Flowers on the plot… The answers

Quite a few of you had a go at naming the flowers in the blog entry – although I think Susan claiming to have 16 of them within minutes of me posting possibly intimidated some people from entering ;>) And you all obviously know your stuff, but no one got them all correct. So here are the answers:

1. Daisy – not sure what kind they were there when I got the plot and come back stronger each year.

2. Potato, maincrop can’t remember which variety!

3. Chilli.

4. Cucumber – Paris Pickling.

5. Tomato.

6. Foxglove.

7. Allium – of the flowering variety rather than one going to seed.

8. First sweet pea of the year.

9. One of the last Broad Bean flowers.

10. Dahlia – not grown these before.

11. Creeping Buttercup, an ongoing battle to stop them rampaging across the plot.

12. Carnation.

13. French marigold.

14. It’s a squash plant, I can’t remember which one but looking at the number of flowers I’d guess it’s one of the courgettes.

15. Phacelia – self seeded and much loved by the bees.

16. Dill – which seemed to be one of the difficult ones to identify.

17. Sunflower, one of the dwarf ones.

18. Coriander.

Thanks to everyone who had a go, have to try and think of something else later in the year!

Flowers on the Plot

I was wandering round the plot today with the camera and couldn’t help noticing the number of flowers out. Some of them pre-date my time on the plot, some of the are unwanted (i.e. weeds!), some of them are from the fruit and veg and some of them are flowers I’ve planted for cutting.

So I thought I’d have a little competition to see how many you can name. I say competition, there is no prize other than the glory! So here they are, and I’ll give the answers in a few days:

1. They appear every year in the same place, nothing to do with me!

2. Surprising attractive flowers

3. With added greenfly I’ve just noticed!

4. Miniature version, but going down well so far.

5. The taste of summer?

6. Vastly under rated flower.

7. This one’s cheating a bit as it’s not out yet.

8. Almost there.

9. One of the last flowers on this plant, before the mice eat them?

10. New one for me, I’d never have got this one if I didn’t know what it is!

11. It’s all I can do to keep these from taking over the plot.

12. One for the wife.

13. Hopefully keeping the nasties out of the polytunnel.

14. Small at the moment but soon it’ll be trying to take over the plot.

15. This one looks quite spooky.

16. Small and delicate.

17. Just about to explode into life.

18. Last and possibly not the best photo, but it’s a challenge!

Good luck!

Wot no snow and ice?

Well OK I was lying about the ice, but it had defrosted enough to do some work down on the plot to do some work. Strictly speaking it was too wet to be doing much, but you know, time, opportunity, etc.

Just after arriving I spotted an interesting looking bird in the tree. It then helpfully flew down to the plot not long after. Sadly I was too slow with the camera and my knowledge of birds isn’t so good, but chatting to the neighbours later they seemed to think it could have been a sparrowhawk. Sadly it didn’t seem to be scaring any pigeons away. I finally find a use for the tree and the council are going to get rid of it…

Having chopped down the rose bush came the task of digging out the root. I’ve never like roses! Some time later, most of it is out. The rest is going to rot in situ. Hopefully. I tidied up along the wall where the rose was, weeding as best as possible in the conditions. I discovered a couple of blackcurrant bushes I’d put in a couple of years ago as rooted cuttings from the old blackcurrant  bushes. Seem to be doing OK, although couple probably do with being moved.

Wot no rose bush?

Further down is the ‘triffid’ aka the loganberry (the sprawling mass to the left of the picture above). It’s doing its best to take over that side of the plot, so much so I’m going to have to consider putting in some wires to hold it back. Or train it, if you want to get technical. It’s also started to root in various places where has touched the ground. I have cut these away from the main plant and planted them a bit further away to get it to spread along the wall further – which I can’t imagine will be too difficult. I also game one away to Tim on the plot below, along with a few Jerusalem artichokes – along with suitable warnings of their ‘effects’.

In amongst the attempted weeding – mainly of the creeping buttercup – I cut down the raspberry canes. I was in two minds about whether to dig them up due to their poor performance last year, but they’ve had a reprieve for now – and I can’t remember why! I pruned the redcurrant and gooseberry, putting some of the cuttings in the ground to see if they take for new plants. They could both do with moving, but I’m not really sure where to!

So more weeding, moved the decaying dead rat (fortunately no pics!) and off home. Quite a few people around and stopped for a chat at the end, which was a mistake as the sun was going down by this stage and easy to get cold!

There’s a buzz about allotments

I popped down to plot no. 1 this week to plant some garlic, tulips and alliums. Having ordered the tulips and alliums a while back I’d been putting off planting them as I wasn’t sure where to put them. A quick inspection of the bulbs showed why keeping them in the warmest room in the house isn’t the best idea ever… It also helped to sort out where they were going pretty quickly!

I also arranged to meet Gary, a fellow plot holder, down there to hand over some apples and the Association hedge cutters. Gary’s also the bee keeper down on site, and when I wandered over to his plot he was inspecting his hives having treated them for varroa mites.

