More planting

Carrots under the cloche

Dug a bed over :)

Use. The asada

Planted strawberries

25 new strawberries planted woohoo

Test from phone

Does it work

Started chitting spuds

Another season!

Blighted spuds again! Valor seemed to fare the best, kings eds really suffered
Courgettes were a great variety but planted too close to sweetcorn and pushed many over. The corn did ok, would've been better with more space.
Sprouts didn't sprout! Only grew less than a foot - planted late or poor seeds? (as nearby cabbages were fine.)
Left the peas on the plants too long! Need to harvest when first appear.
Cauli's flowered again.

Beetroot and swedes suffered a little with slugs... more weeding, beer traps?
Kohl rabbi completely eaten at first oppurtunity!
Slightly better succes with parsnips. Need to be more on the ball with carrots - water and weeding

Onions did ok, plenty of fruits, cucumbers, beans, celery and squashes.

Need to be more on the ball harvesting this season!

Dug over most of the plot in readyness.
Leeks, cabbages and sprouts still growing.
Planted garlic.

Lifted first row of spuds (lady chrystal) - a good crop, maybe left a little long, the plants have started to die back but didn't seem to flower!

garlic affected by leaf miner causing skins to split and bulbs to start growing.

peas left too long, plants dying back, peas past best

fleeced the currants and had a good crop. lots of strawberries and quite a few raspberries

plenty of broad beans, courgettes just starting to produce

bumper crop of garlic and shallots, onions ok

Planted lots of brassicas... cabbages, cauli, purple sprouting. Caged them all off and netted the strawberries that are just beginning to ripen

Planted sweetcorn and a couple of courgettes in between.

allium leaf miner life cycle


net onions etc from late feb to mid may and mid sep to mid nov

Planted a couple of rows of leeks (bought from market) between the carrots.

Sowed a row each of spinach, khol rabbi, swede and beetroot

Planted the last of the spuds. One row of King Eds and one PFA

Planted a couple of rows of King Eds

Sowed some more parsnips in tubes in the greenhouse.

Sowed some lettuce, radishes, spring onions under glass and some more lettuce between the beans.

Put canes and netting over first peas, planted second lot under glass.
Sowed a row of Long Red Surrey carrots (early main) and a row of Rothild (late main)

Planted the rest of the Lady Crystal spuds

Planted a row of Lady Chrystal spuds (around half of them)

Fleeced onions and shallots.

Planted some parsnips in toilet rolls in situ. Have also started some off in compost in rolls at home a few days ago

Manured the raspberries, planted asparagus and 2 rows of peas

Planted beans

Planted shallots

Have ordered seeds and started to chit spuds under newspaper.
Spud varieties are Lady Crystal (3kg first earlies) King Edwards (3kg early main) Valor (1.5kg late main)

Finally planted garlic

We have a shed... almost!

Sprouts!


The sprouts are doing well.
Removed the netting and have edged the bed with laminate flooring.

Onions.

Fleeced them this year which seems to have beaten the onion fly.
Varying sizes of bulbs but ground was a bit stoney, not that well manured and they got a battering from the weather.

Garlic

Got a good crop, but not enough to store for planting next year - plant more next year.

We have a plan.


Started to chit spuds.

Planted a bed of garlic

It's been a while!

The summer is over (once it finally got started)
The shite weather did more damage than our inexperience I think, but we have learnt a fair bit too.

The bad:
Onions: lost to onion fly... need to be fleeced
Japanese onions: very late and mostly weeded out.. rows need to be clearly marked
Peas: eaten (probably by mice)... need to be netted
Tomatoes: all lost to blight
Aubergines & sweet potatoes: none starter due to weather
Parsnips: weeded out... mark rows

The better:
Garlic: some bulbs split due to wet weather... need to plant more and crop as soon as fallen
Carrots: ok... plant seperately and every couple of weeks
Sweetcorn: ok, but lack of summer didn't help

The good:
Spuds: although had to be lifted early cos of blight
Courgettes
Lettuce & radish
20+ gem squash
3 acorn squash
5 massive pumkins...



Leeks still on their way and looking good.

Everything is coming on nicely, except something is eating the peas. It's war i tell ye.

Huzzah rain at last

The first spuds are up.

We've managed to get a little helper!

and the Garlic is doing really well.

Just need to stop the wind wrecking the Tomatoes and Squashes, and all is well

We've been busy, busy , busy. The spuds have been planted, the old shit pile flattened and a new pile bought. The onions are growing nicely, the garlic is looking magnificent and the first lettuce have put in an appearance. We've also plated our first seedlings...dwarf French beans and a rather natty climbing bean. Of course it may all go horribly wrong

yet more digging

Beans and tomatoes looking good, I think there's some cauliflower and Leeks loitering there somewhere as well.

yet another pic

sowed 2 sorts of sweetcorn, hot chili and various
sorts of beans, though small quantities of each

Have sown 4 types of tomato and 3 types of pepper and they're now on the window sill. Will be SOWING BEANS TODAY

More digging.

Measured out some of the beds and spent a couple of hours digging.

sorted the seeds and are ready to plant the first ones.

Recieved most of the seeds

Ordered seeds

Paths and digging.
Spent a couple of hours up there today. Created a path of carpet between the first beds, mulched the far boundary path, marked out and began to dig over the spud beds.
Got given some yellow raspberries from another plot holder and planted them on the edge of the plot next to 'the shed'.

Done an hours digging. Started to clear the top end of the first plot... bindweed and crouch grass-tastic!

Things are growing.
Have been up a couple of times over the last month or two with leaves for the leaf-mould and collecting pallettes for making a compost bin.
The field beans and garlic are up and the onions are just starting to make an appearance.

Autumn leaves.
Built a bin to collect leaves so we can start making some leaf-mould. Sowed overwintering green field beans in one of the beds to use as green manure. Probably sown them a bit thicker than recommended!
One shoot of garlic has appeared!

First sowing.
Planted our first crop this afternoon. 3 rows of garlic bulbs, 4 rows of Senshu onion seeds and 5 rows of salad onion seeds, with the last row sown more sparingly and with more space from the next row.
The council have removed the waste from our other half, leaving us a nice big space.

It's growing.
We've arranged to take on the half plot next to ours. However, it looks like the council have decided to use it as a dumping ground as they create paths and open up the other plots. Hopefully they will finish the job soon, and will make our task of clearing it a bit easier!
Spent a couple of hours digging manure into the other bed and measuring the plot.

Digging and shit shoveling.
Spent a couple of hours digging manure into the far plot and digging though another one, ready for manuring next time.

Our first bed.
Did some more weeding. Dug half of the manure into a plot about 4ft*half of the plot's width, creating our first bed.

More digging and weeding.
Spent another couple of hours digging and weeding.

More digging and weeding.
Spent a couple of hours digging and weeding. Covered over what we've dug with tarps.

Digging and weeding.
Spend around 3 hours digging and weeding.

Rain stops play!
Managed about 20 minutes of digging before the heavens opened. Building a shed with a roof has now moved up on our list of priorities!

Burn it!
Spent a couple of hours clearing and tidying. Dug out perrenials and had a bonfire.

Who needs a strimmer!
About 3 hours of clearing and cutting back.

We've got an allotment!
It's a bit overgrown