Signed up for another year!

Well I went and signed my missives and handed over my association fees this Saturday just gone, so we are signed up for another year.

I didn't really do anything at the plot, apart from empty the green house of some mouldy dead plants, re-attach a downpipe on the shed guttering, and tie our shade fabric canopy back up.

Oh and brought home mouldy leather gloves to wash. It has been very cold in that shed, it is all going to need a really good clean now that it is warming back up again.

But the plot didn't look as disheartening as I expected. It is a big mess, but all that work in previous years to put some structure into it means I can still see hope under all the weeds!

It is do-able - one bed at a time.

Bath O' Salad and summer squash

More salad in the bath this evening. Rocket this time to add to the lettuce and endive.

The greenhouse is looking quite lush, plenty of tomatoes, peppers, chillies, and squash.


We are going to put the squash out (into what was the strawberry bed last year) in a couple of weeks time. We will build another of the tunnel cloches for them to keep them safe from the late frosts.

Back Down To It

I've been a bit lax of late, in blogging here and in going to the allotment. But I'm back to it now.

We have actually been doing quite a bit, but it has been in our flat. We have a small heated propagator and several unheated ones that we have been starting everything off in, and it is turning into quite a production line now.

And several things have made it to the allotment already. Corn, courgettes, tomatoes (several kinds), aubergines, peppers, chillies.



We have also set off plenty of things in the greenhouse at the plot: lettuce of various kinds, including a salad leaf mix, scarlett chard, peas, broad beans, and various herbs and flowers.


Also yesterday I did a bit of DIY pot making. We received a parcel the other day that had tubes of paper scrunched up in it. It was perforated so that they could just tear off as much as was needed. As with most things these days we looked at it and asked 'do you think we could so something with that at the allotment?'. It turns out: biodegradable pots for beans/peas/sweet peas. They don't like root disturbance (their growth slows down for quite a while after being moved too roughly) so it is ideal to have a pot that they don't have to be taken out of when you move them on to their final location.

I separated the paper into a tube about 20cm long, twisted the base together and then turned the whole thing inside out so the twisted base was inside. I put a couple of beans in each, and also did some with 5 sweet pea seeds in each which can just get planted out whole when it gets warm enough.

We will see how they hold up, I'm hoping they don't disintegrate before I want them to!

zoned out

I have been reading a bit about hardiness zones today. I hadn't really come across them before as they are a US thing, created originally by the USDA, but I had seen reference to them recently on quite a few American garden/allotment bloggers on Blotanical, often in people's 'about me' section of their blogs.

So I decided to look it up. This article at Wikipedia is quite informative, it seems zones can help you work out what plants you can grow, and I found out I am in Zone 8, which puts me on a par with Washinton or Seattle. This of course only relates to minimum temperatures though, and doesn't relate to days of sunshine, length of days, dates of last frost etc so in rather variable and northern Great Britain it may not be so great a guide. It seems that although in hardiness Zone 8 we are in Heat Zone 1 or 2 which means only a handful of days a year over 30°C.

And according to very helpful feature at Garden Action, which alters the timing advice in their articles to use your own location settings, my last frost date is early May and my first frost date is mid October, so there ain't that much outdoor growing time for tender plants!

The RHS Hardiness guide is also useful in the UK, this puts plants into categories of how hardy they are; in their plant selector you can select how hardy you want a plant to be and what kind of situation it will be in and they will suggest things.

Most of this is stuff I knew about but it was good to take a few minutes to go over it again and take it all in. I'm certainly glad we have the greenhouse and leanhouse™ as it extends our season so much. For instance although it is cold, frosty, going dark at about 6pm and occasionally snowy here we had our first salad of the year the other day. It is just about warm enough in the the greenhouse that the rainbow chard has started to grow a decent size of leaf to eat!

figgy blogging

I had bought 2 little fig plants on Friday (as a birthday present to myself) from Lidl, who are having a bit of a garden extravaganza including plants and tools.

