Path Maintenance

 

We are finally having a good burst of warm weather and sunshine (for which we should all be grateful) which brings with it the need to get the watering can out.  I normally have the whole site to myself in the evenings but it was like Piccadilly Circus at the Hill yesterday, with plotters coming in to do a bit in their greenhouses.

I, meanwhile, am making good progress on the paths - I'm hoping that the weeded and stamped down paths with a black plastic base and deep chipping top will save me time in that I'll only be weeded the beds, not contending with the paths too.

I have a sneaking suspicion that in 5 years time I will be weeding out the rotted down chippings and cursing the very idea of putting down black plastic as that breaks down, but that's a concern for another day - or even decade.  For now, this looks smart!  I still have about a quarter of the plot paths to cover, but I am well on the way. 

Meanwhile, the runners' profusion of flowers are giving way to teeny beans, and the sweetcorn is shooting up.  I'm eating the tail end of the broad bean crop, and digging potatoes as I need them.

And when everyone has gone home, I can enjoy the stillness again, and this rather lovely view across the valley.

Brilliant Beds and Beans!

Just because I haven't noted here what's been going on at the Hill doesn't mean that I haven't been busy for the past six weeks.  Admittedly, some of that busy has been 'busy on holiday', but furious weeding before and after times means that the plot is in reasonable order.

Turns out that my prediction was right - the runner beans *have* shot up and the broad beans *have* been wonderful!  The first early potatoes are pretty good too - bit variable in size, but plenty of yield from each plant.

In an attempt to prevent so much time being taken up by path weeding, I'm going through my once-every-few-years path maintenance programme whereby I lay down some sort of weed suppressant and load up bark chippings.   There's a mountain of chippings free to use, and I bought some black plastic from the store shed a few weeks ago, so I've made a start on that too.

There's still plenty of light until late into the evening but noticeably not quite so much as a month ago - and it feels like summer hasn't even got going yet either!

There is a plus side!

'What difficult weather we are having on the plot!', said every allotment holder, every year, since the dawn of allotment history - except that this year, just maybe, we do have a bit of a point.

The sunshine when it comes is hot and lovely, but is interspersed with days of cold, and heavy rain too.  This has been brilliant in that everything gets a boost and jumps up in the sunshine (weeds inc.), and also nothing needs watering yet - hurrah!

Wet weather means that the slugs have made merry with the Maris Piper potatoes (although not the Pentland Javelin) and the cucumber plants bought from the plant sales a couple of weeks ago.  

One of my lovely little lavender plants is looking a touch suspect too (far left), for some reason.  No sign of the parsnip seeds coming up, either.

But we are optimist, of course, and on the plus side, the runner beans are bedding in nicely, and the broad beans are full of flowers and bursting with health.  

Perhaps in the same way that last year was 'year of the brilliant winter crops' this will be 'year of the brilliant beans'. Who knows?

 

Beans, Beds and Brooms

A couple evenings this week I have manage to shoehorn an hour or two in at the Hill before dusk (or more accurately, 'at dusk', or even, 'rather beyond dusk') which has seen a bit of plot maintenance, and a couple of jobs knocked off the list. Marvellous.

The Hill Stables up the road drop off their bags of manure every couple of weeks into a big heap which is conveniently at the side of the roadway by Geoff Crosspatch' plot next to mine; and a couple of evenings ago, I shifted half the bags - about twenty, I guess - nicely filling up one of the 'side bar' beds which are set aside for permanent plants, but in reality have just sat and done nothing but grow weeds for years.  

I have plans for fruit bushes, but in the meantime, a 6" deep blanket of horseshit should supress all but the hardiest of annual weeds.

Sweeping up afterwards, I noticed the broom head was loose, so I upended it, grasped the head firmly and gave it a couple of thumps to drive the handle back into the head.  Next thing, I'm standing there holding the broom head neatly cleaved into two halves.  Oops.

