A very different plot...

Allotment 28a is a very different plot these days. Since my last post 5 months ago we've been hard at work transforming the lottie. We've got loads of raised beds now, they're all in, and working is a lot easier. There's a part of me that's sad that it won't be the same overgrown patch as last year, but its great having level ground and space to move around between the beds. Last year when we watered, the water ran straight off into the grass, but now it seeps into the ground where its needed.

So. What have we planted/moved. We picked 10 of the best raspberry canes and gave the rest to other plot holders and planted them in a long bed where they were before along with 2 red currant bushes, one white and one black currant bushes. We ditched our onions as we got bored of watching them doing very little, but we kept the shallots. We split the rhubarb and planted it at the ends of 2 raised beds. We moved the lavender bush to a different bed and made it a herb bed. 

We got all our potatoes in at the end of March. We've got Dunluce and Rocket which are both earlies and good old King Edwards for roasting. That's 3 beds of spuds. Yum.

Our winter/spring veg has been really funny. The birds kept on stripping it so by the time we managed to cover it properly it had basically had enough and did nothing for months. Now there's a bit of warmth and sunshine its growing although not enough to harvest anything. A bit of a waste of time but at least we'll know for next time. We might get enough for one meal of purple sprouting before we have to get the plants out to make way for something else. Oh well.

We've got some horseradish in a container. That's something that I'm really looking forward to, I ADORE horseradish. Horseradish on everything please.

I started some broad beans, Seamus started some peas and they've gone in, and looking rather fantastic. We've got leeks and french beans in the propagator and some other bits and pieces. 

I'm making nettle quiche right now for dinner, didn't manage to last year, hope its good...

Here's some more pics:

New beds

Its a long time since I've blogged anything about the allotment. But its getting into winter properly now, there's not much going on at plot 28a. Apart from....our new raised beds! Its very exciting to finally be putting them in so we can be more organised for next year. 

This was the first one that Seamus and I put in.

We've managed to place a few more now, but it will be a while before they are all in place.

We've had to move the onions and the cabbage and cavelo nero that we'd already put in into the new beds as they were in the way. 

As we're so close to the trees our plot is totally covered by the falling leaves, I've collected 4 bags so far to make leaf mould, but there's a million more to collect!

Its almost like its snowing leaves when its windy...

October already!

Tanya, Seamus and I managed to all get to the lottie at the same time on the same day..... that hasn't happened for a while. We managed to get through a lot of work clearing the plot, taking out the old bean wigwam, taking out the pumpkin, courgette and cucumber plants. We also cleared more of the new plot that Shelley has kindly lent us.

We harvested masses of jalepenos and the last of the salad leaves. The sunflowers are looking fabulous. And we discovered another frog in the old water container.

As you can probably tell I am still struggling with organising the layout of this blog and one day I will master it, just not today!!!

Can't wait to get all the new veg in the ground and start the winter harvest! Bring it on!!!

Sunflowers & Slugs

Paulene, me and my dogs went to the lottie this afternoon, it was so lovely the sun had just moved so that the plot was in the shade. We dug some more of the patch that Tanya had started. Something slug or pigeon had been munching our winter brassicas some of them look almost totally stripped of course it was the lovely Italian black kale. So we strung a network of bamboo string and CD's to keep away the birds. I watered all the remaining fruit and veg & Paulene harvested a load of lush veg: runner beans, courgette, cucumber, parsley, salad oh and raspberries yum.
The multi-headed sunflowers are looking lovely so here are a couple of pics.

Newts, squirrels and the late summer harvest

Its been a busy month, we've all been on holidays, its rained a lot, we've harvested a lot, and we've experienced some highs and some lows with our allotment.

Our successes have been the runner beans, broad beans, potatoes, parsley, courgettes, sunflowers, rhubarb, pumpkin, radishes and chard. We've all harvested lots of delicious veg, and personally I've been blanching and freezing like mad, my freezer full of runner beans. I've made delicious beetroot salad, vast quantities of lettuce soup, and I've finally got over my childhood fear of broad beans!

And now to the less successful moments... not so good were the peas, melon, aubergine, cucumbers and sweetcorn.

We were all so looking forward to some gorgeous corn. In fact it was the one thing I really really wanted to grow and eat, to experience how sweet it really should be. Our plants were doing really well and the cobs were forming and getting plump. One day they looked like this:

And the next day this is what we found:

The local $£@!*&^% squirrels had carefully peeled each one and eaten most of our gorgeous corn. We managed to salvage three nearly ripe cobs and so at least we each had one. And they were even better than I expected which made it more disappointing. Next year we'll still grow corn, but in a cage!

We've got in some autumn and winter veg - kale, cavelo nero and cabbage, but the slugs are dining out on the young plants. I've recently seen what a slug pellet does to a slug, and it ain't pretty!! I've been collecting them in bags and chucking them in the bin. Dead slug smells bad too.

We've cleared and dug most of the bit of Shelley's plot that she gave us a month or so ago, we've put most of the autumn and winter veg in there:

We've also got lots and lots of what I think must be newts in the metal water butt. There were loads of these ones about a month ago:

Today I had a look and there were lots of smaller black newts, I caught one in a cup to get a better look and it was very black and had 'whiskers' coming out from below its head. There really are a lot of them in the tank, but I can't identify them from any websites as there don't seem to be any good pictures of baby newts.

We spent yesterday evening eating a gorgeous roast chicken dinner (thank you Seamus!) and looking through catalogues and deciding what we're going to grow next year.

Finally, here's a new pic of our plot, there are gaps appearing again where we've taken out the sweetcorn, broad beans, peas, beetroot and potatoes:

Am looking forward to our first autumn and winter at 28a!

Heavy rain brings abundance....and weeds!

Seamus and I popped up the lottie in the rain this Saturday to get some goodies for us tea. Good grief it's amazing what a lot of rain can do. Everything is just blooming. Gathered broad beans, runner beans, peas, beetroot, potatoes, salad, courgettes, chard, parsley, radishes and rhubarb. I can't quite believe that we have managed to grow so much in such a short space of time....it's only been 4 months!

The sweetcorn is firming up and the squash/pumpkin/whatever it is is almost the size of a beachball! Even tho the sunflowers went in very late they are really coming on. Am off to Scotland this week and am taking some of our produce up for Mum and Dad to savour. It turns out my paternal grandad, who I never met, loved growing vegetables in his garden in Glasgow, so maybe I get my love of it from him!

Can't wait to see what it all looks like when I get back!

Mini harvest

I haven't been to the allotment for a week and when I arrived today I couldn't believe my eyes. We have beans, courgettes, big fat peppery radishes, cucumbers and a pumpkin that has grown from a golf ball size to a small football in 7 days!

I picked some beans, they were small but I go away on Sunday for 2 weeks and I wanted to taste them before I left. They were delicious. 

I got another yellow courgette from Shelley, and gave her some rhubarb as we still have loads.

I watered everything well and did some weeding, and dug up some potatoes. Some of the peas have given up, probably haven't had enough water, but that's fine because we can take them out and use the space for something else.

Last weekend we took up the carpet from a section of Shelley's plot that she's giving us. I'll take a photo tomorrow and post it. We'll probably put our winter and spring veg there when it arrives.

I made a delicious rhubarb and blackberry crumble tonight, it was so tasty and a gorgeous colour. This is all that was left....