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 - planting potatoes

This week has been a good and productive time down the lottie, I widened the raspberry bed and put in 5 new canes. The local council were digging up some flower beds in our local park and I managed to mump a few very pretty tulip bulbs and  spring annuals that were destined for composting for kiddie corner. On Saturday My lovely OH helped me put in 2 more short paths across the middle of the plot so that this coming week I can concentrate on digging over enough ground to get my brassicas in, only a dozen or so plants so doable I think....fingers crossed for the weather. 

Today's lottie post is all about potatoes though, top left is a picture of the first leaves from my early potato bed (Charlottes). It's the first time I've ever seen potato leaves, pretty exciting. On the right is a picture of one of the Sarpo Mira seed potatoes that I have had chitting on my kitchen side for the past few weeks.  I kind of wish I had got a close up shot if these sprouts before they went in to the ground as they put me in mind of Romanesque Broccoli (Roman Cauliflower).

I dug three trenches about 6 inches deep and placed generous handfuls of fresh cut Comfrey in the bottom. I then cowered the Comfrey cuttings with a little multipurpose compost and placed my seed potatoes on top about 9 or 10 inches apart. I then covered the potatoes with loose soil and raked the whole bed level. I'll earth up the plants periodically over the coming weeks to help keep any newly formed tubers covered from daylight.

Hopefully the quick rotting and nutrient rich Comfrey plants will give these seed potatoes a really great start.


Have a lovely week, Jolene xx

Plot 36 - some ramblings

So it's been a little while since I posted anything to do with what is new on the lottie, we've been on hols and I've not found the time until now to catch up. The cute froggie (quite big he was) turned up on Thursday last week to say hi. he was a quick little hopper and it took a bit of doing to get this snap. I did a little google search to find out more about him and he's simply just called a common frog (rana temporia). For some reason it kind of boggled my brain to read here that there are only 6 kinds of amphibian native to the UK and that only one of them is a frog, this kind of frog, whilst the other 5 are toads and newts.

My next visit was not until the following weds, nearly a whole week! The bindweed had defeated me time-wise and my plan to dig my second potato bed before hols didn't pan out. I was about two thirds done and I was going to crack  with that but when I arrived at plot 36 there was a lovely surprise waiting, a gift of 30 or so baby onions sitting there on top of one of my grow-bags. I dug out a spot for them at the end of the Rhubarb bed (as every other part of the plot is covered with tarps and junk right now - am still waiting for the new perimeter fence to go in). I suspect they are a bit close together and I'll shift every other one to another spot as soon as I get a chance.

I managed to grab a hour on the lottie on Thurs and Fri too and finally rootled out all of the snakey bindweed roots out of me tat bed :-D two honking great buckets full from a space no more than 3m squared. It will be a little bit of a waiting game now as the Comfrey is beginning to grow taller now and I really want to wait until it is ready and cut some to line the trenches and feed my Sarpo Mira spuds when they go in.

Saturday on the lottie was really lovely, the children came with me and planted the little sunflowers that they have grown themselves from seeds. We rigged up some canes (you can see them at the back of this pic) to support them as they grow and covered them with some homemade plastic bottle cloches to try to keep the slugs away and the cold off on their first night out on the tiles. We also spotted another pretty butterfly - this one is called a Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) and I only managed to get this one fuzzy snap before it flitted away and was gone!

Have a lovely sunny bank holiday weekend, Jolene xx