Introducing the Bees

Nothing much more to update you on since my last post, though I have sowed quite a few different pumpkin, squash and courgette plants. Thursday evening is usually my night at the allotment and then at the weekend when I get the opportunity.  As well as doing more squash etc. I've also potted on some of the tomato plants, they are getting so BIG, they must grow inches every day, this lovely weather is doing them the world of good.

I posted a video a few issues ago, giving you a tour around the plot and I am hoping to do this on a monthly basis, but you know how these things pan out, good intentions and all that, but please do keep coming back to have a look.  Hopefully the video works, I think there was a problem with it initially but I have uploaded it onto YouTube and it seems to be working better now.  Anyway, would appreciate it if you could let me know just a yes or no would suffice and then I'll be able to keep at it until it's working properly if things aren't going to plan.

I've just been looking at a video of how plants were in the greenhouse just a couple of weeks ago, wow things are moving along really nicely.  I've been hardening off a few brassica plants, so I might get them planted out at the weekend.

If you did watch the last video, I had to leave you dangling on a piece of string at the end as I had every intention of showing you the bees, but when I got there it was too cold for them and there were very few flying around the hive.  I did however take a quick video of them the other morning...

I’m Back to Let you Know …

I know it’s a long time since my last posting and a big thanks to Mangocheeks, you’ve motivated me into sorting myself out and let you all know how things have been progressing since my last entry. So non allotment related news, promise its short and sweet, I’ve had my summer holiday, a glorious fortnight chasing lions and elephants and giraffe’s around safari parks in Kenya with a little bit of sunbathing thrown in. Three years of dreaming, saving and waiting, it was definitely worth it! But back to reality….

So allotment wise, I left you with news that the orchard had been approved, and we’d had an application for a grant to establish some bee hives approved. Moving on, we’ve (the community group) been on a course to learn about the good and bad ways of planting your fruit trees and an order has been placed for some Apple, Pear and Plum trees, 14 in all, which should be arriving sometime in November, Yipee can’t wait, 14 large holes to dig, ouch, but it has to be done! There is another course to go on sometime next month regarding the pruning and upkeep of the trees. In terms of the bees, it’s still very early days yet, until some training can be sorted it’d be irresponsible to get a colony etc, but I’ll keep you informed as things progress.

The Plot! Well it was rather overgrown when I got back off my holiday, sweetcorn had appeared from nowhere, not a bean in site when I left, a great jungle of them on my return, I had courgettes ‘eight ball’ which were the size of footballs, onions, marrows, broad beans, cabbages, caulis and leeks had all grown and a mass of potato foliage. So since getting back, I’ve pulled up the onions and put them to dry for over-winter use. The beans have been cut down, and I’ve put some to dry for storage, again for casseroles etc over the winter months. I’ve been slowly digging up the potatoes, and should get the rest of these all lifted this coming weekend, again more winter storage and I’ll have to sort out the sweetcorn. Leeks and cabbages will be left in the ground for now.

I’ve started re-arranging the raised beds for the new rotation system, taking into account the little area next to my patch which I will integrate this next coming season, and I’ve been winter digging areas as they have become empty. Plans for the coming weeks, at some point I’ve got 4 fruit trees arriving (expected sometime before the end of October), these will be planted in my plot (separate from the community orchard), I’d already ordered these trees before the funding was approved for the community orchard, so I’ll have to sort out where I want them to go and start to prepare the ground for them. I have a vague idea but at the moment the area I’m thinking of is used for storing my wood pallets and bricks etc, so I’ll need to move all of these before I can start to dig the holes. No shortage of hard work ahead, at least it keeps me off the streets!

Hope you are all doing well on your plots and the harvesting is going well.

A Whole New Ball Game

Gosh is it really that long since my last posting! Things are progressing well on the plot, potatoes are flowering, broad beans, runners and French are all coming along nicely, sweetcorn is growing really well and the courgettes and squash are planted out, so it’s a waiting game. But the good news is I’ve been given permission to take over the little plot which joins mine. It’s been passed from pillar to post and has really only had a smidge of care and commitment over the last couple of years.

