Mid June~ On the Plot.

Here we are in mid June, and we have been busy. While we have had some odd heavy showers here and there, the allotments have needed watering most every day..

We do this from the water tanks that are dotted about every One hundred yards or so.. Thankfully our water cistern is only around twenty good steps from the top of our plot… But when you are carrying two 2litre watering cans back and fourth, which someone told me the other day is roughly about 40lbs in weight in total… Who needs a Gym to work out your arm muscles 🙂

The weather here has been warm and yesterday it reached up into the 30c… too warm for me.. Then today it plummeted down to 14c… with forecasts for thunderstorms this afternoon… I hope we do get some rain… It will certainly take a little of the heavy watering back and forth pressure off for a little while..

From left to right Beetroot Chard Red and green Lettuce Peas Potatoes

Its been ideal growing weather for Lettuce and the neighbours and family have been well pleased with what we have given away.. I spent an hour weeding out the row of Spring Onions, Space is always well used and here you see We planted between the cloches

Spring Onions- Before weeding and After weeding If you click onto the pointer in the image you can slide across.

If you zoom into left hand section, you will see the weeds, while we throw those into the compost bins if they haven’t got seeds formed… The are also edible! ... But make sure you identify anything you eat first to be sure.

We get hundreds and thousands of these weeds growing each season, the seeds get churned up every year from digging and hoeing etc. The weeds you see above go by several names as either lambs-quaters weed, or White Goosefoot. Also know as Wild spinach. A link here for a close image and more information including vitamin value.. If you do not pull up these when small like this, they can grow quite high and then turn to seed.

So many of our so called weeds, can be edible and I will touch upon some in a future posts… In the mean time I will just leave you with a gallery of what is growing. If you click onto individual images they should enlarge.

Gooseberries.

Greenhouse 2 Tomatoes, cucumbers and young Brassica’s cauliflower and winter cabbage.

Greenhouse 1 Tomatoes and Cucumbers

Courgettes

Broad beans on right Sweetcorn left

Brassica Family and Potatoes

Apples forming

Kidney Beans Strawberry bed to right

Weeding out Onions and Shallots Carrots under cover to the right

Strawberries Ripening

Strawberries Under Net

We are delighted that more and more people are taking an interest in growing their own food. And this is the first year in a long while that most of the vacant plots are taken. It requires hard work and people can soon get discouraged as they think they can dig a piece, plant it and leave it… Only to come back and find it covered in weeds again and if they have not covered their tender shoots that the pigeons have eaten the lot…

I have I think a little mouse that visits our strawberries, I saw the tiny hole in the ground beside the wooden frame… and Although netted I saw little teeth nibbles on the ripe strawberries.. You have to be prepared to Give and Take to mother nature and I dare say as food prices soar we usually get a few two legged human species helping themselves too and I feel this year we will see more of that happening.. Its unfortunate, as I would sooner give away than people take… But we grow more than enough for our needs, and we always give our surplus away to family and neighbours . But what ever, we hope they enjoyed what they take, they obviously were in need.

Hope you are all enjoying your gardens whether it be growing veggies or just sitting enjoying your lawn and flowerbeds.

Happy Gardening!

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.” 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Time to Plant! A Time to Paint, and a Time to Ponder.

Hello again to those who may still be following, I have been very hit and miss here over at my garden blog this year, compared with previous years.  It is looking like once a month post, so this one may be a bit longer than my usual post, we will see how it goes, so  if you are still with me at the end~  Many thanks for sticking with it and reading, 

To be honest with you, blogging has taken a back seat for a while, as I felt the need to just go within my own silent space and create and concentrate upon my well-being for a time. So I did more painting. A tiger this time, I thought I would challenge myself, as I have always put off doing a detailed painting of tiger for fear of not getting its stripes right.. So it was time to face my fears, and just let be what will be.. And this was the result. 

This was my Tiger painting in Acrylics making my trilogy of Big Cats now hung on my wall.

