Plot 36 - A little update

Here are a few pics of the lottie last week, a little update of how things are going.

First up, the first bed that I dug for my early potatoes, Charlottes. I've earthed them up as they grew by about 10 cm or so. They are looking pretty healthy and are much taller already than I expected, never having seen potato plants before.

These have been in the ground for a couple for months, they will be ready to come out of the ground, all being well, in another 4 to 6 weeks after they have flowered.

I have also planted a large bed of asparagus plants, 4 different varieties, and am thrilled to see the first baby spears poking out of the ground. The asparagus arrived looking pretty strange, a mass of radiating roots called crowns all spilling out from a central little nubbin. I dug an 8 inch trench and piled a mix of soil and manure in two ridges along the length of it. I placed the crowns about 18 inches apart with roots spread out over the ridges and piled soil on the roots leaving the nubbins exposed.

There are 14 plants growing out of 16 so far which is better than I had hoped. The bed is still quite low, filled only to a height of about only 4 inches. I'll add to it over time as the plants grow stronger. This bed is a permanent one, like the well established Rhubarb and Comfrey beds on the plot. It will take 2 years for these plants to mature enough for harvesting but will last for about 20 years.

This bed covered by netting is full of brassicas, Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Kohl Rabi that have grown from seed and also a fair number of savoy cabbages that were a gift from a lovely fella on Freecycle.The net is there to keep these baby plants safe from hungry pigeons that seem to love to feast on baby brassica plants. Below and below left show two bed full of baby runner bean plants. They were all originally planted in the bed below left but it became clear  that they were planted far too close together.

It took a good few weeks to find enough time to dig the second bed for them, not least because I didn't really know where I wanted them to go. I've picked a spot for half the plants right in from of the new Asparagus bed. They are looking a bit puny and yellow here but in the course of the last week, with lots of manure mixed into the soil they are greening up again and those in the original bed that were not disturbed are starting to creep up their canes now too.

Above is a pic of my seed bed, it;s just a couple of square timber frames filled with potting compost. The plants growing here a peas and Chard seedlings that my youngest planted for me. Over the top is some recycled fabric net to keep the birds and butterflies away.

To the right is a home made slug house, and empty upturned orange skin. It is a top tip from a book called "50 ways to kill slugs" and apparently citrus skins are slug magnets, in theory they all pop by for lunch and invite all of their mates along too making them easy to find and chuck in your compost or otherwise dispatch. So far no catches but hey, got to be worth a try :-D

My last pic to show you is the second potato bed, this one has my main crop of Sarpo Mira potatoes which look like they are coming along well too, I will start earthing them up very soon.

Have a great week, Jolene x

Plot 36 - slugs and snails

I have been rising edible plants from seed at home for the past couple of months in a walk in greenhouse that my partner gave me for my Mother's day present. Some of them have become juicy and delicious enough to be considered a fine buffet by something slimy in my garden. As you can see a little beastie went to town on this runner bean plant. It made me realise that though I have been digging, weeding and planting potatoes, I've been reluctant to take any of my precious wee plants down the lottie (daft...because that is what I'm raising them for!!) because I don't know how to keep them safe from pests. I read about copper tape that  slugs do not like to cross which inspired me to make little rings for the stems of my runners to keep the slugs at bay in the walk in greenhouse. They seem to have done the trick.

Luckily for me I have a secret weapon, his name is Roger and he is frankly brilliant. One of the lovely lass's on CP (Craft Pimp Forum) has put me in touch with her Dad who worked an Organic Kitchen garden for a living for 54 years before retiring not very long ago. I'm absolutely privileged to be able to pick his brain and our most recent chat has been all about slugs and snails. Roger told me that the simplest way to controls slugs is to use pellet's, there are ones readily available that are child and pet safe and environmentally safe. One of these is called Growing Success. 

Roger also recommended grit/sharp sand used around individual plants like squashes and courgettes as gastropods do not like to travel over it. Another great tip was to try is to lure them into the shade of slates, tiles or upside down pots so that they can be removed by hand even using half Grapefruit and Orange skins as bait.

 I will definitely be trying out all of these things and reporting back on progress!

Jolene x

Plot 36 - first bit of planting.

Plot 36 is going to get a whole lot messier and disorganised before I get my head around how I really want the layout and beds to work. I got a letter through from the council saying the perimeter fence is going to be replaced in the next 4 to 6 weeks and that everything needs to be moved at least a meter away from the fence before then. I've been down there today and realised just how much accumulated junk had built up on the plot over the last 2 years before I took it on. Sorting through it all will be a big job, one that I have been turning a blind eye to in favour of digging my first bed. Being forced to look at the junk problem sooner rather than later comes with a silver lining as the large area currently wasted under a pile of misc stuffs will become the permanent space for Ruby's flower garden. I'll get started with that job in earnest tomorrow.

