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.

Day 49 - Everything is fit to burst

It seems we are now only a short time away from spring bursting out all over. We have everything just about ready, seedlings are coming along, potatoes chitting, seed packets lined up to be sown, we just need the warmer weather. At the end of today we had the glimpse of what I described to our lass as a late evening sun, it felt like eight in the evening in the summer but it was actually three thirty in the afternoon. With the clocks moving forward and the longer days coming ever closer this will remedy all our angst of lets get on with it. But you do feel as though you are awaiting the starting pistol, which won't have made a noise but instead burst open a daffodil flower or pear/apple tree blossom.

Today our lass had not only been busy mixing in compost and grit to help the soil to drain in some of the beds, our lass also removed the leaves from a bed and put them into our bench planter, forked and hoed the beds, but also came up with a great idea for the onion sets I had left over. "Why not plant them with the tomatoes?" Our lass said, A quick google search found that tomatoes and onions work well as companions with the onions odour hopefully repelling pest that like tomatoes. We will report back through the year, but it could be an interesting experiment.

Our bench planter, just needing some compost in the planting side. But looks as though it will be a good spot for the end of day sunshine.

Strawberry bed hoed and weeded

One of several beds attended to by our lass, with compost and grit to help improve drainage

Carrot bed now topped up and ready for seed.

The tomato plant will go in the middle of the four onions.

Onions the grandkids planted, now has a net over to stop the birds being confused with the shoots.

One wheel short of a wheel barrow, advice for anyone, if you choose a wheel barrow get one with a solid tyre, ours has got a puncture so having to seek a replacement wheel.

Tomatoes and aubergines coming along nicely.

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.

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.

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

Just a flying visit today in the rain.

 Today was a flying visit to the allotment, the rain continues to come down, so we had hoped just to check things out, deposit some more towards the compost heap, and our lass was going to leave some cuttings that have been growing.

The rain had worked its way into the shed, so a running repair was done with some spare felt.

Tomato seedlings are hanging in there, and have been joined by our lasses own Philadelphus (mock orange) cuttings.

Wet on the inside meant....

A repair needed on the outside, will report back next time.

Still hanging in there, lets see what any frost will do to them, it is just an experiment to see if they last a winter.

Our lasses cuttings join the seedlings.

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.