Week 5 on the allotment - Stuff in the ground - at last

After four weeks of hard work I have finally managed to start transplanting plants from home to the allotment.

It was starting to get pretty desperate as plenty of the seedlings that I have either bought in or started from seed have really outgrown the trays that they were planted in and have started to get root bound.

On Monday night I took a few trays from the blow away down to the allotment and started to plant up into the first bed.


The first planting

 In the picture above you will be able to see that I have marked out squares so we can employ the square foot gardening techniques.

Unfortunately the beds are 4.5 feet by 9.5, so the beds to the right and the top of the picture are 18" wide, but I have taken advantage of this to plant some of the larger, taller brassicas on this side as they won't shade out the smaller crops.

From right to left in the picture above I have planted:

Row 1 - 5 x Brussel Sprouts
Row 2 - 5 x Purple Sprouting Broccoli
Row 3 - 5 x Purple Curly Kale and a square containing 4 x leaf beet
Row 4 - 16 x Winter Onions, four squares containing 16 x All Year Round Lettuce

The two squares of climbers at the top of the bed contain 4 x Blue Lake Climbing French Beans.

One thing I wanted to get out but forgot to bring down were my peas - there is a spare square waiting for them next to the French Beans.

I went back to the plot again last night to finish off the second bed that you can see in the picture, and watered everththing with 1 cup of water per plant.  The lettuce in particular were looking wery worse for wear, but perked up remarkably with the water, so I think I will have to make daily visits to make sure they have enough water until they get their roots deep enough.


Potato Bed

I am also really pleased with the progress of the potatoes.  These were simply supermarket spuds that had been left in the bag too long and had sprouted. 

I stuck them in the ground on Friday July 13th so they will be four weeks old tomorrow.

These are growing so fast it you are actually able to see the difference in size from one day to the next.  I will have to start thinking about earthing them up soon, and I will probably use some of the bought in compost rather than taking from the bed itself.  I had originally made troughs and ridges in this bed and planted into the troughs, but the local foxes trashed the bed on the first night so it is pretty flattened by now, with no spare soil to use.

They were supposed to be there to break up the ground and also to provide some foliage cover to suppress the weeds - if they carry on like this they will certainly provide the cover, and if I do manage to get a crop from them, well then that will be a bonus.

The two pumpkins that I planted straight into the manure pile seem to have got over the transplanting shock and have started to grow again - the Jack O'Lantern is doing best but there are signs that the Mammoth is about to send out a vine - lots of little leaf buds (at least I think that's what they are).

The problem I am now coming up against is one I never expected when I took on a full plot - I am running out of room to plant things in.

The existing bed has 12 squares remaining, but four or five of them are already reserved for Savoy Cabbage - I have a mini competition going with stepdad Ken who is convinced that the bed I made using the no-dig method cannot possibly compete with the bed we double-dug together, so we are going to plant cabbages into both beds at the same time and monitor the results.

The double-dug bed is nearly ready for planting into - I finished filling it last night but I still need to level it and break up any large clumps, and I also need to pull out as much cooch grass root as I can.

There is so much at home waiting to go in that I really don't know how I am going to be able to fit it in, even with another four beds ready to fill the space we rotivated two weekends back.

Plants waiting to go in

There are already loads of plants waiting to go in that I have moved from home, with more Kale, Sprouts, leef beet  and PSB plus cabbage and cauliflower.

We have also been given a little rhubarb plant for when we eventually get the soft fruit area going, plus a couple of comfrey plants - thanks Diane.

All these, and I have still got a blow away at home absolutely full, plus the table in the front garden as well.