Then tonight, I had a lovely evening lined up - planting out the runners and weeding.  I'd just arrived when the heavens opened.  After about 20mins, the rain lessened enough for me to hurriedly plant out the runners and dive back in the car before I got totally wet through. 

At least I didn't have to water them in.

Frontage Facelift!

Whilst my seeds have been nursing their bruised heads in the pots at home (now far more securely sat on the bench), I have been keeping on top of the weed explosion at the Hill, going to the allotment AGM, beefing up the 8 beds with new stakes to hold the edges in place, and getting round to 'doing something' with the front of the plot.

All plot holders are encouraged to devote the first 3' or so of their plot fronting the roadway to a floral display.  Not only do these look fabulous, up and down the site, but it also acts as a sacrificial strip for those drivers on site - to and from the plots and/or the social club - who are incapable of keeping four wheels on the roadway.

We do, in fact have a competition for the most attractive, which is often won by those showing floral 'mosaic' displays of annual flowers depicting a tableau of some sort.  Some devote a great deal of time planting up a template of blue and white lobelia, red salvia, orange marigolds (and those green silvery furry plants that I don't like very much) to make a picture in flowers a month later. 

My two overgrown and woody straggly 10yr old never-been-pruned lavender bushes with a natty under-display of couch grass and self seeded calendula, dandelions and forget-me-nots do rather let the side down (pic above).

So the bank holiday saw me wielding a fork with great intent, and once every (discernible) weed had been evicted along with the two lavender, I set about bed prep and soil grading.  I created a stamped down path for access to the first bed, used some slabs for matching paths each side, and planted out a dozen English Lavender plants, bought from Homebase for £1.40 a pop.

Just got to learn about pruning them.

Potential Disaster!

The most convenient place in the (rather weedy!) courtyard garden for me to put seed trays is on the low wall between the yard and the hardstanding.  If the trays are on the ground they will be tripped over; on the bench, there is no where to sit.  The wall is just fine.

Except it is not safe, it appears from my clumsy nitwit cats. 

Whether it was a chase gone wrong, a mis-step whilst jumping up to the adjacent fence, or collateral damage whilst after something 'fluttery' I will never know, but two of my four trays of just-sprouted seeds took a dive. 

Both trays of beans all scooped up and righted, a few days later there seems to be remarkably little set back - although if I've mixed the dwarf beans and climbers up (identical at the mo), I won't know about it until a week or two after planting out when I may find have some sulky climbers and sprawling dwarfs.....

Wooosh - and we're off!

So if you want to know what a week of sunshine does in May after a very wet but mild Spring, you only have to blink at the Hill (alright - a week since previous attendence) to find that there has been a collective explosion of growth. 

In the weeds on the paths mainly (MUST get round to covering and chippings there) but also with the broad beans and garlic - both of which are looking superb.

An hour this evening saw me filling one of the daleks with pulled up weeds (they disappear into nothing in a few days) and fluffing over the bed with the most recent Dalek compost spread about. 

Some of the more straw-like went back into the dalek for a another go, but this is now looking more like somewhere you can plant things rather than something you would feed to a horse.  

Meanwhile, in the kitchen last week I had a mammoth seed sowing session in front of the tele - most relaxing.  Runners, dwarf and climbing french beans, sweetcorn, leeks (bit late in according to the packet) and 4 varieties of courgette - the quantity of which I am already regretting.  

Wig Wam Bam!

What lovely weather for this bank holiday weekend!  Lots of outside activities in the sunshine which included climbing around on the flat roof to clean the window paintwork, soffits and clear out the gutter, going out for a long run (v hot!), visiting friends, a trip out to the farm shop all on top of normal weekend activities.

But I also went to the Hill in the sunshine and got a few jobs done.  First of all I was delighted to see the Pentland Javelin potatoes planted four weeks ago are now showing the first shoots - hurrah!

