Wild Strawberry flowering

Last year I found a British wild Strawberry growing at the back of the house that had started to shoot runners out. The runners where grown on in little pots and then transferred to my old plastic strawberry planter and have done very well.

I was quite surprised however to find that one of the plants has started to flower already. Not that I know anything about wild strawberries but this seems a little early in the year. On the plus side, it means soon I'll have some of those little yummy berries to munch on or like we did last year when we went out foraging, a wild strawberry liqueur.

New home for the Chillies

Picked up one of those 4 tier mini greenhouses from town this week for a home for the Cape Gooseberries and Chillies. All set up in the back garden to get plenty of sunshine. With the weather as mild as it is at the moment I have already put my Chilli, Cape's and Tumbling Tom seedlings in there, and they seem to be all doing well. Just need to keep a very close eye on the weather in case we get another cold snap.

The plan is, as the plants grow, to remove the shelves one by one till the "hothouse" is full to bursting with lovely chilliness. The chillies had been planned to grow inside on windowsills but this way they have their own little home.

Before..... and After.... 13 days on

Our first set of before and after pics, done in 13 days

 



 

The Hard Work Continues...

Two more days of hard work up the allotment and it really is starting to look a lot tidier and loved.  All the main beds have now been dug, Bed 5 was a nightmare, looked reasonable on top but underneath was a bit of a problem, stones, bricks, bits of wood, old nails, plus weeds!  Took all of our Sunday session to clear 3/4 of it, dumped some well rotted manure on it after it had been dug over as that corner is definitely going to need a little bit of help.  Still digging up little potatoes from that area though so the previous tenant must have used it in its poor state.  Whilst I got on with the digging, Simon did a brilliant job with some old stones and slabs and made a recycled rhubarb bed.  Very pleased with it and got some manure in it and a rhubarb straight away.  He planted some comfrey seeds in the first raised area, good for compost and liquid fertiliser.



Went back for more punishment today, armed with a roll of roofing felt for the little shed and while Simon got on with that I finished Bed 5.  Still had some energy left so tackled the flower bed next to the path and planted 3 dahlias, a little early, it said plant March on the packets but its almost March and has been very warm this week so fingers crossed!

 Dug up some more strange bulbs again and put them in the first planted bed - not sure what they are.... any suggestions?  Weed or worth keeping?



 

 

So, the main digging done now and really satisfying to see the before and after pictures.... will be even better when theres green stuff growing - got one garlic up already!

 



 

Other jobs done today - ordered the 8ft canes online for the beans

- planted some celeriac seeds and popped them in the heated propagator

- took pumpkins out of propagator and put them on the kitchen windowsill

- planted the anemones in the tubs at the allotment and had lots left to do the front border in the garden at

home where all the spring bulbs are looking fab

 

Will be glad to go to work tomorrow for a rest!

 

 

More Digging....

Sunny Saturday and perfect for more digging.  Had to go do boring shopping type things first and ended up in the garden centre AGAIN.... funny how that place is like a magnet at the moment!  Went to look at fertilisers and got completely befuddled with all the science and stuff and instead of getting the wrong thing we thought we would just see how things go with the hop compost and if things are looking a bit sad later in the year we would feed it all up then.  Difficult when you are taking a plot over to know what care was taken over the soil before, but by the size of the dandelion roots and the healthy weeds, the ground appears to be to notch.  So for the first time ever ... we left the garden centre empty handed!  Still in shock now as I type this!  That's unheard of for us, we usually buy SOMETHING!

So arrived at the allotment and got digging again, tackling 'bed 4 & 5' today and these are possibly the most difficult so far.  Bed 5 was plagued by grass and was a bit back breaking.  In reality though it could have been a lot worse, we are lucky that the plot isnt very overgrown at all.

 Lovely to dig in the sunshine though!  Simon was busy the other end of the plot, he raked out Bed 2 and then planted onions - Sturon, Red Barons, Hercules and Centurion spaced 4 inches apart and 10 inches between each row.  Which is what the book said to do..... That should keep us going in onions, especially as we have some growing in the raised beds at home too.  Then he planted a couple of rows of Picasso Shallots and a row of Marco Garlic.  Some space still left for the leeks which are started in module pots at home.  The spacings on the growveg website planner were a little out unfortunately and what Simon planted today took up a bit more space than anticipated when planted the correct space apart so unfortunately it looks like no room in the allium bed for the spring onions, will have to do those in the raised beds at home.

