dirtyhoes

2008-04-21T22:11:00.001Z

10-4-8 At the allotment
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

The view from the path as the last of the digging is completed on the left-hand side. It's looking much happier than it did this time last year!

10-4-8 At the allotment

2008-04-21T22:10:00.001Z

10-4-8 At the allotment
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

After digging 4-4-8

2008-04-06T09:37:00.001Z

After digging 4-4-8
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

It's looking more healthy up there - three rows of potatoes are planted by the broad beans (under the white wire tunnels) and it doesn't look like an abandoned wasteland any more.

In other news, lots of the seeds we planted have sprouted, so we've got squash, courgettes, tomatoes, peppers, chilis, and artichokes popping through. Hurrah!

After digging 4-4-8

2008-04-06T09:34:00.001Z

After digging 4-4-8
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I went and hired a rotavator-type thing, which was a bit lightweight, but did a quicker job than I would have done with a fork.

Before digging

2008-04-06T09:32:00.001Z

Before digging 4-4-8
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

The left-hand side of the allotment, looking from the path. It looks far worse here than it did in real life, but it was still bad enough for us to get a letter from the council asking if we really wanted an allotment. Pah.

Broad beans

2008-03-30T20:06:00.001Z

Broad beans
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

Growing happily

Surprise harvest

2008-03-30T19:58:00.001Z

Surprise harvest
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

We'd forgotten/neglected to harvest the potatoes we planted at the allotment last year, but - in preparation for this year's crop - we had to dig them out, and found this lot. Several were slug-eaten, hollow or squishy, and two actually exploded potato goo everywhere, but there are several decent ones ready to eat. Hurrah!

Broad bean

2008-03-30T19:56:00.001Z

Broad bean
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

Not quite in focus, but my camera phone's rubbish.

Rob spent all afternoon at the allotment, and I joined him once I'd woken from my accidental sleep. The broad beans look quite happy and there are one or two other signs of life. There's still a lot to be done, but I'm going to hire a rotavator at some point in the next fortnight and sort it out.

2008-02-24T15:51:00.006Z

Allotment 24-02-8
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

We made it to the allotment today, just before it started raining. It all looks quite sad, but by no means as bad as some of the other plots. We picked the remaining beetroot, and made some plans for this year's planting.

In other news, the broad beans haven't sprouted and are clearly too old. Pah. Need to get some new seeds.

2008-02-24T15:51:00.005Z

Allotment 24-02-8
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

2008-02-24T15:51:00.001Z

Allotment 24-02-8
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

Planted broad beans

2008-02-03T16:54:00.001Z

February 3rd: planted broad beans
Originally uploaded by Planet Mad

We used newspaper pots a bit last year and they did the job, from what I can remember, so we're using them again this year. This is the first succession of broad beans - three types - with more to come in a few weeks' time. We had a really successful broad bean harvest last year, so I've got my fingers crossed that it's good again this year.

The rain stopped today...

2007-05-29T21:05:00.000Z

...for the first time in AGES, or at least, that's how it felt. OK, so I had to wear my thermals to fight off the cold, but at least it was dry enough to do some decent digging. I spent the morning at Plot 9, earthing up the potatoes and digging out some more of the weeds. I've done most of the lower half of one side, and Rob promptly planted some carrots in it when he returned from work. That's just about half the plot under control now - Rob planted out some purple sprouting broccoli, globe artichokes, red cabbages and pea asparagus last week - so the whinging old boy will have less to whinge about now! (If only!)

This afternoon was spent at the Vicar's with Julia. We weeded various bits, caressed the legumes (all growing beautifully), planted a couple of courgettes, and then escaped to the local garden centre. Once we'd been mistaken for staff (it must have been the wellies and dirty hands that did it!) we pottered around the cafe, poked George the Giant Fish, and bought more seeds. After all, when there's no earth to be seen through the weeds, and there's a lot of preparation work to be done, the best thing to do is to sow more plants as a displacement activity. We're so organised!

Tempus fugit...

2007-05-22T20:24:00.000Z

These last few weeks have been very work busy and, more importantly, wet. Let's face it, digging is a bind at any time, and digging in the rain is one of the most unappealing pastimes I can imagine. Except perhaps wet-paint observing. Or poo tasting. Anyway, I digress...

Things are growing well at the vicar's garden: the potatoes look very happy; the broad beans are in flower; the second planting of peas are creeping up the netting; and there are lots and lots of blackcurrants on the bushes. The goosegogs are a disappointment, as once again they've been covered in mildew, in spite of our radical pruning. Rob's sprayed them with some stuff, but it doesn't seem to have made much difference so far. We'll keep trying. On Sunday, we planted out the spaghetti squash and the tomatoes, so the only major things left to plant are the sweetcorn and the squashes/courgettes. Julia's in charge of germination, so hopefully they're growing gently as we speak.

