Plot 36 - This week on the Lottie

It's been a funny old week on the Lottie, lots of organising, a bit of weeding, very little planting...

On Wednesday my lovely OH came down and helped me to create this long pathway along the full length of the back of the plot. It is edged with planks from an old decking pathway, plastic sheet and then covered with lots of wood chips. It means that the children now have the full run of the plot, front to back and side to side without the need to step over any junk. they can romp from the kiddies corner to the shed and back again, no problemo. Thursdays job was to begin digging the dreaded bindweed out to make a new bed for my runners, there are only 6 of 16 plants in the ground so far, rootling out all of the snaky roots is a time consuming job.

I have needed to find a place to put all of the bamboo canes and useful poles and pipes that used to be stored behind the shed (until I shifted them due to imminent perimeter fence work).

 I have also been putting off making a decision on where to site my compost heap because I imagine it is going to get pretty big. Solving the two problems in one, Friday's job was to turn a kind of low table-like platform on it's side and cable tie big metal grills to each end to contain clippings and kitchen waste. The sections at the back formed between the platform legs and the back of the shed are and ideal storage spot for canes.

Compost spot in place, on Saturday the kids and I spent some time raking all the leaves and twigs up from kiddies corner and creating this fab picnic spot. I put layers of plastic sheeting down then we hunter gathered some logs from around the communal wood chip pile and brought them to the plot. This area is much bigger than it looks in the picture, you can easily fit two grown-up size bottoms on each of the longer log seats and it will no doubt become the heart of kiddie corner.

Our other Saturday jobs were to re-purpose some old-CD's to make bird scaring mobiles, give the Charlotte bed a big dreching with the hose pipe, to de-bindweed a spot in the back trench for Ruby's Sweet Peas that she grew at home from seeds and to make a second rough and ready trellis for them to climb up.

I hope you are having a lovely weekend too

Jolene x

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

Plot 36 - Raspberry canes

A lovely lady at the allotment offered me some Raspberry plants on yesterday as she is digging all of hers out completely and replanting them elsewhere to remove something called creeping buttercup that has become a problem. I picked out a spot on my plot, far right over by my new blackcurrant bed and started to dig a trench for the raspberries. I thought it might be interesting to show a picture of a Doc that I dug out, look how long those roots are! At least 30cm I should think.



There is large spiky plant in the before picture (top left), I think it may be some kind of ornamental grass or possibly even a lily of some sort..... who knows ......so I took it out carefully and split it into three and replanted in various little nooks on my plot where I won't have permanent beds. These are also areas where I plan to put in some spring bulbs in the Autumn. I dug out the raspberry plants from my neighbours plot and removed any traces of creeping buttercup before popping them in in my newly dug trench (above left). When I get back to the lottie today I am going to cover the whole bed (raspberries and blackcurrants) with a thick layer of leaf mulch to keep the weeds down. I'll have to have a think about what sort of support to build for the canes as they grow too.

Jolene x

Plot 36 - maincrop potato bed and bindweed

This weeks job is to dig the bed for my main potato crop. I've got some Sarpo Mira seed potatoes (which I chose for their reported resistance to blight, good news for a novice allotment-er) chitting in my kitchen and plan to put them in in 3 or 4 weeks time. By then hopefully my Comfrey will be grown enough to be cut and go in the trenches with the Potatoes to nourish them them as they grow. This bed is about 3 by 3 meters wide.





The big problem seems to be lots and lots of white roots - bindweed I think - running through every forkful (pic left) so I am breaking up every piece of earth by hand to try to chase out as many as possible. Today I worked for about a hour and a half and dug and cleared the roots from about 1/3 of the bed. The dustbin lid above shows just how many roots I found. I've a similar amount of time tomorrow and Thursday to be able to carry on with this project so fingers crossed I'll have the bed dug and covered by the weekend. Great weather for it, let's hope it lasts!

Jolene x