Happy New Year 2021 - New Years Day down the allotment.

Everyday is a learning day, today we learnt not everything can be a success, but you learn from it and go on. We also, well I learned thanks to our lass, that there is a lot more to life, just being in the game can be just as if not more rewarding than going for the win. People will normally only talk about their successes and never of the failures, but they do say you have to taste failure to make the flavour of success taste sweeter.

But first, lets start with a little bit of repurposing, our lass put up this sail boats decoration on the shed of doors. 

A not so healthy looking onion set, they have in the main part sprouted shoots, and as you can see here, have a semblance of a root system. but the onion part has gone funny. I am trying this out on one which wasn't fully rooted like the rest of them. 

I re potted the onion set from above, it now lives in the green house. I am thinking the ground has been too wet for them and although a lot of grit had been added, it may have got water logged. will keep you updated.

The tomato seeds which germinated when I tried to save them and so I tried growing them instead have as you can see succumbed to the first frost.

Next we have the aubergines, as you can see I only tired out 5 seeds have 95 more in reserve, they need a warm start, and the green house isn't quite up to temperature yet, but I have put them on the hot bed, and as always will be hoping

When on the back window of the greenhouse, the thermometer thought it was 20c

When moved to a more honest position, and the back was not touching the glass heated by the sun, but in the air of the green house, the temperature dropped down to 14c and by the time we left it was down to 8c.

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

Daft little experiment with tomato seeds

 

I had some tomato seeds I was trying to save from this years tomatoes but when i was doing what i had seen on Gardeners World after a few days they started to germinate, so I put them in a pot to lets see what happened, they sprouted..

I then took six of them and put them into their own section, but i needed to keep them warm so.....

Having just got some plastic containers.

Put some of the compost we have been forming but not quite ready in the bottom

Covered that in straw/manure

Layer of compost on top.

I had done the same in both boxes, just to see if the seedlings will survive the winter, and if I will get some early starting tomato plants for 2021, if it fails i have two boxes ready, if it succeeds I could have an early start to the tomato plants as well as saving a veriety our lass liked this year.

Day 31 - Fixing things, tidying things & experimenting with things

Ever since we have taken on the new allotment I have been wanting to sort the gate, due to it having a plank of wood which had been attached across the bottom which would forever stick as you opened it, and our lass wanted us to have a number, as we looked unknown. Today we sorted that, our lass dug up grass, placed old compost bags and put down some slate to help hopefully to keep the grass back, and I took the gate off its hinges and sorted the wood at the bottom so it no longer sticks mid open and attached our plot number so we can proudly say which plot we are.

As for experiments, the tomato seeds which i tried to dry out which ended up germinating have now started to become seedlings, there chances of survival through the winter are slim, but trying to give them a fighting chance. We will see what happens.

Annoyed but this is the only before photograph from the outside before we stepped on to the plot and it then being ours

Our tidied frontage, still a bit more to do, but we are now a number.

These sprouted through

Lets see if they sprout some more

Day 29 - being prepared, preparing to be prepared and dig

The sun was out, which this time of year means it was chilly, but you can cope with chilly for a few rays of sunshine and the clear blue skies.

We await some more raspberry canes, so our lass has started the preparations, digging over, and putting down some wood so we can pick our crop hopefully. Also a running repair on next doors fence with the use of a slab.

Also a little weeding now that the strawberries have become established

Before

After

Hopefully this time the planner won't be spoilt by the damp.

The onions are coming on nicely

Will the above experiment come to anything, more shoots are coming through, are they tomatoes? Will they last until next year? Time will tell.

Day 28 - All the little things

 You can go to the allotment, and you don't have to move mountains, sometimes just the little things make the biggest changes.

This is the first photo with no carpet, bags of weeds, metals poles or just any general rubbish which shouldn't be there, well maybe that triangular slab, is out of place but we can cope with this. Oh, and the bags at the far end have slate in. But we are hopefully getting close to the end of trips to the tip. Might be an idea not to show you what was behind the camera.

Something for the birds

Something which may well end up in the "That didn't work category" we will see, it is already a "That didn't work" due to me following a tip from Gardeners World, in regards of getting tomato seeds, taking the seeds out, putting them in water then drying them off once the jelly from around the seed has dissolved. No matter how you did it, the seeds would all start to germinate. So rather than waste them i have put them in some old soil we had. this has started to sprout. What will happen? We will see.