This week I've been without a car and so I've walked to (or from) the allotment a couple of times. It's exactly 4km (2.49 miles) from my gate to my house. What this picture doesn't show you is that coming home it is about 60% uphill and they're really steep! Once upon a time it wouldn't have
occurred to me to walk, I would have stayed at home or maybe got a taxi but since I lost some weight I've been feeling much more able to do more. It gave me a great sense of achievement and, as you can see, it helped me to meet all of my Fitbit targets on Thursday!
I'm not sure that I'll keep it up once I get a car again but I'll continue to feel proud of myself for as long as it lasts!!
One of the other benefits of not having a car is that once I get up to the plot I have to stay! I can't pop off to do something or stop off somewhere on the way to the plot and end up spending loads of time (and money) before I even get there. As a result I have got so much done in quite a short space of time.
One of the main jobs I wanted to get done was to sort out the fruit bed in 85a. The raspberry canes needed to be cut back in February and I'm always late doing it so I only just got around to doing it. Last year I neglected that bed and all I can say is that it had gone a bit feral! I didn't really take any fruit even from the bed, never mind weeding and mulching. The raspberries had sent out millions of runners that were trying to take over the full 13' bed - argh!!!
I forgot to take a before picture - doh! but on the right side I had 2 gooseberries that I've removed. I decided to take them out because I have another big gooseberry and I couldn't get to any of them to prune (or harvest the fruit) and so I decided to take the 2 smallest ones out and give them away. My arms look like I've been attacked by a mad cat (note to self - wear long sleeves when doing something with gooseberries) but it is worth it to sort this bed out!
In this space I have the remaining gooseberry, a blackcurrant and a blackberry. At the end of the season I'm going to move them so that they're not all along one side and so that I can easily move between them. Closest to the camera is where the raspberries will grow. I cut it down to the ground (because this is autumn fruiting) and all I need to do is keep an eye out for any canes growing in places that I don't want them.
In 86a the spring flower bed is really coming alive. There are 2 types of hyacinth at the front of the bed, the picture really doesn't do the purple justice, it is a really deep colour and so unusual. The daffodils are also starting to bud up but the idea of this bed was to use it as a crop and so far there aren't enough buds for me to harvest them for the house. I will keep an eye on them but it looks like I'm going to have to enjoy them at the plot.
I've also started to prepare the bed for the asparagus. I had to weed it and unfortunately it has marestail growing in it. All of the beds in that plot are going to suffer with marestail and bindweed so I'm just going to have to manage it. As you know I don't dig (and it's not even worth trying to dig marestail out because the roots go so deep). My main worry about the marestail is that it will be difficult to pull up when the asparagus starts growing because they can look similar to start with and I don't want to be pulling up the asparagus tips!
In case you were wondering, I'm currently between jobs and so rather than just going to the plot at the weekends I'm being able to get there in the week. You might therefore see some additional updates from me in between the normal posts (you might not as I'm also busy with a job search).
Until next time...
Happy Gardening x
On 17th February I posted about cleaning out my pond (link below). I wanted to get it all done before the frogs started mating and before there was any spawn/tadpoles in the water. For the last couple of weeks the water has still been a bit murky but it's been clearing. When I arrived this weekend the water was clear.
http://tinyurl.com/y6gkg93b
I could see the lily at the bottom of the pond really well and so I decided to have a proper look. One of the first things I noticed is that there seemed to be some frog spawn at the bottom of the pond. I thought it was weird because frogs normally lay their eggs on the surface. I could clearly see 2 frogs at the bottom of the pond (against the side) and then I noticed a newt; I've seen 4 frogs and 2 newts so it seems like I have a very healthy pond. I think they're smooth newts (also known as a common newt) and I'm hoping the spawn I can see at the bottom of the pond is from them.
In addition to finding the newt I also found 8 plants that had been dumped into the compost. I had a good look at them and they seemed healthy so I decided to bring them to be re-potted. I think it's hebe but I'm not sure what type. I've given them a good soak and feed and I'll keep an eye on them. I know that people throw plants out that are sick or diseased but I would hope they wouldn't just put them into the public compost (although I wouldn't put money on that). I do know that the people who have thrown them out often throw out perfectly good plants and so I'm not too worried about them infecting any of my other plants, they are being kept away from similar plants to be on the safe side though!
In addition to rescuing plants I've been busy weeding the beds and making a start on weeding the paths. Last year I neglected the paths and they're pretty bad; I filled a bucket with weeds from 1 path and 1 bed and neither were particularly bad! I really want to get all of it sorted as a priority so that as I move on to 86a or other areas of the 85a I don't have to worry about the weeds self seeding all over the place.
The polytunnel has been busy too. I had to prune off a lot of leaves from the lemon tree because they had been touched by frost. I thought taking it into the polytunnel would protect it enough but it's a lesson learnt that I'll need to take it in and also protect it with extra fleece. I've put some fleece on it now because the temperatures are still getting down to freezing and even though I've pruned it, some of the remaining leaves had started to curl so I decided to protect it.
