Summer (sort of!) growth.

Before I begin, please note that I wrote this post after consuming the better part of a bottle of this years elderflower champagne, so any grammatical or spelling errors are probably down to to that!


We haven't really had much of a summer this year - rainy month has followed rainy month, and July (by and large) seems to be no exception.


Despite this, veg on the allotment and at home continues to flourish. 


I'll begin at home. 

Cucumber.

This really wet weather doesn't seem to suit cucumber plants, as the leaves don't look too healthy . That said, the one or two cucumbers (the actual vegetable) we have are growing well, and we've got some others are beginning to develop from flower. 

New cucumbers growing.

Strawberries.

We've had more success with the strawberries we're growing, but this is tempered by the fact that slugs seem to enjoy eating them just as they get ripe. Because of this, we've lost some of the strawberries that are growing in pots on the ground. 


On a brighter note, now that our strawberry plants are two years old, they're producing bigger and sweeter strawberries than last year. On top of that, they're producing in greater quantities, too!


I don't have a photo of our blackcurrants, as they're still green. 


The allotment:
Even though we've finished the initial work on the allotment, maintenance work needs to be kept on top of. 
With that in mind, myself and Peter (my brother in law) yesterday headed over and cut back all the grass on the perimeter of the allotment, which had grown over a foot high. Not only was it unsightly, it was blocking the sun from reaching some parts of the vegetable beds. 
It didn't take long for us to chop back the grass and rake it up, and I was really pleased with the results. The allotment now looks far more clean and presentable.
We then spent some time weeding the beds.

Our carrots have now grown to thick and high, almost jungle like in their appearance.


We uprooted one yesterday, and they seem to be growing well, as can be seen from the photo below. 


Obviously, we'll be leaving them for another while to grow even larger. 


But having seen the carrot we pulled, I'm happy the progress thus far.

Our first carrot!

Not much news with our parsnip bed, but they're certainly getting larger. The staggered parsnips at the front of the bed are doing well too.

Celery bed, with radishes.

We've harvested three of our large celery plants. They've grown to about a foot and a half now, and each plant has grown a decent amount of shoots. 

The staggered celery is now about the size the first lot was when we planted them out. 

The radishes that we planted on at the front of the bed are shooting up too. 

The onions are all now bulbing really well. They'll be left in the ground for a while yet, though. 

Apologies for the slightly lob-sided photo of our next bed. 

To the front, the radishes have grown fully, and the staggered ones have almost caught up with the ones planted initially.

I've harvested lots of them at this stage, and love eating them as a delicious snack.

Behind them, the cos, chard and butterhead lettuce are growing nicely. 

Our garlic hasn't really grown that much in the last couple of weeks, which doesn't bode well for them.

A closer look at (l-r) our butterhead, chard and cos lettuce (grown from seed).

Our small potato bed is now fully established, I can't earth the plants in any more, so we'll just have to wait and see how productive they are. 

Alongside our potato bed, our main lettuce bed has done very well. Most of them are ready to be eaten, and we've harvested a few of them for salads. 

Between them, the spring onions are growing apace. 

The beetroot has grown to the point where we'll most likely have to thin it out soon. 

To the right of it, you can see the couple of corn plants we planted. They're keeping up well with the beetroot. 

At the bottom of the beetroot bed, the swede that we've planted has established itself well.

Next up are our climbing frames. 

Firstly, our bean plants have proven to be a slight disappointment, growing very slowly thus far. 

To cut our losses, Clare's planted pea plants between the beans. They've already started to shoot.

Our pea plants are faring better than our beans. Not as well as I'd like, but they're still growing and yesterday I was able to harvest the first few pods from them. 

(The peas were gratefully devoured by Thomas!)

Nearly all the asparagus plants have now sent up shoots, and are growing well. Not that we can touch them for another year!

Our rhubarb plant has maintained it's own at the bottom of the allotment. Not sure what did such damage to one of the leaves, but the problem hasn't progressed. 

We've another one that a friend kindly gave us to plant out yet. 