 

I am sure those who live here in the UK are at last glad to see a little blue sky peep between the grey blankets of cloud that have hung over us far too long.. The weather is certainly a talking point across the world as we had yet more snow at Easter followed by more rain and almost a week of fog here last week that never seemed to move..

In the distance you can see the headstocks of the Clipstone Pit which closed in 1993 More about the coal mine HERE

This was the weather Yesterday as we went for a walk Skies have been grey for so long!.. Believe it or not this was once a big ugly slag heap of waste from the coal mining days. It was turned into a nature reserve called Vicars Water Country Park  many years ago and provides a sanctuary for birds, swans ,geese and ducks.  This was the view from the top looking down.  The mist is still hanging low, but not as bad as it was last week.  To see more photos of the Park click the blue link where you can see the lake and the golden hand which symbolises a miners hand reaching out of the earth. 

While further along the yellow gorse was out along with pussy-willow

 

 At the end of last week, my hubby was feeling well enough after a nasty bout of flu over Easter to tackle the allotment.. We just had a few weeds to clear, as we had already dug over the ground in the autumn in preparation.  So while Hubby got to grips with putting in the potatoes. I got busy planting seeds. We both had lots of rest in-between, and had hot drinks, Hubby coffee, while I had drinking chocolate. 

While the weather was snowing things were busy growing in the greenhouse. Peas, Shallots and Brussels and Cabbage plants growing

Here the shallots went in last week, we covered with mesh as we have a fox who seems to like to play and dig for worms as well as deep holes into our potato rows. You can see the purple sprouting broccoli which the pigeons have devoured on the left.. They stripped nearly all of them,

We have  now put out the shallots which started life in pots in the green house, and I planted two rows of beetroot, different varieties, two rows of parsnips.. I also planted out the corms of Gladioli into a new position.

Here I planted the gladioli. many of last years corms had rotted and gone soft.. You win some and lose some.. I put the small corms in another row. hopefully they will gradually mature to larger ones to salvage for another year.

I pruned back the dead wood of the raspberries and some of the overgrown blackberries, along with pruning out the middle of the redcurrant bush and the gooseberry bush which was hard last year to pick because it was so tightly packed with thorns.

As soon as the Rhubarb showed signs of sprouting we covered with bin, and we have had two tasty crumbles so far from young shoots.

 

Here you see the peas now planted from the greenhouse, much bigger now.. I covered up the rows of beetroot and parsnips seeds I planted to protect from the fox scratching the earth.. There were a pile of chicken feathers on next doors allotment when we arrived. And a large hole in the potato row.. Looks like he likes chicken and chips.. 😉

A closer view of peas now with mesh around we use mesh instead of sticks to support them as they grow.

In the autumn we planted what was left over of the leeks, in the spaces, and we planted some garlic from a bulb.  In the space you now see created I am going to plant some of my dahlias in this patch and some further at the top of the allotment.

The following day  while hubby planted out the peas above, and put more rows of potatoes in, I set to and weeded this patch below. 

 Before: This piece took me two hours to completely clear of weeds and grass.

 After: Here you can now see the leeks I planted around the edge, and garlic in the middle

We still have to clear behind the sheds, and it looks like we may have some bees nesting below the shed again.. So I am happy about that.. And I have to straighten up between the fruit bushes. But we are at last mainly on top of the planting for now. Then I have my home garden to start on.. 

How are things growing where you are? and have you noticed big changes in your own weather patterns?  And how are your Spring Blooms doing? 

Until Next time.. 

Happy Gardening! 

 

 

Easter Weekend Gardening~Marigold tips

Easter is a time many of us get out into our gardens and start to think about planting out our bedding plants.. But its also that time of year that the weather often takes an unexpected turn and plunges back into the cold..