Plot 9, however, has been quite neglected in the post-rain fight to get the Vic's back on track. However, we spent a reasonable amount of time up there on Sunday and planted out globe artichokes and did some weeding. We also got accosted by one of the old boys who has the allotment opposite ours. The conversation went something like this:

Old Boy: There's something that's puzzling me
Me: Oh yes?
OB: Why have you put two trenches here, right in the middle of the allotment?
Me: That's for asparagus
OB: Well, yes, but you'll have to wait two years for that.
Me: We know that
OB: Why haven't you put it at the ends of the allotment? There's no sense putting it in the middle.
Me: Eurm, because we wanted to?
OB: But it doesn't make sense.
Me: All of this top bit is going to be permanent - fruit bushes and the like - so it doesn't matter that we won't get an asparagus harvest for a couple of years.
OB: Oh.

....and on, and on, and on. We apologise now for not posting a notice explaining exactly what we are planning to do, and justifying our reasons for putting the plants where we've chosen to put them. Had we realised quite the level of interrogation we'd have to endure, we'd have personally spoken to you, Mr Old Boy, before putting spade to earth. As it is, you'll just have to lump it.

Talking of spades, earth and lumps, the soil at the allotment seems beautiful - Rob's done most of the digging up there (planted so far: cabbages, purple sprouting, beetroots, turnips, asparagus pea) - but the spits I've turned over have been good crumbly stuff, with far fewer stones than the vicar's, so there's even chance for the carrots!

It's starting to look a little like a garden again!

2007-04-22T15:28:00.000Z

We've been at the vicar's this morning. Julia and Jerome got a pass-out today because they're off wearing out their legs in some run down in That There London. I know that the gardening/marathoning decision is a difficult one to make, but somehow I'm glad that I've got the bindweed end of the deal!

The intention was to plant another two feet of peas (in a succession-planting sort of way) and to do some general weeding around the place. We got the peas in no bother, although there were some rogue potatoes growing in the pea bed: we obviously failed to harvest them all last year! Rob did some hardcore weeding round the fruit bushes, which are looking really very happy, although some of the blackcurrant leaves have the same raised brown patch on them that I noticed last year. Let's hope it's not serious.

I had finished weeding the legume bed and was just contemplating going home for some lunch, when I (perhaps foolishly) turned over a bit of the soil where the tomatoes will be planted. BINDWEED ROOT PAYDIRT!! It seemed that I had uncovered a veritable mine of bindweedy badness, so hopefully that will help this year's toms to grow without being strangled!

By the time we came to leave, it was all looking far better: the broad beans we planted in the soil have grown quite a bit in the last week; the transplanted broad beans are looking good; some of the first planting of peas have sprouted; and - perhaps most excitingly of all - the potatoes are starting to sprout. Hurrah!

Sproutlings

2007-04-17T16:50:00.000Z

I popped into the vicar's to do some watering and there are little green leaves poking through the soil in the right places for broad beans and for peas. I'm going to send Rob off tonight to plant out the broad beans that are currently hardening off at Julia's (that'll keep him out of the pub for a bit!) so we have growing things at last.

The bindweed's growing nicely too, damn it.

Harrumph

2007-04-16T21:26:00.001Z

I'm not sure that Plot 9 is good for Rob. Twice now he's been "kidnapped" on the way home and dragged, kicking and screaming, into the pub on the way home. Pah.

Lovely weather for...

2007-04-14T21:31:00.000Z

...mostly bindweed, which seems to be all that's sprouting in the Vic's garden right now. There's no sign of peas or broad beans, and the potatoes are still hiding under the soil, and it's all quite depressing on the annual plant front. The fruit is looking far more promising: there are flowers (and micro fruit) on the gooseberry; the blackcurrants are starting to flower; and the raspberries are suddenly more than just a pair of leaves on a bare stalk.

This lack of foliage has made it quite easy to spot the nasty, pernicious bindweed as it starts to pop its head above the ground. We spent quite some time today de-bindweed-ing the currants and rasps, and we're trying to work out how to tackle the next wave that's lurking just below the soil's surface. At the moment, the most promising strategy is the "let it grow up a stick and then caress it with a glove covered in weedkiller" technique. All we needs are some pea sticks and some gentle caressing action, and I'm sure we can manage to find those.

