Pond and Polytunnel

Over the wintertime I had noticed that the level of water in the pond had dropped slightly.

At the time I was a little concerned about there being a hole in the liner as the local kids had been on the plot and had used bricks and even the ceramic frog statue to break through the thick ice.

As the weather improved slightly my fears were justified as I came on site one morning to discover that there was very little water left in the pond at all.



Hole in the pond liner, each arm being just over an inch long



I took the opportunity to clear out a lot of muck and fallen leaves from the bottom of the pond, and whilst doing so I discovered a huge hole in the bottom of the liner.

There had been a spare square wooden baton left next to the pond, and when I placed it next to the hole the edges lined up almost perfectly.

It appears that when breaking the ice with the stick the local kids had pushed straight through the liner.

Whilst clearing out the pond I discovered three frogs which had been hibernating in the muck underneath the old slate which allowed them to climb in and out of the pond.

Now that I had found the frogs it became important for me to fix the hole as soon as I could to help them survive if the water froze again.

I got advice from my local aquarium shop and took several pieces of plastic and some waterproof adhesive and fixed the hole.  I then added about 200 litres of water which nearly half filled the pond.

Some time ago I had decided to get a cheap polytunnel which I hoped would last at least one season and give me some idea of whether a poly tunnel was good enough, or if I would need to invest in a greenhouse instead.

I looked on Ebay and managed to win a 8' x 6' poly tunnel for £42.  This was easy to erect and was soon up and in place.



Start of the decked area



My original plan for the area between the poly tunnel and the pond was to lay flagstones to make a patio area, but after seeing the amount of flooding that this area was prone to I changed my mind and started to build a slightly raised wooden deck.

Weed fabric over the rotivated area

The ground where the deck, poly tunnel and eventually a shed would be put was very uneven and had a thick layer of silt which was causing any rain to stay on the surface, so before I could start to install anything I had to get out the rotivator again and try to level the ground, covering it all over with a layer of weed fabric.

Essential Equipment

I had also been very lucky on Freecycle and got a garden table and four chairs - essential allotment equipment!

Victoria Rhubarb

The rhubarb bed was now nearly ready to be planted up so I brought my Victoria rhubarb from home so it could be transplanted as soon as the bed was properly weeded.

Moving on at last

At long last it looks like the drainage problems on the top half of my plot might be starting to clear.

The drainage channel has been dug slightly deeper to allow any surplus water to drain away, and the land on either side is noticeably better.

There is still standing water up near the top path, and I have still got to dig a couple of side trenches to try and clear this but for now the improvement there is has allowed me to start to create the paths that will border my fruit and herb area.

Bark on top of Weed fabric

A few flags on top

The path was made of several inches of bark chippings on top of weed suppressing fabric.  In some places the bark had to be almost six inches thick as the ground underneath was still so soggy that I was still sinking into the mud even through the bark to start with.

Flags were then laid on top of the bark and stamped down to level.

Before

I brought several bags of stone from home to fill the drainage trench, but it was only enough to fill just about half of it's length, so I decided to start at the edge of the plot and move inwards which would allow me to start to make the path on that side also.

I filled the trench to within an inch or two of the surface and then used part of the spoil heap left by the digger to completely fill it in.

This spoil heap needed moving anyway as it was in the way - I need to move the rhubarb bed back towards the path about four feet.

The trench part filled

I didn't have enough spare flags to complete the pathway, but I discovered another problem whilst I was working there

The rhubarb bed had been created in line with the pond which in turn had been made in line with the paths that border the plot, but when I made some rough measurements it seems that the end of the bed closest to me in the picture is about five inches closer to the existing beds to the left of the picture than the far end.

I did the measuring late in the day when I was very tired, so it is entirely possible that I have got it wrong.  I was sure that we did all the measurements when we first set the bed up.

I will have to re-measure next weekend when I am fresh and slightly more awake than I was on Sunday.



Rhubarb crown #1



If it turns out that the beds are misaligned it won't be a major problem as one of the beds I was planning to run between the two paths is for the fruit bushes, so once they have grown a bit the edges of the beds will be hidden a bit so it shouldn't be too noticeable.



