Urban Garden Allotment

Butternut squash and yellow courgette also planted into pots today.  That’s for the big spaces on the allotment.  The peas and beans are starting to come up so hopefully will be able to get them out soon.  Going to try growing sunflowers again this year so have potted some up, love roasted sunflower seeds.

Not a bad day today for England!  Spent five hours down the allotment today, with a little help from the elves. After the fruit a lot of weeding was done (A whole brown wheelie bin full), a patch dug, radishes and spring onions planted. Potatoes are coming up and the garlic is doing better in some places than others. The shallots are also coming up.  It’s a lot of work, but its finally coming together.

We said it was going to be fruity!  We weeded the fruit cage and wired the raspberries up.  Hopefully they will get more light this way and be easier to pick, maybe a better yield than last year?  The redcurrents are packed this year, lets hope they ripen.  Once again nom nom nom!

Fruity!!!! Hopefully we will have loads of fruit this year.  Strawberries galore, not forgetting the ones in the box. Blackberries and the new rhubarb is finally coming to life.  So much more fruit sown the allotment this year than ever before! Nom Nom Nom!

So one of the elves has been hard at it again.  They have planted loads of beans, more to be planted soon.Three types of bean went in, runner beans, yellow beans and black beans (black and yellow bush/french beans). Hopefully they will survive the little frost of the another night.  Must get the structures for them up soon at the allotment so we can see how much space we are left with.  Oh, standalone peas also went in today, never heard of them before so lets see how they do.

Our friend came and kept an eye out down the allotment today, she had a few visitors so was really happy. Intently looking at a pigeon in this picture..  The old fruit cage is finally weeded, yay!  Next job wiring the raspberries.  The blueberries seem to be coming along.  Two out of three of the new rhubarb are doing well, but one, not sure if it is going to pull through, fingers crossed.  The garlic seems to be doing well too, no sign of the shallots or potatoes yet though.  There was a frost last night, very late for here, hope it doesn’t effect anything.

Managed to get a couple of hours down the allotment today.  First job, strawberries.  We cleared the old compost bin strawberries and moved some strawberries off the new bed into the gaps.  The strawberries in the tumblers seem to be doing well all by themselves.  There will be another strawberry bed at the very front of the new bed, just need to move a few more across from the bed next to it.  Then that bed will be cleared, thanks to an elf that seems to have been down this week and cleared another bed!

Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb! Yes we planted three more Rhubarbs today.  Different variety this time, trying Champagne Rhubarb crowns.  Fingers crossed they take, last time only one out of two did. We’re trying to make a mini hedge out of them to section off our old bed. We also managed to clear another section of the new beds and planted Desire and Wilja potatoes.  So three types of potatoes in now.  The garlic from last week is starting to come through and the other garlic is starting to get a bit bigger - we were soooo late!  One of the elves stayed at home today, potting up Lemon Grass, Yellow Courgette/summer squash and Butternut squash.  Can’t wait for the summer!

As it was such a lovely day today in the UK (yes you did hear me right..it was warms, dry and SUNNY!!  yay!) we got quite a lot done, more than we thought we would.  We managed to clear two of the raised beds of weeds, and almost clear the fruit cage.  The fruit cage is now ready for wiring this week to make the raspberries grow in rows.  We moved the redcurrent bush out of the middle and into our newly cleared cage.  Let’s hope it takes OK. The crocuses for the saffron will go up the other end and a couple of surprise bushes will be appearing soon.  We also planted shallots, more garlic and the purple potatoes.  The garlic we planted earlier is starting to sprout through, as is the rhubarb and more potatoes are chitting, phew!!  Forgot how much fun the allotment is.

As promised, today is the day to start the real work down the allotment. Aim is to clear the fruit cage and this year get trained properly and clear some of our new beds.  Our neighbours from plot 1 very kindly gave us some special potatoes - purple majesty, everything from flowers, to leaves to right through the potato are purple!  Can’t wait to try these…the year of the strange coloured fruit and veg maybe?

Forgot to say one of us is out of action again!  Snapped Achilles tendon, anyone would think they don’t like digging and weeding ;)  Bet they will be fit for harvest time though..2 out of three years a tendon has been snapped! (see archive 2 years ago)…..Lets wish them a speedy recovery 

Oh Oh Oh, we have been so bad!  But today is the day for change and back on with the allotment, we are all actually really looking forward to it this year and determined it won’t be such a wash out as last year. We’ve also been really lucky and gained some more land. We have gained some raised beds and another cage as well so will be able to plant some different things.  We want to go try to go unusual as well this year, whether its colours or varieties or unusual fruit and veg - lets see how that goes.

Today has been a day of planning and shopping….tomorrow time to get the soil in order, fertilizing and weeding and a few things to plant too, watch this space…..

(p.s. promise we will be back here more often as well!)

For those with eagle eyes you may have noticed the new addition to the allotment team.  First time down today even though she has been with us for 3 years.  Think she’s going to make a gread bird watcher.

The rest of the allotment looks pretty OK considering we haven’t been there for 4 months! Weeds seem to have kept pretty much at bay and ound the rhubard coming back. Next job the fruit bushes and fertilizing the rest of the earth.