Up at Plot 9, the soil is still damn hard - probably something to do with the lack of precipitation - but Rob won't let me hire a rotavator to break it up. Not even when the young couple from two plots down offered us use of theirs. In fact, not even when I did my best pleading face. Instead, he has bought a mattock. He's spent the Easter weekend doing digging and mattocking, and there are now two trenches full of asparagus, some turnips and some beetroot. We'll let you know if the former grows in, oh, three years' time; this is one long-term project!

Plot 9

2007-04-05T21:14:00.000Z

We officially took over at Plot 9 on Sunday. It's a big plot...

...and it's at the top of a hill overlooking the village.

The soil seems very sandy and hard, and is certainly in need of some TLC and vast amounts of compost. It was quite breezy while we were up there, and "overexposed" is perhaps a polite word for it. It does have a seating area at the top end though...

...from which point you can admire the right-hand side of the plot...

...which has already had a sprinkling of green manure seeds, which will be dug in around late summer and then re-sown with green manure to over-winter.

From the seat you can also admire the view of the left-hand side of the plot...

...which has raspberries and a bean/pea frame already in place. This bed is going to have more fruit bushes, the asparagus and the globe artichokes - all permanent stuff.

The only other thing that plot 9 has is lots of rabbits. Well, not just plot 9. There's clearly a massive bunny problem up there, and we have a chicken-wire fence all the way round the plot. Other allotment holders seem to have all sorts of ingenious anti-rabbit devices protecting their tender new crops, so I'll have to get my thinking cap on. Or bring in the services of Julia, Jerome, Rob and the guns. Pop pop bang bang!!

The garden

2007-04-05T21:06:00.000Z

The vicar's garden is looking remarkably bare, apart from the currant bushes, which seem to be happy after their major pruning. The damn peas haven't sprouted yet either. It's been a whole five days since they were planted and everything. Pah.

Getting our hands dirty

2007-03-31T16:51:00.000Z

Today was the day when it suddenly all fell into place: decent weather, spare time, ready-chitted potatoes. We've just spent the afternoon at the allotment (vicar's garden not allotment allotment) and we've planted the whole of bed 1 with potatoes (2 rows of International Kidney, 4 rows of Desiree and 4 rows of Cara). There's just space at the end to fit two squash/courgette type plants, so that's an added bonus!

We also planted the first of the peas (1 foot length of first earlies and 1 foot length of second earlies) and the first of the broad beans. Well, I say first, but in reality they're the second: Julia and Jerome have already planted some broad beans in jiffy pots, which are currently growing on a windowsill. Julia knows that they're growing even though there's no green showing yet because she's dug them up to check on their progress. We know that we're very late planting the broad beans, but hopefully they'll still grow fine - we'll just have to wait longer for them!

Tomorrow we officially take over our "proper" allotment - plot 9. We're quite excited about this, but we're already confused about what to call it: does "allotment" refer to the vicar's garden or to plot 9? Eeeek. The plan is to sketch it tomorrow morning, so that we can make plans over lunch, and then start planting. There are a few Cara seed potatoes that can fill a gap; Rob has his eye on some asparagus crowns; the globe artichokes are already growing on a windowsill. I suspect that quite a bit of it will end up under green manure, just to prevent weeds growing while we decide what to plant.

The empire grows...

2007-03-14T15:24:00.000Z

When Rob first moved to the village, we phoned the clerk of the parish council asking after allotments. We were added to the waiting list, but heard nothing for months and months and months and in the end we gave up. Since then, we've got cats, married, a new flat, chickens, and finally we got the call to say that there's an allotment with our name on it!

We take over in April (right in the middle of the school holidays, so we can do some intensive preparation as soon as we get it) and Rob's already got plans for permaculture - globe artichokes, fruit bushes, asparagus. Vegs away!

New Year, New Intentions

2007-02-14T14:18:00.000Z

Like this blog, much of the allotment has been dormant for the winter. We were harvesting the raspberries until nearly the end of October, and collected the final pumpkins and squashes in early November; however, not a lot has happened since then. Our lives moved on, our respective jobs took over for a bit, and we almost forgot that we had a garden.

Last month, Rob fought his way through the undergrowth to rediscover the wreck that was our carefully dug beds. Weeds had taken over bed one, the bed that all four of us had worked so hard to rescue last year, and the fruit cage was leaning at a precarious angle. By the time he'd persuaded me to get the wellies on again, it was early February. Rob dug over bed one and emptied one of the compost heaps onto it: all that composty-goodness is now working its way into the soil and (hopefully!) fighting off some of the weeds as we speak. I took down the collapsed fruit cage and set about the blackcurrants and gooseberry with avengance. Last year, we didn't really know what to do with the soft-fruit bushes, so left them alone. I suspect that all the problems we had with mildew were caused by our inaction. This year is going to be different!
I'm not sure I'm going to be allowed to use secateurs again, but it felt very theraputic!