Rhubarb crown #2



I have enlisted the help of son Will next weekend to get the rhubarb bed moved to it's correct position. 

Once that has been done I am hoping that I will be able to transplant the rhubarb both from home and also from bed 2. 

I might even be able to bring in Stepdad Ken's rhubarb from his house too.

The top half of my plot as it was on Sunday when I finished.

Winter Slowdown

There's not been a lot to blog about recently.

It's been cold and frosty, then wet and windy and it looks like we are going back to cold and frosty for the weekend.

The onions on the plot have pretty much stopped growing now, the garlic is putting out loads of roots but no shoots from the other end (I only found this out becasue the pigeons have pulled up a couple of cloves - they must have mistaken them for worms).

The winter cabbages are beginning to heart up nicely and the first should be ready for harvest by Christmas.

No sprouts as yet, but the purple kale is looking wonderful.

The tallest of the perpetual spinach is suffering with the frost - I may have to cut it back hard as it is flopping all over the chard, which is doing remarkably well despite the hard frosts we have had.

The remaining two Pak Choi have survibed the frosts well and are looking good.

The rhubarb has finally admitted defeat and is dying back - this should be fine where it is until January when I will transplant it into the rhubarb bed near to the pond.

At home I have a couple of Romanesco Caulis forming nice curds, but a couple of the others look like they will be going to seed instead - not a problem as I will try to harvest the seed for next year.

My Cavolo Nero have recovered from being ravaged by caterpillars in the Autum and are producing lots of nice-looking leaves and are almost ready to start picking from.

All four apples on my trees were still on as of last weekend, and I was debating as to whether I should leave them or pick them - high winds have made that decision a bit unneccessary for the green apples as both were blown off, but the reds are still hanging on.

Until I can get the drainage problems at the plot sorted out I cannot build any fruit beds so the bare rooted strawberries that I bought have had to be sat in water for far longer than I was anticipating - I hope that they survive. 

I had them in the kitchen to start with but I had to move them off the worksurface so they ended up on the boxroom windowsill where I thought they would do well with whatever little daylight they could get, but I have noticed tonight that the fresh green leaves that appeared whilsat they were in the kitchen have started to fade and go brittle - maybe the cold from the glass has been too much?

I have now moved them away from the window in the hope that they will hang on until I can get them into a prepared raised bed at the allotment.

Autumn Blues and Water Problems

As we move through Autumn there is less and less to do on the allotment.

The summer plants have all finished and been removed to the compost pile, the over wintering brassicas are all in and looking healthy.

The overwintering onions and garlic have been in for about six weeks.  The onions are showing strongly, with about three to four inches of growth on the white onions and one to two on the red.

No sign of any life from the garlic as yet, neither the purpose bought stuff or the jumbo ones from the supermarket.  That seems to be the same with everyone else on the allotment though, so I am not too worried at the moment.

The perpetual spinach is still performing strongly, as is the chard.  I am hoping to be able to keep harvesting from these until Christmas.

I have had a first harvest of leaves from the purple kale which I planted out in early August, the plants are growing strongly and should have no problems in surviving the cold.

The Brussels planted at the same time are still causing me some worry - there are plenty of leaves and the plants themselves look strong, but there is no sign of any sprouts forming on most of the plants as yet.  I hope that I can get something off them for Christmas day - that would be really nice.

The rhubarb is finally starting to die back - recent frosts overnight seem to have done the job - so once the rhubarb bed near to the pond is completed they can be transplanted once they have gone completely dormant.

I am still having major problems with the lack of drainage on the top half of my plot - most of it is very sodden with standing water and lots of mud on the surface.

It looks like the drainage channels that I dug have been partly successful as the neighbouring plots and communal areas that used to be waterlogged are now pretty dry, so the water from them has apparently drained into my plot.  The solution appears to be just carry on with more of the same, and make the channels already dug deeper and a bit wider.

Another plot holder has arranged for a mini digger for the afternoon to help him to turn over his plot as it is completely full of tree roots, making hand digging almost impossible.

