February 2016

Weekending 7th February 2016

Planted various bits and bobs in the greenhouse - will get a list sorted!

Weekending 14th February 2016

Went and cut down the raspberry canes at the plot and did a bit of tidying up.  Got paraffin heater going in the greenhouse and got peas planted.

Raspberry canes - pea sticks?

Spuds chitting - strawb runners ready for second metre square on lotty.

Can't remember what all this is - need to make a list!

Dinky paraffin heater - taking the edge off the frost.

Peas in guttering

Saturday 20th February 2016

Went down lotty to help with planting hedge along the Watery lane side.  Before anyone else arrived I took a barrow full of garden waste down to the recycling centre then helped until 11:30 with planting the hedge.    Did a bit of work in the greenhouse tidying up and thinking about how I'm going to partition the greenhouse off to make best use of the parrafin heater.   Did a load of measuring and think I'm going to either use some of that duct pipe to make a triangular frame or some cheapo wood if I can set some really thin rubbishy stuff.  Might just have a walk up to the warehouse at work and see if anything's being chucked.

Saturday 27th February 2016
Took a tub and 3 slabs down to the lotty and that's about it!!   Did a load in greenhouse though - got a partition up so now it's kind of like a 6 x4' greenhouse with a heater in it and a 6' x 6' un heated greenhouse on the other side.

Cauliflowers, peas, beetroot, french beans - everything beginning to pop up now which is good.  Sweet peas continue to look a bit ace.

Cauli's making an apperance

Sweet peas thriving - must feed em this week. 

Did some cabbages and purple broccoli as well this weekend - found out that you have to leave purple broccoli until the following year as well  - which is a shame as we dug it up at the end of the main season the first time I had a go!!

January 2016 - planning, planning, digging

January 2016
13th - went to poundstretcher at lunchtime and poundland at night time - got a load of seed for coming year.  Need to be getting some spuds chitting soon as well.

Saturday 30th  January 2016 
Almost end of month went down to see how bad the lotty was looking and the answer is that it's not too bad at all.  Brought up three bags of compost.  Took some rubbish down to the tip.  Weeded the bed with the onions and garlic in it - that seems to be coming on nicely.   Weeded the bed that will be having the beans in it later on in the year.

Garlic popped up, onions coming along nicely. 

Not sure what I've got going on in here - will have to have a look at me notes!!

November 2015 - the dark season.

Sunday 8th November 2015

After driving back up from Birmingham after the Slimming World Woman of the Year competition.  Got me garlic in,  weeded bed number two, weeded bed number one and covered it up. Brought home a load of spuds, onions, a butternut squash that had been hiding, a cabbage, some sweet corn. Also got started on getting me paths in.  Put down some weed cover material, slabs and wood bark that have had on the plot for months and months (and months)  All good stuff.   Will have to put some time in next week as well. 

Bed 1 weeded and covered up for Winter. 

Weeded bed that's got winter Brassicas in it. 

Got me garlic in, onions coming on nicely. 

Saturday 14th November 2015
Nipped down lotty, took five slabs, took rubbish off the plot.  Missus got a load of cabbages and stuff, found the garlic that had gone missing the previous week!   All good stuff.  Didn't stop too long.

Sunday 22nd November 2015
Borrowed Phil's van, fetched the non-finished water butt back home.  Drilled a hole for the tap and a hole for overflow pipe.  Got it back down and connected to the other one and water going in it already.  So pleased with that.  Got both bean rows taken down - the missus says to leave the bean plants on the ground cause that's what Monty Don does?  Got some more of the daffodils and tulips planted so pleased with that. Got the 8foot canes put away in the slightly longer than it should be shed 7 - am going to have to do some more tool hooks though as the canes are just covering the tools!  I know there's some spare hooks in Missus' shed at home.

October 2015 - still harvesting.

Sat 3rd October
A couple of hours weeding and what have you - brought back a cabbage, some runner beans and a pumpkin

Sunday 4th October 2015
After lunch at the Cross we popped down in the glorious sunshine.   Strimmed, mowed, bit of weeding - harvested butternut squashes, cabbages, potatoes, last (again) of the raspberries.  All good. Still need to finish off the second water butt on number 7 at some point but suppose it's not a mad rush job for now - can wait until Winter - first waterbutt is filling nicely

Sunday 11th October 2015
Down at lotty early doors for an hour.  Took 8 slabs up to 13, two bags of rubbish to tip and 3 pumpkins and a butternut squash back home!  Later on came back with missus and pulled all spuds out of the ground (that I could find) and also did 3 bags of weeding and removing pumpkin foliage while we were there.