So ‘Plot 2’ is approximately 40ft by 40ft, tapering off to about 25ft on one side. It is very overgrown with weeds and needs a lot of looking after and sorting out, but hey I like a challenge. Actually it’s more realistic to say I love a challenge. Plans have been drawn, and the thought process has gone into overdrive. With this extra space I’ve decided to break down my crop rotation into more defined areas. There will be areas for ‘Brassicas’, ‘Legumes’, ‘Solanaceae’ - (Potatoes), ‘Alliums’, ‘Cucurbitaceae’ and ‘Umbelliferae’ - (Roots).

I’ve posted a couple of pics to show you ‘Plot 2’ at the beginning. I’m off work on leave for a couple of days so it’ll be all systems go to get things moving.

Plot '2' - View One

Plot '2' - View Two

Plot '2' - View Three

Harvest Monday!

I just love the thought of pottering around the garden and thinking, mmm I’ll have some potatoes, some lettuce; some broad beans a couple of turnips and a bit of carrot to go with my tea and then being able to pick it straight from your garden. So that is exactly what I did yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed every last bit of it. If you'd like to share your harvest for the week, join in over at Daphne's and show everyone what you’ve been growing.

I didn’t get to the plot on Saturday but Sunday was glorious so Caleb and I spent all afternoon there, he played with the other children and I did the work, usual story. I earthed up the potatoes, planted out some Cabbages and Cauliflower, a few more Sweetcorn - Mini Pop. I acquired some scaffolding netting and some builder’s Hessian so I’m going to make some cages for the Brassicas, the caterpillars are steadily munching their way through the turnip leaves so I’m going to have to put up some sort of defence.

I had 5 plants which I thought were Cabbage - Greyhound (I’d put in a label saying this) but as they grew, they didn’t look like Cabbages, it’s puzzled me as to what they were so I’ve not planted them yet. Whilst looking through one of my books, I noticed a picture of the leaves on a Celeriac; these were the same leaves on my little plants. So now I’m wondering if I’ve got my plants mixed up and those that I thought were Celeriac, (whose leaves had been scoffed last week) were actually some sort of Brassica (probably why the leaves had been scoffed!). So now I’m going to plant out the 5 plants tonight where I’d planted the other plants; here’s hoping they are Celeriac.

Sweetcorn Planted

I went to the allotment again last night to plant the Sweetcorn, I am growing two varieties: Applause and Incredible. These are sweet and super-sweet varieties so I have planted them in separate beds but these are positioned next to each other, I’m hoping that I’ve not done this wrong. As I understood it, you can’t plant standard varieties anywhere near sweet or super-sweet varieties as there is the chance of cross pollination making the corn taste bitter, but I think that sweet and super-sweet varieties planted near each other will be ok, if not, then it’s a lesson learned for next year. I also planted some Mini-Pop variety so I can have baby corn in salads and stir-fry.

I finished weeding the Brassica bed where I am going to plant out the Calabrese and Turnip so I can get these in the ground over the weekend, along with Cabbages and Cauli in the second Brassica bed. I’ll finish off the third bed and here will go the Sprouts and PSB, as these will be in over winter I’ve kept them together for ease of preparing beds for next years rotation.

Catch Up

Apologies for not posting anything lately, it’s been quite hectic and I’ve not managed to find the time to post a blog, but anyway here we are and here is what’s been happening. Plenty of weeding done but this has come to a halt as the weather is awful, downpours of heavy rain for the past four days so it’s very wet, but it saves watering those potatoes!

