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 42 - Hoe di Hoe

The lord giveth the mice taketh away, I had only a few days ago put some pea seeds out in a drain pipe, and on opening the greenhouse today found everyone had been snaffled away. Plan B for the peas now, start them at home and bring them later onto the allotment.

Today was a day of potter, our lass hoed one half of the allotment, and between us we set out the scaffold boards so we had walkways and beds set out. It really does help bring forward that the season is almost upon us and it helps to bring into reality what you have thought out as ideas. Just can't wait to actually grow stuff now.

Our lass bakes some great biscuits

Hoed and ready to go

Almost ready, and yes you do really need to stake the corners in of the bed.

Wildlife camera had been out for three days, and it's always great to capture any birds in flight

Day 41 - Crates, Beds and Leaf Mouldabiles

 Okay so I stretched the heading a bit, but aren't we all allowed a bit of artistic license, as much as you are down your own allotment. One of the best things said to us on our first walk around the allotment site that we have our plot on, was "It's your plot, you can do what you like" (Well within the allotment rules). But basically don't get hung up on what other folks are doing or not doing.

Today would be the third straight day we have made a day out at our allotment, and it has felt good, even though our lass would think I had made a good job of hiding this fact. 

You will see below, we have finally found use and positioning for a large crate which was left in the plot, it now sits between the pear trees, and is two thirds filled with leaf mould so when we add the bought in compost it doesn't take a silly amount of bags, we should get away with two bags and then our lass has another bed for flowers.

We have found more trunks to line the dog roses, so that is coming together even more now and the crate which came from the same corner was going to be given away but is now lined and will store more leaves to create leaf mould, you can never have enough, compost, leaf mould or manure you will come to know.

Lastly, I nailed together four planks of the wood that we got a few weeks ago, it is to make a raised bed for the carrots, as the soil is quite clayey and is the reason why it looks like the onions have failed. but the bed frame is ready for next week when we will mix compost and grit together to put in it. It is also the right length to simply put the netting straight over to keep the carrot flies out. Considering a bag of carrots is around fifty pence, we are going for the priceless experience not a cost saving exercise.

Carpets on to stop the leaves flying off, but next step is to add compost on the top level

I know I have shown a few photographs of this corner over the past few days, but this is nearing it's ready for now stage, nothing is ever finished it can always be tinkered with.

You can never have enough leaf mould.

First use of the wood we got a few weeks ago, a bed for the carrots.

Day 40 Dig, Dog, Do.

I know a lot of the time is where I write Our allotment, but today I truly felt like it was our lasses allotment. Our lass did a lot of work today and all I did was barrow some wood chippings up the hill. Now I ain't fishing for credit, just in awe of our lass. 

The dog rose is all in place, and for an added touch our lass noticed some tree trunk/thick branch sections from a well established tree. So I brought them up with the wood chippings and our lass edged the area as you can see in the photographs below. The trench from yesterday was lined with blood fish and bone, the dog roses were then bedded in with compost mixed with grit. We also got a bonus as it seems someone from where got them from couldn't count to ten as we got eleven. Must have been a one more for luck.

Then when our lass had finished planting the dog rose, the potato bed was her next target and with the flash of a spade the lazy worms had the straw part of the manure turned over bringing it closer to them, so this will help more rot down for next month. 

I did also do a drain pipe of peas, in between the trips up and down the hill with the barrow and swept. but the star for today was our lass.

How this area used to look

And how it looks today

Our lass will be happy when the dog roses have grown up to cover the fence and block out the blue.

Can our lass dig it, yes she can.

Before

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.

We have made it into the Wall Street Journal

I kid you not, we are not any kind of wolves of Wall Street more hedgehogs of the horticultural close. We answered a call from a journalist last year, who was writing an article about new allotment owners in the pandemic.

We shared our thoughts as we share our adventures here.

Link to article in the Wall Street Journal

It is behind a pay wall, so you will just see a few paragraphs if like us you are frugal, a pound for two months doesn't seem too much of an investment if you did wish to read on.

Or you can follow us here for free and get everything as we do it, hot off the press so to speak.

Our happy place

When it snows little grows

 We had a walk down to the allotment today, our lass to feed the birds me and our lass to feed our soul, I made our lass laugh to the point she dirtied her glasses, can't share the joke, but we had a great few hours. Another excuse for a cuppa, a ponder and a thoughtful talk

A layer of snow greets us

Foot prints on the pond

I liked the way our lass described the snow slipping off the greenhouse roof as tumbling sheets

Whilst having our brew the snow came back, wish my camera would take the same shots our eyes could see.