Once his plot has been done the digger is going to deepen the drain through the orchard area away from my plot, and will then dig channels through my plot to meet them.

The orchard drain will simply have a length of perforated drainage pipe laid at the bottom and then be back filled.

My drain will have a 3" layer of 3/4 stone under a drainage pipe, with the rest of the trench being filled with 3/4 stone.  As the majority of the drains will be under flagged paths I am hoping that this won't cause me too many problems with my planting next year and that it sorts out my water logging problem.

If it doesn't, I really don't know what else to try.

On a more positive note, we spend most of yesterday afternoon digging over bed 7 which had been getting a bit swamped with grass, and mixing the soil well with manure from the larger of the two piles.

Once finished this will be where I plant my bare-rooted strawberries for them to over-winter as I couldn't put them where I intend them to live permanently as it is currently too wet.

I have eighteen plants - six each of Malwina, Mae and Elegance.  They are supposed to crop at different times through the season, so I am hoping to have a succession of strawberries all summer long next year.

I have also got started on moving the first manure pile as I want to put a couple more raised beds where it is now - my son Will did a grand job in shifting loads of it for me, and with very little complaining about the smell (then again, it is now quite well rotted and lovely stuff) and there is now nearly enough space to drop frames for raised beds 10 and 11 down.

When I stop to look at what we have achieved so far, I am quite proud of my little plot.  Once the water problem is sorted out there will be no stopping us!

Allotment Catch up - Early October

After having nearly four weeks away from the allotment due to a combination of holidays, illness and bad weather I wasn't looking forwards to my visit earlier this month.

I was expecting caterpillar munched brassicas, slug munched lettuce and courgettes and drowned everything else, but I am please to say that although there was some damage, it was nowhere near as bad as I was anticipating.

The torrential downpours had washed away every slug pellet, so there were quite a few fat slugs enjoying the fruits of my labours.  They soon got the sharp end of a trowel and were flung onto the manure pile.



Onions hanging on - just !





In bed 1 the square of 15 onions had suffered some slug damage, with about four whose tops had been munched but the rest seem to have been left alone.



Big lettuce pressing against the netting



In the next picture you can see just how well the lettuce are coming on - when I planted them I thought they were the sort where you harvest the outer leaves as and when you need them, and that they didn't form a heart, but every one is now a huge, full-hearted lettuce that are very sweet tasting.

One problem with all the rain we have been having is that the very outer leaves which have been touching the soil had started to rot on the plant, but I soon whipped those off.



Brussels, PSB and Kale



The brassicas also under the netting in bed 1 are still growing strongly - there have been a few caterpillars on them due to the flimsy construction of the netting and cage, but nothing major so I am hoping for great things from them later this year/early next.



Before removing the finished courgette plants



The peas at the top of bed 1 had withered so I pulled them out, and the courgettes had been badly attacked by the slugs, so they came out too.

The turnips planted from seed are starting to bulk up a little - the largest was about 2 inches across, and some of the spinach is also doing well, but a lot of it has been swamped by the cabbages in the next squares so was still pretty spindly.  A lesson to be learned for next year here, don't include brassicas in a square foot bed unless they are all similar size plants or they will overwhelm their neighbours.



Pak Choi doing well



The pak choi planted from seed have done fantastically well, so I harvested a couple for our tea, and very nice they were too.

Some of them were also having trouble with the huge cabbages next door, so I did a little trimming of the lower, larger cabbage leaves to give the pak choi a bit more light, which will hopefully allow them to grow a bit more.





The star of bed 1 so far has got to be the french beans.  I have had four small harvests from them already and all four plants are still loaded with flowers.  I just hope that the frosts keep off and we have enough sun to be able to harvest the rest as they have an unbelievable flavour.









Lots of Bean Pods




The Mammoth pumpkin hasn't really lived up to its name despite an early showing - the one remaining fruit hasn't really grown very much since the last time I measured it.



Mammoth Pumpkin



The Jack 'o' Lantern, however, has nearly doubled in size.