They have been sat in the car boot since then, so yesterday I took them to the allotment to plant up into pots. They were quite sturdy plants, I was quite impressed, especially at 2.99 each!

As it was so cold and snowy I gave them little fleece tents to live in for the meantime; our unheated greenhouse does get quite cold. The instructions on the packet said that they would tolerate down to -5°C so it should be OK, but I figured they would appreciate the jackets.

With these peas Ambassador you are really spoiling us!

We have peas! Ambassador, and Kelvedon Wonder are coming up. Nothing from the Starlight ones yet.


It is lovely to see those bright green shoots popping up.

I also checked out the temperatures we have been getting. I have a weatherstation in the greenhouse and put the little remote sensor in the propagator (also in the greenhouse) with the peas.

It has got up to 27.8ºC and down to -2.6ºC in the greenhouse and up to 20.3ºC and down to -1.6ºC in the propagator itself, so although it isn't keeping them particular warm it is ironing out the extremes a little, which is good.

Long Purple Bolivian Robin Maker

Or something like that!

I've been enjoying seed variety names today. I put 2 types of tomato, 1 sweet pepper, 1 chilli, and 1 aubergine into the heated propagator today and was luxuriating in the marvellous sounding titles. I think Purple Calabash is my favourite, but Red Robin comes a close second as it just seems so descriptive of the lovely little bushy plants of cherry tomatoes that it will produce - perky and cheeky!

On a grey day like today the exotic, warm sounding names were giving me a lot of joy. However as well as the Doux Long des Landes, and Bolivian Rainbow their was one name that is recognisable, steady and traditional sounding.

Exerting a calming influence the reliable Aubergine Money Maker will keep the rest of these flighty numbers in line!

Tomato-tastic!

We bought a little 7w heated propagator the other day to start off our tomatoes, chillies and aubergines at home. Last year we couldn't start off our seeds until quite late in the season and with the rubbish rainy summer they didn't really get far enough along, a lot never ripened at all. We got something off them, but the real stars were the tiny 80p plants we bought (Shirley, Golden Sunrise, and a Plum I think) .

So the plan this year is to get the plants from our seeds to a similar size before taking them to the allotment. We decided to try 2 of each of our heritage seeds from last year first, we had 4 seeds of each left and had slow and patchy germination last year: Vintage Wine, which is a kind of knobbly stripy one ; Banana Cream, which has long 'plum' type yellow fruits; Christmas Grape, which produces vines of small cherry toms; and Lemon Tree, which has surprisingly lemon looking fruit, right down to the point at the end!


And so far 2 of each of everything except the Banana Cream have come up. In just a week. The Banana Cream took longer than all the others to come up last year, so I expect that to pop up in a few days. Then we will stick them in a normal propagator, and then pots, and try and them get a bit bigger ready for transferring to the allotment.

Next on the list are: Red Robin tomatoes, little bushes of cherry ones; Purple Calabash, lovely knobbly dark red/black ones; Bolivian Rainbow chillies, and Money Maker aubergines.

Here is hoping for a good crop this year.

Clean House

Today we decided to clean out the greenhouse ready for the new season.



So is has now been scrubbed out with insecticidal soap, under the benches have been sort of tidied, and trays and propogator cleaned out.

Once that was done we decided to try starting off some peas and beans in the propagator. It is a bit early really but we figured it was worth a go as we have some little biodegradable pots very cheap the other week, so we can put them in the propogator, out in the greenhouse, then out into the coldframe before transferring them to the ground when they are a bit bigger without disturbing their roots.

We have sowed 4 broad beans, 4 starlight pea, 4 early kelvedon wonder, and 4 ambassador. Last year, we didn't do successional sowing, so ended up with a glut. Next lot of the same can get sowed in 4 weeks. Dwarf beans and runner beans later in the season.


