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.

View from the garden shed.

 Just about all the jobs are jobbed, Well I say that, but we do need to sort the green house roof, but we will do that when there is some good weather.... We do however nip down to check everything is in it's place and also ensure the wildlife is being looked after. For the moment I am resting the wildlife camera, as it seems to get steamed up in the cold, damp conditions. It doesn't however mean we don't get wildlife shots. The Photographs below were taking with my mobile phone but is a typical view from the garden shed window when the birds come for their feast.

Day 33 - Then there will be light, muck, onions, leaf mould and an improvised bird feeder

I am sure I have wrote this before, but the very jobs you plan to go and do are not always the ones you end up doing or if you do get them done, other jobs crop up. Today was one of those days, on going to up to our allotment, we passed a fresh delivery of leaves then on the next corner a fresh delivery of horse muck.

So three trips for the horse muck filled in the gaps where it was looking a little bare from our last muck spreading. Then two trips for the leaves, one of which I took the dalek, and being the clever so and so I am got it filled to the brim, but left the small point of how to turn it the right way from barrow to position as it has no bottom. As always our lass put us right. sending me back off with the black bin, whilst sorting the Dalek, which is king of floating at the moment.

We had a brew, then actually got on with the jobs we had gone to do. First job to bring light to the shed, the bright sunny winters day was not lost on me for the irony, but the dark dreary days will be the times when we will get the benefit. Our lass sourced the light from Wickes, our lass is good at finding the bargain buy. 

Second job, to let the onions breathe. Well, it was to stop them from getting to wet from the netting as it seemed to be holding the rain water above them and sometimes on them. I removed the netting as the shoots are showing long enough to not make the birds think they are worms. I also did a mix of compost and grit to put around the onions. I did this after watching videos of where I should have done a hole with dibber or finger but put them on top, A layer of the mixture should help nourish and weed suppress.

Last job was a do it yourself birdfeeder, we have the hanging feeders but this was birds who literally like their meal on a plate or at least a flat surface. It is now positioned in front of the wildlife camera so we will see if it attracts the attention of the birds and meets with their approval.

And then there was light

The bed is finally covered ready for next years potatoes

Bird feeder, pond, what more would the wildlife like?

Onion shoots, now free to breathe and little nourishment.

Day 5, Rainy day and tinfoil

Always jobs to do, and with the shed being not only being big enough for us two but for a camping stove as well, our lass wanted to make a wooden structure fire proof as well as wind proof. So came up with the idea of foam and tin foil, which I think looks great and has done a fantastic job, we also as you can see, tidied up the first compost bin a little as well.

Day 3 at the allotment,

Day 3 sees our lass complete the digging for my potato patch and we starting to fill in some of the holes in the shed, It is a far superior shed to the one we had before, but it needed sorting. Also day 3 was rainy, If I remember correctly, I was moving stuff from our old half plot up the hill to the new allotment.

 And then the rains really came down

Our first half plot

When we first got the plot we didn't do what we would suggest anyone should do as your very first job, which is take lots of photos, you simply can not take too many photographs, this is lessoned learned for when we moved to the full plot. So out of the few photographs taken the two below are the best examples. One of how we first started with the plot, and even then we had already done some digging, quite a crime in a "No dig" plot, but the soil was like concrete, so how on earth we could have done any other is beyond us. The second photograph is with the half all dug, and seeds, veg planted. Memories of the shed you couldn't stand up in, are still remembered by the old bruises on our heads. When ever it rained it was one in, one in the door holding the umbrella. Our lass was the one holding the umbrella.