Jack 'O' Lantern



I just hope that at least one of them will toughen up enugh to be carved for our Halloween Party on Oct 27th!





Top of bed 2





At the top of bed 2 the Savoy cabbages are doing well despite their somewhat shakey start and are pretty much the same size as those in bed 1.

I had to remove the two cherry tomato bushes as they had signs of blight, but I have left the chillis in place - the plan is to trim them and try to overwinter by wrapping in fleece with the surrounding brassicas also providing some shelter.

In the space left by the tomatoes I have planted some of the kale that was pigeoned, slugged and caterpillared back in July as they appeared to be staging some kind of come back.

I also planted three Kohl Rabi that had been sitting at home and should really have been in the ground by now.



Bottom of bed 2



At the bottom of bed 2 the donated rhubarb is growing fantastically well - all my rhubarb at home is starting to die down ready for winter but these two are still going great guns.

The transplanted turnips have taken well, but aren't as far along as the ones left behind in bed 1.

The radish at the botton right of the picture have started to form bulbs, but they aren't much more than pea-sized right now.

The chard and perpetual spinach are flourishing, but some of the slug-munched onions appear to have been too far gone to save.

I have also started to plant into bed 3 as I had to bring out all the remaining brassicas from home, plus those munched on earlier but still with full hearts.

The whole of bed 3 now contains spring cabbage, curly cale, brussel sprouts and purple sprouting broccoli.

I think the next thing to do is to get beds 4 and 5 ready using the lasagne method.

This isn't as I planned, but I need to get some onion sets and some garlic in and the way the weather is closing in as we head through Autumn I doubt that I will have enough time to double dig as I had wanted.

Water, Water, Everywhere .......

We spent some time at the plot tonight trying to figure out the best way to deal with the sodden ground that covers most of the back half of the allotment.

The plot is bordered by cinder paths, so yesterday afternoon I dug a test pit through one to see if we could persuade the water to start to flow in that direction.  The pit was about 18 inches deep.

Test Pit

This was what we saw there tonight.

This was good news as it meant that it would be possible to persuade the water to flow away from the plot.

We started off with a few shallow channels in the mud to encourage the water on the surface to flow.

This was followed by a deeper, wider channel which soon became filled with run-off.

We were unable to follow up on our discoveries as the boundary fence near to the corner of my plot is due to be replaced, and so any drainage channels that we dig would be likely to be destroyed when the contractor brings in his equipment.

On the plus side, we are going to ask if they will dig the channels for us with their equipment whilst they are there.  If you don't ask ....

Whilst we were there I took the opportunity to plant a few more specimens from home - three tomatoes and two chillis.


Two of the tomatoes are already producing fruit - I was able to harvest three red and three yellow cherry tomatoes from them.

Tomatoes and Chillis

The chillis and third tomato have come from the bedroom windowsill - I know it is probably far too late in the season to be planting these out, but as the only other option for these plants was the compost heap I am going to give them a fighting chance.



Rhubarb

I also planted up the rhubarb that Diane gave us a couple of weeks back.  It was planted into a hole that had at least six inches of manure in the bottom, and was finished off by another spade-full on top.  This is only a temporary home until we can get the water problem sorted,




Now for a quick spin round bed 1.

The lettuce are really doing well now, despite them looking rather sick when they were first planted out.  The Kale and PSB are also doing well, as are the Brussels, with the exception of one plant.  This little one looks healthy, but is only about half the size of the others - I wonder why?



Leaf Beet, Cabbage and Turnip



Flowering French Beans



The Leaf Beet, Chard and Savoy Cabbage are all coming on strongly, as are the French Beans which are now flowering.  The leaves on some of the peas continue to look a little yellow, but they now have four pods.

The majority of the seeds that Will sowed nine days ago have now come up - all the turnips and most of the pak choi, but strangely enough not all of the spinach have (apart from the ones he spilled and didn't pick up).  It may be that he planted them a bit too deep perhaps?

One bad note - the pigeons have decimated the plants that I had waiting to go in - I forgot to cover them up again when I left on Sunday, and they have eaten about 90% of the seedlings.

