At least it wasn’t cold!

Having packed Mrs D and the kids off round to friends to knit and play respectively, I wasn’t about to let a bit of rain put me off a couple of hours on the plot.

The plan was to plant up six of the rhubarb crowns to a bed at the front of the plot and then move the raspberries to the same bed. It wasn’t too bad on this bed at the front as it had been covered over since last Autumn but digging out the raspberries was very muddy. The mountain of bind weed and couch grass roots that came with them didn’t really help with this, but it is very satisfying to get them out. I’ll need to dig this bed over again as I’m sure there will still be plenty more in there. Not to mention sort of the paths around it.

I also straightened up one of the long suffering apple trees (possibly Discovery?). The problem is, it too is congested with bindweed round there and I’m not sure if it might be easier to dig up the tree to weed around it and then plant it again, with a stake this time. It’s still quite small so is a possibility.

The rhubarb and raspberries were then all planted up in the near dark, by which time I was thoroughly soaked too and headed off home for some dry clothes. OK, I admit it’s not easy to see in the picture!

Earlier that day…
I’d dropped off a few of the rhubarb crowns to their new homes this morning and placed my first order of the year via the allotment shop at the nearby site. I’ve ordered 2.5kg of Charlotte, Pink Fir Apple, King Edward and Desiree, all very traditional and for the princely sum of £9.70. I’ll probably share some of these with my Dad and then get some others to go with them. Possibly some Salad Blue and some other maincrop variety.

Alien Invasion?

Expecting conditions to be somewhat reminiscent of the Somme, it was with some trepidation I approached the task of lifting and dividing the rhubarb on (the long neglected) plot no. 2. It’s a bit of a mess up there and needs some serious tidying but winter isn’t being too obliging with first snow, then frost and now endless rain.

Fortunately it’s always quite dry up there and it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Well the weather wasn’t. Digging up and splitting rhubarb crowns that have obviously been there a while is no easy task. Last year they weren’t so productive and started flowering so I decided lifting, dividing and moving was the answer. Once they were out the ground I divided them up into 12 large crowns! Yes 12.

Alien crash landing?

I reckon I’ll keep six of the crowns so I can force two each year, rest two and then have ‘normal’ rhubarb from the other two. I offered the others to a few people, not expecting such a positive response but now I think I’ll have to ration them!

As I said the rest of the plot is a mess so I set about trying to tidy up some of the other areas.

In front of the pond

Firstly, I cut down a small willow by the pond. You can’t eat willow and it makes it harder to get at the ground elder to dig it out. I’m gradually working my way around three sides of the pond taking out shrubs and trees, and attempting to dig out the ground elder – which I’m fully expecting to be doing for some time to come. Unfortunately I think the pond liner has a leak somewhere, any ideas on how to find a leak?

Apple tree at slight angle

The poor apple tree, the larger of the two Belle de Boskoop, was always growing at an angle – presumably as a result of it not being staked when planted – but the weight of fruit and winds last year have further pushed/pulled it further over. It’s going to need a serious prune to try to get it growing upwards again, and the blackcurrants where planted far too close. All the apple trees have some ‘issues’ with leaning and after leaving the plot I went home via the garden centre to buy a tree stake to hopefully save the youngest tree before it ends up like the other two.

I’m toying with the idea of buying some rootstock in an attempt to try grafting the trees. Not because I want more of these apples, just something I’d like to be able to do.

A work in progress

In front of the youngest tree is a load of comfrey – sadly not the sterile type, given how much of it I seem to have – lots of couch grass and some raspberries in there somewhere – Tulameen apparently. Which is a bit of a blow as I thought these were autumn fruiting and chopped them down to the ground with a view to moving them. Apparently they’re summer fruiting. I guess that’ll be next year we get fruit from them then! I dug over some of this bed, whilst dodging the apple tree branches, but let’s be honest there is still much to do here…

Also on the list of things to do is to get the seed order in before the Allotment Association deadline next week.

Baby, it’s cold outside!

