Strimmer!!

You cannot under appreciate what a petrol strimmer does for an allotment plot! Hopefully we have blended in some slugs with the grass cuttings!! :D

Our "slightly" raised beds! Ready for courgettes and mange tout!

All Change!!

Bugger...we've had to make some plot amendments due to the weather and not being able to dig the areas we wanted to. The back of the plot has become No-Mans-Land over winter and digging backwards is a hefty job. Mare's Tail is a constant nuisance but we're getting there....slowly.
Here's an updated plot layout. (Click to enlarge)

Something is having a nibble

The year has started really well. Dave bought a petrol strimmer for £35 on GumTree (Bargain!) and we have been strimming the grass paths and weeds as much as possible. We have been pretty ruthless as the grass has been waaay overdue a trim! Hopefully we will have massacred a few slugs in the process?!
More beds have been dug and raised and Dave is building a new table. It was hot enough last weekend to be wearing suncream and sunglasses but it's a different story this week. Rain, rain, miserable rain.
We also have a mystery nibbler on the plot. First of all the chilli plants in the cold frame were nibbled right down to the core. No trace of slug-slime so maybe mice?
Then at the weekend 1 out of 4 courgettes were gobbled! They were all fairly established so I wouldn't have thought that slugs would be interested? 3 of them were under plastic cloches so there was a risk of damage to 1 of the plants but we haven't had courgettes eaten before?! They're usually pretty hardy and safe as they're quite tough.
I'm making a guess that it's either rats or the scraggy fox that seems to be venturing up the allotments during the day for afternoons snoozes! It doesn't seem at all bothered by us gardeners!

We have seen all 3 of our plot neighbours this year in one weekend which is a rarity but everyone seems to be putting in a lot of effort this year. Maybe that claim by the Met Office for a hot summer is going to come true? (Although I predicted a hot one back in Feb!) We'll see...

Newspaper Pots Tutorial

I have posted before about newspaper pot tutorials with a link last year but I couldn't get it to load for some odd reason. (The website has a web traffic restriction I think?)

I decided to make my own version in case the same happened again. Here's my photo newspaper pot tutorial which you should be able to click on to view it larger.

I hope it's easy enough to understand and not too complicated. If you have tried origami before then this should be fairly straight forward.

All you need is newspaper and some paperclips.

Enjoy!

1st Day of Spring!

The first day of spring is upon us and the first batch of broad beans are in the ground. Hopefully I'll have the parsnips in this weekend as well. It's been a beautiful week with sun sun sun but I'm sure it will turn at some point to cold and rain again. I've collected several toilet rolls to plant the parsnips in and I will be putting these into a raised bed to prevent 'forking'. The ground at the lotty turns to clay not far down so it isn't ideal for root veg but not impossible. I'd like to make a fine grainy compost for them to grow in, raised up a bit to give them a couple of extra inches to grow in. It's an experiment so we'll see what happens.
I'm planting the broad beans in batches so that we have a steady crop. I've got about 10 rows in now and I'll put in another 15 the weekend after this one. They're under fleece so they should be okay. I've hammered the fleece onto the raised bed as sticks and stones don't really work from past experience. The wind just throws them around. I'll have a look this evening to make sure it's all still okay and that the fox hasn't had a go at anything.
I'm also going to try and nip out the growing tips of the broad beans to deter blackfly. We're still bound to get blackfly (we always do!) but I'm going to try and be vigilant this time. It's about time we had a decent crop!!

Time to spring...

For the past 2 weekends I have been preparing the lotty for spring. I've dug up the parsnip patch and found a nice heap of mare's tail buried nicely below. Grr!
I have moved the cold frame to it's new home (it's a bit delicate but should be ok). Plus I have pulled up the last of the brussel sprouts and dug over this patch for some new broad beans.
This weekend we should get the herb bed finally sorted plus some planting. New raised beds are coming along nicely and I've made a valued trip to LIDL for some gardening stuff. More slug/snail traps and compost. I'm looking forward to this weekend and potentially some seeds in the ground! :)

Allotment Plan Layout 2009

Plan for 2009

We had an allotment meeting last night to discuss the rotation / layout for 2009. We all had our own ideas on what we wanted to grow but I think Dave has the best plan by following this simple method.

Answer the following questions on each fruit / veg:
1) Is it tastier than the supermarket equivalent?
2) Is it expensive to buy?
3) Is it easy to grow?

If you answer No to 2 or more questions then it's not going in the ground.
So therefore we are culling the following:
Potatoes: Blight
Aubergines: Pain the arse - never have a decent summer.
Garden peas: Eaten by slugs / not a good cropper.
Spinach: Doesn't get eaten.
Brussell Sprouts: One good stem out of 5. Nuff said.

We need an anti-mammal technique for sweetcorn as we had literally NONE last year due to rats and squirrels. We are ,however, giving broadbeans another shot. (I'm dubious as I know it will be infected by blackfly in seconds but hey-ho - it's a May cropper so what the heck?)

We're also going to try Jerusalem Artichokes! No idea how these will turn out and we've got to get seeds/tubers (i have no idea as of writing this!!) and put them into action for Feb/March.

We are definitely doing:
Manage Tout
Tomatoes
Squashes
Leeks
Climbing French beans and dwarf variety
Runners (cos it's an alllotment staple!)
...plus moving the herb bed as it's overgrown.

We have also played with the idea of doing chillies in the cold frame. Risky but worth a try.

So, that's the plan. Better get a final version laid out. :)