Last year we went away the end of April beginning of May for a week and left our sweetcorn in the cold frame.  However a sharp frost and unexpected snow killed it, so we had to start again.. So do keep an eye out on the forecasts for frosts and low temps etc… And keep those tender plants protected..  The cabbages and Brassica family should be fine if you have hardened them off sufficiently though.. And next week I think we will be putting ours into the prepared limed positions..

So  what have we been doing all week? The best way I think is in picture format..

First my Hubby dug two trenches and filled them with manure. We then carried the old swing frame we use to support the canes to its new position in the garden. The beans are in in the greenhouse thriving.

This piece of land my hubby lightly sprinkled some Manure over and then forked it over.. This is where this year we will plant sweetcorn and Leeks and the Dahlias are going nearer the potatoes this year.

 I set too and started to weed this section out. The line is to help me see where the Gladioli’s are, as they are just starting to shoot through.. Last year we decided to see how they went if we left them all in the ground. But you can see how overgrown they are.. Lots of poppies, which I love, had to come up.

Now you can see the weeding almost done one side of the line. I leave in the marigolds.. You will see these flowers dotted all over the allotment, They are very good at keeping some bugs at bay..

Now you can see I also cleared the path leading up to the greenhouse

 

I also weeded out the ground between the raspberries and loganberries. All shooting nicely now.

Below you can see the view as I stand with my back to the sheds. I left in lots of marigold seedlings I will leave many of these in and also use to transplant back in my home garden and dot around the allotments as they act as  good pest control to certain bugs..

  When you are not using chemical pest controls, these tips and  more can be found on the BBC Gardening  Guide  on why marigolds and Nasturtiums are good for pest control.  Link to the below quote can be found HERE 

Plant combinations

• Grow French marigolds among tomatoes. Marigolds emit a strong odour that will repel greenfly and blackfly.
• Grow sage with carrots or plants in the cabbage family to ward off pests. Both have strong scents that drive away each other’s pests.
• Plant nasturtium with cabbages – they’re a magnet for caterpillars that will then leave the cabbages alone.
• Garlic planted among roses will ward off aphids.
• Plant carrots and leeks together on the allotment or vegetable patch to protect against a number of pests. Leeks repel carrot fly and carrots repel onion fly and leek moth.

Make sure companion plants are planted at the same time as your edible crops to prevent pests from getting a foothold.

In the foreground are the Autumn fruiting Raspberries and the tall Blueberries, .. The loganberries are on the framework and behind those are the raspberry canes that fruit early summer.

I am extremely pleased, that this year we have lots of blossom on our apple trees.. One is a cooker the other an eater ..

Two apple trees and blackberries at the end. The green shoots are gladioli from the small corms left in the ground. I have left in to see how they mature.

Click onto the images this will take you into the slide module where you can read more. 

 

This collection of bins contain rotting compost material, other bins contain left over manure. to the left you can see our giant blackberries.. These are the bought cultivated variety. If memory serves I think these were called ‘Apache’.. 🙂 These we were given by another allotment grower a a couple of years ago.. They only really got going last year .

This piece is where we had the butternut Squash last year.. The water system 🙂 , still in place.. And has still to be cleared and sorted.. And that rickety old shed is still standing despite the high winds.. but this summer it will definitely come down..

These are wild blackberries, that grow rampant behind our shed and our neighbours allotment shed on the boarder between the two allotments… We both share the pickings and we also let the nettles grow here.. Good for wild life. Some butterflies lay eggs on nettle leaves, so if you see brown/black furry little caterpillars,, These a Peacock butterflies for the following year.

So Wishing you a very Happy Easter

and Happy Gardening

~Sue~

Keeping Weed Free

Click photo’s to enlarge them.

I love this time of year when we begin to harvest the crops. And covering our Brassica family up to stop pests from Spring with nets has certainly reduced the influx of caterpillars and white fly.

Broccoli and Cauliflowers

We are also happy with the way our Allotment Greenhouse is ripening our tomatoes and they are further forward than our greenhouse tomatoes at home.