Now I’ve been around the hives a fair bit, and even seen them when they were swarming earlier in the year so I wasn’t too bothered about being around a few metres away. Well until he got to the new hive he’d been given after it had been abandoned…       

Opening up

Not looking great

They’re not happy!

What you, the reader, can not see if that (a) only one of us is suited and booted for bee inspections – and it’s not me! – and (b) I’m getting further away as I take these photos. They weren’t a happy bunch in this new hive and the inspection didn’t last long before we both ended up at the other end of the plot with angry bees following. Only one of us got stung though and it just goes to show that wearing the full bee suit, veil and gloves doesn’t always help!

It’s an allotment blog, what were you expecting?

You just can’t beat picture of soil!

This is where my strawberries used to be and has now been properly dug over with some leaves, the remains of a bag of manure and the remains of a bag of rockdust added to the soil – as seen above! Now just have to decide what to put here…?

Confused Strawberries

Over at the freshly weeded (honestly!) new strawberry bed – OK I still need to sort the runners out – they’re happily flowering away??? So I moved a bit closer to get a photo and was a little surprised to see strawberries!

 

Can’t see them ripening up now though – LOL.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen…

The apple challenge continues – the challenge being to use as many apples as possible in as many different meals as possible. Apples crumble was a big hit – although it would have been better with toffee as well (according to my son’s friend) – but sausage and bean casserole (with sneaky bits of apple), not so good. But that was more to do with the sausages to be honest. Slabs of apples sauce are in the freezer – it doesn’t take much cooking for them to turn to sauce – but the biggest hit to date (with the kids) has been apple fruit leather.

After a quick cook on the hob, followed by a quick blitz with the blender, it only needed the 20 hours or so in the oven…

I’m thinking maybe the mixture was a bit too liquid when it went in the oven? But it turned out OK in the end and the kids both took some into school to show their respective classes and give some away. The remaining ‘sheet’ rolls up quite nicely and should store in the fridge for a while yet – certainly longer than it’s going to last!

I’m dragging the rest of the family off to the RHS Harlow Carr ‘Taste of Autumn‘ event this weekend – waiting to see which day looks best on the weather forecast first – to reveal all on the apple tree, with luck. Speaking of which, picked another 50 or so the other day, still plenty left… Currently storing the good ones on top of the wardrobe and in the outhouse, may need to find more room soon!

I don’t believe it!

It’s been a while, so time for a catch up. So where to begin…?

Happy Birthday

In the beginning…

It’s now been four years since I first hacked my way on to plot no. 1, encouraged by the mad fools doing the same on the neighbouring plot. It’s still not full cleared, the hedge is still a pain in the ar*e and the tree is still there. However, the hedge is under some sort of control thanks to the Association hedge cutters, I’m promised the tree will go in the next month and I’ve been clearing some old and unproductive blackcurrant bushes, and some of the previously uncleared areas with the Azada – something I wish I’d had when I started! So with all that and the greenhouse to go up, it’s looking good for next year. I have new neighbours at the bottom of the plot too, which might encourage me to keep it a bit tidier down that end too!

Harvest Festival
Never ones to miss an excuse for a party our Association decided to have a Harvest Festival on 11 September. Sadly the weather didn’t play ball and it threw it down a couple of times, but the people that made it along to the day had a good time – aided by a barrel of beer from one of the local breweries and some friendly competitions. Sadly my impressive display of around 20 different fruits and vegetables didn’t cut any ice with the judge we invited along and I didn’t even get a place yet alone the coveted allotment trowel!

Mine is the box at the top of the photo, the one at the bottom pipped me to 3rd place.

 
However, the kids did get joint first in the miniature garden competition, my bramble jam came second in the jam category and Mrs D controversially came 3rd with her chocolate beetroot cake in the cake with a vegetable ingredient category. Controversial as the 2nd place entry was bilberry muffins…

Prize winners with their garden

Still aided by the beer and a barbeque with supplies from one of our local butchers and sweetcorn, peppers and mushrooms from our local fruit and veg shop, the afternoon went very well. The barbeque went so well that it was still going the following afternoon when we went to clear up the remaining stuff, so we just dug out the remaining food and carried on!

The only downer to the weekend was the plot we had the event on (supposedly our community orchard) had been served with a notice to quit just the day beforehand – ironically just before our first major event on it and at a time when it was looking better than it had ever done so! Fortunately our Allotment Officer is a reasonable man and it looks like we might get a reprieve.

Potatoes
Given the choice between accompanying his Mum and sister to a local cafe, no. 1 child decided to come with me to plot no. 2 (sadly without a camera). I had ‘hired’ the hedge cutters from the Association on the other site to tackle the rapidly getting out of control hedges, which I tackled whilst he wore the safety visor and ear defenders… Once that was finished we moved on to the maincrop potatoes (Romeo and Pink Fir Apple). The few we’ve had from plot no. 1 have suffered considerably with slug damage – annoyingly most of these being the larger ones. After some discussion as to whether there’d be more or less than 10 on the first plant (he went for less than 10) we dug it up between us and counted 24 potatoes! This set the tone for the 3 rows we dug up (largely romeo, but 3 PFA plants too), which produced a sack and a half of potatoes which don’t seem to have suffered from blight, have very little slug damage and are a good size, so all good there then. And we even managed to get them bagged up before it started raining.

