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.

Here comes summer!

After the frosts of last week, looking at the forecast I’ve decided summer has arrived. I was feeling rather pleased with myself that my late planting of my spuds meant I’d avoided any frost damage since they weren’t through yet. I spotted the potatoes were through tonight, but on closer inspection my smugness soon disappeared. The tops must have been just under the surface and were burned by the frost – unfortunately the battery on the camera went before I had chance to take a picture.

The strawberries are looking very good too, far more flowers than they’ve ever had on, but they too got caught by the frost.

Hopefully they’ll survive though. The whole plot is very dry again so I gave them a good soaking and feed with the remains of the comfrey feed from last year. I went to make some more and discovered my bucket has sprung a leak. If the weather keeps up though I’ll have to put the ‘defences’ up soon before they start getting eaten.

The red currant and gooseberry bushes are loaded with fruit, but like everything else they needed some water. A good drink later I used some of the leaves to put down a good, deep mulch around both bushes. As with the strawberries I’ll need to net the red currant to make sure I get some of them on the next visit.

The rest of the visit to the plot was putting up the pea and bean netting, a task that always seems to take forever. It would have helped if I’d tidied up the netting when I took it down last year and put it away somewhere instead of dumping it at the bottom of the plot. Once untangled it only took an hour or so to get the up… It would have been easier if I didn’t use the old privet canes and stuck to the nice smooth bamboo canes, but where’s the fun in that!

Finally the rhubarb is in full swing. There are a lot of flowers this year, which I assume is largely due to a lack of water. The old crown I discovered on the plot when I took it on is by far the best crown of the four I now have on this plot.

Getting a steady supply, and given some away already. Soon be on to the jam.