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.

Things are happening at the allotment

I will have had my plot for three weeks on Sunday, but it seems like an awful lot more.

The grass that was strimmed before my arrival is back at about 3" tall and needs doing again.

I have got about 20 square metres covered with a cardboard mulch, got a 4' square bed double dug and planted with potatoes which have been in for two weeks so far with nothing showing as yet.

My compost pile is growing and will hopefully give some decent stuff next year.

I have now got my new barrow, and the weed-suppressing fabric that I ordered ages ago was finally delivered on Wednesday.

I have had 8 tons of cow manure delivered of which about six has been moved to a holding pile on the allotment.

We are planning to rotivate the middle section of the allotment tomorrow morning, adding the remaining manure as we go to get it well mixed in.

The wood for the raised beds is also coming tomorrow morning and there will be an awful lot of it!  I will have to get a staging area for the planks set up just off my plot by the orchard so it can all be stacked there.

I am going to visit ASDA tonight and get a few bags of compost ready to top off the raised beds as they are being filled, which I am hoping will allow us to start planting out the seedlings from home - some of them are really a coupe of weeks overdue for going out, but all have been hardened off and so should be ok straight away.

The soft fruit and herb area is going to be covered in weed fabric apart from a central sectrion which will have the top few inches of soil lifted and pits dug and filled with manure to hold some rhubarb. This area will be protected by another raised bed frame.

The raspberry and blackberry canes will be planted straight into pits dug on the border of the fruit section as will the gooseberries and black currants, and once the fabric has done it's job we will be planting a selection of herbs in front of the bushes.  This is going to have to wait a while though, as the holding pile for the muck has extended right through one side of this part of the plot.

My two pumpkin plants are getting quite large now and so I think they will be set out directly into either end of the muck pile to give them their very own 'hot' bed.  Another experiment, but one I have high hopes for.

Not much to report from the home garden right now - we have picked and eaten our second raspberries of the year - only a small handful but very, very sweet.  Same for the strawberries in the hanging planter - we may have only got a few fruit so far, but there are new flowers on some of the plants.

I have used a different variety to top up the planter, these give lovely pink flowers instead of the usual white ones - we will have to wait to see how the fruit compares.

The tomatoes in the grow bag have now been staked and are setting loads of tresses, but are still less than two foot tall.  I'm not sure what variety these are as I bought them as seedlings at a plant sale.

I have had my first tomato from the bush variety waiting to be planted out - it was yellow and had split, probably due to inconsistent watering on my part , but very nice so I think it must be a yellow fruiting variety.  There are loads more coming, so we will soon find out.

I have harvested a couple more sticks from my rhubarb which we had stewed with sugar - lovely!

We have also had some chard, steamed, and lots of lettuce from the pot by the door.

This pot has been a great success as we have been picking and eating from it for over six weeks now, but it has finally started to bolt with the recent hot weather so it will be cleared tonight with the final leaves used in a salad for tea, then I will replant the pot with some 'All Year Round' lettuce seedlings from the blow away which should be ready for picking off in another couple of weeks.

One big failure is the melon plant, which has inexplainable curled up and died despite having been watered well.  One of my plot neighbours used to lecture on horticulture, and has suggested that it could have been attacked by vine weevil - I will have to look carefully at the roots later to see if there is any evidence of that.

One of my potato bags has come down with blight - I have removed all the foliage and will be harvesting this weekend.  I have already had a little furtle and come up with a decent sized potato just under the surface, which bodes well for a good harvest here.

End of week catch up

In the past week since I last posted things have been moving on quite a bit, both at the allotment and at home, and I have had a major catastrophe too.

On Sunday afternoon I was relaxing in my hot tub after a few hard hours at the allotment when one of our cats knocked my mobile phone into the water.

Needless to say it was a complete write off, so I haven't been able to post up any more pictures since, which has kind of put me off writing anything.

So - what has been going on this week at home?

I have harvested a few more rhubarb stems which were stewed down with some sugar and a bit of water - very nice, but it really needed a bit more sugar.  All right - a lot more, to be honest.

