Planting out 'the survivors'

The survivors from my grown-from-seed selection got planted out last week. Disappointingly there weren't as many as I'd like, but then that's the way it goes. I guess it is all part of learning. Most things got planted in the big bed at the 'road end', the one I'd divided into 9 sections. I put the squashes/courgettes etc here as it is closest to the water source. Should be easier on my poor back!

This is how it looked post-planting. Flowers nearest to us: nicotiana, cosmos, dwarf rudbeckia; above them to the left of the photo is the 'med bed': aubergine, tomatoes, yellow pepper (more to add here). The rest of the squares contain various courgettes and squashes. Some squares are still empty but they'll soon fill up :) As you can see, the squashes etc are pretty weeny. Hopefully they'll sort themselves out asap.

If you're wondering what those are by each plant, they're cut-off bottles, to focus the watering. Last year I didn't do this and I expect water was wasted. I know some of the leaves got scorched, so hopefully this way will be better. While the roots get established I am watering normally, then I'll move onto just watering in the bottles.

I also planted out into the mini-beds. My chitted rooster spuds went in one, and the surviving early extra sweetcorns went next to them.

The flowers planted a while back in the first row of mini-beds are taking their time. The only one looking promising is this bed of gladiolus, poppies and mixed annuals, even if it does look messy. I am sure half are weeds!

I also netted the blueberry with the clothes-peg & cane system.

Construction keeps boys happy!

Unfortunately, somewhat of a disappointment on the seedling front. Lots of droopy and singed seedlings found today. :( What is still looking alive has been salvaged. All this effort can so easily be undone when it comes to growing from seed. So many things against you. I will post photos of what did survive and where I put it soon but the light faded before I took snaps.

I did, however, set my little bro and Nick a task at lottie today whilst I got on with weeding, watering, planting etc. The raspberries are now netted thanks to their teamwork and construction skills. I defy any bird to get into my rasberries now! Little bro was well pleased with his efforts and, I think, enjoyed building something :)

Look, he even built in a door :)

Thanks boys!

Sunday: Sowing seed, propagator protection & netting

Well, I am a bit disappointed with my seedlings to date so I decided to re-pot things & plant seeds on Sunday. I wont do these as individual pics as I planted A LOT of new seeds! (The hollyhock was a little plant). Here they are:

L-R: chilli - habanero chocolate (a christmas gift from my big bro),
dwarf beans - purple queen & stanley, hollyhock - salmon pink,
auberine - early long purple 2, alium (unknown variety from my mum),
forget-me-not - royal blue, patisson - sunburst
& sweetcorn - early extra sweet, mixed annuals,
pak choi - choko, red basil - dark opal, chilli - cayenne

Looking forward to all these coming up.
(click the photo to see them bigger)

These are some other seeds I planted - more of what I tried before, along with some new seeds.

Closest to us: peas - kelvedon wonder, sunflower - black magic.
The rest I've already mentioned in the seed list.

The plants in the photo are from my aunt. She's good to me :)

I also potted on some sweetcorn (early extra sweet) as they were doing ok. 6 survivors though - pathetic!

So much has been nibbled / not come up / perished in the mini-greenhouse that I decided to try the survivors in some propagators. I knew those leftover bits of palette would come in useful! Fingers crossed this plan works! Oh for a REAL greenhouse...

The purple podded peas (such a great name - I love saying it!) Nick's mum gave me grew so fast I've already put them into the soil. I have tried to protect them with some plastic bottles to keep them warm and, using some netting and clothes pegs, I made this protection from pecking pigeons :) I did the same netting around the mangetout but didn't take a snap. Looks the same anyway! Around the PPpeas, I planted the mixed annuals and around the mangetout, the forget-me-nots.

On Monday I picked up the new mower & spent a while trying to make it. Useless instructions & not enough hands hindering me! I tried it out last night and it works a treat. Huzzah

Now we are all up-to-date on the allotment antics & I am off to watch Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen... :)

Shock horror!

Yes, I actually went to the allotment yesterday! It's been about 3 weeks. Finding the time to go is getting difficult now, what with evenings being too dark to go up there. I don't get home from work until 6.30pm so can't see a thing! Well, I got quite a bit sorted out. Attacking things with secateurs and putting raspberry nets and bean canes away. I need to go back up there to continue cutting back/burning. I am going to trim the soft fruit back hard as it hasn't been done for a while, I think. During the summer it was almost impossible to walk through the bushes to harvest so I am trying to make things easier for next year. I also still need to dig over the ground and get some bulbs in. I'm mulling over just keeping the 'shed end' for next year and letting someone else take on the 'road end'. 50x7m is a lot of land to tend for one person!! I picked up some pumpkins from the plot and my chilli plants is still covered in chillis, the aubergine still has lots on too. There are potatoes still in the ground which I am wondering if they will still be there or will have been eaten away. Only one way to find out! I did cull the kiwi plant yesterday - it didn't fruit and I hear without another plant it probably won't. I'll find something else I'd like to grow up the shed next year. It was nice to see the Lady's Mantle I thought had died after I moved it perking up again. It has produced some new growth so that is good to see. I find them very pretty plants. Especially when water droplets get trapped in the fan-like leaves :)

