On The Allotment

I have recently upgraded my car from a Volvo s40 saloon to a V50 estate equipped with a tow-bar. The first time down to the allotment was also the first time to the allotment in the new car and it was a delight to be able to couple up the trailer to collect sand and compost from Homebase and be able to throw the spade, fork and boots in the back of the car without any trouble.

I won’t use the trailer every time I go to the allotment but it is handy to have to collect things or take rubbish to the tip, the boot of the car will prove to be very useful.

Yesterday I went down to the allotment for the first time for about 4 months. I have already made my excuses in previous posts as to why i had not been to the allotment in such a long time, but I was expecting to find that the plot was in a mess, however I was pleasantly surprised that it was not as bad as I had feared.

I took a video of the allotment, which I am in the process of uploading to YouTube and I will post here when it has done although my broadband is terribly slow so not promising it tonight! In the mean time I have uploaded some photographs of the state of the allotment as it greeted me.

I found these discounts for Gardening Extras so I thought I would post them, currently two deals bizarrely 5% off and 10% off why anyone would use the 5% off I I do not know! They are both valid for the next two days

http://www.subscribetooffers.com/category/gardening-extras/

I will try and post more of these as I get codes for Sutton Seeds and Dobies of Devon send on a regular basis.

I have recently bought The Allotment Handbook by Carol Foley, and although I have not read it cover to cover I thought that I would post a little review and recommend it for allotment owners and keen vegetable gardeners.

I was shopping at Waitrose (although don’t usually shop there, not that posh!) and stopped at the book isle, where I spotted this book, in Waitrose it was £12.99, I was almost tempted to buy it, however, with past experience I knew that I would be able to find it cheaper online and yes Amazon are doing it for just £8.47

The Allotment Handbook is roughly split into three, the first being planning, preparation and techniques, the second being month by month guide and the third being directories of plants and pests. I have been looking for something that gives a month by month guide to allotment gardening and this book provides just that. I am sure that the other sections will also come in very handy, however, this was really what I was looking for in the book.

It is clearly laid out and is written in good, easy to read English, throughout the book there are ‘fly-out’ panels for trouble shooting, weather guidance and tips. There are not many pictures of diagrams in the book and it could probably have done with some more, however, the ones that have been included are clear and simple and relevant.

I would recommend if to any allotment owner or keen gardener as something to read either while at the allotment or on those rainy days when gardening is not possible.

Click here to view the book on Amazon

As it was raining this morning, work on the Allotment or Garden here at home was out of the question so we went to Sainsburys, after shopping we called into Homebase to look for a toy box for Eva. While there I did my usual ‘walk’ down the tool isle and round the garden section. They have this seasons seeds in and also their seed potatoes. I was tempted to start buying for the allotment, however, i think it prudent to plan what I want to do.

Potatoes were very successful on the allotment last year and so was the soft fruit, however, I am sure that I could have got better from the fruit if I had visited more often. Time was limited last year because of planning our wedding, but hopefully this year I will be able to call into the allotment on the way home from work each evening to harvest the latest fruit and vegetables.

I will have to put some thought into what else did well and what did not do so well last year on the allotment so that this year I can best make use of the space. I kept a record of all the produce so I will try and publish that, which will also show what did well and what did not so well.

This evening I will dig out all the plans from last year and have a look, I will then start my plan for this year.

The allotment is a place to escape, somewhere I can get some peace and quiet and enjoy producing something worthwhile for the family.

In the long run the allotment will be more than that, it will be somewhere the Eva can learn. We do not want her growing up not knowing where carrots come from, or thinking that chips come from the chip shop.

We have already started teaching her, she recognizes allotments now, on a recent visit to Grandparents where my mother has a large vegetable plot Eva pointed and said Allotment.

We are teaching her about cooking, she plays mixing her bowl while I cook, so it will be nice to bring produce back from the allotment and cook it.

This year as she is a little older (2 at the end of March) I am sure she will join me on the allotment, she loves digging in the soil and getting her hands dirty so she will love visiting the allotment on a Sunday morning.

It has got me thinking, what is your allotment or garden to you?

Well I am hanging my head in shame on two counts, firstly my lack of posts on this blog and secondly, and I must confess, even more shameful, I have not been to the allotment for over 2 months.

I do have a list of excuses… wedding, honeymoon, busy at work but none of these excuse the  lack of effort!

The new year has started and I must start planning 2010 on the allotment. I have bought a book, an allotment guide which I will review on here when I have had chance to read it. I hope that it will give me some pointers about my planning.

On the positive side we are still eating the potatoes I grew last year. Christmas dinner was fantastic with self grown roasties!

My Priority for the next couple of weeks is to get the allotment straight, I have no idea what state it is in, probably over grown, but I am sure with a little effort I can bring it back to a usable state.

I will then make a plan of what I am going to grow and start getting some seeds bought.

It has been the typical winter blues as far as the allotment goes but not that the snow has gone I can feel the excitement coming back!

I found this story on the BBC site and thought it was a little gem.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8102282.stm

Think I will do this for my Dwarf French Beans if I win next week!

The strawberries are coming along great, those under the Victorian Cloches have produced several ripe fruits and those in the fruit cage, although not as far along are heavy with fruit.

The disappointing thing is that the ripe fruit have little holes nibbled in them. I first suspected that this was slugs however thinking about it I have never actually seen any on the plot. The could come out at night, although I think a more likely suspect are ants as there are loads on the plot and I have even seen them crawling over the ripening strawberries.

Has anyone else had issues with ants and soft fruit? If so any advice ould be greatly received.

I lifted the first potatoes today, I dug up one plant just to see what stage they were at. This was the first row of the first earlies planted, they are Duke of York.

As you will see I got a nice little crop from it, although there were many more little potatoes starting to grow so I suspect that it would have been rather more productive if left a while longer.

I will be digging a plant at a time over the coming weeks so as to have a nice fresh crop to eat.

The crop produced this time weighed 425g so not too bad

I will post later about what I did with those first new potatoes!

After lifting the first of the new potatoes, I created a potato salad with it. Here are some pics of the mal I created from it. We also had lettuce and raddiish followed by Strawberries… This is the life!

Just reporting back on the progress of the YouTube channel. It has not had over 2000 views, so a big thank you to everyone who has spent time watching my videos. I will try and keep them up throughout the season.

I thought I would do a photographic update this week rather than a video update, just as something a little different, I am pleased witht he progress, everything apart from the dwarf french beans are coming along well. I may plant some in pots back here at home and see if they can establish themselves before I plant them out. I suspect that pigeons are getting them as I saw one sprouting but now nothing.

Anyway here are the photographs, each annotated with a few comments.

We are going away for the week next week so there will not be any activity on the allotment over the next couple of weekends. I will be going down the night before we go away to check on everything.

I picked the first strawberry from the allotment today, we shared half each, tasted absolutely fantastic! The experiment with the victorian cloches has clearly worked, the three plants that are under the cloches were the last to be planted, and these are the ones that the fruit is largest and ripening.

First Strawberry

Its bank holiday Sunday and everything on the allotment is blooming. It is a glorious day, blue sky and the world could not be better!

Have a look at my quick video of the progress