More produce

 

Bucket o Spuds

 

Beans

 

Red currants

  

New Pics

Some recent pics of the produce growing.

 

 

 

Super Saturday

Had some great weather today so took the oppertunity to do a fair bit on the allotment. Started to de root the next potato bed, this is still ongoing as it is prob the biggest job on the site, will hopefully finish tommorrow.

 

 

 

 

Turned over the area for the corn field and planted out the corn, also had space to put in a row of Estima potatoes.

 

 

 

Anna was also able to harvest the first of the purple sprouting broccoli. Only took a little as we just needed to take the centre floret so there will be more sprouting from the sides in future. (tasted good in a prawn stir fry)

Runners, Potatoes and Fence

Me and Anna did a spate of hard digging and rooting on Sat morning and finished off our first potato bed. We got bucket loads of marestail roots out and have planted a row of Jeruselam Artichokes. We also planted out the runner beans that we have been growing in the green house next to the netting that I erected during the week, the mange tout seem to have been scoffed by the birds despite my efforts to protect them with twigs. We have planted up some in pots which we will put out when they are a bit bigger and stronger.

We paid a visit to our potato adviser (cheers Andy) on Sun and came a way with three bags of seed potatoes which I’d like to get in the ground as soon as pos. Accord, Peer and Estima. Just hoping for a bit of dry weather so We can finish digging our potato beds and get them in.

 

 

 

Anna was delighted to see the first florets of Broccoli have started to sprout, will get some pictures soon.

And finally the council have started to construct the new fence around the site, I saw it on my way home tonight and had a little look. Should be good when finished.

Shed and raised bed

Wasnt sure we’d get to the allotment this weekend as the weather started out so bad on Sat, but the sun was shining on Sun morning and we were ready to go.

We had put the felt on the roof of the new shed the other week and it was still standing so that was a big bonus. Paul has demolished his garage so we used the roof beams to create a raised bed to go near the new ‘patio’ that we had put down near the shed, looks a bit crooked from a distance but it will do the job.

We also pulled back some of the black plastic that has been covering a large part of the plot for some time, we were greeted by a carpet of mares tail that has started to sprout up. Got some advise from the allotmenteers next door which was that we were going to have to dig it all up bit by bit. A bit demorilising but good to know that the others had been through the same and with a bit of hard work we’d at least knock it back enough to get planting on the plot. We had a good bash at it and managed to clear a couple of sq metres between us, it will be a case of a little at a time I think.

everything that we have planted is coming on well, garlic especially. No sign of any leeks, carrots or parsnips poking through yet but I think it’s still early. The corn and runer beans I’ve got going in the greenhouse are coming on great.

Anna has also put a small pond in to attract some friendly frogs to the plot with some nice water plants in to keep it clean.

Oriental Crop

Not been down to the alloment for over a week as we’ve been on holiday. Managed to get down there today and were pleased to find a good crop of oriental veg ready for picking.

 dscf0053.jpg

Just had a mixture with seabass for tea, great to strt eating our iwn proper veg.

The cabbage, broccoli and colli are coming on well but the radish seem to have slowed down in the cold weather, although the mixed radish we sowed under cloches are coming along fine.

Onions and Garlic

Onions , Shallots and Garlic went in tonight. Me and Paul just had enough time to get them in before darkness loomed.

Masses done

Had a really productive day on Sat after a few weeks of not doing much due to the weather.

Paul has borrowed his dads van so we were able to do loads of rubbish clearing in a short space of time. Next we moved on to roofing the shed and moving the guttering and waterbutt so we should now start collecting water at a faster pace.

We used some corrugated plastic to construct a couple of tunnels and planted a couple more rows of mixed radish. The first crop of radish were also harvested, not at their biggest but tasting really sweet and spicey.

And then.. the main event… ROTORVATING!

Paul had borrowed the rotorvator and finally we had the chance to put it through its paces. Much harder than we had anticipated, but once we had the knack of it we were soon hacking through the soil. One bed now completed for the onions and garlic, we will try to get the rest done soon and hope the frost breaks it down some more over winter. Hopefully ill have a rotorvating video to put on soon, keep an eye out.

Oriental Leaf Vegetable Collection

Finally took delivery of the oriental leaf collection this evening. The first delivery should have come weeks ago but Royal Mail seem to have lost it for a while and the first lot arrived dead. Dobies to their credit sent out another batch which only took a week to come so we set about getting them in the ground straight away.

The brassicas are coming along really well apart from a couple of slug casualties and are easy to maintain thanks to the weed suppressing fabric we used. We decided to use more of the fabric for the orientals so got ourselves a big roll. Three of us spent an hour down there tonight and now have seven new rows to tend.

Radish

Update to first patch. Have now added a row of radish in between the broccoli and cauliflower as a bit of an experiment. Just used half of the seeds and will sow the other half under cloches in a few weeks when we have cleared more patches.

Have also successfully installed the water butt next to the shed and have rigged up some guttering and pipework, just need to wait for it to fill.

Yesterday also saw the acquisition of a key to the storage container at the end of the allotment site. It is good and secure and be very useful for storing our equipment in.