The first few raspberries of the year have been eaten too - they didn't need any extra sweetener as they were gorgeous by themselves.  There is another handful ready too, looking forwards to picking those tomorrow.

I have also harvested a few Rainbow Chard leaves and steamed them with some cabbage given to me by a very generous allotment neighbour.  Not sure if I prefer them to spinach right now, but I will have plenty more opportunities to decide as the chard has really started to fill out and develop into really big plants.  I'm glad I decided to give them plenty of room when I planted them out six weeks ago!

The lettuce tub by the front door has also been raided quite a lot this week, but as they are starting to show signs of bolting we will be eating them as fast as we can before they turn bitter.

I have also picked up a young melon plant and stuck it into my largest pot - you never know, we might actually get some sun over the next few weeks to allow fruit to develop.  I am thinking of building up a frame for it to climb up - apparently this will encourage it to set more fruit along the length of the vine rather than just at the end as it would if I let it crawl along the floor.

The borlotti and mange tout on the windowsill desperately need planting out - the borlotti is now nearly four foot tall and looking for something to climb up, the mange tout has flopped over and is rapidly spreading along the windowsill.  I have a space picked out in the front garden in front of the trellis for them, so hopefully they will be able to handle the shock of being outdoors for the first time

The two tomato seedilngs in one pot have been separated into their own pots and are coming on well.  The chillis have now got four leaves each, and are slowly getting stronger.

The spinach grown in the gel is doing remarkably well, the only problem I forsee is trying to get the plants out of their cells without losing half of the root system which is now well established within the gel itself.  I am going to plant these inbetween the leeks in the raised bed - they should be picked and eaten long before I need to get at the leeks.

Not too sure about the radish at the moment - the majority of the first leaves have withered and died, but only a couple of the plants have well developed true leaves as yet.  It may be that I am going to lose a lot of these plants.  The plan is to plant them out below the brassicas in the bed in front of the trellis once they have all got good true leaves showing.

In the blow away it is like looking through a jungle, the plants are doing so well.

I am considering bringing some of the trays out and leaving them on some greenhouse staging just to give a bit of room to the others left behind.

I am very pleased with the pumpkins - both are getting quite big now, so I will have to look at potting them up into bigger containers as they really don't like being cramped.

One disappointment so far has been the onions.  They have been pricked out into individual modules for some time now, but there is virtually no signs of growth from any of them as yet.

With the weather having been so bad this week I haven't had much time to get down to the allotment, but I have had 8 tonnes of cow manure delivered in anticipation of some nice weather that will allow me to rotivate part of the plot and get it all mixed in.

I have spent an hour tonight moving the first of it off the path where it was dumped - 11 barrows-full and I have hardly dinted the pile!  I reckon there is about another 150-200 barrows-full to go, so at my curent speed it will take me 10-15 more hours!  I just hope that I will speed up as I get more used to the work.

Best Laid Plans part 2



 OK.

Before

The raised bed has been dug, the potatoes are earthed, the bit of bindweed that I discovered the other day has been dealt with.  

 

 

After



The new raised bed was a joy to dig - no stones, not too many roots and lovely rich soil.  All I need now is a bit of dry weather to let me get out there and do some planting.



I mentioned bindweed earlier - last weekend when tidying away the lst of the broccoli I noticed a spindly climber wrapped around the stems of one of the larger broccoli plants.

Having unsuccessfully tried to grow runner beans in the same area last year I had hoped that this could be a surviving refugee, but thanks to my friends on The Grapevine I now know that this was not the case. www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/grapevine/forum.php 

The roots are very long and thin, and are prone to snapping if you just pull at them, but an entire new plant can regrow from a single small section of root, so make sure that you get it all.



Potatoes in their Grow Bag



I decided to take a couple of sticks of rhubarb as I wasn't sure how much they would weigh.

These monsters weighed in at just under a kilo, so I may have to grab another one to make my wine - I shall have to consult my recipe.

No planting today as the ground is just too wet - the forecast suggests that we should get some drier weather tomorrow so we will see.