Pumpkins in the back of the motor.

In the greenhouse to finish off ripening

September 2015 - Still harvesting...

Saturday 4th September 2015
Me and the boss went for an hour or two in the glorious sunshine (rained first thing but better in the afternoon).  Pulled loads of spuds out.  Some rotten which apparently I was supposed to find out why - I just though it was due to the masses of rain we've had.  Anyway, am not bothered have plenty left to come out yet.  Found out one of our neighbouring allotment holders, Jane,  at the top is also a neighbour in Clifton, which was nice!

Sunday 5th Sepember 2015
Got there at 8.15am, wasn't first on site either. Another beautiful day stopped until about 4pm.  Again harvesting spuds onplot 7, god knows when I'll have time to pick em up.  Also pulled all the garlic up and put boards un butternut squashes that the missus  found and checked enormous pumpkins still doing okay.

Monday 7th September 2015
Lucy training at 6pm so didn't get down to Lotty until 8pm and it was going dark.  So picked up all the spuds, put em on trays and into the shed to dry for a day or too.

Spud city

Friday September 11th to Sunday September 13th September 2015
Friday went to lotty about 7:15am moved some beetroot, put in a row of broccoli near the Brussels.   Went to that Wales.

After driving back from that Wales I got the other brassicas in  - two more rows of  cabbages (these wnet into number 7 though rather than 13 like the other beggars.  I think these were called Winter Tundra and January King. Helped bosskat get about a ton of runner beans give or take.  Pumpkins are coming on something grand as well - got some humongous ones. Should also mention the butternut squashes that are coming on a treat too!

Sunday 20th September 2015
Did a couple of hours in the morning.  Cycled down, clear the pea row on plot 13.    Took a barrow full of rubbish down to the tip (apparently you're not supposed to do that but as no-one has taken me to task about it yet I think its tolerated).  Came back in the afternoon and mowed round the plots, got a load of beans and cabbages and stuff - all good stuff.

August 2014 - Harvest time

August 2014
This August we will  mainly be harvesting.  Raspberries by the bucket, Strawberries by the wheel barrow, cabbages, broccoli, spuds, runner beans, broad beans, french beans.

Pic from July but you know what I mean:

Spuds 23/08/2015

This was from just one plant.

Wednesday 26th August 2015
Went down lotty.  Got runner beans, french beans, broad beans and rapsberries.  Did a bit of weeding too.  Plant I had in greenhouse for yonks is officially identifited as a Foxglove!!

Friday 28th August 2015
Mowed (again), weeded, three bags of weeds done and taken to tip.

Saturday 29th August 2015
Shelf brackets put up in Shed 7 but wood for shelf not ideal so will get some more dug back at home, Got one of the big barrels finished off with a bit of assistance from Phil.

Got cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower plug plants from Wyaston Nurseries, need to get them buggers into ground quickly.

Need to a bit of jiggery pokery moving the catches for the door on the butt-side so it's easy to clip back but think overall these two will work nicely.   Be interesting to see how much it's filled up with the rain over this bank holiday weekend.

Sunday 30th August 2015
Tidied greenhouse up a bit at home.  Found a good bit of wood for shelf and got that cut to size.

Monday 31st August 2015
Cripes almost September and it's chucking it down with rain and has since the small hours so not going to get much done today.  That said I  got some lime put down on thirteen for the brassicas purchased on Saturday. Put a shelf on right hand side of  shed 7 and also moved the latch so that I can fasten the door back and still have ruddy enormous watter barrels - am thinking of coating them with black bin liner to both warm the water and stop possibility of algae build-up at some point.   Brought a load of runner beans and some spuds that had been drying out in shed home so that should have got me into some good books, you'd think!

Big old barrels for water - door latch raised to accommodate

New shelf on right - a bit more storagability!!

July 2015 - too busy to post

July 2015
It's 28th July and I haven't posted for ages.  Been taking strawberries, peas, raspberries, broccoli, beet root and raddishes at a rate of knots.   Weeding and watering aplenty although these last few days we've had quite a bit of rain so water butts are being replenished and I'm not having to do any watering (which is nice).

At start of month I dug round the shed and put chicken wire down all round it.  Also got the guttering done which I've since moved to the other side so that there's more of a gap between my shed and number 9's.

Have got cracking with waterbutt on Shed 7 - Phil got two 220 litre drums from somewhere so am going to use 1 as the shed itself is not too deep - I might put one of those 100 litre jobbies next to it as an overflow, we'll see.

Lots of harvesting and weeding going on this month.

Goosegogs, raspberries, strawbs, beetroot, cabbage, the works!