Yet More Rain on the Way!!

Well folks, I'm beginning to believe that this year is a non starter.  I look at some blogs and they're miles and miles ahead of me, their plants flourishing whilst mine are very slow to make any growth, well except the broad beans, they're doing pretty good.  Yet other blogs look like they're having the same slow start to me, I wonder if they are thinking along the same lines, make do and start again next year?

Today we are at the summer solstice, yet funnily enough we haven't had any summer to speak of, tonight the skies were dark when at the same time on other nights they have been bright and the night quite light and we are in reality now heading towards darker nights and towards autumn and winter.  Gosh somebody shoot me, I'm so pessimistic, I'm really beginning to get annoyed with the whole weather situation.  I took a fortnight leave over Easter and it rained, I took another week for the Jubilee celebrations/half term and it rained.... it's generally dry Monday through Wednesday and then it rains for the rest of the week, well this is quite exasperating when you work all week and only get the weekend to make any progress on the plot.  How are others feeling?

Ok, cheer up, look at the positives... Broad Beans - Yeah, Potatoes - Yeah, Strawberries - Yeah and even a couple of Gooseberries - Yeah, and a big YEAH to the bottle house!!!

I've done a video for you, this months tour, when I've managed to upload it onto YouTube i'll post it for you so you can see it... Here's a picture of how the bottle house is looking.

A Bright n Early Start ...

Today I was on the allotment for 9am, I wanted to get the grass on the surrounding area cut down with the strimmer, the council haven't been into our section at all this year and it was getting ridiculous, every time you went to the water tap you got soaked (after it had rained), you couldn't walk around the area without getting the bottom of your trouser legs wet, and this isn't good when you have to go every morning before work to feed the chickens, as I do.  Getting to the bee hives was a joke, the grass was nearing 3-4 ft tall.  Anyhow, I decided enough was enough and strimmed it down, it took an absolute age, and was back breaking.  The stimmer is a petrol one that is used by the likes of the council, and professional gardeners, it was bought (second hand) using some of the grant money we attained last year.  It cut through the grass like a knife through hot butter.  I only managed to get one side of the area done (the side my plot is on LOL) and will finish off the other side another day as I wanted to get things done on my plot also.

So in between the strimming, I sowed some more carrots, not many of my first batch have come through, I did do them some time ago before the soil had warmed up and then we had all that rain for April and most of May so in reality most of the seeds were either waterlogged or washed away.  I've made myself a 'carrot' template, I took the idea from 'Annie's Granny' of Annie's Kitchen Garden, hope she doesn't mind.  Granny makes seed mats, but to be honest with you I don't have the time or patience to make these so I made my own version.........

 My Carrot Template

 Close Up of Sowing Holes

Carrots from 1st Batch Coming Through

The template measures just under 4ft by 3ft (if I remember rightly) and each of the holes have been drilled so they are 3" apart.  It gives you 165 sowing stations.  All I need do is place it on top of the soil and sprinkle some seeds into each hole, lift up the template and then scatter over some compost and water.  It saves (hopefully) the need to thin them out so much.  I also sowed some more broad beans and another 3 rows of peas, from my 1st lot of peas only 2 germinated, that's 2 peas from about 160, what did I do wrong?????? 

All in all a tiring day, I left just after 4 totally shattered, I've now got my feet up catching up on some blogs, watching Spain v Italy on the Euro's.  About to have some tea, and a nice hot bath.  It's back to work tomorrow, how nice! NOT...

Ouch... That Had to Hurt!

So another day's leave spent on the plot yesterday, got quite a bit done and it is starting to look just about there, probably another good few weekends to go and we might be at a place where I have 6 crop family areas  (Solanaceae, Cucurbiteae, Brassica, Legumes, Alliums and Roots) and its manageability will be near possible....will the day ever come?