Working our way down the other side of the allotment...

Our chives are still alive, which is something, I guess! 

Not really much happening with them yet...

For the last week or two, we've had or courgettes under a cloche to protect them from the heavy rains. They're getting a bit bigger now, and hopefully will start producing fruit soon.

Past the courgettes, we've an empty bed. 

In the next bed past this one, Clare planted a variety of hardy winter carrot, which have already started to send up shoots.

These are obviously intended to keep us with a supply of carrots when our first lot are finished. 

Next up is our white sprouting broccoli. 

This takes up about half the bed, the other half we've left fallow until we can plant some purple sprouting broccoli into it. 

We transplanted our leeks out a week or two ago, and while we've had one or two that haven't survived, I'm genuinely delighted with the progress of the rest of them.

They seem to be thickening up well, so hopefully we'll end up with a good supply of them.

In the penultimate bed on our little tour, our brassicas grow. We've got the likes of brussel sprouts and kale in here. 

As with the rest of the beds, these continue to come along well. 

Fingers crossed that I get enough brussel sprouts to sate my appetite come Christmas!

Finally, our potato frame is now full of earth. My intention was to build this up, but I may be too late to do this. 

There's been a blight warning issued in the past month or so (the wet, humid weather is ideal for it to thrive), I can only hope that our potatoes haven't succumbed to it. 

Finally, the post wouldn't feel complete without a recent photo of the allotment, so here it is.

Thanks to you if you've taken the time to read this post, I hope it was interesting in it's way. As always, please feel free to comment or ask any questions you may have. 

The allotment as it looked yesterday evening.

Growth update.

I've been working nights for a week - and combined with the fact that the week just past has been exceptionally rainy, has meant that I haven't been up to the allotment (again!). 


Clare went up to weed the beds yesterday, and came home delighted at how things are getting along. After getting up this morning, I went over to see this for myself.

The carrot bed.

I'll begin with the carrot bed, which is the first bed to the left of the gate when entering the allotment. Most of the shoots are now at least 10 centimetres high. While the carrot bed looks quite cluttered, this is as it should be, as thinning them out can attract carrot fly. 

The parsnip bed.

Next to the carrot bed is our parsnip bed. Much like the carrots, these are coming along well. 


The front of the bed had be left empty as we had initially run out of parsnip seeds to plant. We've since sown more seeds in that spot.

As we move past the parsnips, we come to the celery. As mentioned in previous blogs, there's two stages of this - at the back, the first lot (looking beautiful and healthy), and towards the front, the younger lot, which are coming along quickly.

Moving right along, our onion bed is one of the highlights of our unfinished allotment, as it is one of the beds where the growth of the veg is at its most visible. 

In the next bed, we've planted garlic (at the back), and "butterhead" lettuce beside it. The garlic is, at present, practically indistinguishable from the onion plants. Despite being planted out late, it's growing well.  
I didn't hold too much hope for the lettuce, but they seem to have taken to the soil well. 

After the butterhead lettuce, we've chard growing - but I don't have a photo of this taken  (my bad...) 
Beside the chard, we're growing some "cos" lettuce (pictured, left). While small yet, these are growing well. 

At the very front of this bed, we've a couple of rows of radishes growing - staggered so that we'll get two crops of them. I love the speed at which radishes grow (we harvested one yesterday, which I ate raw - delicious and peppery!).

After this bed, we've two separate square beds. In the back one we've a couple of rows of potatoes growing. While they're growing, again I haven't a photo taken. Beside that we've a bed of lettuce growing. 

Following this are three parallel beds where we've sown beans and peas. One of these was pictured in the last blog, so I didn't rehash it here. 
More interesting, I think, is that the beans and peas that we sowed out have sprouted (as per picture on the left). We'll have to train these up the frames built for them.


After the pea and bean beds, we've planted fifteen asparagus plants in one bed, and finally , at the very top of the allotment, we've one last bed where we're going to plant out two year old rhubarb plants that a friend donated to us. No photos of these yet, but will hopefully update this in the next post.


