Late June

After 2 weeks away I went to the allotment last friday and saturday to see how things were coming along. I was really pleased and excited and am really looking forward to eating some of the veggies that we're growing.

The broad beans that Matt gave us are looking great. Personally I hate broad beans but am determined to give them the benefit of the doubt, and surely beans we've grown ourselves are going to taste great! 

Some of our potato plants are looking a little sad, the yellowing leaves and slightly smaller plants don't look too good. Seamus was going to try and find out what might be the problem, fingers crossed we don't have blight.

The corn and beetroot are looking good. I picked some beetroot leaves and some lettuce and had them for lunch today, they were yum.

I think I saw a newt in the water butt...although it could've been a young frog. But it looked like a newt to me. We'll have to keep an eye out for him.

The best news is that we've been allowed to take over the plot beside ours, on the other side of the water butt. Seems like the committee are really impressed with our work so far and have agreed to us taking on what is known as 'nettle mountain'! At the moment its a scary prospect as its covered in very high nettles and bindweed. But a bit more hard work and we should have it up and running for next year. We're thinking we might grow some fruit trees and flowers on it and possibly have a seating area. 

Early morning allotmenting

As Paulene posted below, we were all really pleased to get the plants in on Saturday - we're finally growing some veg!

I woke up at a ridiculous hour on Sunday and after seeing a text from Seamus from Saturday night I got up and went to the allotment as there was some room in a skip and we had A LOT of rubbish to get rid of. I arrived at 7.30-ish, the sun was shining but it was still nice and cool. I picked up a lot of slugs and wandered around looking at our plants and willing them to grow quickly!

When we cleared the plot we had to pile up all the grass, nettles and other nasties, putting some into bags and the rest into the compost area that was there when we took it on. The purpose of my visit this morning was to try and shift some of the pile...I managed to get rid of about 20 bags plus 6 rubble sacks that I had bought with me. It was hard but satisfying work, seeing the pile go down inspired me to keep going.

This is how it looks now, not so daunting and ready for when we get a small skip in a couple of weeks:

Our raspberries are ripening, and they are delicious!

While I was there I heard a lot of fire engines then saw an ominous cloud of black smoke appearing to the south east. It turned out that it was the fire at the electricity sub station in Sydenham.

Yummy Gravy

The weekend before last Paulene had our friend Sam to stay from Amsterdam we took him to see 28a and harvested some rhubarb then we all went home and Miss P made us a delicious roast chicken dinner with rhubarb crumble to follow ( I made the crumble topping).

 I had a flash of inspiration whilst making the gravy I spotted the juice left over from stewing the rhubarb and added a little to the gravy and the result was DELICIOUS.

Go ahead try it you know you want to!

Taking shape

Tanya, Seamus and I went up the lottie on Saturday and it really is taking shape now. The plants arrived on Friday and we planted them on Saturday. Beetroot, runner beans, courgettes, peas, petit pois, aubergine, rainbow chard, melons (well you've got to try!!!) . Lovely Flora gave us some cucumbers and pumpkin so we are going to have plenty to harvest. Also tasted our first raspberry and it was YUM!!

We are hoping to take on the plot next to us which is nettle mountain at the moment but would give us the space to have fruit trees, flowers and a lovely seating area. It will be a lot of work but really worth it I think. Let's hope they say we can have it.

Progress

Paulene and I spent yesterday afternoon at the allotment, and I finally feel like we're making real progress with it. We obviously made real progress clearing the plot, but we actually sowed some seed yesterday and I actually feel now that we're growing something! Its a very satisfying feeling.

Last weekend I dug up all the old artichokes and potatoes that we had replanted. Paulene then dug in 2 bags of manure on Saturday and we dug in a further bag of compost yesterday. 

We made a new bamboo frame using new bamboo and some of the old structure that was on the plot when we took it on. We planted some peas and beans, but we're still waiting for some plants that we ordered a couple of weeks ago so we left some space for them. We planted some more sunflowers at each end of the bamboo frame. We had to dig up a lot of small nastursians where the frame was going so we replanted them in clumps in the front corner of the plot.

I also sowed some lettuce seed and some chives.

We had an extra pair of hands today....Sammy, who is 6 and from allotment 20, came and helped us plant the peas and beans.

Its amazing how everything grows so quickly with this warm and wet weather. Every time I go to the allotment something has changed, either on our plot or on others, its great to see everyone's progress, not just ours.