January 2021 Statistics

 A little late with the numbers but here we are, I enjoy numbers and much as we take photographs of the allotment to see where it has come from to go to, I enjoy taking a note of numbers to see the changes over time.

January for obvious reasons has been a month where we have less full periods of time down at the allotment, we have visited frequently but only 2 days recorded for jobs, jobbed.

Last month according to extreme tracking we had 486 visitors which is up from the previous month of 375, something which is a little more reliable is blogger stats and they show 511 page views last month which is down from the previous month which had been up at 628

We still have one follower of the blog

Twitter again showed an increase which helps grow the profile of the blog. with the highest numbers since starting the blog.

JAN 2021 SUMMARY

Tweets

138

Tweet impressions

120K

Profile visits

14.8K

Mentions

62

New followers

295

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.

View from the allotment and the turn of the compost.

 

Whilst standing at the compost bins I turned around to get a view of the allotment from another angle which I haven't really taken in before. Loving the big skies and the ability to see further than we are probably allowed to travel.

Time of the month to turn the compost.

Looking good, needs to break down more, but it's well on its way.

All done, this time around I think I might leave it for 2 months, as February is a short month and give it good two solid months to do its thing without me disturbing it.

Chitting potatoes, un chitted potatoes and wood.

The hours of sunlight are forever getting longer, as of today we have an extra 1hour and 16 minutes compared to the shortest hours of day light back on the 21st December. But we still need more to get into the full swing of growing, you should never wish your life away, but this time of year is much like Christmas to a small child, you simply can not wait to open the presents. As adults though we learn to wait, and distract ourselves with other things, there is still jobs to do, and although we are 6 weeks away from sowing potatoes we have to prepare, and one of those jobs is chitting potatoes.

We have 6 varieties of which I will list below, 2 bags of each. Our lass bought this very useful shelving, which as per usual I found the use for it before our lass did. As you can see I have put out to chit one bag of each variety we have, whilst leaving the other bag of each type of potato in a cool dry garage. Then when planting we will do a row of chitted and non chitted and lets see what happens.

This was the selection purchased.

• Potato 'Cara' (Late maincrop) - Creamy skin and striking bright red eyes.
• Potato 'Maris Bard' (First early) - Smooth white skinned tubers with white flesh, heavy cropping variety with good drought and common scab resistant.
• Potato 'Kestrel' (Second early) - Producing tubers of consistent size and shape, with attractive, smooth skins and violet eyes.
• Potato 'Lady Christl' (First early) - Very early, smooth oval, pale yellow skinned tubers with creamy flesh that remains firm on cooking.
• Potato 'King Edward' (Late maincrop) - The creamy white flesh has a light, floury texture and rarely discolours on cooking
• Potato 'Valor' (Late maincrop) - Exceptional yields of quality general purpose potatoes for all culinary uses.

• Lady Christi has been replaced by 
• First early.Potato 'Swift' is among the fastest maturing of the first early varieties, being the quickest to produce heavy crops of round, smooth, white-fleshed baby new potatoes, and producing larger tubers than Potato 'Rocket'. Its short bushy habit makes it ideal for containers or potato bags where space is limited. Potato 'Swift also has partial double eelworm resistance.

The plan is that the whole bed will be ready for 2nd to 3rd week of March as much as any plans stay the same, split the bed into six, then sow chitted potatoes to the right unchitted to the left. Well, thats the plan, still to be done as of yet.

The potato bed, when the frosts allow, hope to dig in the last of the manure/straw so it can be ready for sowing.

And finally.....

We put out a general request if anyone had any spare scaffolding boards. The above photograph shows the haul we got. Walkways, raised beds and I even have an idea for a table. Watch this space.

Cold days and big skies

A selection of photographs from our trip to the allotment on Sunday, we pottered and had a cuppa, but most of all enjoyed the nature around us. Not everything is about doing a lot. Life is about being.

Cold and frosty morning down at the allotment yesterday

Had thought of bringing the potatoes down today to start the chitting process, but they need at least 10 degrees and although it was minus 4 degrees out side and plus 4 degrees inside as you can see, we are just going to wait a little longer.

Can never tire of the great views from our allotment, especially when you spend most of your time currently imprisoned at home.

Some more of the big skies, never has it been so true to sing don't fence me in. Yet home we have a 6ft fence all around us, here we can see the world all around.