Hang on, snap me out of that dream.....So back to yesterday I cleared all the weeds from the salad bed, it's looking a lot nicer, don't you just get a great burst of satisfaction when an area become clear of weeds.  The only downside was something has munched on one of my iceberg lettuces that I planted out at the weekend, so now I'm one down.  I suspect a pesky pigeon so I covered the remaining ones with a metal grate, it was just the right size.  I also cleared the weeds from half the bottle grow-house, gosh don't weeds grow extremely quickly, I'd bet money that they weren't there a couple of weeks ago.  Tomorrow evening, all being well, I'll clear the other half of the grow-house.

Weeded a few other beds, these ones had been cleared over the winter and it was just a case of putting a hoe through it to clear the new growth.  When all the plot is cleared and I'm on top of things (I can see the light at the end of the tunnel) then weeding shouldn't be such a momentous task.  I also sowed some broad beans and beetroot direct into the soil.

When I arrive at the plot, (yesterday it was about 8.45am), the first job (other than putting on my boots if I'm staying) is always to feed and water the girls.  I opened the caged area and got their food tray, filled that up, got the water tub and went and filled that up.  Then the next thing I do is collect the eggs so that during the course of the day they aren't broken when the girls go and do their stuff... when I saw what was there, well it made my eyes water.  That poor girl, boy it must have hurt!

 the egg was nearly the size of my hand!

left egg (dinosaur egg), right egg (normal Hazel egg)

You can see the shear size of it, it measures approx 3.5 inches and weight and weighs 118g, that is compared to a normal Hazel egg which I've measured at just over 2 inches and 68g.

Something has been EATING my Vegetables!

I went to the allotment last night to plant up some beans and do some watering as it’s been very hot and dry here the past few days. All seemed well until I passed the end of the bed where I had planted out the Celeriac on Sunday and noticed that something was missing, it was my Celeriac plants, all that was left of them were spines. Something had made a nice tasty meal out of them all, all nine plants that I planted on Sunday. As it’s too late to sow and plant anymore, I’m now going to have to wait for another year to see what Celeriac tastes like, well home grown Celeriac, I could easily go and buy one from the shop to taste it, but that is not how I want to do it. And if things couldn’t get any worse, I turned to find that who or whatever had been tucking into my Kohl Rabi as well. All is not lost with the Kohl Rabi; I do have some small seedlings which I can plant out so hopefully I will be able to try that for the first time this year.

Kohl Rabi Eaten

All the Celeriac Eaten!

On a more positive note, I planted up more Broad beans, and whilst doing so I noticed that I had some pods growing, so now I’m waiting most excitedly for when they’ll be large enough for me to start picking them to eat. I love Broad Beans; they have to be one of my most favourite vegetables. The bees loved them also, there was a very large bumble bee flying around and doing his stuff with the flowers. I also planted out some Runner Beans and some Borlotti Beans, did a bit more weeding and finally spent a good 45 minutes watering everything with the hose.

The Weather Man Promises a Warm Weekend

How lovely it would be to have two complete (weekend) days uninterrupted by rain or hail or snow. Now the weather forecast has said it’s going to be dry with some good sunny spells, highs of 15 on Saturday and 11 on Sunday. It’s looking a bit overcast at the moment, but time will tell.

Plans over the weekend include first and foremost, collect the hen shed this evening! Definitely a must and a can do no matter what the weather brings for us. Next job, 3 more posts to be dug into the ground for the bottle house, fairly confident this will be a goer. Finally, dig and complete the raised bed for the 2nd earlies to be planted.

I might be able to collect some bricks and some wood from a friend, he’s not sure if he’ll have the keys for the store, but hopefully he will and I can get some 2”x2” wood off him to start making the frames for the bottle house. I’m using bricks to edge the main path on the allotment, I’ll lay some cardboard down and cover with small stones which have been taken out of the ground as I’ve been digging it over.

I’ve got a few days off work towards the back end of next week and the longer (10 day) weather forecast says it going to be nice and sunny, so hopefully I’ll be able to get some peas and beans in, possibly some carrots and the onions still need to be put in, time is running out for them.

