Category Archives: Strawberry

17th May 2013 Update from the Allotment

Posted on by
Reply

We spent three hours on the allotment this morning. I planted 6 iceberg lettuces in the greenhouse, cleared a fence and weeded a new patch to get two more rows of potatoes in and also some more onions that were ready into the raised beds. Cheryl did some more work in the strawberry patch clearing more weeds.

Here are some pictures of the progress

Shallots in the greenhouse waiting to go into the raised beds

Shallots waiting to go into the allotments Parsnips and brocoli waiting to go into the raised bedsBroccoli and Parsnips waiting to go into the allotment Cucumber, not looking all that healthy but the same thing happened last year so we will see what happens…Cucumber at the allotment

 

Tomatos looking very strong and healthyTomato in the greenhouse at the allotment

I planted 6 iceburg lettuce plants in the greenhouse, hopefully they will come and be harvested before the tomatos get too bigIceberg Lettuce

I had an impulse buy at Homebase this week, I got some Celery, I have never grown it so will be doing some research. Celery bought from homebase Raspberries starting to budRaspberries on the allotment Leaves are coming out on the apple treeApple tree on the allotment Gooseberries starting to developGooseberries on the allotment Blackberry we planted last weekend is growing well and will need tying to the wires agian very soonBlackberry on the allotment Blackcurrents developingBlackcurrant on the allotment Pear blossom has now gone, blown away by the wind, but hopefully we might see some pears starting to developPears beginning to come on the allotment The two fruit trees, apple and pearPear and Apple fruit trees on the allotment Two new rows of potatoesTwo rows of Potatoes in Onions and Shallots in the raised bed, I put some more onions in today.Onions and Shallots in the raised bed Carrots are starting to come through, not sure which are weeks and which are carrots yet so will let them develop a little before weeding, Carrots in the raised bed Onions in the raised beds, the ones I planted first some 4 weeks ago are looking very strong.Onions in the raised bed Potatoes coming through so will be earthing up more in the next few daysPotatoes coming throughThe Onion Bed

Onion Bed

I also did a video update and here it is:

Update from the Allotment 11th May 2013

Posted on by
Reply

After ballet class (Evas class not mine!!!) we all went down to the allotment, we took a picnic with the hope that the sun would be shining and we would be able to sit out on the deck chairs we have down there. However, it soon turned to drizzle which put pay to that plan. We did manage to get a picnic sheltering in the Greenhouse!

We made some good progress, Cheryl spent time working hard on the Strawberry plot and cleared at least two thirds which will allow the Strawberries to breath and hopefully provide some fruit this year. We still plan to move them, the ground is rock hard and the weeds are deeply set, but at least it will give them a fighting chance to provide some fruit this year.

Eva and I planted the Blackberry, you will see a post that talks about doing that. I then planted a row of King Edward main crop potatoes, got the peppers and chilies in the greenhouse and got the rest of the onions that are ready into the raised bed.

Here is a video about the progress on the allotment

Weekend Update and Free Horse Manure

Posted on by
2

This weekend we have not had a great deal of time at the allotment, and to be honest, we have not  been down was much as I would have liked over the last week due to the weather.

Thankfully, we had a couple of days of sun the last two days, but again today it is back to rain! The plants are really starting to struggle with the lack of sun light. Everything is looking rather yellow and drab.

One might assume that all this rain is fantastic for the plants, and while yes they do need water, the shear amount is causing problems, as indicated above they are not getting enough sun-light, but also this amount of rain has a devastating effect on the soil, leaching out nutrients especially nitrogen from the soil, setting back the hard work of digging in all the organic matter.

The rain has been so bad that some of the allotments at the Boothferry road site have been flooded.

Allotment Floooding

Flooding at the Allotments

I can only imagine how it must feel to see all your hard work in that state. I don’t think the flooding lasted for very long so hopefully those affected will be able to recover for what is remaining of the season.

Although our plot is on the same level as all the others, it has been built up over the years with manure and compost, so its level is a good 30-40 cm above many of the others, so we were not affected so badly, although we did have some standing water.

Standing water in the Strawberry Patch

Standing water in the Strawberry Patch

We have had some good fruit from the allotment this week, I made 4lbs of Strawberry Jam, and we must have had nearly 20lbs of Strawberries in the last 6 weeks or so.

We had a small crop of Gooseberries, there are plenty more, but I wanted to thin them out so that the rest fo the fruit had chance to swell. Cheryl made a fantastic crumble with them.

