Sunday 15 July 2012

Has summer arrived? Nope it's forecast rain again next week

Four days of nearly 'rain free' weather, nearly because it did rain over night on Saturday night, but I can't remember four days of nice warm weather free from the downpours that have plagued us so far this year since we had that lovely week where temperatures reached the early 20's, that was the last week of March.  And that was the last real sun we had, except the odd day here and there and I'm afraid this prolonged batch of fine weather (erm 4 days!) may have come too late.

A lot of the guys at the allotment have given up trying to get anything this year and just taking what they can.  I feel the same to be honest.  I dug up my shallots and garlic on Saturday, a lot of the shallots were rotten and the garlic hadn't grown at all, the bulbs had split but they hadn't grown, I've put what shallots I could save to dry and I throw the whole lot of the garlic away.

I've not managed to get any of the ground sorted where my courgettes, pumpkins and squashes were going to be planted due to the wet weather, so I think I will just plant them where I can fit them around the plot.  Some can go in the bed which has just been vacated by the garlic and shallots, some can go in the bed where I was going to plant out the outdoor tomatoes, and I can put a few in the bed where the peas were going to go as these haven't germinated either, even after a second batch being sown.

So for the last few days I've given the plot a good tidying over, got quite a few weeds pulled, cleared the jungle around the raspberries, cut back the very over grown hedge/overhanging tree near my two fruit trees, I can actually get in to clear this area now,  I am going to make this a soft fruit patch and plant another of the apple trees that I have in a giant tub back at home, this will give me three trees along this bit and will have raspberries, rhubarb, gooseberries, possibly some strawberries, I will have to see how things go and what space I have when I get things sorted.

I leave you with a couple of photo's, sleeping after a hard day at the allotment.....



Wednesday 11 July 2012

The Allotment Song

Still flooded with rain, so not much to update you on, but here is a little video my son found for me on YouTube, I cracked up when I watched it, it's great....



Monday 9 July 2012

New Pages (Experimenting)

I'm going to try and expand my blog, and introduce some info pages, this at the moment is an experiment as I'm not quite sure what I'm doing, so please bare with me.  My normal adventures can be viewed on the link at the top of my blog called 'The Lottie Antics'.

Iddy Biddy Tomato

Doesn't it look cute, this is my first tomato growing and it's in the bottle house, can't wait to taste it.



We put the bees in the hive on Saturday morning, nice and early before they came too active, I had a quick look at the four hives on Sunday, just from the side, I didn't venture into them and they were all doing nicely, lots of bees flying in and out, looking good.

However this morning when I had a quick look, the swarm I collected on Thursday I'm a little concerned about, the bees were going in and out but none had any pollen in their baskets on their legs... as long as they were taking pollen into the hive things were going ok, or so that's what I was taught.  Anyone got any idea's or can reassure me.

Saturday 7 July 2012

I Caught a Swarm of Bees!


I was just chatting to one of the other allotment holders near the bee hives on Thursday evening and we were just chatting away looking round at the Hawthorne, saying how wild the grass was growing and how tall it was and commenting on the brambles, just general chit chat saying how much nectar the bees have in their immediate vicinity, when I spotted this!  A quick phone call to Pete who looks after the other hives, his original hive died over winter but has collected two swarms in the last month and 30 minutes later we were chopping down the branch and putting the swarm in a nucleus until I could build my spare hive.

We had planned on putting them in the hive yesterday but with the torrential rain we held off until this morning, they are now safely tucked up in their new home and hopefully they will like it.  So in the space of a month we have gone from 1 hive to 4, double what we originally had....

Monday 2 July 2012

A day without rain, so I went off to the allotment to play

I can't remember a whole day without any rain (well certainly not on a weekend) for months, so I took advantage and went to the allotment.  So much to plant, lots of catching up to do.  I packed the car with tomato plants, leeks, runner beans and french beans, plastic bottles, canes, drill & accessories, poor Diesel, there was very little room left for him, we arrive for just after 1pm.

First job, fill the gaps around the back door on the bottle house with bottles (obviously), done....after that I wanted to fill in the triangle above the front door to the bottle house, done.... next on the agenda, plant out the tomatoes inside the bottle house, done.... next on the list, plant out the leeks... bit of a stumbling block here, had my dibber ready but the soil was rock hard so I decided to dig over the bed to loosen up the soil, but every time I lifted a clump of soil all you could hear was a squelch, the top was crusty dry but underneath very sticky and wet, I didn't know if this was a good idea to plant out the leeks, so I've turned over the whole bed and left it to dry out, try this one again next weekend.  So my next job was to plant the runner beans and the french beans, done... moving along, hoe the strawberry bed and put mulch mats underneath the plants to keep the fruit off the soil, another one ticked off the list... time was getting on now, I hoed around the Jerusalem artichokes in the bed at the front of the chickens... back to the bottle house, I made a start on one of the back panels, filling it, got about half done when I ran out of bottles... more washing and cutting over the coming week should see this just about completed.   I was beginning to waiver, I had wanted to lift the garlic and shallots, but I've left this for another day.  We left at 10pm completely shattered, but with still so much to do.

I have tomatoes in my bottle house....
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