I've put in several hours on my plot yesterday and today, strimming, weeding, sowing and planting. It still feels early in the season but I'm well on the way to a full house. I've said before that I have trouble getting seedlings going on my plot and start most things off in pots or cells.…
Allotment update – 3/4/2017
My purple curly kale has had it. Time to go. I chopped round the stems with the spade, leaving most of the roots in the ground and took them away to be shredded and added to the compost heap. I'd wanted to plant spuds in the space nearly a month ago but thought there were…
End of month view, March 2017
There's quite a bit flowering now, bulbs and bushes. I'm not sure how but we still have three magnolias, used to have five. The one behind the polytunnel is Vulcan and it's slowly falling over. It might be possible to push it back up and prop it, I hope so. The plum tree on its…
What I think I know about soil.
Soil is the stuff I grow most of my plants in, the ones I don’t grow in pots. It is derived from the local rock, soft slatey stuff, small bits of which are visible and sometimes abundant in the soil. Everybody describes it as “shilletty”. If I analysed the distribution of article sizes I would…
Allotment note 13/3/2017
There's very much a sense of the season accelerating; that transition from not enough to too much to do. This was my week, as far as veg goes. 5/3/17 Planted potatoes Charlotte and Kestrel. I planted Kestrel 18/3 lst year and they were fine so I should be OK. I've put more Kestrel in pots…
Allotment note 4/3/17
Sowed Onion 'Liria' in seed tray, on prop bench at 25C. Pricked off Leeks 'Musselburgh' sown 5/2 into 4L pot. Will plant out when bigger. This was an early sowing, will do another soonish. Pricked off Tomato 'Sungold' into 9cm pots. In Sylvamix peat free with 2.5g/L CRF added. Back on window ledge. Up…
Allotment note 3/3/17
Today I received a few packets of seed from The Real Seed Catalogue. I picked up on them on Charles Dowding's blog and wanted to try them out. Salads were a success last year in the sense that we ate almost all I grew and could have done with more, especially into autumn and winter.…
End of month view – February 2017
I do like a different viewpoint. You get very familiar with your own garden and it can get difficult "to see oursels as ithers see us". I know the top viewpoint very well, but the bottom one I find much more engaging as it's unfamiliar. I find myself looking closely at it, noticing patterns and…
Allotment stuff, new season.
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…
End of month view – January 2017
The weather forecast had promised a bit of brightness but I gave up waiting and took a few dull shots. It was raining soon after, and still is. The garden is down to its bare bones at this time of year and a comparison with the picture I took a year ago shows very few…
garden ruminations 