Shed Blues

Well I had a lovely afternoon at the allotment painting my shed in the sun and generally tidying up from the winter.

My shed is now a beautiful, brilliant shade of blue.  I have also started painting the inside as well so as to brighten it up. 

This week Morgan built himself a new lean to green house attached to his own shed so I now have a full green house to occupy instead of just half.  I am already filling that side with my pots of lettuce.  I do need to bet some pea gravel to even out the floor surface of the green house though.

Also did a bit more strimming and watering as it is quite dry.

TODAY I HARVESTED MY FIRST 2 MUSHROOMS : )

Dandelions...Heaven or Hell

Not much happening at the moment just windowsills loaded down with seedlings and plants at various stages of development.  Up at the allotment the only thing really growing is the weeds and especially the dandelions.

    

I had receipt of some environmesh from a friend in work this week so I have laid this over my carrots to stop the carrot root fly.

This weekend I think I will try and paint the shed and cut back some the grass and weeds with the strimmer.  I may also sow some parsnip seeds and some more cabbages as these seedlings have rotted in their pots this week.

Greenhouse is go...

          

As I may have mentioned before, I am a lazy gardener and cut corners where ever I can.  This may not always produce the greatest quantity of produce but rather than being overwhelmed with too much produce I have always had enough to feed myself and the family though out the year.  The reason I have mentioned this is that this weekend I probably skipped a step in the growing of tomatoes, aubergines and peppers.  This is bad I know but I generally don’t have time to do everything by the book.

Planting Spuds

This week I have been mainly planting potatoes…

                       

Last weekend at the allotment I noticed that the more experienced gardeners had started to plant their potatoes.  This prompted me into planting mine as well.  I had my seed potatoes delivered way before Christmas and have had them sat around since then waiting around, doing a bit of chitting here and there but basically slowly shrivelling.  I have had little success with potatoes on the plot so far.  I have tried different varieties none of which have performed as well as the classic King Edwards. These are in fact my favourite flavour so points all round.  I have put the poor results and small size of the potatoes down to the condition of the soil so this year I am only growing the one King Edward variety,  planting less and giving what I have more TLC.  Therefore over this last week I have done really well and pat myself on the back for this, and made the effort to ride my bike up to the allotment every night once I have got in from work and prepared and planted my potatoes.  Whether it works this time we shall see.

Sowing the seeds...

Seedlings of tomato and chilli.

                       

More broad beans.

 

Cress seed.

                           

King Edward seed potatoes chitting.

Aubergines...

                    

Tonight I planted some aubergine seeds.  

This is something new I am trying for 2011.  

I will see if my little cloche works.

Cloches, Cloches and more Cloches

Over the last couple of weeks I have grown some broad beans and peas on the kitchen windowsill. Last week I replanted the beans into an experiment of mine.  I put some newspaper into a toilet roll then planted a bean into each one.  Today I planted these out along with the peas I have grown as well.  I have used plastic bottles as cloches to try and give them some protection.  I will check them out next week.

               

I also dug over the plot next to where I had planted the beans then spread some manure over the top before covering with two tunnel cloches.  This will keep the ground warm and dry ready for the next set of planting.  This is what I had done previously before planting my beans and peas.  It means digging is made much easier.

The Little Christmas Tree Comes Home

It had been raining most of the week so I was expecting it to be quite sticky but oh how sticky it was.

Christmas Tree:  My first job was to replant the Christmas tree so I dug out the hole from whence it came and tipped the tree in with its compost.  I then attempted as best I could to heal in some more mud around the tree.  Unfortunately all that happened was that every time I pressed down with my welly the mud just stuck to the welly.  I have replanted it as best I can but will have to keep an eye on it in case it blows over in the wind.  Once the soil has dried out I will try and firm it in a bit better.

Kale: Well the kale is no more.  The pigeons have now eaten the lot and when I checked to see what netting I had anyway it was the wrong kind.  Oh well I will know for next year.