1.22pm on Tuesday afternoon up on plot no. 2

New bed!

The front of plot no. 2 has always been a bit of a mess and despite having other intentions I ended up sorting this out. Which was probably no bad thing!

It all started when I took the kids to Wildlife Watch Group on Saturday morning. One of their tasks for the morning was to clear the leaves from the path. To be honest it was never going to be a goer with just 4 kids this month and that many leaves, but not one to miss trick like this I acquired a dozen bags of leaves.

So after taking the kids home and picking up the car to take the leaves to the plot, I needed somewhere to put them. Which was how I started tidying up the front of the plot. Anyhow, many roots of bind weed later, the remains of what appeared to be a compost heap (bonus find!), some carpet and edging the bed this is what it ended up like:

Spot the leaves in plastic bags by the hedge

I then covered this over with some weed fabric whilst I think what to put there. At the moment I’m thinking the rhubarb may go in there as I think it’s looking a bit tired where it is and desperately needs dividing.

Further up the plot, this is the sorry state on an apple tree that is suffering from not having been staked when it was planted and then having fruited very heavily this year.

I think it’s going to have to have a serious prune this year at the very least to see if it can be salvaged.

As an interesting side note after much discussion about what variety the tree is, Bob from the plot opposite bumped into the people who originally planted it. According to them, they bought it as a Bramley…

And the answer is….

… Belle de Boskoop! Probably.

For those of you wondering what I’m on about, I took the family to RHS Harlow Carr today for their Taste of Autumn event. On what proved to be the coldest day of the autumn so far (aka bloody freezing!), the kids were amused by the monster trail and seemed not to notice the cold, whilst Mrs D and I found a sheltered spot and drank hot soup.

The monster trail just happened to take us via the apple identification greenhouse being carried out by the Northern Fruit Group. After filling in some paperwork to let them know everything I knew about the apple – it didn’t take long to fill in! – the first suggestion was Belle de Boskoop. After various consultations with books and a comparison with the ones on display it was agreed that this was what it probably was. Despite the fact it didn’t look much like the one they had on display, mine being far redder.

Northern Fruit Group version

My version of Belle de Boskoop

Still they seemed impressed with my apples and said it would be good to graft some trees from them as mine are very red and appeared to be a good apple, so place your orders now!

After a bit of searching once I got home, apparently they’re somewhat sort after and much more common in mainland Europe, having originated in Holland. They also make a very good apple pie – which I will selflessly be making and eating, purely in the interests of research of course – store very well, mellowing around Christmas time to make them edible as an ‘eater’. Which is what I was hoping for and well worth looking after those in storage!

The apple display was good, with a wonderful smell and they even had some apples for sale – we declined.

After the kids finished the monster trail we headed for Betty’s Tea Shop (the branch at the Gardens), took one look at the queue, bought a couple of cakes to keep the kids happy and headed home, with the heater on to defrost. Sadly there seemed to be far more people in the Tea Shop than the Gardens.

Apples, apples, apples

Why do I have two plots on two different sites? It’s a question I’m often asked and one I wonder about myself at times. But this is the time of year when I remember why: apples.

It’s reached mid-October and I was beginning to worry about my apples on plot no. 2 going ‘walkabout’. So I thought I’d pick one or two. Or 150 or so. And after giving another 30+ away I’d say I’ve probably got as many again still to pick.

They’re still a bit reluctant to come away from the tree even this late in the year, but when they get home they undergo careful inspection and are separated into the good and ugly – the bad already having being left on the compost heap.

The Good

 The good I’m giving a quick clean and then wrapping them individually in newspaper and storing them in trays.

The bad are hanging around waiting to be used up in whatever recipes we can find – the ‘bad’ are those with any blemishes on that probably won’t keep so well. We’re going to be busy this weekend!

The Ugly

So far on the list of recipes are: oatmeal, apple and cinnamon cookies, spiced apple chutney and apple fruit leather. Any further suggestions gratefully received. This is the point where my planned apple press would have come in handy, but alas finances didn’t allow for that this year.