So all the potatoes are now in the ground, I even managed to get the ‘sample’ spuds in eventually, hopefully they will all grow to produce some lovely tasty potatoes. I’m wondering whether to empty out one of the containers growing the 1st earlies Rocket, still no flowers and still nothing to find whilst rummaging. I think I may have to bite the bullet and empty one to see what is going on if anything. The seaweed/comfrey trials have started; one row of Rudolph was planted on a bed of seaweed and rotted manure, earthed up and watered in with a seaweed drink. I then planted another row of Rudolph on a bed of comfrey leaves and rotted manure and this was watered in with a comfrey drink. Each row had the same amount of potatoes planted and each potato was roughly the same size. To date the seaweed potatoes are the first to start making an appearance, a couple of leaves are beginning to poke through the soil. You can see in the picture below, my 2nd earlies are coming along nicely, the bed in the background is where the early maincrop are planted, the row at the left of the picture is the seaweed potatoes and the row next to that on its right are the comfrey potatoes. There is a row of Blue Danube to the far right and also a mixed row of Blue Danube and Rudolph. I’ve planted up the late maincrop Golden wonder in the area where the wildlife patch will go, things were just getting too tight to have the final bed weeded for them and I’d dug the wildlife area over last summer so all I had to do was pull out the fresh weeds and plant the potatoes, and I thought that the manure would enrich the soil ready for when the flowers/pond can go in when they are pulled up in the autumn. I’ll not get round to planting out the wildlife flowers this year, well possibly in the autumn I can put in the pond and a few plants but I think the majority of the plants will be put in next spring.

The tomatoes are coming along nicely, quite a few are now potted up in 5 litre tubs, these will have one final move to 9 litre tubs when they are ready, I might plant some in the ground at the allotment, if the bottle house isn’t completed in time, if it is, I’ll put some in grow bags or a ring culture in there. My aubergine plant got scorched and wilted beyond recovery one very hot afternoon, so I’ve had to resort to buying a plant from the garden centre. The cucumber plants didn’t germinate so I’ve planted a couple more; these are just starting to peek through the compost. Chilli Peppers and Sweet Peppers are looking good also.

My two over-wintering cauliflowers have produced nice little curds, I’m waiting anxiously until I can pick these, there is a nice cauli and potato recipe in one of my magazines which I’m wanting to use them on along with some of my 1st earlies. Plenty of cabbages, broccoli (green and purple), cauli and sprouts ready to plant out, which I’ll do once this blasted, rain stops.

I’ve made some bean frames (see below) ready to have the Runner and French beans planted against, these are in the process of hardening off at the moment. I’m going to make a wigwam of canes for the Borlotti and Flangelot beans to climb. The Squash, Pumpkin and Courgette plants are putting on growth, these will need planting out shortly, and I’m going to plant some with the beans, some with the Sweetcorn and hopefully some on their own, the Sweetcorn is also hardening off ready to be planted out hopefully over the weekend, when the weather is forecasted to warm/dry up.

Caleb and I went on a course this weekend just gone - Beginners Guide to Chicken Keeping. It was really good; we got to learn about their habits, food, shelter etc. and we even went into a large coop/run and handled them. Caleb though they were brilliant, so now he can’t wait for the chickens to arrive, I’ll have to hurry up and get their coop and run built, job number 624, lol.

Rounding off with a picture for you, have you seen the size of the root on this thistle which I dug out the other day!

What a Lovely Weekend

I hope the weather over the weekend was as glorious for all you gardeners out there as it had been for us here in Middlesbrough. An action packed fun filled gardening weekend was had by me and I even took Caleb along on Saturday and not a whinge or moan was heard. A few of the other children on the site had come along so he had plenty of kids to run about with.

Saturday - I put in some ‘Paris Market’ carrots in the back yard bed between the rows of parsnips, as these are only little bite sized carrots, they’ll be grown and lifted before the parsnips require the space. I also sowed some Early Nantes 2 in the 4x4 carrot bed. All 6 fence posts are now in for the bottle house, time to start working on the frames to insert the canes & bottles into. I’ve now sent an e-mail to all contacts (approx 300) at work asking them to donate their 2 litre pop bottles. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get the amount that I need.

