Exciting!

We've been offered a second hand greenhouse!!!!!! Aluminium with a few panes of glass missing. Whoop!
This has come out of the blue so have not planned at all.... Space not cleared on the plot so will have to stash until we're ready. Hopefully might pick it up next weekend. Yip! Also, am not sure whether we'll need to sort out a base for the frame to sit on...An allotment neighbour has got a greenhouse so will investigate what they've done. I'm hoping to get away with not having a base as that'll be extra work on top of all the other stuff that needs sorting.

On another note, it has been absolutely miserable here today so have been confined indoors. Sowed a few more seeds - celeriac, sweet pepper, Brussels, leeks. Last year the leeks I sowed in Feb didn't germinate so will be pleased if they work this year.

The toms sown a couple of weeks back have started germinating though. Have got these indoors on table top nearish a radiator for a bit of extra heat. Fingers crossed for the rest of my little seeds.

Seed-sowing-started

Another month has gone by...huh! Takes you by surprise.
Anyhoo, still the same here in Norwich..snow...frost....occasional sunny day (which never coincides with a free day of course). However, I've managed to get a bit of work done... we've got really light soil so can be worked quite soon after wet times. I've been getting on with making raised beds out of pallets, making a 'U' shape, with each bit of the 'U' being the width of a pallet, so the middle of the bed can be reached easily without being tempted to tread on the soil. I'll take some pictures soon.

Am quite pleased with how they're turning out...there's a bit of work involved with breaking the pallets apart and lugging them down to the plot (using the framework of a grannies-style shopping trolley to transport them!).

I also took the opportunity this weekend to start sowing seeds indoors - tomatoes, peppers and aubergine. And tonight have sown broad beans in toilet roll tubes (so they can be planted straight out). I also planted out some of my main crop onion sets into cut down toilet roll tubes. I wasn't going to bother with this but some of them have already started sprouting so I don't want to waste them. These will sit in our unheated lean-to but the toms etc are indoors.

I was quite sneaky and took a spur of the moment half days leave this afternoon to make the most of a dry day. I wanted to get on with making the raised beds (these need to be completed asap cause I need to sow parsnip seeds soon and more garlics). Then lo and behold, tonight it's snowing! Looks like it was a good decision...hope everyone else out there is faring well and hope for better weather this weekend!

January already?

Wow, it's been a month since we last blogged...the last few weeks sure have passed quickly.

Like most of the country, we have snow in Norfolk at the moment, and have done for the past couple of weeks, so it's pretty limited on the allotment front at the moment. HOWEVER, our seed potatoes arrived just before Christmas...I should have taken them out of the box as soon as they arrived but left it for over a week, and on peeking in the box, found they had already started sprouting...and not the right kind of sprouts either - they are pale and stubby, rather than the dark green more leafy type shoots which are needed. This has happened because they have sprouted in the dark rather than the light. I've now moved them into the lean-to, in cut-down cardboard boxes to make open 'trays' and put them out of direct light, plus broken off some of the bigger shoots. Hopefully some of the green shoots will start to develop soon. I know it seems quite early to start chitting but I began at about the same time last year and things turned out ok (it's so cold in the lean-to they don't chit too quickly).

Also, rather excitingly, last week we visited a friend who has a horse and collected lots of lovely well-matured manure. Mmmmmm. JB was worried it would smell the car out but I was pleased to be proved right that nicely matured manure doesn't actually smell! Access at the allotment is a bit poor, so I had a 'fun' time trying to reverse around a tight corner onto the site so we didn't have to move the bags too far. Just about made it on the second attempt and didn't skid on the slope, hurrah! Was a tad embarrassing as two kids were watching the whole time. It was easier to reverse in than reverse out though.

This is the allotment before Christmas: The tracks on the path are fox and cat :o)


These are the autumn onions, hope they're alright under there!

Conjoined parsnips

Funny parsnips that were joined at the hip, but tasted very nice nevertheless!

 

Squashy

 

The last butternut squash, which we roasted with the parsnip, potatoes and Brussels sprout tops. Yum yum!

Here they are!

All our lovely seeds arrived safely in the end. But some of these are actually presents so they're not all for us!