I pulled up the last of the leeks which I'd left to flower on the basis that they are not actually flowering, and this year is not the one with the time to bugger about with experimental leek seed/seedlings which may or may not come to anything.
 

This left a lovely quarter of a bed at the end of the potatos which raked over and planted a score each of red and white onions bought ealier from Poundland; and then treated both potato beds with a few handfuls of BFB.

That just left me time to put up a couple of wigwams for the beans on one of the beds which I limed earlier in the week.  Not that I've got any beans sown yet - although I did look out a bad of compost, pots, trays and some of last year's saved bean seeds when I got home - but alas - actually sowing them is a job for another day

A Quick Hour

I'm very much enjoying the evenings getting lighter!  I managed to sneak an hour in after tonight's club run - even though it was definitely on the night side of dusk at 9.15pm.

I finished turning the lime into what will be the beans and peas beds this year.  It's May, so with these two allocated beds ready, I'd better acually sow some seeds.  I very rarely sow direct, it's all a bit more controllable in pots at home then when you plant them out - voila - instant allotment!  I must get on with that, and I need to put a wigwam up too for the climbing beans. 

I never really have the knack of peas - I can't settle on what's best in terms of protection or support, and end up with peas full of pea moth grubs, and looking a right ol' straggly mess. I do like peas though!

Before I left, I emptied the last of the daleks which has been full for a year and moved the empty to the next bed along.  The contents of this one are particularly dry and not well rotted, so a lot will have to go back for another go.  

Well, I say not well rotted, but I couldn't actually see what I was doing by this point, so did the sensible thing and retired to the clubhouse for a beer. 

Lime, BFB and Maths Fail

Being rather organised on the plot this Spring (it won't last) I have an approx rotation/sowing plan sorted out - as opposed to reclaiming beds from the jungle and hurling in anything anywhere that was ready to go in , which was last year's strategy.  It worked, in that I had a lot of veg late summer and over winter - the brassicas I have been particularly pleased with - but that's a bit haphazard.  

Not only do I have a plan for this year in terms of what goes where, I'm also affording the plot a rare treat by buying some lime (for where the peas and beans will be, and some BFB for everywhere else), on the basis that the homemade compost is a bit hit and miss, and it can't do any harm to give everywhere a bit of a boost once every 5 years or so. 

The allotment store shed is the place for these sort of basic provisions, and so after I went to the tip in the lunch hour to ditch the brassicas, I nipped to the Hill, found Handyman Paul, made him immediately stop what he was doing and dragged him up to the shed to weigh out lime and BFB.  

Pleased that I knew how many sq m the beds cover (6sq m per bed), I was stumped with the question of how much lime/BFB was needed per sq m. Furious googling and some maths lost out to 'well, a couple of kilos sounds about right, and a bit more of the other' - a good investment of £3.70. 

I found an hour this evening towards dusk to go back and apply the lime and fork it in (mostly), and this will be for peas and beans this year.  Bit of a shame that the broad beans are growing away nicely a few beds away, but you can't have everything.

Brassica Massacre!

Despite the lighter evenings, other commitments mean that I'm still fairly reliant on the weekends to go to the Hill, so if the weather is not good (last weekend) things I want to get done don't always get done.  No wonder I'm on the back foot for much of the time!  However, I was pleased today to do two important jobs.  

Firstly, I planted the rest of the potatoes (Maris Piper - although anyone's guess as to whether I'll get any decent bakers out of them) - half into the newly delek-composted bed, and half into the next bed along.  

I still have a handful of leeks in that bed in bud - happy to leave these for the insects - and incuding one which looks like it's jumped past the flowering bit and has what appears to be tiny leeks sprouting.  I vaguely recall that these can be planted (must look that up to see how much of a faff that is).  

The second job was to give the heave ho to all the sprouts, purple sprouting and kale.  These have been left to flower for the insects for the past few week, but I think that the pollinators should have enough to be going on with at this point.  

