Autumn planting

Brrr. Autumn is here! 10 odd curly kale, and spring cabbages, 4 rows of Aquadulce broad beans. I did worry that they went in too early, but then I hope it gives them a good chance, come early spring.

2 rows of red onion sets, Electra, and 2 rows of white onions, a Japanese variety. Other than that, all is starting to quieten down, time for tidying up, DIY and digging. The digging never ends! Mum came to help with getting the grass under control and getting rid of the ancient fruit bushes, Dave made great progress with digging one large area.

slow progress

Well, after a busy summer, we have had some successes:

Potatoes:

Rocket- 1st earlies, these were tasty, but very fluffy and hard to cook, they made excellent rustic mash! I've never seen such a white flesh.

Charlottes- lovely and waxy, only a couple had slug damage.


Tomatos:

San Marzano- fantastic cookers, making lots of passata

Super sun cherry- Rolo is eating these off the plant. I can now say I like tomatos.



Stupidly, I tried to dig out some old fruit bushes. It hasn't rained in weeks. I bent the border fork.

I skip dived a second water butt. I need more though, we have no taps on site. So I might end up buying cheap bins with lids for the winter, to store water, and Dave is going to fix a freecycled piece of guttering to the shed.

Planted some broad beans today. These should go in, in a couple of weeks along with my onion sets.

Chits away!!

Well, got the spuds on their way. We have...

First Earlies: Arran Pilot
Second Earlies: Charlotte
Main Crop: Maris Pipers

Spout away please!!!

We had a week off work, but too much snow to get anything on the allotment. So we finished the shed instead. Photos to come! Now I have somewhere to get my seedlings on the go.

Before:



After:




Dave stimmed and strimmed. He cleared all of it today, including rasberries and rhubarb. We decided on getting rid and starting again some other time. Mullered Rhubarb..........








Dug shed into soil, after it blew over. We were really lucky, R1bazza kindly rescued our tools yesterday, nice to know how friendly our fellow allotmenteers are. So glad the shed is now where I've planned it to be, and not stuck in the middle of the plot.






Over the last week I've met quite a few neighbours, One showed me all his progress, and a underground trough where frogs live. Lets hope they eat slugs. Another is on the committee and was keen for me to get involved, and some other old boy just thinks I'm jealous of his nicely rotted muck. Perhaps I am. Did I ever expect to be jealous of poo?

I disturbed several ladybirds today, dunno what they were upto..



Still don't know whether to keep these currant bushes. I want to, Dave doesn't.


Dave dug out the side of this bed. I removed some couch grass from it later on. It should be our first bed. Might put onions in it.



Having somewhere to perch my behind has come in very handy. Highly recommended.



Good day all round, but freezing cold now and back is killing me. Must pace myself. Got Willow coming round tomorrow to 'be at one with nature', and roast dinner, and we plan to create a more formal compost bin with the pallets I've accumulated from freecycle, and get a water butt up there too. Might as well take advantage of the rain.

brrrrrr

Went up today for a little digging. Wore my new wellies. Big mistake. Although they are bright green, and very comfortable, it was -3c. My toes froze solid. I could only manage half an hour. Usually once I get going, the blood starts to flow. My god.

The top couple of inches were frozen, but below that, the worms were wiggling.

Some blokes in the other corner of the allotment had a big delivery of well rotted manure from Little Downham. Apparently, the farmer delivers it with his tractor and trailer. Luckily for them, they are near the gate. There's no where for me to have it delivered to. Poo. Literally.

Should have gone fen skating instead!

Here is the new fork. Well chuffed with my new workmate.

Better get dig dig digging.

Shopping for allotment

Do not let me into garden centres. Its lethal. After no success on freecycle, I resorted to homebase and bought the following:

• Mid value fork (wooden shaft, plastic handle, painted prongs)
  
• Cheapest pneumatic wheelled wheelbarrow
• Mid value shovel
• Pepper pot and seed set (in the sale)
• 2 bags of sharp sand

I then couldn't resist popping into the fordham garden centre. Saw a nicer fork, for an extra £6 with ash handle, stainless steel head, nicely balanced, and lighter. So back to homebase I went to return the cheaper fork. Bloody fork handles.

Went up the lotty for an hour. Hand chopped the couch grass around the fruit bushes, and forked out some of the weeds, thus exposing the stawberries. These are Cambridge Favourites. I think there were 2 originally, but there could now be 6! Lots of runners.