Where are my poor seeds?

....my big delivery of seeds came on Thursday but as we (and the neighbours) were out, I re-arranged delivery for Saturday with Royal Mail......nothing turned up.....decided to give them an extra day....Monday- nothing turned up. Rang RM and their records show it was successfully delivered to our house on Saturday! Yeh maybe in a parallel universe, but certainly not in this one!

So now have to go through the hassle of finding out what's happened to it. Customer Services haven't contacted me to say whether they've found it or not....RUBBISH!!!

Gawd....maybe tomorrow will bring more joy....

Seeeeeeeds!

I have made my main seed order, through the organic gardening catalogue www.organicgardeningcatalogue.com ....it was rather a lot of money so I shan't reveal how much it was but a lot of the seeds will last more than one year (that's what I tell myself anyway). Plus I bought a couple of 'starter' seed mixes for two of my brothers, who have recently started growing some of their own food. I'm a member of Garden Organic, so you get 10% of your order, which is a bonus.

The weather has been nasty here, as with most of the country, but as the soil is so sandy, it's still workable even after heavy rain. I got in a couple of hours yesterday, between showers, continuing to clear the area for the apple tree and moving carpet around to the most needy areas.

I've noticed that there a lot of little seedlings popping up all over the plot, plus a carpet of green has appeared on my neighbours plot too. On closer inspection they seem to be poppy seedlings which have more than likely come from all the poppies we let seed this year....oops! Well, they're easy to hoe out and the poppies were beautiful, so worth the extra hoeing I think! Not sure that my allotment neighbour will agree......

Today

I was raking up some leaves on the plot and JB said 'what's that?' and out jumped a huge frog. Yippee! A very welcome visitor to the allotment. I moved him (or her) to a safe area of the plot, under the buddliea, near a log pile and the little pond I put in last year. It was really strong, pushing it's way out of my closed hands...JB stroked it's head when it peaked out between my fingers.

I hope it stays!

Well, am being a bit poor at the blogging at the moment, so apologies. We have been popping down every now and then (mainly to pick things and do a bit of weeding) but haven't had much chance to get really stuck in to anything....the weather this weekend didn't help. Plus I keep forgetting to take the camera...

Today the weather was really nice, so I decided to use up a bit of lieu time I'd built up and take the afternoon off to spend it on the plot. I stayed as long as possible, until it was too dark to see very much (actually used the light from my mob screen so that I could see what I was picking! (rainbow chard!)

I've been breaking/cutting up pallets to make edges for the beds, which look pretty smart once they're in. Still lots more of that to go though and I will take some pics soon. I was going to put some of the edging in this afternoon but then couldn't decide on exactly what I was going to do with one of the beds so made a decision to put off decision making til another day, and instead did some weeding/digging! I cleared quite a big area, in preparation for planting out a small apple tree. The area seems to have been an old turf mound-come-rubbish dump, so is a weird mixture of lovely topsoil, with bits of rubbish (old carriers bags/tin cans/crisp packets/bits of metal etc). I'll level it all out once I've dug out all the bramble/couch grass/rubbish. We're also planning to have a bit of a wildflower area here and maybe plant a rosemary/lavender hedge (and make a bench to sit and enjoy all the lovely aromas and colours).

If the weather's nice again some time this week, I think I might use some more lieu time to have a bonfire for all those brambles. It's a pretty big heap and I want to have one before the weekend as local youths tend to get in to the allotments at this time of year to set off fireworks - don't want them setting light to my heap and having all the fun. Also need to check for hedgehogs of course!

So what's new?

Well, it's that time of year when everything's winding down...or is it? So I have some big plans for this autumn/winter: apple tree to plant out (clear space first), collect lots of leaves for making leaf mould, clear more of the plot, dig a new bed, make more raised beds (starting collecting pallets for this), make a bench and cold frame.

Hmmm seems like quite a lot actually! Maybe will slim down the plans somewhat.

The autumn onions sets are in and have started sprouting. I've put them in where the corn/dwarf beans were and have covered them with old net curtains in case there are any onion flies or other nasties around still. So far so good. Will plant out some garlic too but need to make the raised bed first.

Roll-on the weekend!