All the plants are going to the tip rather than into the dalek composters - a wise choice given how much volume they take up (can hardly get in the car) and that brassica stems are like broomhandles and take forever and a day to rot down.  

Not enough time before dark to tidy up the scene of brasica carnage left behind, but there was enough time to pull a dozen sticks of rhubarb to bring home.    

Dalek!

It's marvellous to have a bit more flexability to go to the Hill now that the evenings are lighter.  Although all that means in practise is that I go later and I'm still caught out by dusk.  Today I had two jobs to do - and of course only got the one done for the reason above - so the maincrop potatoes will have to wait another day. 

I finished digging up the parsnips (parsnip soup perhaps, on the cards) and that freed up space for me to empty one of the dalek composters and spread the contents over half of the front bed - the other half to where I planted the first earlies last week.  

This is not the ideal time to empty composters - Nick raised a good point in his comment about chucking a load of compost/mulch on top of the beds over Winter and letting the worms/weather do the digging for you, but then he sounds more organised that I have am! 

I sumo wrestled the dalek into submission, and relocated the empty unit on the next bed along. 

Anything totally un-rotted from the top of the bin went back in for another go - and I added a couple of bags of horse manure from the manure heap to start it off.  

The 'better' stuff at the bottom I spread about a bit, and roughly forked in.

It is not what you might call a seed bed - being what you could charitably describe as being 'a bit rough', but it'll be good enough for me to plant potatoes, I think.

Raaaaaaaain!

It's been really gusty over the weekend and this afternoon had squally showers.  I thought I might miss these going to the Hill this afternoon, but not a chance.

We all know that it has been a very, very wet indeed over the past couple of months, so I've been in no rush to get things sown.  As far as I'm concerned, there has to be a bit of give and take between me and Mother Nature regarding an acceptable timetable of events - I put things in the ground to suit a busy life, and she chucks an approximation of appropriate weather my way in order for stuff to grow.

However I was guilted into dealing with the potatoes today - despite the showers - after hearing Gardeners Question Time panel on the radio showing some incredulity that a chap had been so lax as to not have his in at this late stage.  Supercilious beggars.

 A quick fire fork over of half a bed (pulled out some couch grass roots) then dug four ditches for me to put the first earliers in (pentland javelin).  As they grow, I'll level the ground.  I find this is easier than planting them in the flat ground and earthing up (which is hard work, and I invariably don't bother), and then I get pototoes going green as they are exposed to the light. 

Dug a couple of parsnips, and pulled a bit of rhubarb and called it a day.

What Happened to the Easter Weekend?

So all the time stretching before me over the Easter Weekend has somehow evaporated and I've only managing to get to the Hill for a single session.  Having said that, it is still so incredibly wet underfoot that even running a fork over the beds is backbreaking work, and I suspect does no real good.

The day length and warmer weather has cause all the kale and purple sprouting into a cloud of yellow flowers, so the weeds are realistically not far behind, so I must not slack! 

Spurred on by Richard-three-plots-down, I have bought seed potatoes this week.  He's got all his earlies in, and given it's now April, it's about time I did too, wet or not.  In fact their spindly chits don't look great, and I'll let them sit in egg boxes for a week to beef up a bit.  What I do have ready to sow is parsnip seed.  

I have had the best crop of parsnips EVER this year, so how to replicate that?  Perhaps use the same variety and sow at the same time of the year?  

You'd think, but no, I have bought Gladiator F1 and not the highly successful Hollow Crown, and I'm sowing them six weeks later than last year too.  Not sure what the opposite of learning from experience is, but this is a good example.

Some Time Better Than No Time

It's been a busier than usual weekend, and despite the welome extra daylight that we are now enjoying late afternoon, I still struggled to do what I wanted at the Hill.  However, a snatched half hour is better than nothing so I made my way there with the intention of sorted out a bit of my 'immediate tasks' list.