Today I've sat in our flat's garden, watched the chickens pecking round the garlic, and planned the planting for this year. Now I'm still outside, writing this post, with Your Cat warming my lap and the chickens off somewhere, causing trouble no doubt. Tim for some resolutions, methinks. This year will be so much better than last - we won't have the dilemmas caused by too many cabbages, we will recognised sawfly BEFORE it strips the gooseberry of leaves, we will remember to pick everything we plant - and I'm going to be more organised about recording it.

Whoops!

2006-10-29T14:27:00.000Z

Oh dear it's been a long time since any of us have managed to write anything. Mea culpa. We've eaten our way through most of the gluts - runner beans, anyone?! - and made all sorts of chutney and jam. Julia's even attempted wine, I think. Now, though, the days are drawing in and it's time to uproot this season's old stuff and to get thinking about soil management and crop rotation. We spent a couple of hours at the allotment this morning digging up the old tomato plants, runner beans and courgettes. We came away with a surprise crop of raspberries (it seems they're autumn-fruiting after all!), a few round courgettes and a cabbage.

The cabbages have been one of our key successes this summer; so much so that we won a second prize at the village show with our mighty specimen. It was in the "Any Other Vegetable" class, so was beaten by a fine ear of sweetcorn, but was by far and away the best cabbage there. We were smug. Oh yes.

Ready to show

Chilling in the fridge!

Gluts A-Go-Go

2006-08-15T11:48:00.000Z

The other 3 are away at the moment and I am starting to wonder how many more beans I can stand.
I'll have to start investigating how to preserve them. We don't have a freezer, is it possible to dry /pickle / salt them as a way of keeping them? Maybe I should invest in a small cannery.
Bean chutney might be the way forward.

And then there's the courgettes....

The exciting news is the discovery of two little Butternut Squashes. Butternut Squash is my third favourite vegetable (after sweetcorn and broccoli, it's important know these things) so I'll be spending extra time talking to them, to give them as much advice and encouragement as I can offer.

Wine!

2006-08-04T12:26:00.000Z

Well all seems to be going well in the garden, just watering and weeding to be done. I like the watering because we go to the pub afterwards, its traditional!! The garlic have been dug up and plaited into strings, very exciting. There have been more corgettes than we like to deal with and one of the runner beans turned out to be a French dwarf bean! Sometimes it gets a little exciting! Bobby did a bit of pick axe planting which was fun so the celeriac are finally in the ground! The day to day battle with the butterflies is getting a little tiring!
now then, wine. Everyone likes wine.... Don't they? I was at my Mum and Dads house reading one of their books about the subject when I came across the following phrase 'Of one thing you can be sure, that making your own wine not only enables you to drink far more than you could possibly afford to buy, but also provides you with an enjoyable and satisfying hobby, that is guaranteed to bring you years of happiness amongst new friends who share your interest'! Like a sea bass on a hook I was caught! Imagine more wine that you could possibly afford to buy! Now I have a good job and can afford to buy quite a lot.............
so the very next day demi johns were acquired and cleaned, equipotent was 'borrowed' and bought and off I went to the allotment with a bucket and a smile! I picked 3lbs of blackcurrents, and landed about 2lbs of various insects and spiders. Bobby and I then removed all the stems, stalks, bad ones and wildlife, this can only be described as a jail job! The pulp was fermented and I now have a gallon of the purple goodness bubbling happily in the airing cupboard along with another 2 gallons of ginger and elderflower. Oh yes much more than I could possibly afford to buy mmmmm hope its ready soon. The book says about a year, but that cant possibly be correct, that is ages! Pea pod is next, with all dirty hoes instructed to freeze said pods until the 2lb mark is reached! mmmmmmmm wine!

Pay Dirt

2006-07-02T16:32:00.000Z

Last night everything we had for supper had been grown on the veg patch. Potatoes, spinach, beetroot, turnip and broad beans. Very tasty. Now all we need to do is get our own pigs and chickens and self sufficiency might not be such a pipe dream.

The potatoes were a bit small so we’ll leave them for another couple of weeks, but I think they went in a bit later than they should’ve.

2006-06-16T00:21:00.000Z

oh yes and all teh keys are in the wrong place in germany!!!!

Postcard from Munich...

2006-06-16T00:16:00.000Z

So I am sitting in the internet cafe at 2.11 am waiting for my 7.45 plane back to blighty. The game was poor, I am knackered and nowhere else is open. My thoughts naturally turned to the allotment!

