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!

Early November On the Allotment - Video Update

Not much happening down at the plot recently, so I took the opportunity to make a short video update last Sunday.

Hope you enjoy watching.

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.

Goodbye Daddy's Little Helper

Just over a month ago I blogged about one of our cats, Fred, enjoying himself on the allotment as he hadn't been too well recently.

Yesterday we came back from a week's holiday to find that our neighbour, who had been looking after the cats whilst we were away, was rather upset.

It turned out that Fred had been taken very ill on Friday and was a very poorly cat indeed.  His tongue was protruding and was obviously causing him discomfort, and he was struggling to drink.

We rushed him straight up to the vets, and received the news that all pet owners dread.

He had a tumour on the base of his tongue that was inoperable, the only options we had were to try and make him comfortable for a few more days or to have him put to sleep straight away.

We both gave him a big hug and kiss, and told the vet to go ahead.

He slipped quietly away as we both stroked him and told him how much we loved him.

Fred was only with us for eight years - before that he had several homes but I like to think that we gave him as good and as loving a home as he could have had in that time.

We have had many cats over the past twenty five years, but none have been as affectionate as Fred.

He used to sit at the end of the path waiting for us to come home from work every night, and loved nothing more than to sit on someones knee and purr loudly.

He had just won a battle against a skin infection on his nose, and we were hoping that he would have been with us for a good many years to come but I guess some things are just not meant to be.

Goodbye Fred.  Your supervising on the allotment will have to be done from a much higher place from now on.

Mid September On The Allotment - Video Roundup

I can't believe that it has been so long since I posted, but in my defense I have been suffering from Labrynthitis which has meant that any time I look at a screen of any kind I start to feel like I am getting travel sick, without the travel.

Anyway, just a quick post today as I am about to go off for a week's holiday in North Devon with the family.

Here is a video I made last weekend showing the progress on the plot over the previous two weeks - hope you like it.