of the last strips of carpet and fixed the fence at the front, as for myself, I pottered readying the greenhouse for the first lot of compost to warm it ready for the tomatoes, aubergines and peppers. The taking of photographs is a must I have written this before but as you will see below there is always a big difference and a big help in seeing where you have come from to where you are now which helps you go further in the future.

Forever moving forward another bit of carpet gone and the fence looking good again.

How the greenhouse looked when we first took it over

How it looks today, getting ever closer to our first season of growing in the greenhouse.

Leeks coming through, I had almost written them off as they have been in for over a month.

Before

After, repurposed some shelving for in the shed, 


Sunday, February 7, 2021

A week nearer to spring time

It has been a slow week down the allotment, it has been cold with occasional snow showers. There is forever an urge to get things done, but the cold is holding things back and you just need the sun to shine down and release the energy. I am guessing in the future there won't be enough time for everything, but for now we wait. 
First signs of the alliums breaking through

Our lass bought us an early Valentines present
I put our lasses present straight into use, Aubergine, Leek and Tomato seeds hopefully will germinate.

Not quite the beast from the east, we will see what we get over the next few days.

The site of our next project, clear this corner and plant some dog wood roses.




Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Leek it out!

We had thought the first vegetables to be sown were going to be the aubergines, but I had seen across social media that a few folks had sown their onions and leeks, they talk of it as though it was a Boxing Day tradition, not that I can find anything to back this up. Anyway, although we would have had some seeds coming, due in the new year, On an expedition to the shops yesterday we picked up some Leek seeds. 400 to a packet which if you had a 100% strike rate would mean a lot of leek, We have sown half now and left the other half for a month or so's time in case this fails.

The first tray that came to hand, and much like building a dry stone wall they say you use the stone which you pick up, rather than putting them back and finding another.

What to do and the size of the seeds

Seeds were going to be 9 to a square, but you saw the size of the seeds on the last photo, and where as it started off with that good intention it became much more free range by the last few squares.

Covered, hopefully to keep them warm.