Well this week we have got the sweetcorns finally in and they are looking great, should be nibbling on our own cobs fairly soon! Also corgettes, squashs and the MAMMOTH marrow are all in and growing like mad already!

A lot of the turnips didnt survive transplanting, so a new batch will have to be done, but the broad beans are bursting with pods!

We have two drainpipes full of peas and about 20 runner bean plants to do on Sunday. Should be interesting with the new puppy in tow!!?!!

We pray for rain so we dont have to go down every night, but weeding is now becoming the #1 priority as soon as we get this last set of stuff planted.

The new wedding and birthday hoes from the court and rushton houses are looking good, but can we convince the girls to start using them.....?

(initially posted on my blog by mistake. Whoops)

2006-05-19T22:39:00.000Z

After hearing excited tales about planting cabbages in collars (which conjures up some interesting images, but is far more mundane than it could be!) I headed off to the garden during my free(ish) lesson this afternoon. Suddenly the garden has been transformed from empty soil to heaving beds in a matter of weeks. Everything seems to be looking ok, apart from one or two broad beans (slugged), one garlic (stunted and probably dead) and the blackcurrants, which have some leaves that are sporting a slightly worrying raised brown patch. I don't think it's Big Bud, but I've not been able to find pictures to be sure, so any blackcurrant experts out there, please help!

In addition to planting more veg than you can shake the proverbial stick at*, Rob and I built a proper fruit cage over the blackcurrants and the gooseberry bush. Girly-guidey square lashing seems to have come in useful, for once! The only problem with all this gardening is that I want to harvest the stuff NOW. NOW, I tell you. Harrumph.

* This sentence is a contender for the Crap Subclause Award 2006.

They're here!

2006-05-19T07:41:00.000Z

And not in a creepy poltergeist sort of way!!

Having asked our lovely post man to put any packages which don't fit in our letter box in the coal bunker, Jerome and I have installed a rather impressive gate. So Mr Postman in his infinite wisdom dropped the packets over the gate rather than taking them back to base. Imagine my surprise when I opened said packets to find a liberal sprinkling of soil with small plants hidden within! Not too impressed I can tell you.

Anyway, it would appear that all the plants were fine and Rob and I set about the task of planting all the little greenish! 40 green cabbages! Yes 40 went in the ground with little trouble. 12 red cabbages were a little tricky as space is now at a premium! We are going to have to think really carefully about where the broccoli is going! whoops, too many little plants!

The Vicar has decided to help us in our gardening and has spread a good amount of grass clippings all over our plot. When I first arrived at the garden I was a little upset, but then calmed down and decided to imagine it was infact a very helpful gesture, helping us to mulch the plot in order to prevent weeds!! He came to have a chat whilst we were planting, which was nice!

hmmmm where to put the broccoli....

Into the ground

2006-05-04T15:39:00.000Z

Things wot we have actually planted in the soil:

Potatoes (Valour and Pink Fir Apple)

Onions (red and white)

Broad beans (Express and something else)

Carrots (eskimo and parano - I think)

Things wot are waiting for the proper soil:

Tomatoes

Peas

Things wot were growing in the soil but shouldn't have been:

Potatoes, growing in the legume bed, that definitely weren't planted by us!

A Tale of Two Compost Heaps

2006-05-04T15:17:00.000Z

When we took over the garde, we inherited two piles of what can only loosely be described as compost. A couple of weeks ago, Julia and I did some compost redistribution (which is like income redistribution but more crumbly) and emptied the useable compost out of one of the heaps. Last weekend was the turn of the second heap. The evil grass-slime was both grassy and slimy, and looked like this:

By the time Rob and I had finished with it, having moved it from heap two to heap one and added plenty of shredded newspaper and compost activator, it looked more like this:

It's now covered up and starting to heat up nicely, so hopefully we've made something useful from the slime.

Summer's Here!

2006-05-03T21:49:00.000Z

Today has been really warm and morale is high, so time for a quick update on work done in the last few weeks. The potatoes are all in, giving much trickiness deciding whether to plant the Pink Fir Apples horizontally or vertically! Some broad beans have been planted and the rest of the broad bean area is ready for planting. All the onions are in and the carrots are nearly all in as well. Canes have been purchased for building a fruit cage for the soft fruits, space prepared for the grow bags and clear plastic purchased for making some temporary greenhouses for the tomatoes.

Many chitted potatoes are left over and our experiment to protect the carrots was followed by the warmest day of the year but luckily they were checked today and there is no singing! (how do you spell that anyway? sindging?)

The Repton village show is confirmed as the 2nd of September (as is Newton Solney), so Rob has purhased some "super seed" and is calculating to the exact %age of sand/compost mix he needs for growing his champion carrots and winning the inaugural Dirty Hoe cup!