Firsts in the latest food harvest

I didn't get too much done this weekend down the allotment. Mum and I did pop down on Saturday morning to water - and, as usual, got distracted by other tasks! We did some harvesting which was the main reason for going. We picked raspberries and gooseberries and the final redcurrants the birds hadn't eaten! They look beautiful, like little jewels. Hopefully there is enough to make a jar of jelly. I am planning on making a cake and some oat bars with the raspberries and some chutney with the gooseberries - all will be adapted recipes I am sure :) Mum took some fruit for herself.

We also got to harvest my very first broccoli florets and a head of cauliflower. I also picked a bunch of sweetpeas but have found the flower stems are shorter on the new blooms. That means a smaller vase is needed! When I inherited the allotment, some produce was already there. I had a poke about in amongst the weeds and found a few (what I assume are) shallots ok to pick. I am drying these out and will see if they are edible!

We also picked, but didn't photograph, more charlotte potatoes (delish!) and the first globe artichokes. I am going to try mine tonight and see how it tastes. Will let you know! Cauliflower cheese is also on the menu. Yummy :) I hope you are enjoying your harvests.

I have now taken the netting off the strawberries and started to pot on the runners. Hopefully this will give me more strawberry plants to keep or to pass on to others, perhaps in a plant swap which they do at the allotment - not that I have had time to go to one yet!

What's going on down't lottie? - PART 2

More photos of the 'growings on' (groan!) down the lottie...

2x 'garden pearl' tomatoes in full flower. Lots of flowers! I like this variety as it is teeny tiny and grows close to the ground rather than up so I don't need to stake it. Both plants are looking really healthy and I even spied a little fruit forming. It's about 1cm across so really 'ickle!

The 'money maker' aubergines (I have 5 plants) are all in flower now. They're looking beautiful. Such dark stems and lovely purple flowers.

Here's another photo of the sweetcorn. It's now about 25-30cm high and is looking really good. I was a bit worried they wouldn't take at first but it is always nice to be proved wrong :)

I spotted these self-seeded rogue nasturtiums growing at the end of the soft fruit. They're very pretty with the leaves a blue-green.

There are more raspberries than I know what to do with!

The globe artichokes are looking very productive with a fair few on each plant. I will have to try them soon, maybe next weekend when my folks come to visit again.

The 'money maker' tomatoes are producing fruit now in the shed. They are SO thirsty though and are such a responsibility! I need to water them every day and I think even that might not be quite enough. Worse than having a pet :P

Very first cauliflower starting to form. Yay! Exciting :)

Sweet williams, self-seeded. These remind me of my childhood home where these grew wild in the meadow.

Double geum. This plant has given a wonderful show of colour.

Finally, the cosmos sensation if starting to show signs of flowering. It has grown really big and although the feathery leaves are interesting, I was hoping it would flower for me.

1st spuds and other jobs

Ah, what a nice view. The photo above is the sight that awaits me as I pull up to the allotment. The sweet peas are glorious so I think I will have to have some of those in every year.

I thought I'd take a snap of that flowering shrub I mentioned in the previous post. Isn't it pretty? It says it grows to 30x30cm so I thought it would be fine in this old metal bucket. It makes me smile anyway, even if I can't eat it like most things on the lottie!

As I was tidying up the edges of the 'road end' bed and doing a spot of weeding, I noticed how many ladybirds there were on the plot. Of course, this is a good thing - I have plenty of blackfly they need to eat and they're just so darned attractive! This is a snap of one that I spotted (hardy ha!) on the runner beans.

Hooray! I got something ticked off my 'to do' list - I re-netted the broccoli as it was growing too big for the original net protection I put up. You can see the difference between the cauliflower (left) and the broccoli (right). They were the same before I re-netted. I don't think I need to re-net the cauliflower as they look like they're just about right. I did some weeding around the broccoli as I had the net off but I think I'll just leave the weeds under the cauliflower net for now. I noticed that all the plants had broccoli forming so I can't wait for that to be ready :)
I am getting a bit fed up with all the grass, and to be honest, a little embarrassed I'm not using all my plot for growing. Yes, I know I've not been there that long really (especially as I had most of May off!) and I am doing most of the work solo, but I am feeling guilty. I plan on putting 3 new strip beds in between the 'road end' bed and the 9-grid bed. I made a start on taking the turf off the first one in the stifling heat of yesterday. It was hard going as the ground is pretty rock solid from the hot weather and it must've been in the high 20s when I was digging. I did set up my chair and parasol with a big water-filled bottle for breaks but I didn't get as much done as I'd like before I started to feel a bit too faint to carry on! Ah well, at least I've made a start.