I need to buy and apply lime to where I'll be sowing peas/beans this year, ditto with BFF for everywhere else, sow parsnips, zip over the areas where annual weeds are showing up, fork out the emerging couch grass shoots/roots, pick kale and purple sprouting, dig the last of the leeks and a few parsnips. 

Well I was not going to make much of a dent in that laughably long list, but I did bring home a large leek, a cabbage (maybe one more before the last couple go to seed), a large bag of kale (split 3 ways with friends later), the same of purple sprouting, and dug some parsnips.  Maybe one or two more diggings of these before they go woody.

There are signs of the broad beans, the garlic is doing v well, and I'll soon have enough of the Winter crops out the way to empty and move the two compost bins waiting to shove up to their next positions. 

Need to think about potatoes - Richard-3-plots-down has his first earlies in, and we'll soon be into April.  It feels like Nature is on the starting blocks - and I don't want to let my good winter progress slip now that I have the plot in decent shape!

Best parsnips ever!

Finally it has stopped raining - hurrah! - so off to the Hill this afternoon in some lovely Spring sunshine, clutching a packet of parsnip seeds in my hand.  

Last year's planting plan of 'put in what you have ready in the bit of land you have ready' was not what you might call organised but it certainly worked, with some fab veg - these parsnips and cabbage a case in point which I bought home with me today. 

But the 'bung it in' approach does not have any reference to rotation and all that stuff that you are supposed to do in order to keep the gound healthy, as well as the crops in it. 

Being rather more organised this year (so far!) with all eight main beds with veg in at the moment, or ready to planted up means that I can choose where to grow this year's veg.  A slightly limiting factor is that the garlic is already randomly planted in 'A1', and I sowed the broad beans in 'B1', but I will have to work round them.

I fished out my trusty John Seymour to tell me what should be where, and based on where the spuds were last year (C1 & C2), I worked out where I wanted to sow the parsnip seeds. 

However, by the time I'd cut a couple of cabbage, dug a healthy selection of parsnips chatted to Handyman Paul, who kindly asked after mum, and Richard-3-plots-down who came to pick my brains on the best recommended Canary Island, I was out of time.

Parsnip seed - if not parsnips themselves - will have to wait another day. 

Spring?

It's been mild on the whole over the past few weeks with bucketfuls of rain, but today it was crisp and sunny.  The blossom on the blackthorns can only mean that Spring is round the corner (and sloe gin season could be a good one!).

A late afternoon visit it the Hill meant that I had the place to myself, which was just as well as my first job was with a spade, noisily scraping the mud, weeds and moss off the slabs which form the path.

Next up was to dig over one of the vacant beds (accompanied by a robin) where a couple of weeks ago I'd emptied a dalek composter and roughly spread the contents.  The ground is v wet, so the forking over rather heavy going, but its a job done. 

Third job of the afternoon was to sow some broad beans.  Probably should have waiting until the ground was a bit drier, but something I have learnt is that time whizzes by, so you have to take the opportunity to do things when you can, rather than perhaps when you should.

With dusk fast approaching, I picked some kale and dug almost the tail end of the leeks - the winter crops have been so good this year - before packing up and leaving the bossy robin to it.  

 

Well, well....

Out the blue a few weeks ago I had an email asking if I still blogged as the writer found it a good read - especially as I wasn't afraid to chronical the good as well as the - er - not so good. 

Gosh - does Blogger still exist?  I logged on to find that none of the blogs I followed when I made my last entry five years ago are current - maybe everyone moved to Facebook, Instagram and latterly TikTok.  Or maybe they just lost interest, rather as I did.

I guess that I felt that as the seasons roll round I was bored of saying much the same thing, and didn't have much really new to add, but I still have my plot at the Hill - and despite the wettest start to the year in living memory, Spring is in the air.....

.....so long as I can get back into the habit of putting a few words down each time, I might as well.