Still none the wiser as to what they are but we’re off to Harlow Carr on either 23 or 24 October when (hopefully!) all will be revealed.

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!

Not everyone likes the new path!

Today I received a letter from the allotment officer ‘kindly requesting’ I sort out the state of my plot (plot no 2), officially a ‘part cultivation’ letter. The shame of it!

Maybe I should spent a bit more time weeding rather than working on the path.To be honest looking at certain parts of it, I can see where he’s coming from but Mrs D was not so happy. She was of the opinion that it’s obvious that I have been working the plot and with so many plots not being worked at all… But rules is rules I guess, even if they are a little vague, and I’ve got 28 days before I get send a more serious letter!

Suitably admonished I took the camera up there to record the shamefully scene, only after taking the photos and taking the camera home I realised there was no CF card in it… Wasn’t all bad news I did at least start on the tidying up. Realising first impressions count, I figured the patch on the left at the front of the plot should probably be first on the list.

Earlier this year the plan was to give this spot to the kids to grow some stuff themselves, but a distinct lack of enthusiasm on their part combined with my tendancy to throw all of the weeds and rubbish on this part of the plot meant it was in no condition to do anything with. Most of this space does seem to be covered in old carpet I’ve ‘harvested’ from elsewhere in the plot which is a little frustrating as I’ll need to get it off site somehow – as seen below once camera and CF card were reunited – and this is after I’d made a start on it!

A couple of very hot and sweaty hours later, it’s looking slightly better at the front of the plot and the main path is a step nearer to completion. There’s a big pile of weeds – that I’m officially referring to as a compost heap for now! – in a contained area, an equally large pile of old carpet (have I ever mentioned how much I hate carpet on allotments…?), and several miles of old hose pipe…

Further up the plot…

There’s an apple tree in there somewhere!

After a few more hours, it’s looking a whole lot better, most of the front corner has been cleared and I’ll get that planted up with either salad leaves, herbs or green manure once I’ve given it a proper dig over. The ‘compost heap’ is growing ever larger, the hedge on the right hand side has been largely tamed (together with the neighbours), much of the grown elder and weeds further up the plot have been cut down, but large amounts of comfrey remain. The previous plot holder was obvious a big fan. The stuff is everywhere, I obviously have the invasive type. Whilst I do use some of it I usually end up leaving it to go to flower which the bees adore, but it does tend to look a bit unsightly all over the place – and probably isn’t the best idea if it’s the invasive type! The problem is I’m loathed to cut it down when it’s covered in bees, sounds like a job for when it’s raining.

In amongst all the plot tidying…

Unfortunately I’d let the radish go ‘too far’ and it was hollow inside. The coriander is self seeded from last year and the strawberries are just beginning to take off – the defences against the wildlife are a bit OTT this year – it took me half an hour to pick those few!

Following a new path?

I’m toying with the idea of moving to WordPress – mainly because they have much nicer gadgets than Blogger. And a lot more control over things like design, etc. But enough of the boring stuff like that…

Avid readers (!) of the blog may remember plot no. 2 had wonderful beds edged in slate. Besides being completely ineffective and just providing a great environment for slugs and weeds they were a bit of a safety hazard. OK they were lethal. So I took them out and piled them up by the hedge where they’ve remained for sometime now. In that time the main path down the middle(ish) of the plot has been getting out of hand with weeds – not helped by me throwing all the weeds on the path…

So now the plot is in such great shape (not!) I thought I’d better do something with the path. So after digging out a lot of old carpet (I hate carpet on allotments. If anyone is thinking of using carpet on an allotment: DON’T DO IT!) and a lot of weeds I covered the main path with weed suppressing fabric and edged the path/beds with some old pallet collars I acquired last year. Finally I put the slate on top of the weed fabric and broke it up with a lump hammer.

It’s still a work in progress – i.e. it’s not finished yet – but you’d pay good money for a slate path like that. OK maybe you wouldn’t pay if it was one of my paths, but the wonky look is in keeping with the rest of the plot!