A Quick Message

Just a quick message to say that as this PlotBlog has sadly fizzled out over the past year or so, and since I no longer have a proper allotment plot to write about, I've started up another blog over at MiniPlot. Notes on small suburban gardening. Smaller amounts (but hopefully still many types) of veggies, due to lack of space, but also more on other stuff: Ponds, trees, flowers and worms....

We, sow the seed... Nature, grows the seed...

I spent a relaxing hour or so this evening finishing off my raised bed, and sowing some veggie seeds. I topped off the bed with a mixture of rotted horse manure and (peat free) compost, and added a bag of perlite. I then divided the bed into 1 x 1.25 foot sections using bamboo canes, giving me sixteen rectangles to play with. Depending on the crop I either sowed a few seeds into a grid of holes in each rectangle, or broadcast them randomly.

So far I have sowed:

• American Land Cress
• Spinach
• Turnips (for harvesting when small)
• Chinese Broccoli (never tried it, worth a go)
• Swiss Chard (Bright Lights) - sowed into two rectangles, as I'll only get a few plants per rectangle
• Lettuce (Leibacher Ice)
• Lettuce (Red and Green Mixed)
• Carrots (Early Nantes)
• Radishes (French Breakfast)
• Beetroot (Detroit Red Ball)

Hopefully something will start to grow before long! I will get a photo posted soon.

Raised bed

I spent a pleasant few hours on Sunday afternoon listening to the cricket whilst I constructed a raised bed in the back garden, so I can grow a few veggies at home. It's eight feet long by two and a half feet wide (i.e. long and thin!) but it will allow me to grow a few bits and bobs, especially if I adopt the Square Foot Gardening approach.

I'll post a photo when it stops raining long enough to take one, but it's quite basic, made from gravel boards and wooden stakes for strength. Building the thing was easy, getting it level(ish) then filling it with soil was the hard bit. I could hardly move when I tried to get out of bed this morning!

Wigglers

I set up my wormery on Friday evening, which proved to be very simple. I then spent the next day or so worrying that the initial worm bedding material was too wet and the worms were drowning, or that I'd added too much waste in one go as nothing was happening to it. However, by last night there was clear indication of worm activity amongst the food scraps, so all seems to be well.

I am sure my wife thinks I'm a bit mad as I keep on checking under the lid to see how they're doing. I haven't given them all names yet though. I think I shall use the collective name Geoff for all of them, as they're a bit difficult to tell apart.

Introducing Geoff the worms.

The Worms! The Worms Are Here!

To cheer myself up a bit after having to give my allotment back, I bought myself a Can-O-Worms wormery for the garden, from these lovely people.

It arrived this morning, and although I have yet to add the worms (tonight's job) I assembled the wormery in the garden.

Very swish. In a few months or so I hope to have a good supply of compost and 'worm juice' from all our kitchen scraps.

Letting go...

After having a bit of a think I've decided to let my plot at the Royal Paddocks Allotments go. What with our new family and moving house last September, I've just not had the time to do enough to keep the plot shipshape, not to mention growing and tending crops.

I harvested the last of my leeks a few weeks ago and started to clear out my shed. There is apparently a long waiting list so I'll be glad to let the plot go to someone who hopefully has the time to look after it. They'll inherit my shed, water butt, compost bins and cold frame too, so they're getting quite a good deal!

I'm sorry to have to stop allotmenteering for the time being, as it's been very enjoyable. However I am not stopping veggie growing entirely, as with my greenhouse and a couple of small spaces in our little garden at home I am hoping to keep my hand in, and I will no doubt post about my efforts (and hopefully results) here from time to time. I've already sown a couple of varieties of tomatoes, peppers, and aubergines under glass, and planted four strawberry plants into a container on the patio. Sam has also sown a handful of sunflowers - he know exactly what to do (at 15 months old!) when I gave him each seed, planting it into each pot without having to be shown how! Green fingers indeed.

Who knows, perhaps one day I'll be able to afford the time to get another plot somewhere - maybe if Sam is a little older and wants to help grow his own food.

My son, the gardener

Not much news from the plot recently I'm afraid. The new house and garden have taken priority. I am planning on getting down there sometime soon if the weather holds, to hack back the no doubt rampant weeds, tidy up and see whether my pumpkins and squash are ready for harvest.

In the meantime, this is a photo of our son Sam, with a little pot of cress that he grew at nursery (with a little help from his friends). It seems that I may have a new under-gardener...

Our Garden

Anne has taken some great pictures of our new house to show people who can't get to visit just yet, including a couple of our garden:

It's quite small, but easy to maintain, although some of the plants are quite 'mature' and are going to need trimming back a bit to expose the flower beds, although I'm not going to do too much to it this year, to see what flowers and when next year and how it looks. The tree is a flowering cherry, which may or may not be suffering from canker, but it seems to be healthy enough at the moment.

The triangular 'bed' at the back of the picture above actually contains a small pond, in which I have put my single remaining goldfish and pleco. They seem to be happily coexisting with the resident pond snails and frog, which we see fairly frequently. Natural slug control! Through the arch is my greenhouse on the right, the roof of which is currently covered in an unidentified plant. Removing that to let some light in is a pressing job! To the left is a small bed which once cleared of another bamboo (and a small eucalyptus tree of some kind) should allow me to plant a few veggies outside. Also in the photos you can see one of my birthday presents from the weekend - a clay chiminea which I have yet to try out. That should keep us warm in the chilly evenings.

New House

We've just moved house, from a rented two bedroom flat to our own three-bedroom house. Unfortunately all the to-ing and fro-ing means that trips to the allotment have been few and far between lately, but hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly. Our new place is now a car trip away from the allotment site, but I might see about getting a new plot a bit closer to home sometime. In the meantime our new house also has a small garden and a greenhouse, so I will also be dealing with that in the coming months. I am at the very least looking forward to some good crops grown under glass next year!

Overgrowth

Spent a very brief period on the plot yesterday afternoon, as I was off sick with a stomach bug but desperately needed to get some fresh air. Couldn't believe the amount of growth on some of the plants, whilst others seemed to be coming on very slowly. The artichokes are now over six feet tall (and wide!), and have quite a few globes maturing on them. Only one of the six courgette plants I originally planted seems to have survived the slugs intact, with two others looking as if they are on their last legs. The survivor is one of the yellow ones, and we had our first little courgette from it yesterday! The leeks have grown amazingly in a few weeks - from tiny wisps to almost spring onion dimensions. The sweetcorn, however, doesn't seem to be doing much at all. Very sluggish, but I suppose it might take off soon. The squash plants and the pumpkin I was given by a nieghbour are doing OK, and I was amazed to see that one of the original "Jack Be Little" plants that was decimated by slugs has made a bit of a comeback. We may get some weeny little pumpkins yet!

My first proper harvest this year (quite late, but then it's understandable) was broad beans. The plants are huge, and I harvested over a kilo (shelled weight!) of the larger beans, and last night froze them for later consumption. There was quite a bit of blackfly on the plants, but it doesn't seem to be slowing down bean production too much, and I was really pleased to see a huge number of ladybird larvae on and around the plants too. I can put up with blackfly if they are feeding ladybirds!

The weeds, however, are back with a vengeance. I'm afraid I had to resort to Glyphosate on one particularly bad patch of bindweed, but these days I simply don't have the time for frequent repeated weeding by hand. Bits of the plot also need a good going over with the strimmer, but I wasn't feeling up to it yesterday, so will have a go at it this weekend if I get the chance.