Tomatoes in the Allotment

Green but growing nicely

We uncovered the Chard from the nets and I set too to weed between them. This veggie is so versatile. we enjoy the young leaves in Salads, but its wonderful steamed like spinach

Rainbow Chard

Peas

The Pea rows are now in flower and producing pods, But to be honest this is not our best year for peas, the small covered  cloche  to the right is another Pea row. Again these have not germinated well. It appears many of us got our peas from the allotment association and many of us have had the same problem of poor germination. I had to re-set the row you see growing as it began life as two rows of 3 a breast.. But so many didn’t grow I transferred into one long row.   I will be  uncovering weeding and seeing how these have done this week.

 

New rows of Beets and carrots, You can also see how the sweetcorn is growing and you may just make out the thin blades of Leeks . The plants in the foreground are  Celeriac . In the background are the potatoes  and manure heap under the blue tarpaulin 

Keeping the above weed free is a full-time job. no sooner have you finished one part of the allotment than another is ready for clearing.  This is what I have been up to most days of this week. And my back now knows about it.

Turnips

The blue tarpaulin you can see at the top of the large picture above on our plot is the left over manure from the trailer load we had delivered last year.  We were amazed at how much was still left over.

My Hubby decided to move it as we had several empty compost bins.. He filled seven and still there was some left over. Each Bin contains 8 barrow loads of Muck, He moved around 60 barrow loads over a two-day period.

Some of you have been asking for an idea of how large the allotments are and how big our plots are..

I hope in the next post to have taken a few pictures to give a better understanding of our Allotments Association . And how because most of us have not got fences, how difficult it is to stop those wishing to take what you have grown.

Until next Time

Happy Gardening !

~Sue~

 

 

It’s June but with Temperatures of December.

I set too and weeded out all of the grass that had grown  among the raspberries.

Hello my fellow gardener’s, well it is June already, although someone forgot to tell Mother Nature, as the Temperature here in our part of the UK was 2 deg’s lower than on Christmas Day on June the 1st.

But it has not stopped the work going on in the Allotment Plot. Click onto photo’s to enlarge.

The Kidney Beans are now in. and growing nicely

In the front you can see where I planted some Aster’s alongside the onions in the background

I have been weeding none stop every morning all week, while Hubby has dug the piece  behind the shed, preparing it for butternut squash. We also put up a net around our redcurrents, and a lock was put in to stop the greenhouse door being opened.. Sadly we still have a thief who is helping themselves to various things, A fellow allotment holder a few plots away from us had his Green house heater stolen, ( while it was lit ) and they helped themselves to some slab stones. If they really want things a lock will not stop them but it makes things a bit more difficult to steal. 

A hole was drilled into the slide frame, so the door will not slide open until the lock is removed.

The Tomato plants are now in along with some peppers and cucumber and egg plants..

There has been lots of rain towards the end of May so its been good for the garden, meaning we have not had to carry buckets of water. The Brassica’s have all really grown.

Here you can see just how big now the brassica family are growing. We have broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower.

Beneath the nets are cauliflowers, Broccoli and Chard.

The strawberry plants this year are doing much better than last year.. We dug up last years bed and repositioned it, and used the runners off of last years plants for the new plants.. They are coming into flower now. As are the Loganberries and the Raspberries.

Strawberies

Loganberries in flower

Redcurrent Bush now netted now the flowers have set.

Redcurrent bush loads of fruit forming.

We have four Blueberry bushes and they are nicely in flower.

Raspberries and Loganberries.

 

 

The sweetcorn now is in.

Above you see the sweetcorn is now planted, we were a bit worried when the temperatures dropped, they have turned a little yellow since taking this photo but they are growing.. We have since added in front of it carrots  of various colours. and some leeks

I weeded out the Turnips and the beetroot. to the right is parsnips, I weeded those out today as now I can see them to weed between.

It has been a busy week with lots of aches, but I have slept like a baby.. Its been good to get back on the plot and get it looking more ship shape.