The peach tree is in blossom, I'm keeping it in the polytunnel to protect it from peach curl but I'm going to have to take a paintbrush and manually pollinate it because I didn't do it last year and I didn't get any fruit. I've also got various bits and pieces that are starting to bud. I bought an automatic watering system that is battery operated. Each system has 10 spouts and you can set the time that it waters and for how long. I've dropped it into the big watering can and it's watering all of the big plants for 1 minute a day. I don't think that's long enough so I need to decide how long or how many times it needs to be done. It does give me a little bit of security for when the weather gets better and when I can't get up every day to water.
One of the other plot holders put a note onto our Facebook page asking if anyone wanted some gravel. I have the car park matting that I put under my shed and that I was going to use as a base for the greenhouse. It works best if it's filled with gravel so I was delighted to get some for free. When I started chatting with the lady who had it she said she also had some slabs that her neighbour was trying to get rid of.
Thankfully Mr L came to help me, because it was hard work, they were really heavy but I'm so happy to have them. We managed to get 30 slabs as a base for the greenhouse and 6 bags of gravel. I can use the gravel either inside the greenhouse or in the matting as I'd planned, but as a seating area in front of the shed instead of for the greenhouse.
The last job I did this weekend was plant 4 fruit trees in pots. The plan is to eventually put them into 86a but because the beds aren't ready yet I've put them into pots. I've got apple, pear, plum and cherry; I've always wanted to have fruit trees on my plot but because I didn't think about it when I was designing 85a and so I didn't have places for them. The trees are on dwarfing root stock and they will be okay in these pots for at least a couple of years but ultimately I'm planning on planting them in the ground. Have anyone else had any success growing fruit trees in pots?
Until next time...
Happy Gardening x
In the summer when everyone harvests their winter onion social media is full of people asking what they should put in their beds now that the onions have been harvested. Of course you can plant brassica's or legumes which would be next on the rotation but I plant onions! My family eat a lot of onions and I can never grow enough but one of the ways I try is by growing the all year round.
In order to grow onions all year I have to be organised. In February I plant my sets into modules; today I planted 120 sets and I still have another 2 bags of sets to plant which should be at least another 240 sets. At the moment they're in the polytunnel but I will move them outside when I do the rest of them. One of the things to remember even when planting in modules is to protect them from pigeons!
I have found that onions are quite happy to be transplanted from modules into their growing position; you don't need to disturb the roots too much when you transfer them but even if the roots are disturbed the onions still grow well.
So, if you're thinking about what you're going to put into the winter onion beds, it's worth thinking about preparing some more onions to go in when you have harvested.
Edit: I have been asked about crop rotation and specifically been told that you can't plant summer onions in the bed that you grew winter onions because of onion root fly. I do rotate my crops but honestly the distance of the beds would actually have very little affect on the root fly maggot which can migrate quite a long way from where it hatched to your onions. You can grow onions in a bed for a full year before rotating to another bed. If your soil can get to 35°C or more then that will kill the pupae but that's only likely in a hot bed or compost bin. Don't plant bright yellow plants near your onions, because the adult fly are attracted to the colour and often lay their eggs at the base of yellow plants. Because the flies are attracted to bright yellow colours you can buy yellow sticky cards that the fly is attracted to and the stick to; you should change the traps twice weekly and it's a good idea to record changes in fly activity so that you can think about nematodes for future years.
In addition to the onions I have made a start sowing beetroot. As you know I'm not great at growing things from seeds but I'm trying something new this year. First I'm only sowing a small number at a time; I'll be waiting for the first lot to germinate before I sow any more and then I'll do no more than 10 seeds.
I'm also sowing them into the coir expanding biscuits. I put half of them into the tray to expand last week but didn't have time to sow before I had to leave because Middle L cut his foot and I had to take him to the hospital. They therefore had nearly a week to fully expand (they only really need 24 hours!) I put 8 seeds into the little dips and then I filled the rest of the trays with more biscuits to expand.
Last week I planted my leeks into the roots bed and so the root trainers were freed up. I have quite a lot of sweet peas that I want to grow this year so I have used the root trainers for them and I'm also saving toilet roll middles to grow some more.
I've also noticed that my lemon tree is not very happy, from reading it seems like it has been too cold, the best way to deal with it is to remove the leaves and give it a feed. I'm a bit worried about removing all of the leaves but I'll give it a feed and cover it with fleece and see how it goes; hopefully it will recover and I will have to remember to fleece it at the end of summer this year.
Until next time
Happy Gardening x
One of the main jobs I wanted to get done was to sort out the fruit bed in 85a. The raspberry canes needed to be cut back in February and I'm always late doing it so I only just got around to doing it. Last year I neglected that bed and all I can say is that it had gone a bit feral! I didn't really take any fruit even from the bed, never mind weeding and mulching. The raspberries had sent out millions of runners that were trying to take over the full 13' bed - argh!!! 
In 86a the spring flower bed is really coming alive. There are 2 types of hyacinth at the front of the bed, the picture really doesn't do the purple justice, it is a really deep colour and so unusual. The daffodils are also starting to bud up but the idea of this bed was to use it as a crop and so far there aren't enough buds for me to harvest them for the house. I will keep an eye on them but it looks like I'm going to have to enjoy them at the plot.