I have been avoiding the Jesus Christ Super Star thing on ITV which Cheryl watches avidly, so for the past two nights I have taken an early evening walk to the allotment. All is quiet down there at 8pm! no-one else crazy enough to be working at that hour!

I managed to get a few jobs done, I tied up the Tomatoes which are looking a great deal happier now they are in the soil and have had a good feed. I have also been gently going round the beds with the howe to try and keep on top of the weeds.

The good news is that the netting seems to be keeping the Pigeons off the brassacas. I am not sure if they will amount to anything due to the damage they had, but we will see what happens later in the year.

On Sunday I picked a load of rotted Horse Manure up, free to those who will collect, I collected a trailer load and will go back for more. We now have a manure heap at the bottom of the plot, I will leave it there to rot down some more, although they said it has been there for 3 years.

Horse manure

Horse Manure Heap

Here is a video from Saturday night, showing the progress on the Allotment.

 

Planting Sprouts, Cabbages, Carrots, Aubergines, Chilies and more weeding

Posted on by
Reply

We had a good 3 hours at the plot yesterday (Sunday) morning. At the end of the morning we stood on the Allotment road and looked up the plot, it was pleasing to see that it is now looking like an allotment, rather than waste ground with 4 foot high weeds.

Cheryl did more weeding, getting the top part cleared, I followed after her and dug over the ground. Once we had a section cleared and dug, I planted the Brussel Spouts, Winter and spring Cabbages which were donated to us. I hen moved on to plant the Aubergines and Courgettes outside in one of the boarders, I have no idea if they will work outside, however, we do not have the room int he Greenhouse for them all so it is worth a punt on growing them outside.

While we were there another fellow allotmenter from a couple of patches down came over and gave us some Sutton Dwarf Broad Beans. I got those planted straight in as they are flowering. After consulting my trusty book, I believe they they do not necessarily need staking, however, some are already falling over, and as I said before the plot is a little exposed with no wind breaks so I maybe wise to put in some little stakes or some form of support for them.

Cheryl did some more weeding round the strawberries, it is clear that we are going to have to sort out the strawberry patch at the end of the season, there is no structure to it, you can’t get between the plants to pick the fruit. We will peg down some of the runners this year and mark which ones are the new plants and then when we have formulated a plan for the whole patch we will re-plant all the strawberries into a more orderly configuration.

Cheryl and Eva also planted some Candy Tuft between the main allotment plot and Evas Sub-Plot to give some colour and attract butterfly, ladybirds, bees and all those things we want to bring into the allotment.

Here is a video of the progress on the allotment.

First Video from Allotment Plot 131

Posted on by
Reply

We went to the allotment to make sure all was well and watered up, we have not been able to get down there to do any work due to the weather and commitments with the business, but it is still looking good. I hope to get down there on Wednesday at some point weather permitting.

This video gives an overview of the allotment, and re-introduces Eva to our YouTube viewers who last saw her aged 2 working on our last allotment plot

Bumper crop of Strawberries

Posted on by
Reply

I went to the allotment this morning and picked Strawberries in the rain. Surprisingly there wasn’t anyone else down there, I can’t imagine why!

Here is a picture of the Strawberries we have just enjoyed!

strawberry crop

Strawberry crop

While I am posting here is a nice picture of Eva taking some Rhubarb home the other day

Eva with a crop of Rhubarb

Eva with a crop of Rhubarb

First Crops, First Losses and two days at the allotment

Posted on by
Reply

I have just got back from the allotment, I had been working on the business since early, and when it got to 2:45 I decided to go down to the allotment to do some more work, but more of that later.

This post covers two days at the allotment, Tuesday and today, Wednesday.

Tuesday 19th June 2012

It was our first real major effort at the allotment, Eva is not at pre-school at all on a Tuesday so we decided that we would go down at about 11ish, do an hour and a half work and then have a picnic on the Allotment, followed by some more work after out lunch.

Cheryl worked hard pulling weeds, I made a trip to Sainsburys and bought some picnic chairs which we will leave at the Allotment, when I got back she had cleared a large patch of the taller weeks, helped by (or hindered by) Eva and I was able to start doing some digging over.

weeded and dug over

Weeded and Dug Over, the plot is starting to come together

By the time lunch had come we had managed to make a great impact on the weeds and the plot started to look more like an allotment rather than wasteland.

Lunch in the sun was lovely, Eva always enjoys a picnic, especially when it is out of her prize lunch box, with Pringles as a special treat!

picnic on the Allotment

Picnic on the Allotment

After lunch Cheryl continued to weed through the raspberries while I got some of the Leeks in that we had been given. I managed to get two rows of 24 in.

