One year on down Our Allotment

We have been on our full sized allotment for just over a year now and our time upon it has been an interesting growing year. We grew lots of onions where we envisaged growing none, two beds of sweetcorn, one as the back up as well as the first planted but both grew. An absolute bumper crop of strawberries, a daily supply of raspberries, potatoes, potatoes, potatoes although wire worm and a pest was a slight issue. Our lasses flowers grew well, with an initial would we grow any to having various displays which have done very well and brought the colour to the allotment our lass wanted. If the rhubarb is anything like it's growth in the first year we should have a bumper harvest when we can finally pick some next year, we also have to tame the octopus of a blackberry bush and reposition the raspberries.

All in all it is as always an adventure, you travel along not knowing exactly where you will end up. Vegetables we thought we would want to grow have dropped out of favour such as carrots, we will be doing a multitude of peas and beans next year and I, with the knowledge of growing tomatoes this year will be more selective and use a slightly differing technique for growing, so as to not have such a glut but a high quality tomato for our lass.

It has taken a year but I have also got out of my system the need for telling the world "Look at what we have produced" I am sure it is some sort of allotment owners ailment. Feeling as though you were one of the first to grow or do something and get the urge to tell the world. It is why there has been such a big gap between the last posts. I have still been taking photographs so you can see the before, the during and the after, but in the future it will be a bi weekly or monthly activity on here. This is our diary to look back at what we have done.

So with that, here are some of our latest photographs

The sweetpeas as you can tell have done very well and the scent could be quite powerful en masse as they were.

Not everything has been perfect, the day our stuff got moved, but lets move along ourselves, next photograph please.

Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes.

It is not a party trick, but every time I use a fork I manage to bend one of the tines on it....

July 26th, just taking in the view down the allotment.

Isn't nature great. Must admit in this instance the bee was quite drunk on the pollen gathering so made it easier to take the photo and for once my camera took a good shot.

End of July looking back at the allotment as we are about to go home.

A tidy shed, finally made use of the work bench, so at the same time had a tidy up.

Potatoes coming out muck going in

August 11th winter spuds sown

Grape vine put into place in the green house, as you can see the end of the tomatoes for this year, such a bumper year we had to give buckets full away on freecycle.

Our first pumpkin a little early but does need at least 2 weeks to mature. Will report back to how well it stores.

Club root, not good for the cauliflower, no more of them for a while it seems.

Our lass had been looking for a deck chair for quite a while, finally got one at a great price.

The Best Exotic Marigold Greenhouse. This was our best marigold bloom at the time and it got snapped, so seemed a fitting addition to the greenhouse

Our new bug house to be completed

I think with the amount of photographs I have just put up, I really need to keep on top of this blog as we do the allotment itself.

Day 45 - Women work 6 times harder than men

I am feeling much like your mobile phone does once you have owned it for a few years, remember when you first charged your phone it would last all day and a bit into the next, possibly two days if not used much. But then you get to the point that you can have your mobile fully charged first thing and it be nearly out of juice just after lunch. This is me just lately, our lass says that I am one of the non duracell bunnies. 

Why do I mention this, well, today I finally got around to doing the job I had been thinking about for a while, which was sorting the compost, moving it from one bin to another whilst adding some from the manure pile to make sure that is rotting down well, as well, once that was done I would make a few trips to add to the manure pile. I only did half a job and that was helped at the end by our lass. The compost though is finally, finely mulched, as the large roots and stalks had still been rotting down so today with loppers available broke them down smaller.

In this time though, our lass had dug over the potato bed, dug over the bed by the front fence, replaced an edging plank (I did bring the plank down though ;o), removed pansies from the front, put some slate down out front and sorted some seeds in her green house.

Before going to the allotment I did sort some seedlings out at home, but as our lass pointed out, I could have waited till in the week, as all I really managed to do was get in the way and the stuff is still set out on the dining room table. I do have a use, it is still to be quantified.

Aubergine and tomato seedlings potted on

The scene of my one job

Potato bed, fence bed dug by our lass and new plank

Last bit of slate sorted

Am sat in the shed looking out, our lass was off doing more jobs.

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, 

Day 43 - We must be barking

 I think I have mentioned this before but there has been many times when we go to the allotment with one job or jobs in mind and we end up doing another, today has been no different. Once on our site our walk to the plot means we pass the wood chip or manure pile. Today there had been a new delivery of wood chip so where I was going to sort the compost pile, we decided to get some woodchip as you will see in the photographs below.

Our lass also got to complete a job which had been bugging her for a while, which was replacing a multi cracked paving slab as we enter our plot.

Our lass did a grand job of sorting the paving out.

Before we brought the wood chip up the hill.

Step now blended in with the woodchip, really starting to look good.

Really starting to come together, much better than all the carpet and broken paving slabs we inherited

A much tidier corner

Our lasses greenhouse when we first took it over

Fresh wood chip down on the floor, but a lot tidier greenhouse for our lass.

Day 39 - Tidying one of our corners.

 The freeze has ended it seems and the long term forecast hopefully will be for above zero temperatures, so with this in mind our lass led the way with a job which had been on the agenda for some time, namely sorting out one of the allotments corners. At home we have some dog roses healed in awaiting there new home. As you can see from the series of photographs below there had already been a big transformation before we had started todays work.

How this corner initially looked when we took over the allotment.

We had already tidied a lot as you can see

Surprising what you can find in a seemingly forgotten part of the allotment, our lass dug out what seemed to be the concrete block from a washing machine

Trench ready for the dog roses tomorrow. Helps to tidy a corner and turn it from dumping ground to edge of our wildlife pond area.

Day 35 - Fire, mulch and sunny views.

 As with a lot of the times we go to the allotment, we go with one job in mind and end up doing another.

I took this first photograph thinking all this would be covered in mulch

But to my surprise our lass let me play with fire, I love fire, our lass doesn't like the smell of smoke, but it helped clear some old wood and stuff which needed burning.

I then went for the leaf mould, I collected our lass did the spreading.

You don't see the elevation on this road way, but the leaves were right into the distance where the telegraph pole is.

Then another lane, then left up another hill, our lass will be laughing now, saying how I am really laying it on thick. but it must be at least three miles there and back (okay maybe half a mile)

The grey cylinders made a good template to keep the leaves off the rhubarb.

Hopefully that will keep the weeds away and the goodness in,

Four bins full of leaf mould, paving slabs moved, box full of nets and hose pipe, just the two tubs to sort and this area is getting sorted.

Another bed mulched

Big oak at the back of us, gives us shade in the summer mornings so we don't heat up to quickly. It was great to see some blue skies and sunshine.

Views from our allotment, over the tees valley.

Sunshine over the greenhouses

A late stay, meant we got to try the light out., photograph doesn't quite do it justice.