December allotment tasks

Okay, in lieu of what we are doing, shall I tell you about what we should be doing?

• Scrubbing out the cold frame which had our cucumbers in it. Okay, honesty is called for. The cold frame that still has our (deceased) cucumber plants in it! The glass needs washing down with hot soapy water and then all the gremlins like moss and algae need to be scraped off with a palette knife.
• Fence repairs – we’ve never actually got around to replacing the fence at the front of the plot, where it joins the ‘road’ and I suspect we never will now, but the fence panel (half pallet) nearest the gate has rotted through its support and needs replacing. We should really give it all another coat of wood preservative too, as I suspect the preservative is the only thing holding most of the fence together!
• I ought to be earthing up my kale and Brussels sprouts too.
• I’ve already mulched my rhubarb and globe artichokes but I notice that the Guardian allotment blog also advises putting straw or bracken around globe artichoke crowns, so I am relaxed about my own plant-to-plant mulching system and actually think I might be able to teach their blogger a trick!

And why am I not doing any of this? Because it’s still raining …

PS - isn't this the BEST scarecrow ever?

Labels: allotment-fences, allotment-scarecrow, allotment-tasks-december

Quick and dirty allotment gardening

Actually, that’s misleading. There’s a lot of dirty but not much quick I’m afraid. The past week has meant every spare minute we’ve been digging. Digging. Digging.

And it’s really tough digging too, as plot 201 hasn’t been worked for at least a year, probably two. Compared to Duncan’s plot, where the soil has been turned and rotovated at least twice it’s like digging through rock when it’s dry and clay when it’s wet, but it will be worth it when we put our early potatoes in.

What do you think of our scarecrow? He’s called The Green Man and I rather like the idea of an abstract bird scarer – whether the birds will actually be scared by a cartoon man is another matter ….

Labels: allotment-digging, allotment-potatoes, allotment-scarecrow