Two Rows of Leeks

Two Rows of Leeks

Meanwhile Eva built a Scare Crow…

Evas Scare Crow

Eva’s Scare Crow

All in all a successful day, and after an hour or so we finished for the day, only to return after tea to pic some Strawberries.

Wednesday 20th June

Thats today!

I finished working on the business at around 2:45 and went down to the Allotment for an hour, I managed to get some more of the ground turned over and another row of 24 leeks.

I then planted 5 rows of Onions, 2 Red and 2 White. I know it is really too late to be planting them, but I got them cheap at B&Q so I thought we have not lost anything if they do nothing. I should thing that the worst thing that will happen is that we get small onions, but that is fine by me.

Unfortunately, we seem to have lost one of the cucumber plants we planted int he greenhouse to slugs/snails. I don’t like using slug pellets due to birds picking them up, but I figured in the greenhouse it would be ok.

We also have a big Ant problem in the greenhouse so I have laid some ant powder to see if that will get on top of them. Ants are a big problem in Hessle, I know at my last house we had an ant problem under the patio.

I have again picked enough Strawberries for a nice desert tonight, they are as sweet as anything, no need for cream or sugar. It is amazing what a little sun light does to the strawberries. I can see that we will havea steady daily supply right through the season.

I also picked some Rhubarb so hopefully a Rhubarb crumble might be on offer.

The weather is not looking so good for tomorrow, but we will have to wait and see. I have a couple of meetings with clients so it will probably be a flying visit to water the greenhouse.

No Pictures today, I forgot to take my camera, I will get some more tomorrow if I go down.

Another day planned for the allotment

Posted on by

We have just finished bacon butties (our Sunday morning treat) and since Eva has just said she would like to go to the allotment again and and as we had such a great morning at the allotment yesterday and since mummy missed how Eva enjoyed the allotment we are planning to go down to the allotment today. I will get some more clearing up done and some more potatoes and onions planted.

We also went to Homebase yesterday after the work at the allotment, and bought some more strawberry plants. This excited Eva, although she wanted to eat them now, I explained that they had to be planted first and leave them for a while until they get flowers and then fruit but she still fancied eating them now rather than waiting! Anyway we will plant those today which means I need to dedicate another area of the allotment to some fruit. This will also mean that I need to make another fruit cage, although it does not have to b a walk in one like the other as this will only have strawberries in it.

We cannot spend too much time at the allotment today as we have some work to do in our garden at home. Eva was bought a play house for her birthday by Nanna and Gramps, I have created an area of the garden for Eva and fenced it off to give Eva her own little area. This is currently rather muddy so we are going to lay some turf. Homebase are doing an offer 3 rolls for £9 which I don’t think is bad although having never bought turf I really have no idea! I may post some pictures of the progress later both from the allotment and the garden here.

Ants eating Strawberries?

Posted on by

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.

Video – Progress on the Allotment – 24th May 2009

Posted on by

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

First Day back after holiday – 5th April 2009

Posted on by

The weekend just gone was the first day back on the allotment following our holiday and Evas birthday. The progress on the allotment is very exciting.

The Rhubarb is motoring along, Mange Tout is coming through, the first rows of early potatoes are showing through, the rows of carrots, beetroot and parsnips are coming along.

Unfortunately there are some weeds starting to sprout, especially in the raised bed area, where unfortunately I can not get in with anything to get them out due to the danger of disturbing the rows of carrots and beetroot which are still very small. I will leave it another week until they are stronger and then get in and weed.

This weekend I bought 17 strawberry plants from Homebase, 15% off which is always a bonus! I managed to get them into the soft fruit cage. I suspect I have planted them too close to the gooseberry and black current bushes but as they will not fruit this year, I hope they will fill the space with a view to moving them to the back of the plot in the flower boarder next year.

Mum also brought 8 raspberry canes down with her when they came for Evas birthday. They are taken from runners from her established plants and should bear fruit this year. I gave away two to a friend and planted the rest in the soft fruit cage.  I will need to rig up some supports for them, but this should be fairly simple.

I also got two rows of cos lettuce, two rows of radish and a row of spring onions into the cloche. I hope that the slightly warmer and sheltered conditions in the cloche will bring those on fairly quickly.

I also took the opportunity of the cloche to plant some sweetcorn in post. Again the shelter and the warmer conditions will allow these to come on quicker, and help them establish themselves before I plant them out.

I got a row of dwarf French beens into the top of plot 4. I had wanted to get another row of carrots, beetroot and parsnip in but time got the better of me!

Have a look at the video I took of the plot this weekend: