Ten years later ... back.

And I'm a solo act once more. But one with a new allotment and this time the only drag on my enthusiasm is me. I will be ably assisted by my young son, who is now 11.

Our last place was being run as a charity by an undischarged bankrupt called Anette who'd made all sorts of allegations against all sorts of people (sexual harassment was the one that would be funny if it wasn't so serious for the accused (not us.))  Not a British national, but an old school South African come to run away from the end of apartheid.  Probably for good reason. Anyway.  She orchestrated the removal of my ex because they didn't get on. Could have fought it, couldn't be bothered.  Getting away from people  like that is its own reward.

Happily my new allotment suffers no such deficits yet.  

Does anyone read blogs any more?

April 2011 Not much going on here then!

Not a good year so far

We've done very little in 2010, the allotment has got overgrown despite a couple of efforts to get up there and sort it.  Just too much else to do to give it the time it needs. But we've started tidying up and cutting down the meadow it had become again.

Birds

We're very lucky where we are at the allotment, we are close to a major migration hotspot, backing onto a school playing field with lots of trees and traditional hedgerow around, so we get plenty of birds.

For the past couple of days we've had a fieldfare hanging around with the local blackbirds, chomping on local berries.  it's been many years since I saw one of those in these parts (though that might have more to do with my changing habits rather than any scarcity).

This year I've seen Hobby, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Whitethroat, lapwing, Lesser whitethroat, Chiff Chaff, Willow Warbler and common crane.  We also have thriving populations of blue, great and long tailed tits, dozens of house sparrows, tame blackbirds, wrens, dunnocks and song thrushes. 

Some pics from today

Another useful link

I’ve found the forums at Allotments UK to be invaluable.  Lots of really good people there doing what we’re doing and tons of knowledge, so I’m giving them a ‘heads-up’.

First of November

Well, things aren’t all that bad.  Collected 10 lovely bright red Apache Peppers today and herbs are still in full effect. Collected parsley, sage, rosemary and mint today and all the plants are looking healthy.  In fact, the only things that are actually ‘done’ for the year are applemint and the French Tarragon is looking quite sad.

All good though.

stuff

I am posting these mainly to remind myself how far we have come since May.

This is what was there when I arrived after the winter with a remit to do what I liked.  For those that do not know we had a baby in December and the months leading up to it saw no work on the allotment after not really doing enough during 2008.

Which turned into this after a month or so of graft.

And now I have beds like this.

Useful Link

The BBC has a decent gardening design sub-site, which I thought might be useful if you haven’t seen it.  I couldn’t get shockwave working on the designer software though.

Click here for it.

Progress Report – Winter Preparations

I’ve been quite busy doing some large and cumbersome tasks.  I’ve enlarged the beds and got next year’s rotation underway.

We now have two 22x8.5 foot beds, and two 20x

Technorati Tags: Winter,planting,digging

8.5 beds all dug and turned over.  Our onions are in, as are garlic, leeks and carrots.

I’ve got the new brassica bed dug and planted with cauliflower, curly cale and purple sprouting.  The leeks and beans that are still in there will be out soon, and that can be left to over winter and will plant some summer varieties in there once the frosts have done their job.

Next year’s legume bed is dug, it’s an odd shape because I’ve left the blackcurrant bushes in situ, but I’ve also planted in this year’s potato bed 3xgooseberry, redcurrant and blackcurrant giving us another 9 fruit bushes maybe in 2011.  Should be good.  Need to build a net for them at some point. 

Had a tidy up and a mow around, and things, apart from the nettles and tatty front fence are looking quite good.  As usual, a weeding and a trip to the dump are required but otherwise I’m quite optimistic about next year.

One downer, we’ve got leek moth caterpillars in our mature leeks.  We are eating them anyway :)  The creatures are about a centimetre long and pretty much featureless, and they don’t appear to affect the flavour.