It being neither freezing nor raining I just spent a few hours weeding on my allotment. My plot is very weedy and I was reflecting on that unpalatable fact while I worked. Apart from brassicas and roots, I don't have much on the plot at this time of year, so there is a lot of…
Allotment & vegetable growing
Allotment – taking stock
It being September, almost the end of the growing season, it seems natural to take stock of how that growing season has gone. This has been my first year of not digging and my results have been sufficiently good to attract the attention of my neighbouring plotholders. My crops have on average been at least…
Allotment update
It is the nature of allotments that both inputs and outputs are almost always little and often rather than big, one off events. Ideal for blogging if you're into all the minutiae, not so much if you're not. My Kestrel potatoes now have blight and I will take the tops off in preparation for lifting…
Allotment update
It feels like about the midpoint of the season. I have now pretty much filled all the space I have, but looking forward a month or so I shall have a lot of free space where peas and potatoes have been harvested. Today I sowed perpetual spinach, beetroot, chard and cabbage in the hope that…
Trial by allotment
I went up to my plot yesterday morning, did a bit of weeding and thinned my autumn raspberries. On the way out of the fruit cage, heading home for lunch, I noticed a branch on one of my gooseberries was almost bare of leaves. It could only mean sawfly, so I set to squashing them.…
Allotment update
No dig veg growing throws up the odd dilemma, like do I or do I not earth up my spuds. I chose to do so, but not to the extent that everyone else has done theirs. Having made and carried out the decision, it seems a bit late to turn to Charles Dowding's book and…
Allotment update.
Another year, another back ache. But I'm warming to the no-dig theme and apart from endless shredding and humping compost about, not digging is easier. Before the winter last year I had covered most of my plot with vegetable matter of some description. I am very pleased to say that most of it has rotted away…
To dig or not to dig.
This year was my third season on my allotment, time that has passed with unseemly haste. I inherited a plot that had been pasture and had been badly ploughed before the first tenant took it on. A year later, when I started, they had done almost nothing and the grass and weeds had grown back…
garden ruminations 