Back at home:


Things are growing well back at home. 


We've four chilli plants that reside in the kitchen window. These have grown substantially taller than last years variety, and have started producing chilli' already. One chilli was so large that we cut it off after a while for fear that the plant was putting all its energies into that one fruit. 

Outside, our two cucumber plants continue to grow, but alas, there's no sign of flowers on either yet! ;o(


They've got so big at this stage, I've had to build climbing frames for them. Fingers crossed that it won't be too much longer before they start to flower and produce cucumbers.

At polar opposite to the lack of progress with the cucumbers is our blackcurrant bush. 


This has grown about two foot so far this summer, and produced so many new branches that I think I'm going to have to prune some of them back before the summer is over.
The year old branches have produced large amounts of currants. While still hard and green, there's definite progress in how big they've gotten.  

The couple of strawberry plants that are growing randomly about the garden are all fruiting too. It looks like this year we'll produce at least twice as many strawberries as we did last year - not that I'll be eating any, as the kids always have first "dibs" on them!

Several of our tomato plants didn't survive the frosts of April - and a few more just died. I'm not sure why this was, but I suspect the PH of the compost I used may not have been ideal for growing them. 
On the other hand, enough of them are growing well, and my next task is to re-pot them so that the surviving ones are grouped together. 

All from nothing... (part 13)

Our efforts to transform an unused piece of land into a productive vegetable garden.


So, it's been a while since I posted an "All from nothing" blog. There are a couple of reasons for this - work, my son's birthday, work being done to my house (which just about takes precedence over the allotment ), but primarily due to the fact that I strained my back a few weeks ago, making labour impossible (at least if I wanted to heal said injury). 


My lack of activity at the allotment weighed heavily on my mind - I'm conscious of the fact that I'm behind on the work needed to be done and that the summer is moving on. But there was little I could do save get quite frustrated about my situation. 


Clare stepped up to the tasks at hand, and spent time weeding and ensuring that the veg we have planted was kept watered and fed as necessary. 

We've rows of carrots planted that are starting to poke their heads towards the sun!

Finally, on Sunday last (20th May) I felt ready to head back up and get some work done. We all headed over to the allotment. I began forking through the soil, adding barrow loads of composted manure to the soil as I went. I made good progress, and Thomas helped me out, throwing stones and rocks I was discarding into my barrow to be removed from the site (he also got a kids barrow of his own for his birthday!). Isabelle lay in her pram and enjoyed the fresh air, keeping a keen eye on us. 
Clare weeded, and then sowed Cos Lettuce, Chard and radishes (a personal favourite of mine!). 

Parsnips, much like the carrots, are beginning to germinate.

We got a fair amount done by the time came to go home. 


Today turned out to be lovely - temperatures hitting about 21 degrees, so when I got home from work we all headed over to the allotment again. I brought over some decking timber that we sourced - we're going to use it to build a small bed for our potatoes to go in. I'll hopefully build this tomorrow. I then did some more forking, and Thomas pottered about, doing his best to help  us (though we did have to keep him from treading all over our vegetable beds!). Isabelle, clearly bored, fell asleep. 
Clare planted more celery, and packed compost around the established celery plants, which should "blanch" them, reducing their bitterness. 

Our celery bed, with the new plants to the front, and established plants towards the back.

Clare took the kids home for dinner, and I stayed on for a while , continuing to fork the soil and also bringing more compost in to mix through the soil. Much as I felt compelled to stay until it was dark, I forced myself to head home to help put the kids to bed.

The other veg we've planted out seems to be doing well, as is shown in the photos below. While Clare was sowing the celery today, she noticed that the soil was nice and warm, which is a great sign. 

Our garlic - ideally we should of planted this out months ago, but it seems to be doing well. We grew garlic last year in pots in our back garden, and were fairly successful with it. 

Half of our onion bed. Again, these are growing away happily. We did notice that one was pulled out, which I assume was the work of an inquisitive rook. Still, with a full bed of them, the loss of one isn't catastrophic.  