Onions all covered up with recycled bits we kept when we cleared the plot in an attempt to keep the wildlife off.  Looking into getting proper canes and netting but using this for now.  Luckily we managed to get some free canes from Dave who was sorting out a vacant plot today  - long ones though so will keep those for some of the bean supports, not sure how we are going to fit 8ft canes in a Nissan Micra!  At least now we wont need to get so many!  Dug up some strange bulbs as well today, not sure what they are, maybe tulips.... put them in the raised bed to see what they do.  They were dug up along one edge of a bed so likely to be flowers.  Also dug up another plant which remains unidentified..... so that has a new home for now too.

Ran out of steam part way through Bed 5 and decided to call it a day, will come back and finish off tomorrow.  Stopped at B&Q later and picked up a mini greenhouse for at home for Simons chilli plants to go on the patio, and treated myself to a new rhubarb plant for the allotment - Simon will sort out another raised bed tomorrow with the slabs and bits left over and will take over the sack of manure left in the greenhouse at home and plant the rhubarb.  Have rhubarb at home already but felt it was only right to have some on the allotment as well!  You can never have too much rhubarb....   Collapsed now, another busy day but feel like we have achieved a lot again.

Cape gooseberry "Little Lantern" (Physalis edulis)

Well is says on the packet that these can be grown outdoors in very mild climates, I wonder if Somerset is mild enough to grow these on the allotment?

I didn't expect many to germinate so I put quite a few in each coir plug, and was only intending to grow on 2 0r 3 of these plants.



As ya can see, I have quite a few to prick out and seems like a waste to just compost the little seedlings.  We have a spare spot I can plant these in, so might be worth a go at planting a few of these outside.

I'll be keeping a few back to grow alongside my Chillies in pots on the windowsill just in case.

Tumbling Tom's

Last year I had 4 Tomato Tumbling Tom's that we bought as plants from the garden centre, growing out of the top of an old strawberry planter and got a quite decent crop keeping in mind I just left them to do their own thing.

Well last year following a Tomato seed saving guide that I found on the Internet I saved the seeds from my Tumbling Tom's and to my surprise they all germinated.



The plan this year is to plant them into a hanging basket that we have and look after them this time with a proper tomato feed and hope for a bumper crop.

2nd day of Digging

After a wet morning and a visit to our local garden centre to stock up on shallots, onions and garlic (and a packet of celeriac seeds), we had some lunch to fortify ourselves and decided to brave the spots of rain that were still being stubborn and went over to the allotment for a 2nd day of digging.  No-one else was there today so we had the whole place to ourselves which gave us the opportunity to have a good wander around and take a look at other plots.  Its strange, at first glance it appears that the allotments are very dormant this time of year but when you take a close look there are lots of things going on, broad beans popping up, green manure growing, winter veg awaiting picking.

So, the task for today was digging plot 3 and measuring the beds and generally tidying up a bit more.



So that is bed 3 done, and the hardest bit of digging so far, lots more roots, creeping grass and old potatoes!  All ready for the cabbages, chard, turnips and swede.  Been reading a lot about crop rotation and trying hard to get it right!

In the first year, bed 1 will be home to spinach, calabrese, kale and cauliflower.

Bed 2 will be for onions (3 types), garlic (2 types), shallots, leeks and red onions.

Bed 3 will be for summer cabbages, swiss chard, turnips and swedes.

Bed 4 will be for parsnips, carrots, beetroot and celeriac.

Bed 5 will be for runner beans, French beans, broad beans and a few climbing beans.

Thats the plan if there is room for it all!  Worked it out on www.growveg.com using their vegetable planner and it seems to work alright and the website allows you to calculate growing quantities based on your bed size which is really handy.



 

 

Chillies, hot hot hot

Just a quick picture of my chilli plants growing away nicely on the windowsill.