Rob has also rebuilt the compost bins and they now look really good after the dumping of the first batch of chicken dung from the Pastures!

All that remains is for the planting of fennel and turnips and we're really in business ;o)

....and maybe the odd cabbage...

...I suppose....

Hurrah for over-caution!

2006-04-10T09:26:00.000Z

Last Thursday (or it might have been Friday, the days have merged into each other) Julia and I did a bit more digging, a bit more composty-moving-around, and a lot of planting. We now have holes dug, filled and ready for courgettes, squashes and pumpkins, as seen here:

We also edged the sweetcorn bed with lots of the housebricks lying around the garden. It may be superficial but it pleased me:

We had a big debate about planting the potatoes, but in the end decided not to. Given the amount of frost that's happened over the last couple of days, we've been lucky! We did, however, plant the onions. We had a bit of a debate over an onion set's ability to withstand frost, but then Julia found a bit in a book that said "if the frost pushes the set out of the ground, just push it back in" so we assumed that frost didn't really matter in the onion-growing world. We got down on our knees and started planting. As an experiment, we're trying some companion planting, so the rows go as follows: white onion; carrot; red onion; carrot; white onion; carrot; and so on. Some of the onion sets are spaced at 4" and some at 3" - we're trying to see what impact spacing has on size and yield. Can you tell that Julia's a scientist?!

It feels much better to have things in the ground - apart from the garlic we've started everything in seed trays, modules, drainpipes or pots - and it will be even better when the little onions start to sprout. Are they nearly ready to harvest yet?

Oh my word they're triffids!!

2006-04-05T19:11:00.000Z

In the words of my wise father, 'spring is sprung, the grass is ris' I wonder where the birdies is? The little birds is on the wing, that's absurd the little wings is on the bird'! Couldn't have put it better.
I bottled out of gardening today as Mad was injecting hard core vaccination drugs, and both boys were at work, boo hiss. So instead I headed off to Stoke to see my Mum and Dad! I asked Mum to look after the little seedlings last week when we were away. Only the Lord above knows what she has done to them! She obviously has the greenest of green fingers! Mum transplanted the little (about 5cm high) tomato seedlings into bigger pots and they have turned into TRIFFIDS!! No word of a lie those tomato plants are the size of your head!! I suspect that she killed our ones and has replaced them with small tomato trees!!

Really glad we didn't plant the potatoes yesterday, there was a rather heavy frost last night.

Spring is sprung

2006-04-04T20:57:00.000Z

As the days have got longer and warmer, the time to head back to the plot has arrived. Julia and I did a couple of hours faffing today, tackling the compost heap in particular. When we took over the garden, this was the compost heap:

The nearest compartment is full of decent crumbly composty-goodness, but the farther compartment is devil-spawn grass-slime. To get the latter to the state of the former would take work, careful adding of suitable 'brown' carbons, and a bit of space. Today we created that space by digging out the decent compost and using it to mulch the raspberries and to add organic material to another couple of beds. In terms of compost grass-spawn-slime, there's still hard work and carbons needed, but what we did today looks pretty damn good, if we do say so ourselves:

Once our flabby muscles gave up, whinging from the hard work, we headed off to Julia's house to do some plantin'. Very exciting it was, and included broad beans, peas, beetroot, carrots, sweetcorn, perpetual spinach, swiss chard and a couple of 'cut and come again' salad leaf mixes. After planting them, we gave them a good couple of hours (while we drank tea, ate cakey-buns, and watched some Hugh on DVD) but there was no evidence of germination. Pah. How frustrating can this gardening mallarky be?!

Photos, as ever, here.

Spring Forward

2006-03-26T15:28:00.000Z

Everything seems to be very late this year. There's not even any nettles around yet. Now the clocks have gone forward the plants will have an extra hour of light in the evening, which means that they should really start to grow.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned...

2006-03-20T20:20:00.000Z

I have a confession to make. I've not been to the garden for weeks. Partly it's the weather's fault, although we seem to have missed much of the snow that's hit others in the UK. Partly it's because of work, in particular netball training sessions on afternoons when I used to be free. Mostly, though, I think it's because we're still in stasis mode: all that can be dug is dug, and there's no hoeing as the weeds haven't grown as it's still too cold. At work, Julia keeps me updated on the sprouty-seedlings' performance, but even they have been sluggish to get going - she keeps digging up the broad beans to see what they're doing, but there's little sign of life yet. Apparently the tomatoes are pushing their way out of the soil, though, and Rob's chili plants are growing great guns. I can't wait for it to be warmer. Pah.

