Its hard not to talk about the weather!

It poured with rain, it froze, it snowed and the tail end of hurricane what-ever-your-name-is lashed its vicious tongue all across the land. That and a brief spell in hospital meant that it wasn’t until the 28th that it was nice enough to spend a pleasurable afternoon up at the allotment. I cleared away the bean poles, dug over some of the beds and have come to the conclusion that a bag of mulch spread over the area in the summer was worth every penny. Not only did it keep the weeds at bay but also kept the moisture in. This has saved me a lot of backache on the digging front. This lot in the photo above took me a couple of hours to thoroughly get rid of the weeds.

Storm Daisy
The storms that raged in January were Storm Eleanor, Fionn, David and Georgina. I’ve renamed the collective word for storms in January as Daisy as you can’t get angry at Daisy.
The wind had done a bit of damaged with broken frames and tangled nets. But nothing too serious. At least I’ve still got some brussel sprouts, parsnips and carrots to harvest. In fact my butternut squash has stored well and so even in January I was able to cook my own produce. Well done me!

Stuff I’d over looked in December were two packets of camassia bulbs. They were bursting inside their packets so I quickly stuffed them in some pots so at least they had a chance of survival. I’m hoping that in the spring I can put them in the front garden with the others.

Its February just around the corner and no doubt more love will be bestowed upon my plants and seedlings as February is when I get sowing.

Gill

SNOWY WEATHER CRISPING UP MY WINTER VEG

Twice it has snowed in December! This doesn’t happen often and is so exciting when it does. I have created a Christmas dinner bed and noes the time to harvest. Although to be practical I couldn’t grow it all in one bed as roots and brassicas don’t have the same needs and my Swiss chard got shaded out by the Brussels. But under that snowy blanket lie the brussels and broccoli, then a discrete breathing space before rows of parsnips. The carrots needed a less fertile area plus different netting needs. Those carrot fly never give up and so they were sown in an adjacent bed.

My Christmas trug looked a treat though and worth all that effort.

Those parsnips weren’t the usual pointy shape. I suspect that I didn’t prepare the ground well enough. But they tasted fantastic roasted.

Disaster were the leeks who came out in an infestation of onion leaf minor and the whole lot rotted in the ground before I noticed. I had to destroy the lot and realise that I’ll have to give leeks a miss next year in an effort to quarantine the area.

Highlights of 2017 were a trip to the Chelsea Flower show, courgette cooking mastery, saucing endless tomatoes and general faffing in my small town garden. I’m happy with what I did last year and vow to spend more time up at the allotment  so that problems get spotted before they get out of control. I’m pleased that I’ve set up a better composting system and pleased that my crop rotation study will improve things hopefully.

Happy new year!

MY COMPOST HEAP SYSTEM ROCKS!

There comes a time when you have to get down and dirty and back to basics.  I mean getting to grips with the soil and its need for nutrients. This reality hit home after a second year of poor sweetcorn yields and I just knew that the only soil-u-tion was digging in compost or muck. This has caused many a dilemma. For years, because of the bad access at the plot , I’ve used chicken manure pellets tossed about the place randomly. So its time to get serious and crazily enough I have a compost heap already that was full but I couldn’t get in it to dig it out.

A single compost heap will not do either as digging out the lovely stuff underneath meant climbing in and removing the top rotting layer. So I hadn’t basically.
I spied a few pallets at the back of where I worked and so armed with a tape measure was able to pick out three matching palettes. I don’t need massive pallets either as I well never fill them in one season.
I only needed three so that I’d have brilliant access.

Positioning
I placed the new pallets at right angles to the old compost area so that any inter-shoveling between compost areas would be easy. I simply tied them together with a corner stake that I hammered into place.
My original enclosure was modified by sawing the top three rungs so that I could get a shovel in easily. I sorted through what was there and am pleased that loads of lovely crumbly black gold is now ready to use.

Compost rotation

Now that I am sorted with the hardware the system is obvious. New vegetation, kitchen scraps and non-weed matter goes in the new compost enclosure while I dig out the old and use its bounty.

Don’t compost

• Dog and Cat Poo. But horse, cow, chicken and rabbit droppings are great.
• Tea and Coffee Bags. Rip open the bags and empty out the grains and discard the bags.
• Citrus Peels and banana skins.
• Onions and potatoes if left whole. This is because they might continue to grow so squash them up.
• Fish and meat scraps.
• Glossy or coated paper.
• Sticky Labels on Fruits and Vegetables.
• Coal fire ash.
• Sawdust from treated wood.
• Perennial weed seed heads or roots. I don’t want to risk that pesky bindweed any opportunity to multiply.

A compost recipe