We also put some mushroom spawn in a try under the bench, not sure it is warm enough yet for it really. It is also an old packet from last year, which has got a bit damp at some point so it may not sprout anyway. We will see.

First Real Work of the Year

The day after the AGM, all fired up, we went to the plot to start clearing and preparing for the new seeds to go in. We had bought a sieve for our compost so the first task of the day was to go through that removing anything that was still recognisable, including nails, and glass. The last guardians of Plot 60 weren't so discerning about what they put on the heap, and we are still seeing the results of that!

The sieving was hard work, I felt like I was using all sorts of muscles jiggling about like that, and about an hour and 4 wheelbarrows later we had enough sieved compost to cover a bed about 5cm deep all over.


We covered it over with black plastic afterwards in the hope of warming the soil up and then I think after that we might plant the strawberry runners that we potted on into it. We are upping the fruit production this year, as smoothies made from your own soft fruit are one of the best things ever, and certainly save on our shopping bill.

The rainbow chard has survived the winter in the greenhouse, despite the ice in there. I may start feeding it when it gets a little warmer, as it is going very slow. That and the spring onions are the only things growing right now really. Well, a small turnip or two, and a couple of cabbages also, but they are more vestiges of a season passed than seasonal crops, so I'm not sure they count.

Frosty Windy New Year

We went down to the plot for the first real amount of time since the New Year the other day. There had been high winds earlier in the week and our fence had been knocked over (which pepette kindly told us about through this blog) so we firstly fixed that. Not much else had been damaged or whisked away by the wind, and the only damage was caused by a bit of corrugated plastic from someone another plot landing on our broccoli and sprouts. Fortunately our broccoli and sprouts were rubbish anyway so we haven't really lost anything there.

We got the stove going pretty quickly which kept us warm while we were there, which was enjoyable.



We have bought some seeds from Garden Organic and some seed potatoes and jerusalem artichoke slips. We plan to get a little heated propagator for home to start off some things, and to start off some others in the greenhouse soon. When it is a little bit warmer. For now I think it is a matter of clearing up some of the beds (pulling out the rubbish broccoli) and covering some with plastic to try and warm them up.

So those are the next jobs, and the fixing up of our shed floor and a bench, and the LeanHouse™ and a bench for there too.

Helloooooooooo!

I haven't posted for a while, but I promise we have been doing some stuff at the plot.

Most things are over, but some tomatoes are still going (in the lean house), chilies are ripening, and various kinds of salad are going (also in the lean house). The Christmas Potatoes are also coming on well, and I'm quite excited about them.

So, what have we had?

The last courgette before the frost was more of a marrow, I took it to my Mum's and we stuffed it with couscous and topped it with goats cheese, which was lovely:



We took up the rest of the potatoes shortly after the frost too, they are fantastic, a beautiful colour and flavour:




I made a thai potato curry with some tonight:



I'm also ripening some of my 'heritage' tomatoes at home at the moment, I have them on the windowsill in plastic tubs to try and make the most of the light. I've left some ripe ones in with them in the hope the ethylene they give off will encourage ripening:



The main kind are Lemon Tree ones which are such an amazing shape, really like lemons!



We are now looking forward to getting a few jobs in the winter. The Lean House needs ends, and we need to sort out a few beds. I'm looking forward to having the stove on and drinking coffee in a crispy frosty allotment.

Aubergine No 1

We have harvested our first aubergine!



I'm so proud! It is off the plant that we bought as a little seedling, so it isn't quite all our own work, but I have high hopes for the ones we have grown from seed as they are flowering now.

It went into a curry but I'm thinking of Baba Ganoush for the next one.

plait

I've plaited our shallots today, into 2 long plaits.


I'm not sure I've done it the way it is meant to be done, but it seems to work. I did a kind of french plait: starting off with 3 shallots and then weaving more into the plait as I went along to keep it going. I knew having long hair as child would stand me in good stead one day!


They are now in the greenhouse drying off a bit more; red onions are now on the drying rack.

lean-house™ 2

We now have all the walls and roof cladded. We just need to put walls and doors on the ends, but we need to build wooden frames for that and our drill ran out of power again.

But it is sheltered in there so we moved in the tomatoes that have been getting a bit crowded in the cold frame. Because of the bars on the ceiling we can run strings from the tops of canes or grow bags up to the ceiling to stabilise them, which is great.

So we have 15 tomatoes (5 varieties) and 4 aubergines (2 varieties) in there now. I hope they like their new home.

lean-house™

The leaning greenhouse ( leanhouse™ ) is coming along. The batteries on the drills are getting past their best, so we can only do a bit at a time, but it has a bit of plastic on it now. We can clad it bit by bit though.

We are going to fill the trench that the back wall is in with the brick rubble we have, that should act as a bit of a heat store and help with drainage too.

more produce

This time shallots. They are drying on a old metal grid thing in the greenhouse.

and also the peas are now giving up a harvest every few days, here they are with the broad beans behind them and the onions in front. The bed behind is the potatoes.



The peas are lovely and sweet, and the potatoes (Arran Pilots) have a fantastic texture.

We have also planted some purple beans, and some more courgettes, in the random hope of having later season stuff. About 5 mins after I had planted the beans the Gardener's Question Time tip for what to do now was 'plant beans to try and extend the season', so I live in hope. They are in a bit of guttering in the bath (previously Bath'O' Salad™) so that they should be a bit easier to transfer once the time comes. I think we will put them against the east fence (the one behind the peas in the previous photo).

weeds, weeds and more weeds

We had a marathon weeding session on Saturday, the beds with broccoli and lettuce in, the strawberry bed and the cabbage beds. All were absolutely covered in green, looking very scruffy. Now they are lovely and neat.



The greenhouse is awash with greenery, some of the tomato plants we started from seeds are starting to get flowers.



Still don't have our plastic for the greenhouse so it is still a naked frame. I'm promised that it will arrive tomorrow afternoon though. I had forgotten that it was a bank holiday here in Scotland today, so that scuppered my cladding plans.

produce

Lots of things seem to be well on their way right now. The plum tomatoes are ripening:



The chillies have loads on them, as do the other 3 tomatoes, and there are 4 aubergines developing on one plant. The cucumber had shot up too, so there are 8 or so of those developing on the plant.


The peas are almost ready and so, I think, are the broad beans. Little gem lettuce we have in a few places and they seem to be doing well.

The weather has sent some broccoli and caulis mad, they are flowering already, so I guess that is them out of the game although we will at least be able to eat their small early offerings.

Today I discovered that someone else on our site blogs about their allotment Kennyhill Cottage so I've added that to my link list. They have had their plot a little longer than us, probably about 18months.

new greenhouse

Well all the plans from the last time I posted changed as we inherited (or re-inherited) some things which moved the greenhouse on.

A while (6 years) ago we designed an exhibition that had some 'leaning posts' - tall upright metal posts with padded cushions, so that people could lean back and watch an overhead projection screen. After the exhibition they went on a tour round various storage spaces and theatre companies and have now ended up back with us. So, greenhouse time!

It took us a day to load them and a load of wood onto the van and to the allotment (thanks to Sarah, and to Bard in the Botanics for the help). And then today we started building. We have ten of these posts and they are 1.5m wide and 2.3m tall. We are going to use 3 for the front and 3 for the back, and 3 for the roof. No idea what we will do with the 10th one.

They are going to go next to the current shed/greenhouse combo.



The walls are in and the floor is levelled, so just the roof to go.



We are going to clad it with transluscent correx. If we can convince a delivery company to send stuff to an allotment (tomorrow's task).



I think it is going to look great, the metal is powder coated in a teal blue which is quite good. And their will be loads of room for all our tomatoes, which are languishing in the cold frame at the moment.