Today I shall be mostly...

2006-02-19T15:12:00.000Z

...making newspaper pots. (Found via Plot Holes, and magic they are, too)

I love diggin' me

2006-02-17T19:43:00.000Z

Having told Mad that we definitely didn't need to plant anything until March, I checked the packets! ooops! Should have planted the tomatoes last month, don't tell anyone, and it will be ok!! I went to Burton (oh the excitement almost never starts) today and bought some seed trays, peat pots and seed compost. I planted twenty broad beans 'dreadnought' and 'express', we need to plant another twenty in a month. I planted the first row of carrots and also all the tomato seeds. The one thing I learned today was, if you are at all tempted to water your newly planted seeds with a hosepipe, don't. It's a really bad idea. Managed to empty most of the soil on to the floor and doused both my windows and next doors with a hyper jet. oops don't tell anyone, no one will know! Picked up all the broad bean seeds and scraped the compost off the windows and started again. Thank God I didn't do the carrots and tomatoes, they are really small!

Phase Two...

2006-02-15T21:01:00.000Z

...or should it be phase three? Either way, Julia and I ended the 'garden in limbo' stage by breaking out the forks and starting digging again. We're tackling the bed that previously had legumes (well, a bean-frame that supported evil bindweed shoots) and looked summat like this:

The initial intention was to mulch this completely in something that would kill off the weeds, and then plant our crops through holes made in the mulch. On closer inspection, and given our eagerness to be digging things again, we decided that the surface was far too compacted to simply mulch; it would need a good digging-over before covering up. With this thought, by the end of today, the plot looked more like this:

Last week I was digging over the compost heap (as you do when there's nothing else to dig) and discovered a wee little froggie hibernating in amongst the rotting gunk. We went home to make him a pond but by the time we got back he'd scarpered. At least this leaves the whole compost heap ready to dig into the soil before covering it up. I sense some heavy digging, lifting and carrying coming on this weekend!

In other exciting news, even our ineptitude hasn't prevented things growing. We have the following signs of spring:
Buds on the blackcurrants

Buds on a couple of raspberry shoots:

Some of the transplanted rhubarb:

Garlic - and this is the most exciting, coz we actually planted this stuff. So far 22 out of 33 cloves have sprouted.... that's a 66% success rate so far!

They're here!!

2006-01-31T15:06:00.000Z

The seeds have come!! Oh what excitement. I held off writing when the beans and peas came but now today the potatoes arrived and I could wait no more!! We now have 6Kg of potatoes on various windows in house house happily chitting! I cant wait to get planting. We have planted the garlic and I was very upset that it hasn't produced massive gloves yet. The others told me that this was normal and I should just wait a bit longer!

Cor blimey guv'ner

2006-01-15T16:49:00.000Z

It's been a productive day in the garden. Plot one is finished completely, as is the potato bed (nestling neatly between the two rows of raspberry canes). My personal aim for the day was to eliminate the tall invasive weed things that Rob cut back during our first proper assault on the garden. At the time, we thought the plants were Japanese Knotweed, a nasty brute if ever there was one. Luckily, they turned out to be Jerusalem Artichokes, which make a lovely soup (if a little farty), but these bad boys had turned rampant. The damn things had got everywhere - even escaping under the concrete fence footings into next door's garden - but about two thirds of them are now out, and languishing in the cold frame while we decide what to do with them. I reckon that there's several cubic metres of fart sitting there.

A slideshow of all the garden photos can be found here: it's frightening to see how much of a difference we've made, but it looks and feels like a garden now, not just an abandoned bit of ground. What's made it even more exciting today was the planting of our first crop: garlic, from sets. The garlic variety we've chosen is Fokyhama; this is partly because they were the sets on sale in Homebase, and partly because they sound like "Feck yer mama" (if you say it quickly enough with a bit of a slur). Other seeds and sets have been chosen (it took a long session with seed catalogues and pints of beer to decide exactly what to buy) and ordered: there are three A4 sides to the seed order, with getting on for thirty different veggy options... you can't say that we're not up for a challenge!

2006-01-14T17:54:00.000Z

Phew. Bed 1 is almost done. The whole bed has been dug over and as much bind weed root has been taken out as possible. We cut back the hedge that runs along the edge of the bed and found the true edge and a path. This ment that we had to go back to the start to do a proper job. D'oh.

But now the digging has been finished. A bit of raking over and general tarting up and we can finally plant something. I don't care what, as long as it can be stuck in the ground.
(If I planted a cat, would it grow into a Cat-Bush or Cat-Tree?)