Sunday - The bed for the 2nd earlies was established and dug over; I’ll be planting a row of Yukon Gold and a row of Anya in this bed at the back end of this week. The few Yukon Gold that are left over will be potted up into patio containers. I also planted up some Red Barron sets (3 rows) and some Santero sets (3 rows) in the newly built onion bed. I’ve still got some Turbo to go in and if any of my Bedfordshire Champion seeds amount to anything, I’ll make room for them somewhere.

Lots of the seedlings are coming along, will have to do some potting-up into bigger pots over the next couple of days, as a lot of the brassica’s have now started to develop their true leaves.

Weekend of Activity

Well I’m off work tomorrow, my car is going to the garage to be repaired (it currently drives itself about) and fail its MOT, I’m expecting a few things to need replacing like its brakes (due to driving itself, I spend most of my time with my foot on the brake trying to stop it). The other day the back doors locked and now I can’t unlock them to open them and get in and out of the back seat, even when you press the button to lock and then unlock them they stay locked. Poor Samson got stuck in the back of the car after we’d been out for a walk, me and Caleb had drag him through the little gap between the two front seats to get him out, not a pretty sight!

So I thought I’d take advantage of my non-working day and do some more garden activity. I’ll not be able to go to the allotment, it’s an hours walk away so I’ll potter about in the back yard, build another raised bed, pull out all the nails in the wooden posts I’ve ‘claimed’ for the henservatory and cut down some 2x2 ready to make one of the frames for the bottle house. Mrs C has another bag of 2 litre bottles for me so I’ll need to collect them. My spare room is full of black bags which are full of pop bottles, lol

Caleb’s off to cub camp Friday night so weather permitting (its forecast scattered showers - but I can brave them) I’ll spend all Saturday and Sunday at the allotment (presuming I get my car back) as I’ll not have to think about keeping him entertained. Hopefully I’ll be digging over the potato area and making a bed ready to plant out the 2nd earlies. I’ll put some chicken pellets in the onion bed which I made last weekend ready to plant them out probably next weekend and give the other beds a weed so that I’m on top of that before they get too riddled with neglect. I’ll Lime the brassica beds then start to mark out the side of the plot which runs from the shed to the gate where the flower bed will be and the bottle house and the fruit area.

How many hours are there in a day?

At Last - A Dry Weekend

I can’t believe it, a whole week without any rain, well nearly, it rained a bit on Friday night, but hey we’ll let it off as it was dry all week and then also dry for the rest of the weekend. My plot has nearly gone from a boggy mess to a cloggy mess. Hopefully if it keeps like this it’ll just be a mess that needs sorting.

So to update you all on the weekend’s happenings, on Saturday morning I put 8 seed potatoes (Rocket) into 2 potato containers (4 in each) and put them in the large plastic greenhouse. I’ve put them on top of some pallets just to keep them off the cold concrete floor; I thought this might help keep the chill/frost off them. I also sowed some carrots (Early Nantes 5) under the little grow house which I’ve had placed over the 4x4 raised bed in the back yard. On Saturday afternoon, Caleb, Samson and I went to Redcar beach to collect some seaweed, read somewhere that it’s good for the potatoes so I thought I’d give this a go. I’ll plant some with a seaweed bed and some without and let you know the results.

Sunday I finally managed to finish Samson’s kennel, he’s currently sleeping in the kitchen whilst I’m at work, sleeping is what he does best, but now the weather is getting better I thought it would be nice if he could spend time outside and basque in the glorious sun (when it arrives), so I started to build him a kennel but then with all the bad weather I’d not been able to finish it off, well now that’s complete and he loves it. He was even sleeping in it whilst I was nailing the roof felt onto it, nothing interrupts his sleep! Now all we’ve got to teach him not to panic when he’s outside, as he doesn’t particularly like it, it’s not the being outside that upsets him, it’s the door being closed and him not being able to get back in that he doesn’t like. So it’ll have to be a slow, confidence building exercise I think until he’s comfortable staying outside on his own.