Have a nice weekend everyone and hopefully you can all get some productive gardening done.

A Great Weekend - Shovelling Shit

Wasn’t it lovely over the weekend, well lovely compared to the previous goodness knows how many weekends gone by. On Saturday I managed to build a walk-in plastic greenhouse a bargain at £19.99 from B&M; do you have one of those shops anywhere near you? There brilliant and so cheap. So I’ve built that and put in my Broad Beans, I’d potted them on into bigger pots, getting them accustomed to the outside world ready for when I plant them up at the plot. I sowed some Toms, Chilli and Sweet Peppers and Tomatillos (just 2 of each variety - 4 varieties of toms and 2 of each of the sweet and chilli peppers) just to see how they get going. I sowed some marigolds, and nasturtiums for the beneficial planting area.

On Sunday the weather was not as good as Saturday, but I went over the allotment, it was still rather flooded after the rain on Friday, just as it was starting to dry out we had continuous rain all Friday which meant the plot was re-flooded in parts. A delivery of horse muck had been dumped so I spent an hour shovelling shit, it was WONDERFUL!!!

On Sunday evening my Mother telephoned me to ask if I knew anyone who was interested in some chicks. Her partners’ son’s daughter’s school had incubated some eggs and they had hatched. I’m pondering taking a couple on, they’d be ready in a couple of weeks; I’ll keep you informed as to what I decide. Wouldn’t that be nice though a couple of little chicks?

Light(ish) Nights

Isn’t it wonderful now the nights are starting to get a bit lighter, there will soon be a whole hour after work that I’ll be able to get bits n pieces done at the allotment. I’m lucky that it’s only 5 minutes drive from my work, so it’s easy to pop over to do a few bits before it gets dark. Over winter this has not been feasible, but with the nights getting lighter for longer I’ll be able to get over and do bits. Another added bonus is British Summertime Begins in just 4 weeks, just think of that extra hour!

I’m planning to get over to the lottie over the weekend, didn’t manage last weekend, what with one thing and another, but I would like to get across for a couple of hours at least on Sunday. The only stumbling block is yes you’ve guessed it, its forecast snow showers here in Middlesbrough. Hopefully though this prediction won’t come true and it will be glorious weather, yes I know cloud cuckoo land.

I ordered some Gardman (Pack of 2) Reusable Potato Planters / Tubs online to plant some of the earlies in, as the potato area isn’t sorted yet. You can see from the photo below, the area just at the bottom of the picture covered in weeds, this is where the potato beds are going to go.

Once I’d ordered the planters they only took a couple of days to arrive, very fast turnaround. I’m very pleased with them, they seem more robust than some of the designs available, and they have little pouches on the sides which will be useful to fumble about and see how things are progressing.

On the seed front, the chitting spuds are chitting quite nicely, the Rocket in particular are doing very well. The Cabbage (Greyhound) is doing well, Cauliflower (AYR) are starting to come through, so are the Khol Rabi. No sign of the Onions, Celeriac, Peppers or Cucumber yet but nearly all Broad Beans are through. I’ll going to have look through my seeds at the weekend and sow some more things. I may try some tomatoes, I’ve been given a heated propagator so I’m going to keep them snug in there and see how they go.

At Last I have Broad Beans

I’ve been pacing up and down for the last couple of days like an expectant mother waiting for signs of life from my broad beans, and at last beginning to emerge from those little pots of compost are the signs of new life. I’m filled with glee.

Nothing new to report from the plot, it was snowing again yesterday, today has been rather chilly but the good news is that there has been no snow and the day has an awe of spring about it. Things could change within the hour though, considering what the weather has been like over the last few weeks. It is forecasted (in Middlesbrough) for the weekend weather to be cold with further light wintry showers. I hope it holds off for a few hours on Sunday so I can give it another try to get something done on the Lottie, even if I build a few beds in anticipation of winter digging, it’s a step in the right direction.

