Allotment generosity

Here’s what we’ve been loaned or given so far:

Petrol powered strimmer (loan)
Van (loan)
Celery, tomato, garlic, leek and cabbage seedlings
Echium seedlings
Water butt
Wood and pallets to build fencing
Unlimited amounts of advice!

It’s amazing how nice people can be when they see you up on the plot. We’ve noticed it before of course, but because we’ve always been ‘visitors’ on other people’s plots, we’d sort of assumed it was the plot owner’s sunny personality that caused the generosity.

Now we have a plotshare, we’re finding that the generosity continues (and I don’t have a sunny personality, so it can’t be that!)

We haven’t forgotten our old friends who gave us so many opportunities to work alongside them until we got a plot of our own – on Sunday we’re going up to sink a small pool liner for Beryl, and I’ve potted up a marsh marigold to give it an instant start – a kind of housewarming present for a pond!

Tomorrow’s tasks:

--Plant cabbage seedlings
--Water if necessary
--Weed around beans and beetroot
--Work out where to put celery! It’s self-blanching, but even so, we didn’t think we’d get any in this year, so we’re having to be a bit flexible about our plot plans.

Labels: allotment-june, allotment-seedlings, allotment-tasks

December allotment tasks

If like us, you’re struggling with allotment motivation in this bad weather, it’s worth thinking about all the good things that next year will bring you if you put in the effort now. This is what our neighbours have on their allotment ‘to do’ lists:

Winter pruning apple and pear trees to remove diseased wood and improve the shape – especially to try and get trees down to a reasonable height, because one of the major problems with allotment trees is that if the previous plot holder didn’t stay on top of pruning, you inherit something you can only harvest with a thirty foot ladder! It really should be a sacred trust to keep trees in trim, because it’s so hard to get them back down to picking size once they get out of hand.

Digging in manure where the brassica bed will be next year, and turning the compost in bins or heaps, to let in a bit of air which will speed up the decomposition process through the winter months when the normally active bacteria become dormant in the cold.

General weeding – especially along paths and around fruit bushes and trees, and general maintenance like checking roofs for leaks, gutters for blockages and compost bins for seeping or rotten areas if they are wooden.

Lots of plot holders are using this damp and miserable weather to highlight the areas of their plot that are holding water, and as soon as the rain stops and the frosts begin they will dig in sand and compost to help with drainage – the frosts will help break up the soil and add air to it, which encourages water to drain and gives added fertility.

Labels: allotment-compost, allotment-crops, allotment-december, allotment-fruit, allotment-tasks

A busy few weeks

My next couple of weeks are going to be pretty busy. As well as preparing the ground for next year by digging in the goode olde mucke, which has to be done on dry days because wet soil is really horrible to work and anyway, isn’t friable enough to mix well with the manure, I shall be:

Planting out garlic bulbs for a crop next summer – November is the last possible date for this and if it turns out to be too wet to plant the bulbs outside, I shall simply start the cloves off in modular trays and over-winter them in a cold frame or even bring them home and put them in my plastic greenhouse until I can plant them out on the site in March, or, if the weather is good, February.

Sowing green manure where I grew Brussels sprouts last year - the crop will be dug into the soil in February or March to give organic nourishment to the soil in spring. Winter rye can be sown as late as November and that’s what I’m going to try.

Pruning my raspberry canes, blackcurrants and redcurrants - we don’t have gooseberries on the plot as yet, although I want to get some soon. I like the dessert gooseberries best, the red ones, but they are a pricey investment, so I might just settle for some of the standard green ones, which a generous allotment neighbour has offered to give me as hardwood cuttings taken last autumn and ready to plant out early in spring.

Labels: allotment-pruning, allotment-tasks, garlic-crop, green-manure

October tasks

If you’re making compost, you can look at your comfrey and see if it’s ready to become an organic accelerator. A rich compost is vital to for soil health and plant growth and comfrey both accelerate decomposition of green waste into compost and provides beneficial nutrients to the overall mix

Leeks need to be weeded now, and if you’re lazy that means hoeing, while if you’re a committed leek lover, it’s down on the hands and knees. The risk of hoeing, of course, is that you swipe the top off a leek or two as you go. – I suppose it all depends which is more important to you – time or leeks! Weeding is a general process now, as every cleared area is likely to sprout a bunch of miserable weeds.

October’s a funny time of year on the allotments – half the plots have begun to clear, which leaves them looking empty and rather boring, the other half are still stuffed (and sometimes overstuffed) with crops, flowers and various gubbins. Above is an example of the stuffed allotment, and doesn’t it look great!

While you’re out there, why not think about planting something permanent – my suggestion would be a pyracantha for the lovely autumn colours of the berries which will feed the birds through the winter: if you want to be a bird feeder choose the red berried variety, if you want to keep the berries and starve the birds, choose the yellow berried one, as they only eat those in desperation. Another advantage of the pyracantha (aka firethorn) is the wicked thorns, straight and sharp, that deter vandals and harvest despoiling thieves.

Labels: allotment-crops, allotment-tasks, allotment-weeding

When did you last see your winter cabbages?

Sown outdoors in a seed bed from late April to mid May, these look like the difference between famine and feast to the winter allotment gardener, and what a fine crop my allotment neighbour has (I’d love to pretend they are mine, but everybody knows they’re not!)

Pick an areas where the adult plants will be unshaded or in some sun, and where the ground is rich and moisture retentive but not freshly manured. Cabbages require well-consolidated soil, so leave several months between digging and planting and always, always, always avoid planting in an area where the previous crop was of the brassica family.

Sow seeds very thinly in drills half an inch deep with rows five to six inches apart. As they grow, thin seedling to about three inches apart, keeping the strongest.

Once they have five or six leaves, in July, transplant them to the final growing position, setting them slightly deeper than they were in the seed bed in rows about twelve inches apart and with about the same distance between plants.

Problems

Protect the seedlings from sparrows!
Hoe carefully until the crop is large enough to suppress weeds so you don’t loosen the root system
During winter firm down any plants loosened by wind or frost
You may need to cover plants overnight if they remain in the ground after November

Time from sowing to harvest is anything from twenty to thirty-five weeks.

Labels: allotment-crops, allotment-tasks

September plots – what’s going on?

Well, if you had the kind of night we had last night, frost is going on! Autumn has come in with a vengeance, hasn’t it?

Assuming you’ve got your winter greens into the ground already (we’ve got ruby chard coming up nicely, although it had to be covered with bubble wrap last night) then you can still be thinking about sowing winter lettuces such as Arctic King and winter hardy spring onions (also called winter hardy salad onions) and, of course, thinking about broadcasting a green manure to enrich your soil and prevent weed growth over the winter. Come early spring, you simply dig in your green manure and let it rot into the ground for a couple of weeks before spring vegetable sowing.

Some people are setting out spring cabbage plants now and even garlic in suitably sheltered areas.

It’s hardly worth feeding most of the veg now, as everything will be heading for dormancy, although liquid feeds are still important for tomatoes, peppers, chilis and cucumbers. Squashes and pumpkins will be slowing their growth now – they respond to frost (even if it doesn’t touch them) by becoming dormant, so watch the stems and as they start to slim down (meaning the plant is no longer feeding the fruit) cut through and move your squashes and pumpkins to a cool airy and above all dry place to store.

Compost bins can be emptied out now, spreading the stuff that’s ready onto your plot and piling the partially rotted stuff back into the bin.

Labels: allotment-crops, allotment-tasks, autumn-allotment