Me and Samson also spent a couple of hours at the plot on Sunday afternoon, it was wonderful! I dug over the small brassica bed, so now they’ve all been dug; I’ll add some lime shortly. I used my new cultivator (a xmas pressie from my Mam) to rake over the muck in the legume beds. I then started to weed the area where the potato bed is going to go, the mud was still very wet, but at least the boggy bit was starting to dry up, all the puddles have gone, it was just very cloggy. Its forecast to be dry all week so hopefully we can get down at the weekend to get on with a bit more.

Oh yes, something I couldn’t resist buying, even though I didn’t really need any more seeds, some Broccoli (Calabrese) - Samson. I wonder if these will grow big heads, as big as Samson himself, we’ll see!

No Further Forward at the Plot

Well I’m no further forward in getting the plot prepared for the spring, I now have the added headache of having to make two lots of (rotational) raised beds seen as though I went mad and ordered loads of potatoes and there isn’t going to be room for them in the proposed ‘root’ section. I sat down and looked at my plan of the allotment and looked where I could squeeze in another section. I’d taken Friday and today off as holiday in the hope of being able to get started on these along with some winter digging but the weather is not helping at all, it has rained, and even snowed today so things are getting further and further behind.

I bought some lime for the Brassica patch; I’d managed to get two of the three beds in this area dug over in November, so I’ll get the third done and then add lime ready for when I plant out. I’d read in one of the magazines that this is an ideal time for the lime to be added so I’ll try and get that done fairly soon. I’d also managed to get the Legume section dug over and a load of compost and manure spread, so hopefully this will be ready to go when the beans are germinated.

I’ve sown a few more veggies. I tried again with some seed onions (Bedfordshire Champion) and this time I used brand new compost, I’ve bought B&Qs cutting and sowing compost, this was the best performer in the Which magazine trials with an 83% success rate and huge seedlings so I thought that I’d give it a go. I’ve sown some more leeks (Musselburgh), some cabbage (Greyhound), cucumber (Marketmore), celeriac (Monarch) and some aubergine (mixed).

Working it all Out

Well it’s official, with all these potatoes I’m going to have to build (or should I say squeeze) another section/rotation area into the plot. I sat last night and worked out what will realistically fit into the ‘Root’ patch. Its official, potatoes, potatoes and you guessed it potatoes. I’ll even have to put my 1st earlies into those little patio planters I have as not all my potatoes will fit into the space for roots. So that’s my Root (Potato) section worked out. It’s a good job I like potatoes, and so does Samson, in fact he loves quite a few veggies so he can help devour the harvest.

I also worked out where I’m going to plant my beans and peas in the Legume section. I’m growing Broad beans, Peas (normal, mangetout and sugar snap) some French beans and Runner beans and I’ve ordered some Borlotto and Flangelot beans to leave to dry for winter casseroles etc.

Tonight I’m going to look at the Onion section, here I plan on growing my onions (you’d never have guessed that would you), Courgettes, Garlic, Leeks, Marrow, Spring Onion and Squash.

If I have time I’ll look at the Brassica Section, planned crops for there include Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Calabrese, Cauliflower, Kale, Kohl Rabi, Radish, Swede and Turnip.

I’ll then have to fit into the rotation plan those left over ‘Roots’ which I’d pencilled in as Beetroot, Carrots, Celeriac, Lettuce, Parsnips, Radicchio, Spinach, and Sweetcorn. Reading up on the 6 year/5 bed policies they will have to follow the ‘Onion’ section and come before the ‘Potato’ section. I know that some of these can be put into ‘any’ area but if I can keep them together I’ll know where I am for the coming years rather than pop them here or there. Isn’t it all confusing?