Monthly Archives: May 2018

Someone has Bean and Pea’ed on my plot!

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This week we desperately needed to get our beans and peas in or else we would have nothing to munch on when summer comes… Not ideal!

So I carried on digging up nettles, bindweed and brambles and hoped to high heaven that it was making this better.

Next year I am trying no-dig.
My back hurts.

Last year MrFlatcap showed me how to make a bean tipi, so this year I decided that 3 towers of green beans might just keep MrT happy for a week or two!

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Mid-build!

The hardest part of this whole day was stringing the poles together without letting go of one and smacking myself in the nose. That happened a lot.

I deliberately put them up by my new lawn area because there is a dipped area by the slabs which will be easy to get through to weed. It also means we can have a bit of shade for the dogs when the sun finally comes back again.

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Please excuse the mess!

Beans will curl around and grow up one single pole, whereas the peas are a little more fussy.

For these we decided to build a wall. It needs a little more support when I manage to dig out the last of the bamboo canes, but until they grow and get heavy this will be ok.

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Pea Wall 

The wall consists of three canes at either end in a pyramid, with two canes set a regular intervals down the row to hold the strings taught.

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Pea wall!

The you just get to go crazy with the ball of string. MrT cannot abide the feel of twine. It sends him all squiffy and his face makes an odd expression… he’s like a little kid sucking on a lemon!

That meant that the stringing up was left to me so that’s why it isn’t as beautiful as it could have been.

I cant wait for my little seeds to start growing and the beautiful flowers to appear. I often think that peas and beans are at their most beautiful when those pretty flowers are out. As much as I love eating the peas as I wander around the plot, I do wish that the flowers would last a little bit longer!

Now it is just a case of nicking one of MrT’s beers to stop those slugs from munching my shoots… little slimy buggars…

Ready for All Hallows Eve already…

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Today was a pretty easy day at the allotment. I laid out some weed membrane on one of the more “weed-free” areas of the plot and have planted my pumpkins and courgettes through it.

My soil is still pretty good after the man a few years back manured it and then left. At the end of this year i will cover the whole bed, but for now I have used some of my compost under the roots and am hoping that these will do ok!

I didn’t add any fertiliser last year and we did well with the marrows so hopefully this year we will be ok too.

We have got 2 Turks Turban, 1 Winter Squash of unknown origin and 2 courgettes (1 green 1 golden). My friend also has a massive amount of white pumpkins she has said I can grow here, so hopefully they will be ready just in time for the wedding! They would be great to add to the decor!

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All planted up

The pumpkins and squash can spread over 6 feet so are planted pretty far apart at the moment but hopefully this space will be taken up soon.

Weed membrane can be a lovely home for slugs, but hopefully my traps and the abundance of frogs will help keep the numbers down. They are just part of the allotment life so I am not wanting rid completely!

Fingers crossed we get another of these –

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Wider than my leg!

Busy Week, With Not Enough Time!

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I’ve been neglecting my allotment these last few days/week… poor thing!

My onions desperately need hoeing which will be tonight job, and I still need to get all of the weeds removed from my final bed to get some peas, beans and pumpkins in!

So this week will be a manic one I am sure – it’s all made better when I found this though;

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They are going red!!

So I only managed to get down there for a few hours on Saturday.

I pulled up a few weeds, but because the ground was so dry it was like stone!

So instead I decided to make my mini flower bed for Rachel’s Sunflowers. It is right in front of my greenhouse annex so will be a lovely view when they grow!

I used some of the old roof tiles we dug up from around the plot to edge it. The edge is pretty tall, but that means that i can strim the grass without murdering the sunflowers in high season.

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All in!

The grass still needs another layer of seeds adding as the birds have had a field day, but since I have now stopped them getting to the chicken food and its been a long winter, I thought I would be kind to them.

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Sunflowers in!

I used the tops of the milk bottles from MrT’s strawberry wall as name plates for the different sunflower types. Recycling at its best!

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Give them all a good water

These will all get some sticks put in over the weekend, but for now I am letting them recover a bit.

It does look like the slugs are out in force though so a beer trap will soon be installed… bloody things. I picked a pot full later in the evening and the chickens thought it was Christmas!

Now just to try and keep on top of everything…

 

Sunday Sunshine

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Morning!

We have had a lovely but very busy weekend organising wedding stuff the past few days, including spending a few hours having a fabulous drive down to the wedding venue in Shrewsbury. I can’t wait, it all seems very real!