Have a wonderful weekend  and

Happy Gardening!

~Sue~

 

May time in the Allotments

Its been a while since I posted here. Life is certainly busy. And I am just about getting myself organised again after returning from  a lovely holiday in Scotland.

So for those who can remember, that shed my husband bought from a fellow allotmenteer is now standing proud and upright with the help of my Son who did most of the hard work.

Here you see the Old ‘Lean too’ shed in the background which is going to be pulled down. The base of the new shed is laid out, Using old concrete fence posts

The shed now errected and with new felt roof and I gave it two coats of wood preserve paint. The old one is still behind it and is awaiting being pulled down.

You can see how dry the wood was on the shed  from my painting it with wood preserve, the contrast in colours.

When I got back after our vacaction, I set to and weeded. Along with thinning out of plants.  Click to enlarge photo’s and read.

Turnips before I thinned them

These were the turnips after I had thinned them out.

If you look closely you can see the blossom on my young cooking apple tree. I have yet to weed this section of the allotment The eating apple still has no blossom so hopefully next year it will

This part was where I had all the Gladioli last year.. You can see where the small corms had started to grow, so I set to to weed.

Now you can see the Gladioli after I weeded.. The main bulbs have been planted nearer the new green house this year as I have moved the flowers around this year.

Here you can see what my hubby has been up to.. He took some old metal ladders that were rickerty apart. Taking out the step runners.. He has laid them out and staked them into the ground.. In the background the canes with the bottles on top are where we have put the Dahlia’s this year. .

The next stage was to get lengths of pipe and bend over putting into the runner holes.. then using canes stabilize the arches using ties to hold firm.

The next stage we covered the rows with netting.. So as to keep butterflies away and hopefully stop caterpillars eating.

Here are two tunnels now completed protecting brassica’s and Chard.. The small net, I used to cover the peas, as the birds and pigeons just love young pea shoots, ( as do I in a salad ) In the forground you can see the Garlic which I also weeded out.

Tomato plants are thriving and are much larger than this now and will be planted in the allotment green house next week

As you can see, I have been busy planting up hanging baskets and wall hangers in the home Greenhouse. These will go out when the threat of any over night frost is gone at the end of May.

Wishing you all

HAPPY GARDENING

~Sue~

Clearing and Creating

As promised I will tell you what I have been up to this will take the form of Two posts over the next couple of days,  and I will let the pictures tell their own story. 

The flag stones were dug up from near the shed and moved to form the base.

We were lucky enough to buy a second hand greenhouse recently, it had a few panes of glass missing.. but it was a great bargain not to be missed.

Both Hubby and I erected the frame.. The sides are up!

Roof now on and some panes of glass are in on the roof

Hooks placed between flag stones to help secure frame

I now have 3 trays such as this ripening in the greenhouse. These tomatoes were grown outdoors among the veggies, and as its going colder would not finish ripening without help .. Looks like chutney is on the menu 🙂

The Greenhouse complete the roof window in, with glass and sheets of hard plastic which hubby cut to size to fill in the 5 panes which were missing. Also we added a water barrel.. Tomatoes are ripening in trays at the bottom. These were just grown in the allotment and there will be lots for Chutney I think 🙂  You can see Hubby put a fence panel up behind the greenhouse.. This is because the  shared path has an almost 1 and a Half foot drop onto our allotment side and if you were to slip!!? So Health and Safety first!.. 

Long view of the allotments looking back on my hoeing weeds all morning.. The greenhouse can now be seen a third of the way down on the right .

The Dwarf beans the seeds are drying out for next years planting on these that are left over Also Red Cabbage

The allotments are looking bare, in the foreground are my wallflowers which are for my home garden. I just hoed through this.. Isn’t it weed free!  🙂

 

The last of sweetpeas I saved a lot of the seeds, before dismantling and composting

 

Happy Gardening to you All 

Have a wonderful Week 

~Sue~