Cleavers

I've noticed a particular weed that grows beside our allotment - cleavers. These "weeds" were famed in my childhood as "stickybacks", as they could cling tenaciously to clothes (particularly school uniforms!) when they came into contact with them. They can be used with nettles to make a decent tea (which I'm going to make later in the week) and also to be made into a juice. 

As the evenings get longer, I've also noticed a rabbit or three, skulking about the fields surrounding the allotment. They look fairly healthy, and I intend to eliminate potential threat they pose to our veg by shooting as many of them as I can eat. 

Rabbits are a fantastic source of lean, delicious meat, and given their huge numbers in my locale, are a sustainable source of meat. I've been hunting them now for a few years, and enjoyed eating every one I've shot.

Bugs Bunny

I'll publish another blog later on this week. Please feel free to leave whatever comments you like, it's always great to get feedback!

All from nothing ... (part 12)

Our efforts to transform an unused piece of land into a productive vegetable garden.


I was determined to complete the job of putting the chicken wire up before the weekend drew to a close. So on Sunday morning, despite ominous clouds covering the sky, I headed straight to the allotment after we finished breakfast. 


I got straight to the job at hand. As Clare had dug quite a bit of the trench on Saturday, it wasn't as difficult as it might have been. I soon had my routine going - roll the chicken wire out to the next post, ensure that it was fairly correctly "in place", from the bottom of the trench to the bull wire. I then cable-tied the chicken wire to the bull wire, clipped the excess off the cable ties (to make it look presentable), and finally back filled the earth in the trench. When I got to a post, I'd tack the chicken wire to it. This helped strengthen the wire and guaranteed it remained taut. Eventually, I had to dig more trench. I did this in two stages, more to keep variety to the job than for anything else. By lunchtime, I had almost finished the entire allotment. All that remained was tacking the chicken wire onto the fence adjacent to the gate. 
After getting some jobs done at home, I went back to the allotment, and finished off the chicken wire. The most awkward job was cutting off remaining chicken wire, as my wire cutters weren't up to much. That finally done, I had completed the enclosing of the allotment. Worrying about rabbits destroying crops is now (hopefully) a thing of the past. 
I'll admit I felt no small sense of satisfaction having finished the job. Not only is it practical, it lends the allotment a far more aesthetically pleasing look. 

The top corner of the allotment.

Yesterday (Monday) morning, Clare headed over soon after breakfast, and prepared more beds. When she had done this, she sowed carrot, parsnip and garlic into them. The beds for the carrots and parsnips took a little more work, as these vegetables hate stones in the soil (which split the roots when they hit them). 
After a couple of hours, she came home and I went over. However, the weather took a turn for the worse, and it started raining quite heavily. Not much I could do about that, so I went home for a cup of hot chocolate. 


I was in work on the night shift last night, so needed a few hours in bed this morning before going over to the allotment. A month's rain has been forecast in the next thirty-six hours, so we were anxious to get as much done as possible before this deluge began. As it turns out however, the weather gods smiled on us, and it turn out to be a fantastic evening.
Clare went over first to space out where we will plant asparagus, which needs a good amount of space. I looked after the kids, and went over when she got home. 
My job for today was to dig out the central, semi-permanent path that all our beds will be attached to. Maybe I'm just gone used to the manual labour, but I didn't find this job difficult, and had most of the path complete within an hour.  I then dug out another "mini" path between beds. 
Clare came over with the kids, and started preparing the double bed that the swedes and beetroot will most likely be planted in. Thomas brought a toy JCB digger and pottered about as we worked. Isabelle slept for most of her time there. 


One anecdote for remembering in the future: just before we were preparing to go home, Thomas was enjoying himself splashing in some puddles. Getting adventurous, he ran around the corner of a stable in search of deeper pools, which took him out of my line of vision. Suddenly a horse winnyed loudly, and gave Thomas such a scare that he rocketed around the corner and into my arms like a streak of lightening! 


At this point, the biggest jobs are behind us, and every half hour that we're able to put into the allotment will give visible results. 

The allotment as it looked this evening.