In return for my wedding organising day, I went with MrT to a new motorbike shop so he was pretty pleased too.

When we got in it was still lovely weather so we popped down to the lottie for a bit… glad we did because look what my neighbour left me!

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So many toms!

So while MrT chopped the tops off some milk bottles for me, I dug up my over-wintered strawberry plants from the greenhouse.

He potted these up in to the new milk-bottle-homes and I started planting my toms!

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More toms, less space!

I was told last year that my planting layout wasn’t very economical, so I am following the advice in this years planting. Apparently if you place your tomatoes in a staggered formation, you can fit more in a smaller space and still get enough air circulation to avoid blight! Lets give it a go!

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So Leafy!

Now you see all those fluffy bits on the greyish area on the bottom of the stem? They turn in to roots! So I take off the seed leaves and stem (those funny shaped ones at the bottom) and the next set of leaves up.

Also, you notice those shoots appearing from the tomatoes ‘elbows’? Remove those whenever they appear, no matter how old the plant. They sap all of the nutrients away from the main stem and fruit trusses and make your crop smaller (apparently!).

 

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This is how it should now look!

Now dig a hole big enough to cover the roots and that greyish area of stem.

When plating tomatoes, its good to add a bit of fertiliser beforehand. Lots of people use eggs and banana skins, but I just put in some fungi powder and crunched up egg shells.

Now is also the time to put in your tomato collars if you use them. I haven’t invested in any yet but I have heard good things! They make watering easier and help the fruits avoid splitting.

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All in!

By the time you have finished, your plants will look about half the height that they did, but don’t worry. They will have a huge root ball now and grow much better.

Water them in really well, but don’t get it on the leaves. Water on the leaves makes them burn and go spotty. It doesn’t harm the plant in small areas, but it can wilt them quite badly!

Don’t they look fab!?

So while I was doing that MrT had watered all of my onions, garlic and spuds, replaced all of my weedguard, fed my chickens and quail and made this stunning bit of wall art

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Strawberry wall!

Isn’t he a good egg?!

We had a lot of trouble with bunnies and slugs eating my fruit last year before they were ripe, so hopefully this will help avoid that. It also helps with recycling all of that dreaded plastic! Just make sure you poke some drainage holes!

Now just to repaint the wall and it’ll look ace.

I am so proud of him
It’s still not worth a new motorbike though…
Maybe when he has built my fence!

One Year On

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So today marks one year since i got the call to say a plot was ready for us.

Still a few days to go before we actually got the keys, but I remember it like yesterday!

Unfortunately it has been far too hot to do any work down there this weekend, so I have stayed at home and potted on some tomatoes instead.

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Gardening requires lots of water – most of it in the form of perspiration

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Morning!

Look at what we managed to get done yesterday!

It was MrT’s last day off for a fortnight or so, and it was gorgeous weather so I abandoned work after an hour and a bit to get some allotment work done.

Molly’sDad and the PigeonMan had a shed that they wanted removing, but it was still in really good condition so they offered it to us. Que lots of heavy lifting and bad backs as we dismantled and moved it up the tiny gap between our greenhouse and the hedge.

After we had done all of the dismantling, we had to build a base. And typically, it was right where MrT had piled up all of the bricks from his last demolition job!

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He was not amused.

We finally managed to move them all, but them realised that the ‘ready-built’ base we thought we had from a previous shed was too big! That meant we had to build two new runs of bricks to make the base the right size for our 8×6 shed.

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Just a quick layout before knocking them in

All of the junk will be moved at a later date, as this appears to have been the dumping ground for the previous tennant.

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The floor fits! 

Then it was just a case of lugging the bits up the massive walk from one end of the allotment to the other. That was a workout and a half!

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Its taking shape!

Because I wanted it out of the way, it was very difficult to get the sides and top on. There were tree branches, broken glass and all sorts of old tat to try and not break an ankle on.

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Bloody blokes

If MrT complains he is hurting these photos prove why. It was his own doing.

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Thinks he is a squirrel

While he did the refelting, I moved all of the tools into the new shed. At some point i will get some tool hooks and put everything in neatly, but for now I was just ready to go home and sleep!

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Its up!

Oh, and i added a hanging basket with nasturtiums in. As you do. Lets see how long it takes until I paint it grey and cover it in bunting!

Another job well done!