26th November 2017 - Expanding

The exciting news this week is that Mr L has been given the plot next door to mine; not that he'll ever go up there so it's all mine 😃  The plot hasn't been worked for at least 2 years and all the last plot holder did to it was remove all the weed membrane so it's just really overgrown.  I know that the tenant before last put compost onto the now very overgrown beds and I know that there were some small fruit trees that have been removed and left some holes. 

I have decided that rather than trying to fit things in around the few beds that are already there I'm going to remove them all and use the compost from the existing beds in them to  fill the holes around the plot before I cover the whole lot in membrane.  That will then give me the space to plan what I want to do with it before I start building beds.  I have a greenhouse at home that I'm probably going to take up there so I'll need to decide where to put that.  I'm also planning to remove the pallets that were put up at the side to make a fence and replace with chicken wire (in fact I might remove the whole fence down that side and re-do it).

My job today was to strim the plot.  I wanted to get it all cut back so that I could see what was going on.  As you can see, now that it's been strimmed there is still lots to do.  I need to trim the hedges and in the top right corner of this picture there is a gap in the hedge so I'm going to have to put some chicken wire there to secure it as well.

I am so excited to be able to expand.  I want to have a bigger strawberry bed and I want to have an asparagus bed, other than that it will just be more of the same.  I had some success with onion and potatoes this year so I'm hoping that more space will mean I can grow more and think about how I'm going to use my produce better.  

Happy gardening everyone x

5th November 2017 - Preparing for Winter

I was away with work for a couple of weeks and so I haven't been able to spend as much time at my plot as I'd like; especially as I had so many jobs to do to prepare for the winter months.  I was absolutely devastated when I got back to find that someone had been on my plot and stolen my bench and all of my decorations.  Every wind chime and gnome and ornament including all the things the little L's have bought me are gone.  I really don't understand why people feel the need to take other people's things! :'(

Anyway, on to brighter things.  I wanted to be more organised this year so I've used my new bullet journal to make an allotment to-do list.  For anyone who doesn't know what a bullet journal is it's an 'old fashioned' diary but with everything together in one place so rather than just a diary you can include everything that's important to you.  You basically get a blank notebook with dots instead of lines and then you make your pages to suit whatever you need.  If you're interested in more then take a look at http://bulletjournal.com/ or the many bullet journal pages on Facebook and Pintrest. 

Last weekend I had managed to weed the onion bed and planted my onions and garlic but I had so many more jobs that I needed to do.  As you know, I am a no-dig gardener and I hear lots of things said about no-dig gardening.  The one thing that frustrates me more than anything else is when people say things that are just nonsense!  So, the only thing different between a no-dig gardener and a dig gardener is that when we put our mulch on at the start or end of the season we don't dig it in.  We don't use any more compost than a dig gardener (people seem to have visions of needing lorry loads of compost lol).  If we need to dig to harvest crops then we do that because - well, how else do people think I'm going to harvest potatoes and parsnips?!  You absolutely can do no-dig gardening if you have clay soil, bind weed, horsetail, couch grass (or any other perennial weeds).  In fact, I've found that in 2 seasons the amount of the hated 3 (above) have really reduced.  I don't understand the idea that you can't if you have clay soil - digging soil is SO bad for it.  

This weekend I was determined to get at least half of the rest of my list done.  I had the bed that I'd had the onions in last season that was really weedy and needed to be cleared and covered.  I like to make sure that beds that I'm not growing in over winter are cleared and covered; last year there was one bed that I had planted some kale in but forgot to net them so they were decimated by the pigeons and in spring the bed was so weedy that it was embarrassing (I even covered it before the inspection because I didn't want anyone to see how bad it was!)

I'm hoping you can see from the picture that I have 2 beds fully covered now but you probably can't see that half of the bed behind the strawberries is also covered.  I have planted some swede in the top half, and I remembered to net them) but then I didn't have anything to put into the other half so I've covered it for now.  I still need to clear the old brassica bed because the cabbage whites got my sprouts so they need to come out.  The swede in that bed are fantastic and I'm told that you can leave them in and they'll be perfectly fine.  The only problem with that is that I then won't be able to cover the bed so I might need to have a think about that.  

The other jobs I need to do is finish clearing the polytunnel, tidy the fruit cage and tidy my very messy shed!!  I do wonder if the fact that it was such a mess put off the thieves when they were on my plot (because it always looks like it's already been turned over!!!!)  We are decorating at home so I'm not sure when I'll be able to do it but I am going to try to get up to the plot at least once a month over the winter this year.  I'd be interested to know what jobs you all do over the winter months so please feel free to add comments below.

Until next time - happy gardening :-)