I'm a curious ol' thing and thought I'd take a peek at the progress of my charlotte potatoes. One of my allotment neighbours told me that once the flowers turn, the potatoes should be ready, apparently. My flowers on the pots were on the turn so I thought I'd take a peek at the new potato crop. This is what I found...Yes, there are potatoes to eat - and delicious they were too, but I think I'll wait a while longer before digging too many up. There were still quite a few tiny potatoes so I replanted one of the plants I dug up to see if it will keep growing. This is the 'haul' from 2 plants...

Jam and whatnot

The raspberries are out in full force now. The other day I picked 1kg easily so now I have 7 jars of raspberry jam! Next time I am going to try some tray-bake recipes and cheesecakes, etc. Got to freeze the surplus too. Can't let good raspberries go to waste.

I gave some raspberries and sweet peas to my neighbours as they're lovely and always very helpful. I got some lettuce and rocket in return so this was last night's tea - a salad with black peppercorns, goat's cheese and sweet chilli sauce. Yum!

I followed that with raspberries and vanilla icecream. A very cheap meal! And so tasty too :)

When I went down the allotment yesterday @ 5pm - too hot in the day - I planted out some leeks and dwarf beans. I pulled out some peas as they weren't looking healthy. I also did LOADS of watering! Need to get some tomato food for my tommies and re-net the broccoli as it has grown too big! Spotted some frogs in the pond too which was good to see. Hopefully they're feasting on my slugs!

I also built my new bbq and one of those mini greenhouses, the ones like a wendy house. Not sure how long it will last but thought I'd give it a go. Need somewhere to grow my seedlings as the tommies in the shed are huge now, so no room for seedlings in there! Bbq-ing tonight :)

'Surgery', strawberries and sale plants

...hmm, how do i do this??!

Saturday afternoon/eve was spent down't allotment with my friend, Eva. I needed a helper so I could get my raspberries netted - not a solo task! - so I was terribly greatful she volunteered her help. There are many jobs an allotmenteer can do solo but sometimes one needs help! It took a while to decide how best to tackle the netting as the raspberries are mixed in with the other soft fruit in a 7 x 5m bed. It would cost a fortune to do the whole thing so I am prioritising raspberries this year as my fruit to protect :) I plumped for a longer-lasting net and went with 2 packs of 8 x 2m 12mm pond netting. Luckily most of the raspberries are at one end of the bed so I could net most of them. Here's some pics - I was quite pleased with the results and, like ever, I did a neat (read "perfectionist's"!) job and more or less sewed the two nets together - I felt a bit like a surgeon!

i'm going in!

...and for my next trick, i will make a raspberry net out of bamboo canes, plant ties and pond covering!

ta da!! surgical stitching!

here's the finished result. no bird is getting at them there raspberries!! muhaha!

So, job done :) That was all I'd planned to do. That, and water the plants. However, we all know it is far too easy to get distracted, especially by reduced sale-price plants. Yes, I succumbed to 2x sweet peppers, 1x tomato (will look up the type), 1x pack of 6 cherry tomatoes, 4x pumpkins, 2x leek packs. I also got drawn in by a handsome-looking blueberry bush. Not that I needed more soft fruit but I don't have a blueberry... oh it is all too easy to get sidetracked!

2nd big bed, newly planted out with pumpkins, peppers, tommies to go with already planted sweetcorn, aubergines, baby sweetcorn and potatoes - busy bed!

Next, plant out that impulse-buy blueberry...!

Look at me go! ha! However, this next photo will show you why I bought it - it's so handsome!

*sigh*

I am also having a fantastic run on juicy, scrumptious strawberries. I picked about 750g of ripe red beauties. The net I put over them really has protected the crop and more or less all were pristine. There are some real whoppers and the taste and smell is heaven!


The rest of the allotment is coming on in leaps and bounds. Here are a few snaps of what's growing...

sweet peas

developing flower and herb bed

vialii primula

ripening blackcurrants

globe artichokes starting to flower

charlotte potatoes - bottom right's looking a little sad :(

broccoli, red onions and charlotte potatoes

charlotte potatoes, red onions, broccoli and cauliflower

So, all going well. I hope your growing's going good :)