Advice needed: when my seed potatoes arrived, the maincrop arrived at the same time, now it says in most magazines/books you don’t need to chit maincrop potatoes so I’ve left them in the box until needed for planting in April. I checked on them the other day as I went to get out my 2nd earlies to start chitting them, and the maincrop spuds had started to grow big white shoots, not little ones, big ones. How do I stop these growing, and will it hinder the spuds when they are planted out, giving me a inferior crop. Any advice would be appreciated.

Broad Beans and Gromit

Last night I potted up the first of my broad beans. I’ve gone for Jubilee Hysor as this variety is supposed to produce a tremendous yield of broad, well filled pods, each containing 6 to 8 beans of superb flavour. Also Aquadulce Claudia which is again a good cropper. I potted up 12 of each variety in its own cardboard pot (I used soup tubs you get from Fatso’s), they’re just the right size I think as Broad Beans need a deep pot.

Update on the seed trial, leeks are coming along nicely, I think I’ll put them in some bigger pots over the next few days, but the onions have all wilted and fallen over, now this happened to me last year when I sowed a few seeds so I gave up and didn’t try another batch, deciding to use sets instead. Does anyone know where I’m going wrong?

Finishing on a sad note, we lost one of our ferrets last night, little Gromit (pictured below at 8 weeks old), I found him at the bottom of his cage; he’d died during the night. He was four. We are going to bury him at the allotment in the wildlife area.

At Last more than just a Fleeting Visit!

Caleb and I popped over to the allotment on Saturday for 10 minutes, the weather was dry and I wanted to see if it was feasible for me to do any work. I had some free time on Sunday afternoon and I wanted to fill it with ‘muck’ and hard graft! Things looked promising.

Sunday arrived; it was a bit nippy so I wrapped up well. Samson has only been to the allotment a couple of times, we only adopted him in November so there have been few chances to get over there since he came to live with us. So the allotment and growing veggies will be a new experience for the two of us (well three when Caleb’s enthusiasm is working, he blows hot and cold about the whole thing).

So down to some work, as the pigeons had decimated my PSB I’ve pulled them all up, chopped them down and composted them. I had about 5 cabbages still in the ground when the snow hit, well you couldn’t call them cabbages anymore, slimy green blobs would be a better phrase, and so up they came. Next it was the sprouts, they hadn’t really amounted to much and the pigeons had eaten the tops, so I pulled them up and decided to snap off the few decent sized ones that had developed. I didn’t have a tub to put them in (something I’ve got to start collecting) so I put them on top of a piece of board on a bucket to gather up when leaving for home. I turned around 5 minutes later only to find Samson chomping away at them, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The pigeons had eaten my PSB, the snow had finished off my Cabbages and Samson had scoffed the sprouts. I thought it was supposed to be Grow Your Own, not grow for everything else!

Not to rub salt into my wounds, it looks like the over-wintering onions have all gone mushy, so I don’t think they’ll be worth persevering with, and not one single broad bean had germinated. So much for hardy veg!

Hope and Happiness

The Grand essentials of happiness are: Something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

• Something to do: sow seeds a plenty
• Something to love: your budding seedlings and blossoming plants
• Something to hope for: a fruitful harvest

Should this dreadful weather ever change I would like to get over to the allotment over the weekend, have a look and see if the snow has disapeared at an amazing rate (I think not) and see what damage it has done to the broad beans and over wintering onions, should I be able to find them, lol. Possibly do a bit of tidying up in the shed or at least mend the shed as it kind of started to fall apart when it was moved back in November and what with all the dreadful rain and then the snow i've not been able to get round to mending it.

Looking at the forecast (for Middlesbrough), well for Sunday at least, things are looking promising. It is anticipated there will be large amounts of dry weather, with temperatures closer to normal, dare we HOPE?