This morning I put my first plants in the ground which was really lovely. My Mum sent me some cuttings from the Blackcurrant plants from her garden. She packed them really well and posted them to me, when they arrived they looked really healthy and had a few roots on them already. I left them in water in a vase on my kitchen window sill and the roots grew in really well on all 5 cuttings.

Here are my baby Blackcurrant plants in their new home next to the Comfrey bed. I'm really not sure if there will be any fruit from them this summer. I also planted 10 Charlotte seed potatoes today, the ground was finally dry enough to pop them in with plenty of lovely compost to give them a good start. I have had these chitting in my kitchen for the past 4 weeks. Here is a useful little garden organic fact sheet on chitting potatos. All being well these Charlottes will be ready to harvest in July or early August.

Jolene x

Plot 36, getting my hands dirty

When I left  Plot 36 two weeks ago Saturday I had only managed to move most of the bigger bits of junk strewn across the plot and cut down the majority of the brambles and taller weeds. I left a third of the plot covered with an old tarpaulin to try to suppress any further weed growth but did leave a strip uncovered that is about a meter wide and the full width of the plot along the left boundary where I found a Rhubarb crown growing. 

Since then, whilst waiting for my own set of site keys to be cut, I've been doing quite a bit of reading and fact finding, learning as much as I can about crop rotation and allotment pests. The children and I have also been and also planting our first few seeds at home in little pots on the kitchen windowsill, just 4 seeds each of purple sprouting broccoli, kohlrabi and heritage tomatoes (not sure which ones, they were taken from a seed mix of Chocolate Stripes, Green Zebras and Yellow Grape saved from last year's plants) and some Sweet Peas for the flower garden that will make up part of our plot.

I picked up the keys at the weekend and yesterday I went back for the first time on my own and spent an hour and a half clearing the Rhubarb bed, brilliant fun. The site gently slopes and our plot is at the bottom of the slope. After two weeks of torrential rain plot 36 is pretty boggy. Next job is to find out as much as I can about improving the drainage and what grows best on a soggy plot!

Jolene x

Plot 16, Plot 36 and the beginnings of a plan..

Being an absolute total novice allotment-er the thought of taking on a derelict plot was really very daunting. I did a lot of reading of websites and blogs yesterday about methods of clearing and overgrown allotment and it was very reassuring to have come up with a plan of action to strip back the brambles, simply cover the whole plot with tarpaulin and then work at digging it over just a small piece at a time. To the left is a pic of how Plot 16 looks right now. We arrived bright and early, about 9 this morning, to get the ball rolling and had some unexpected and fabulous news. Another plot had become available, plot 36, would I like to see it? Yep yep yep

And here she is, Plot 36, an infinitely less daunting prospect than Plot 16 . This plot includes a sweet little shed with some hand me down tools inside, perfect, and as you can imagine I jumped at the chance!

I spent a couple of hours there today cutting back brambles and some of the bigger weeds and found my first edible plant, this small crown of rhubarb. It will be a while before I can imagine having cleared enough space or raised any veg plants from seed that are ready for planting out. This year I would like to try to grow some potatoes, purple broccoli, kohl rabi, leeks and fast growing snack sized carrots alongside the heritage tomatoes that I saved seeds from last year.

I've also been doing a little research on complimentary planting and stumbled across this useful chart.

My lovely chum Kat gave me a heads up about a great Tesco clubcard deal, £5 worth of clubcard vouchers for £15 worth of  goodies from Thompson and Morgan (linky to the deal page). I want to try see if I can interest my kiddies in growing things and also I want to try to encourage beneficial insects in to my new allotment so there will be quite a bit of focus on pretty flowers including the planting up of a wheelbarrow with my daughter. The vouchers mean that she can have the flowers she would like for her first allotment project as plug plants rather than to grow them from seed (which would seem like forever to a 4 year old) and I can choose companion plants for my veg guilt free.

Jolene xx

Plot 16? I must be off my rocker.....

Last summer, very enthusiastic from having grown my first ever tomatoes right from seed and even harvesting seeds for this year from my own crop, I applied to go on the waiting list for a local allotment. I got a call out of the blue last week to ask was I still interested and could I come along at the weekend for a look at the plot? Yep yep yep.

Sooooooo I went to look this morning, expecting to see a pretty overgrown plot, I was not disappointed.  This particular space has not been cultivated in at least 2 years and even has saplings growing there. There is a compost bin though which made my Daughter very happy (thank you Mr.Bloom). There are also brambles that are as high as my waist in many places. It'll take quite a bit of graft to get Plot 16 cleared and ready for any sort of planting but I'm so up for the challenge, despite the fact I am a complete novice gardener, know almost nothing about growing veg and will be learning on the fly as it were.

I will be heading back there tomorrow after breakfast to make a start on clearing some of the brambles, and right now I'm off to surf the web for all the helpful advice I can find!

Have a great weekend, Jolene x