While I was up there I tried to dig a bit more of the plot but again it was just way too sticky to do anything.  I did find some carrots from last year and a couple of parsnips so I dug those up for Sunday lunch.  I also had a check in my greenhouse and picked some more rocket along with some lambs lettuce and baby pak choi.  I sowed some more lettuce in one of the pots.

New season starts here...

Just before Christmas, I received a package of live plants in the post.  They were my gooseberry bushes.  This was really bad timing as the whole of the country was in the tight grip of winter with deep snow and freezing temperatures. 

Between Christmas and new year winter seemed to loosen its grip and this brought on a spell of hope for the coming year.  The days were already getting longer, the birds where beginning to flirt and the new yellow flowers of the broom were beginning to emerge.

I made a list of things to do, donned my new Christmas wellingtons and set off for the allotment.

The Little Christmas Tree...

Last year, whilst wandering through the Christmas trees in the B&Q garden centre, we came upon a little tree about a meter tall sat in a little red pot.  Perfectly proportioned and perfectly coloured.  The big label hanging from the top said "This tree can not be re-planted" but we thought it would do for Christmas.   We paid the money and took the little tree home.  The following day I bought a lovely white pot in IKEA for the little tree to sit in, not realising that the tree was as small as it was, the pot swallowed the tree.  Regardless, the little tree sat there in the corner of the kitchen all through Christmas happy to be decorated in pretty pink and white baubles. 

Delivery...

When I got in from work today I had received a delivery from Thompson & Morgan.
The package contained seeds that I had ordered a week or so ago ready for next year.
I am now going to mark them as received on my allotment spreadsheet for 2010.

Broad Beans - Bunyard Exhibition
Pea - Ambassador
Climbing Bean - Blauhilde
Aubergine - Florida High Bush
Marigold - Bonita Mixed
Cauliflower - Autumn Giant
Carrot - Resitafly
Beetroot - Boltardy
Onion - Lilia

We shall see how these do.

Welcome to 'Carrots from the Allotment'

We have been renting an allotment for around 18 months.  We have just about got the plan of the plots laid out and rotated for the second year.

It is getting towards the end of the season now so most crops are ripening and ready for picking.
Today we harvested some cucumber and tomatoes which I made into a salad.  We also collected some courgettes and onions which Added to a delicious and simple pasta dish for dinner.
Check out my dish of 'Pasta with courgette and Brie' in the 'Kitchen News' blog.

Japanese Onions...

Had my delivery of Japanese onions yesterday...

Used Grow Bags....

Here is what I do with the used grow bags when it's time to throw out the old tomato plants...

Leek Moth....

Went to the allotment this week only to discover that my lovely leeks are rapidly being eaten by something.  They were doing really well.  I dug most of them up and cut the worst parts off and made some delicious 'Leek & Potato' soup.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to stop this leek munching creature please let me know.
Thank you.
*****
Well the dreaded leek moth has come and gone and what I have noticed on my neighbour's allotment and also the one leek I left in the ground, is that the leeks that looked completely decimated a week or two ago have come back stronger and better than before.
Next year instead of panicking and pulling them all up, I will leave them alone and see what happens.

Stinking pile of…

We found the compost farm where the council recycles green waste collected from the kerbside.  It was huge.  There were huge mounds of steaming compost everywhere you looked.  We drove the car into the barn, got out the shovel and started to fill our sacks with the compost.  It was hot and smelly.  We filled the car to the brim with the bags and headed off back to the allotment.

Digging....

This week it didn’t rain for two days so I managed to get to the allotment and finish cutting back the brambles, which grow madly along one side of the allotment.  I also nearly finished digging over a second plot.  That makes two plots dug over so far.

Next year I am going to try and grow some broccoli and cauliflower in one plot and squashes in the other.

Have spent this week trying to source free compost and manure.  We have found a farm which processes the composting collected from kerbside collection and they have said we can just turn up and take what we want so tomorrow will be spent looking for this farm.

Will let you know how I get on.