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 :-)