2005-12-30T20:31:00.000Z

After a solid week of frozen ground, we woke this morning to find it pouring with rain. Perhaps the ground would have softened up? Myself and jules headed down to the allotment this afternoon to discover that unlike the rest of the village, the dirtyhoes patch of land is the most sheltered place in the Midlands! The ground was still hard as rock with a covering of frost even at the height of the day. We mooched about for a bit looking for something to do, but the main work of digging is really what needs to be finished now and there was no chance today. We contemplated pruning back the raspberry canes, but thought we'd better do a bit more research first in case of problems with pruning in these temperatures. Instead we decided to pre-empt our enevitable rabbit pest problem by roadtesting some air rifles down in Burton. Pop! Pop Bang Bang!

Raking

2005-12-18T21:29:00.000Z

We went to dig today, but the ground was WAY too hard - something to do with temperatures below freezing, I reckon - so instead of digging we did clearing and sorting. Rob removed some more of the broken glass, while I got raking to remove some of the dead bindweed stems. Insidious is an understatement: the damn things have got everywhere. Still, it looks better now, although there's still a LONG way to go before the stuff's even halfway under control.

I also investigated the compost heaps a little further. The bin on the left, although full of grass cuttings and old pine needles, is also wriggling with worms and looking a dark composty colour. I've read various articles about compost, but I've no real understanding of what goes on. I remember something about layering, something to do with mixing carbons with nitrates, and something to do with turning it over to get oxygen in. It's all a bit hit and miss, but I forked over the front two-thirds of the pile, and added a layer of horse manure and newspaper - I'm working on the principle that, whatever I do, it can't get worse! We'll just have to wait and see.

The aching back is worth it...

2005-12-11T20:32:00.000Z

At the start of the weekend, the patch looked like this:

By lunch today it was looking far more like this:

The bindweed roots are getting on my tits, though. I won't be sad to see the back of it.

2005-12-10T17:25:00.000Z

I was meant to spend an hour writing reports this afternoon, and then head off to the garden to meet Rob and do some digging. My reports took two hours longer than intended and it was already heading for twilight as I pulled on my wellies. When I got there, Rob had just finished de-rooting all of the first bed, so there was much smug celebration and I did a bit of spading to avoid feeling like a total slacker. By the time we'd finished, it was too dark to take a photo - it'll just have to wait until tomorrow, when we're off to burn the bindweed we've dug up so far. It's only been a week, but it's looking good.

blog virgin!

2005-12-04T20:48:00.000Z

oooo how exciting!! i've never blogged before, its dirty hoes and i like it!

having provided the workers with a hearty brunch of 2 (yes 2) types of sausage, an over sized piece of bacon, beans, tomatoes, a bottomless cup of tea and soggy toast. i know i know, started toasting too soon, that's no reason to get upset though is it? i thought not...

we set off towards the vicars house with a sense of excitement in our bellys.

plot one was todays task, shouldn't take too long, surely? 2 hours later and big piles of bind weed root and beautiful soil were left in approximately 1/5 of the plot!!! success!

Getting down and dirty

2005-12-04T19:56:00.000Z

After a hearty brunch, the four of us went to attack the garden. Armed with a fine selection of the vicar's garden tools, we tentatively started removing things, such as bindweed root, tall invasive weed things, thorny rosehips, nettles...

...and our first crop, of ONE ONION!!

By the time we'd finished, the plot looked like this:

And just look at the soil... bindweed root free and as lovely as a (soily) baby's bottom:

The first visit

2005-12-04T19:46:00.000Z

The plot is big, although we don't know how big because we couldn't be bothered to measure or even pace it out. It looks like this:

Looking up the garden from the compost (slimy grass) heaps

Plot number one, by far the most easily usable

The cold frame, allegedly. More like a high-speed nettle propagator, if you ask me.

Other photos on flickr, dated 29-11-05

The start

2005-12-04T19:08:00.000Z

"Vegetable gardeners wanted" read the advert in the parish magazine, and visions of neatly-hoed rows of leeks sprang instantly to mind. We'd been after an allotment for some months, but communal veg gardens are like hens' teeth in the village. A quick phone call later to a potential co-digger and I was leaving a burbling message on the vicar's answerphone. Ah yes, I neglected to mention that the garden belonged to the vicar, and he would let us have it for just a small tithe as and when. It seemed ideal. Breathless plans were made, seed catalogues poured over, and we set off to meet the Vicar and inspect his (soon to be our!) vegetable plot. It is big and unused, and had a small bindweed problem that became a very big problem last year when a former veg gardener rotovated it. Muppet. Still, it was soil, and grow-in-able, with just a lot of digging to do before those leeks became reality.