The 1st row in the picture are unknown chillies that where sown from seeds collected from chilli fruits I was given last year so I have no idea what they are as I forgot to label the packets correctly when I saved the seeds from the fruits so I'll have to wait and see what becomes of these.

The 2nd row are Cayenne chillies ( Scoville Heat Rating : 30,000-50,000 )

The back row are Prairie Fire chillies, a very compact bush chilli with small fiery chillies that mature from yellow to red. Ideal as a small pot plant as it grows to around 15cm in hight ( Scoville Heat Rating : 70,000  )

 

 

Sown the 1st seeds for the Allotment

Decided to give some seeds a head start and planted in modular pots - a lot of the magazines and books we had read had recommended this instead of just planting seeds straight into the ground.  So I did some cauliflowers, parsnips, cabbages and leeks, not all of them though, will stagger my planting so I dont have a glut of veg all at once.  Don't really want to be stuck with 50 cabbages all at once, or 70 parsnips!  So planted some today, will do some more in a few weeks and then fill in gaps as necessary.  So hopefully in a month or so they will be ready to put out on the allotment.  If they grow.  They should grow.  The tomatoes I planted indoors are doing ok, and I have some aubergines and sweet peppers now, and my cucumbers are looking lovely so my fingers must be at least a little tiny bit green.  Fingers crossed these all do well.

 

The welcome mat

While Jane was digging (she says she likes digging ) I got on with sorting the top corner out where our plot number stake would live.

First job was to go around the plot and put all the old bricks, paving slabs, concrete blocks all in one place and then as we didn't want to drag massive heavy blocks of concrete into the car, try to work out something to do with them.


The very top corner, there had been a fire or something, so using 4 of the bloody heavy concrete slabs the corner got converted into a raised bed of  one square meter and filled with the soil/compost that we found in the dump (now compost heap) behind the shed.

That is quite a decent job for stuff found on the allotment plot, bit of up-cycling. Not sure what to plant in it though, might plant Nasturtiums in the as the flowers and leaves are both edible.

Comment from Jane... can't believe the colour of the sky!  Such a beautiful sunny Sunday for February!

Sorting the plot out

I was dreading sorting the area behind the little storage shed as was prepared for multiple trips to the dump to remove all the rubbish that had been piled up in there, but after getting stuck into it and removing all the metal bars, cracked canes, old compost bags, netting and old carpet, to our surprise we found that 90% of what was in that area was pure well rotted compost.

So after shifting the old rotting wood and broken canes down to the bonfire patch, and collecting the bits of metal pipe to go off for recycling we ended up with a couple of old compost bags filled with mostly plastic bags to go off to the dump.

Rent Day and Started work

 

Where do we start??!!

Sunday morning and no lie in for us today..... flask of coffee made and home made buns and apples, bag packed with hand tools, wellies on, fork ready, off to the allotment for our first day of allotmenting!  Paid our years fee of £16.50 and met our allotment neighbour Alan who was also starting today for the first time.  He lived in a flat overlooking the site and had been waiting for 18 months for a plot, certainly a lot longer than we had, made me realise just how lucky we were.  He had chosen the plot on the end which meant we had a plot between us and it seemed like a good opportunity to increase our plot size if the middle plot was still vacant.  Alan was agreeable to take on half of it if we had the other half so when Dave, the chairman arrived to see how the rent day was going and to check on us newbies I asked him if anyone had taken the middle plot and they hadnt, it was still very much available.  He agreed that we could split the middle plot and left it to us to sort out the boundary, as there was a sort of boundary there already Simon and Alan agreed to use that, even though that gave us an extra metre or so.  Paid another £8.25 for the priviledge of making our plot over half as big again and it felt a lot more substantial and gave us a lot more scope to be able to do our crop rotating properly and to be able to grow everything we wanted to in decent quantities.