Now all I need to do is to find somewhere for these – they’re currently in the boot of the car. We have about 5 bags of shallots and onions in the kitchen at the moment (including two bags that Mrs D has crocheted to get them off the floor!). Then there are the pumpkins – only had a couple of Crown Prince but they feel good and are awaiting a suitably grand recipe. The other plants I grew were Gem Store which have proved to be prolific – 24 off just two plants. They are just a bit bigger than a cricket ball so are a great size to use up in one meal, but also have thick skins which should mean they’ll keep well. There should be room in the old outhouse for lots of things, but I’m a bit concerned when I start picking apples. They might not be as big as they have been in previous years, but the trees are full of apples…

Look at the hedge on that!

The Allotment Association was fortunate enough to get a grant for a hedge cutter earlier this year and I finally got my hands on it a couple of weeks ago. Harder work than I thought it would be – truth be told my arms ached for several days after, but that may have something to do with my nice comfy office job and not being used to manual labour! However, I’m quite pleased with the results. Even the hedge inside the plot isn’t looking too bad, but you’ll have to take my word for that!

Nice bulbs!
Those of you struggling with onions and garlic this year, look away now!

Plot no. 1

Plot no. 2

First onions

Shallots

Garlic, almost ready for plaiting

This is the ‘reward’ for our summer up here, apart from a few weeks in June it’s been wet enough for them to grow very well, possibly my best year yet. Well for the white onions anyway, reds are a bit disappointing. The kitchen has been home to a tray full of shallots and another of garlic drying for the last couple of weeks too – as it’s been far too wet to dry them outside. It does mean we end up waking to an onion/garlic aroma though and the bad news is I haven’t dug up many of the onions yet…

Elsewhere on plot no. 1 the sunflowers are looking good, although they may be getting a bit too big to support themselves now and they could do with a bit more sun so they actually come out!

However, after that it all starts going downhill… The bottom of the plot has been ‘lost’ again and will need to be reclaimed so I can eventually get the greenhouse up.

Erm, wildlife area…

There should be a greenhouse here!

Continuing on the weed theme…

There’s some Brussels in here

After a couple of hours I ‘re-discovered’ this bed, reclaiming it from the weeds, planting some Purple Sprouting Broccoli (a bit late I know), giving them all some seaweed meal and re-netting the whole bed. Sadly no pics of this hard work, but I’m hoping to mulch the bed with leafmold later today to keep the weeds down – hopefully with camera in attendance.

Up on plot no. 2, the lettuce are going to seed (must try successional sowing…), the courgettes (aka marrows – must not go on holiday in summer again) are growing like mad, getting plenty of peas (all of which are eaten before ever seeing a saucepan), even some carrots (!), beetroot (which makes a great chocolate beetroot cake!), french beans are coming along well but could do with some sun and the pumpkin patch is giving the bindweed a run for its money.

The apple trees are loaded with fruit too, although a bit small still.

 And finally, the reason why I can get away with spending many a long hour on the plots…

… keeping Mrs D supplied in sweetpeas!

"Are you going to do anything with that greenhouse?"

Having sat in the garden since I collected it, gradually killing off the lawn I put down last year, Mrs D has been dropping subtle hints that I should do something with it. So I dug out the instructions and measured out the base to start the foundations.

Before:

After:

The greenhouse to go in just fits inside the old walls of the previous greenhouse, which will hopefully help to retain the heat. Given the size of the greenhouse it needs some decent foundations, so the plan is to put down some concrete before laying one course of bricks on top on this to put the greenhouse on. I’m now a big fan of instant concrete! Whether it has been accurately measured and is level, well stay tuned to fine that out but hopefully these can be ‘ironed out’ when I lay the bricks.

Elsewhere on the plot, not much happened after carrying several bags of concrete! However I weeded round some of the fruit bed. The strawberries are coming into flower:

The gooseberry bush is just beginning to start forming fruits:

Along with the red currant next to it:

My dwarf peas are through:

And the broad beans I started off in toilet rolls are slowly getting going. Like the rest of the plot, they could do with the weather being a bit warmer:

The garlic is doing better this year than last. It’s in a nice sunny location and I’ve been giving it a bit more care and attention after the disappointment of last year. It’s been a bit battered in the wind recently so I straightened up a few of them and firmed them it. Next years strawberry bed in in the foreground, some of them have some flowers on which I will take off to promote the plants growth – I did this with the blueberries on the plot too, although I was sad to do this hopefully it will play off next year.

Finally, the shallots are looking quite happy now it’s been a bit wetter, here shown in a rare (almost) straight line on the plot!