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.

Rain, High water and Green house roof fixed.

 

The fix seems to be doing it's job, keeping the rainwater out, but still going in the guttering to keep the barrels full.

We have seen the nearby river higher than this before, but it's not to far from completely bursting it's banks as you can see.

We are at the top of the hill, so we are okay, but some of the allotments at the bottom it might be more interesting. This is a farmers field behind our allotment which slopes down to the river.

Our first signs of spring down the allotment

 

First shoots coming through from the daffodil bulbs

I know, fake grass down an allotment, really!! But it covers the area where the pear tree roots are, and this is where the daffodils will shine shortly we hope.

Day 38 - We have a cunning plan for the greenhouse roof.

Sometimes the simplest remedies can be the best, we have over the past month or so, been trying to figure out how to sort the greenhouse roof on our lasses greenhouse. Whoever had it before had obviously broken some of the panes, left them around the back of the greenhouse and then filled the gaps with poly carbonate and lots and lots of glue, with the occasional screw thrown in for good measure.

A replacement greenhouse brand new with toughened safety glass, would be great but quite an investment to be put down the allotment. Replacing with glass, would also cost and the frame is slightly twisted. We thought of a wooden frame, but would it take off in the wind, and although I am growing in confidence in the building department, I don't think I quite have the skill set to make a good enough job.

Our lass had the final idea, and as per usual the best. We sourced a see through tarpaulin, much the same as a buggies rain cover. It has eyelets and as you will see from the photographs below, held in place with available ropes, wire and milk bottles with some spare pipe insulation to cover the sharp bits.

Fingers crossed for the first breath of wind, will report back saying it is still in place or we had to fetch it from yonder field.

This is what needed covering up

What our lass needed to do to capture all the rain which was coming through the roof.

First of all piping on the roof, so hopefully kept away from anything sharp.

Cover up those screws

Another way of recycling the milk bottles, filled with water and hopefully keeping everything in place they have been pinned as well.

Hopefully enough wire and rope to keep it all in place.

Crossing our fingers, but I am sure it will do the job.

A bit of health and safety, having cracked my head twice here, I have used some of the left over foam.

Day 37 - We do give a fork.

We had a nice leisurely walk to the allotment today, the snow and ice of the previous days had gone, so we could walk with the assurance of not slipping. You will see from the first Photograph it was a lovely day, so it gave us chance to sort things, the manure has been rotting down and so we added some more to it, and whilst I was going up and down the hill, our lass sorted the leaf mould and forked over the beds and did a dirty dig over on the potato bed. The days are slowly getting longer, there is prospect of more snow in the days ahead but soon it will be spring and full steam ahead.

A lovely day as you can see.

Our lass forked over the soil breaking it down the clods of earth a bit more, also started the division of the bed, eventual this will be split into four.

Another bed forked over, and starting to portion them out

To give the worms a helping hand our lass forked in some of the manure we put on, so it will be well rotted in time for the potatoes in March / April

A long term project, as it can take three years for manure to become well rotted, but we topped up the pile, as it had rotted down by a third.

Footprints in the snow

 On Sunday we went up to the allotment, we have had a bit of snow as you can see, but the most interesting thing, is to see the footprints of those who are there when you don't know it.

View from the front gate, it will make for an interesting contrast with the ones we will take in Spring and Summer.

Little footprints across the footpath

Been a lot of little feet around the pond

Footprints captured in the frozen pond. The level has dropped a bit in the pond so we are hoping it hasn't got a crack.

More foot prints, and a lesser spotted lass in the photograph as well ;o)

Jobs for January and plans for the future.

Lockdown 3 is now with us in the UK but thankfully we have the allotment. Our very own place of sanity, we have in recent days walked up to, or like today as it was too slippy, gone in the car and taken a few more bits to the allotment. 

We do have to think of doing some jobs and as with most of my thinking it is normally followed by "Should we put the kettle on?"

The Greenhouse roof which we inherited, Our lass is slowly getting more and more ticked off with bailing out the water, so we will have to think up a solution, well our lass has thought up the solution, I have to find the gumption to do it. Could be a while.

Digging in the straw and manure for the potato bed. that way it will have a couple of months to fully rot down for the end of March when we start sowing the potatoes.

A plan for the future, what goes where, it may change but helps in case we forget before planting.

Snow down Our Allotment

The wildlife camera is mostly capturing Pigeons and Magpies at the moment, but yesterday we had some snow, and as you can see from the photographs below you can see the accumulation. 

December 2020 statistics

Okay, so it might only be me that like these numbers, but we all have to have our guilty pleasures, and this is mine where I can compare and contrast on how the allotment, blog and social media is doing.

We spent 4 days down the allotment, we actually had quite a few trips including Christmas day which was more than enjoyable, but we only had 4 days where substantial jobs were done. It's a bit chilly you know.

This blog had 375 visitors according to extreme tracking up 211 from last month, and 628 page views according to blogger stats page opposed to 374 last month

We had our first follower of the blog as you can see from the button to the right

Twitter our main social media account saw some big increases from November to December

Tweet Impressions were up 66 thousand profile visits up over 7,000 and 221 new followers. mentions had doubled.

DEC 2020 SUMMARY

Tweets

86

Tweet impressions

106K

Profile visits

8,964

Mentions

36

New followers

221

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.