So first task, tackling the compost heap/rubbish pile.  It all looked a little daunting, lots of bin bags, fertiliser bags and general debris, bits of metal, old canes..... we started clearing.  Metal bits were going to a pile at the end of the site for recycling, the wood went down on the bonfire, the fertiliser bags were to put any old rubbish bits in.  We sorted out the top layer very quickly, then came across a sheet of plastic, and carpet, then.... compost!  Beautiful, crumbly, rich A1 compost.  It almost felt like finding buried treasure!  Other jobs on day 1 - Simon sorted out some concrete blocks, turned one into a step for the little shed (which incidentally held a bent fork which we recycled, a watering can and a plant pot) and the others he turned into a little raised bed after he'd cleared the top corner of the plot.  He filled it with a bit of the good compost and stuck our plot number proudly in it!  Will be lovely to see flowers or herbs growing in it.  I kept myself busy with the new fork, digging out the first of the two veg beds, hard work and found muscles that I had forgotten existed but with Simons help we got the first two done by mid afternoon.   Met a few fellow allotmenters through the day, all very friendly and encouraging, think it will be a nice place to spend time.  Got home tired and muddy but very happy and pleased with our progress so far.

 

New Equipment (Garden Fork)

What do you need if you have a new allotment?  New wellies of course.  Couldn't go up there in my shocking old ones!  So we went shopping for a few gardening essentials which usually involves me ending up buying more seeds.....  So on the shopping list today, wellies, garden fork, string, modules for planting, gloves, compost for home.. and broad beans!  Had a good look around for a decent fork, was hoping for a Bulldog as I had heard they were particularly good, or a Spear and Jackson.  I had always 'made do' with cheap and cheerful before and had learnt that it was usually a false economy as they were flimsy and broke easily.  So I was determined to not skimp on a decent fork as it would have a lot of work to do!  Found a very good one however for the £15 mark, a bright yellow one in B&Q, made of carbon steel and very sturdy looking, not a world famous brand but looked like it would do the job pretty well and for a decent price.



Got string to mark out borders, new gloves so we could have one pair for each site, home and allotment.  Tried on loads of different wellies, flowery ones, dotty ones, stripey ones, leafy ones, ended up with bog standard short green wellies, were the most comfortable of the lot.  And picked up some Sutton broad beans as they seem to be very popular on allotments and will hopefully do a little better than our overwintering broad beans which look like they have been stretched on a rack.

So armed with all our necessaries we relaxed after our shopping expedition and prepared to head to the allotment the next day for our first digging and sorting session.

We got an Allotment!!!!

With our lawn at home in danger of being dug up even further to make way for vegetables, we decided to take the plunge and apply for an allotment.  We would peek through a gap in the gate at Priorswood Allotments and gaze wistfully at the bean poles, the compost bins and the vast expanses of the plots and sigh.  We had 4 lovely little raised beds at home, already nurturing some broad beans, peas, onions, garlic, winter carrots and spring cabbage but it all felt very restrictive and didnt allow us the luxury of planting decent amounts of crops.  We had expanded our little plot with potato grow bags, pots ready for climbing beans and a half barrel with rhubarb, not to mention the solo gooseberry bush, the cherry tree and pear tree but the thought of a large piece of land with all its opportunities was exciting.  We had the books, we had the magazines, we had the energy, we just needed an allotment.

I sent an email to Priorswood Allotment chairman and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Then Simon emailed the council.  And waited with anticipation.  Then a phone call from Rowbarton Allotments offering us the chance to view their site, a wait of no more than a month or so really.  So on Valentines Day we went over to Rowbarton and met up with Dave at the gate and followed him around as he showed us the site and pointed out all the important bits, including a flushing toilet!  Apparently the only one in Taunton on an allotment.  He gave us the choice of 3 plots, someone had 'retired' and his plot was being divided into 3 more workable sized plots.   We considered carefully and eventually chose the first one in the row because it had the benefit of a small shed and a compost heap / rubbish pile of unknown content.  Close to the loo, close to the wheelbarrow shelter, close to a fresh water supply, sunny open site, just perfect.  Dave gave us our key and we made arrangements to come back on rent day on the next Sunday to pay.  The grand sum of £16.50 + £4 for the key.  Bargain!  We wandered around a bit more, taking in the communal bonfire, the knowledge that a fellow allotment holder brought free hops for compost from the local brewery and generally taking in the sights and sounds of a well run allotment.  Jane and Simon.  Allotment holders of Plot 69.  Excellent!  Just got to dig it up now!