Monday 28 November This afternoon I collected two huge builder's bags of leaves from a neighbour and loaded them into my trailer to bring down to my leaf mould bin. They filled the bin to the top so I hope they crush down before he sends me any more bags. There are still quite a few leaves on the trees that surround his garden! Having emptied the trailer I drove round to the manure/horse litter bins and loaded up with as much as I could fit in. Returning to the plot I barrowed out in and finished covering next year's brassicas patch. Using the rake I smoothed out the heaps giving a good 4 inch layer all over the patch. The second load I used to start covering next year's legumes patch with a little for the rhubarb. The mulch will keep the weeds down as well as maintaining the moisture levels for the peas and beans through the dryness of summer. Any hay that was in with the horse litter was added to the compost bin as I shovelled the rest into the barrow.
In the gathering gloom as the sun disappeared behind the trees, I quickly raked up most of the weeds I had hoed off last time adding it to the hay in the compost. The mix of dry hay and juicy weeds should make some good compost. Clearing up carefully, I left in the almost dark leaving the padlock ready to click shut by the another plotter working late. He was putting up a greenhouse on his newly acquired plot, reminding me that I still have to glaze mine! Sunday 27th November I spent a few hours down at the site on Thursday morning but only got barely an hour's work done as I spent most of the time chatting to fellow plotters. Just inside the gate I came across our chairman, John Bachelor, working with John Lack and Mark Merritt on the raised beds of the Special Needs plot. John Lack's carpentry skills, with labouring support from his helpers, mean we will soon have the aging walls to the outer raised beds replaced. (Not sure how much Poppy the dog contributed beyond welcoming all and sundry!) The timber and other materials were kindly donated by Travis Perkins who have continued to support our Special Needs plot since providing much of the materials for its establishment in 2002. They are also prepared to offer members a hefty discount on production of your membership card and, with the news that 60 branches are scheduled to close, I feel we owe it to them to give them as much custom as we can. Then leaving them to it (too many cooks) I drove round towards my plot but bumped into, first an old friend with whom I share an interest in sailing - but this year mainly from the armchair, and then a brand new Plotter who was just surveying what to do with his plot which, I am pleased to say, had been left in quite a good state. The beds had been dug over and covered with plastic and there wet even a few tools in the shed! Lucky him - unfortunately not all plots are left so tidy. Finally I got to my own plot vowing to be less garrulous. After emptying the bags of compost materials and leaves into the appropriate bins, I cleared out the trailer and towed it round to the long horse litter bin and filled it with the best, most decomposed litter I could find. I then returned to the plot and dumped the seven or so barrow-loads of material on one of next year's brassicas plots where it will act as a mulch through to next Autumn when I hope to scrape it off (what's left of it) and add it to my compost bin. Any manure in it will benefit the brassicas and the woodchip will keep the weeds down and the moisture in. Then today I went down with instructions, from her indoors, to return home early for lunch before our visitors arrive. I started by helping to fix a fence by plot xxx and then a fence by plot 40, the Special Needs plot. Having done that, and having had my regular Sunday morning coffee and some lovely moist cake, I got on to my own plot. The kitchen waste in the compost bin, I checked the cauliflowers. I picked both the remaining ' All Year Round' that I sowed myself back in April and one of the two heads from plants I bought from the Trading Hut as young plants. You can see the difference in the photo. My own plants are only good for mixing with the autumn calabrese I also harvested whereas the other is in itself a very good cauliflower. This is the sort of result I had last winter season. To make forward progress on the plot I only had time to hoe some of the mat of chickweed on one bed. I shall have to rake then up on my next visit but I did harvest the last off my fennel. I am pleased as this is the first time I have managed to get a reasonable crop of one of my favourite vegetables. As good as you can buy inn the shops!
Tuesday 22nd November I didn't get down to the plot until well after 3pm so I had barely an hour to achieve anything. When I checked, I had left the door of the brassica tunnel open last time but fortunately there appeared to be no bird damage! I had popped down on Monday afternoon and started cutting down the Autumn raspberries but was rained off before I got halfway, so I set about completing the task. By the time I had finished there was a big bundle of old canes which I dumped just outside the plot ready to take to the tip. The next job is to scrape the old pine needle litter off the past either side of the row and dig out the underground shoots before they spread too far. Fortunately the Autumn raspberries are not as invasive as the summer ones but they still need controlling. You can see the bags of fresh pine needles waiting to spread after I have done the digging. This is one of the few places I can use the acidic needles, though if I get more after the recent gales (from one of my neighbours) I shall spread them round the blueberries.
As the light was fading I staked my Brussels and kale with the dahlia stakes (from the Trading Hut) that I had used to support the tomatoes and carefully closed the door when I had finished. Sunday 20th November Having been away all week, my Sunday morning visit was planned to be mainly exploratory to check for storm damage. Having checked up on the current situation with various committee members while having my coffee and cake at the cafe, I went down to the plot. Surprisingly there was no damage from last night's storm and the peas still showed no sign of mouse damage. Nevertheless I gave them the usual sprinkling of paraffin.
The heap of weeds can be seen in the foreground and I have marked each plant with a cane marker to avoid damaging it when the shoots come through next year.
I then turned to harvesting. I pulled the largest of three cauliflowers that were heading nicely, noting that the sprouting broccoli/calabrese was nearly ready to pick and that the home sown cauliflower looked more like calabrese so would mix in as well. Having sought advice from Hugh Merret about my fennel and been told that it does not withstand much frost, I dug up three, one to eat and two to try freezing. I then covered the remaining the plants in fleece pending their harvest later. Just as I was about leave, having tidied weeds into the compost bin and emptied a bag of leaves from a neighbour into the leaf bin, I saw I had forgotten last time to remove the old brassica leaves from the net tunnel. While in there picking them up I noticed how well developed the 'Kilaton' cabbages were. Having dumped the leaves into the compost I went back and pulled a cabbage. I removed the largest leaves but left it on the stalk and roots as this cabbage is supposed to last week's if hung in a dry airy place - like my garage! Finally I went home for lunch but now cannot remember closing the net tunnel door! Hopefully the pigeons don't find the opening! Thursday 10th November After the routine sprinkling of paraffin over the emerging winter peas, I planted a row of home-grown garlic cloves from this year's harvest. I had kept back the 6 largest and plumpest bulbs and, after dibbing a row of holes for them, planted the fattest cloves from three of them. That meant I was happy as I could take the other three home for the kitchen. They say that the best garlic is the one that suits your particular soil and the way to get that is to select the best of your current crop and use it as the seed for next year. I gather it will take several years to complete the process which is why I bought a pack of garlic from Stewart's and put in a row - just in case! Then I waded into the brassica tunnel containing my Brussel Sprouts and kale. There were clouds of whitefly so I must sort out a way of dealing with them. I plan to install 2 inch netting to let the small birds in - as I did for the other tunnel last week. Then I started picking up all the dead brassica leaves from the ground and removing yellowing and dying leaves from the plants. The kale was the main problem as its leaves are 2 feet long and hang over everything nearby! Some of the plants were beginning to lean over so I also took the chance to fill in the holes I had put each plant in when planting out, earthing them up. I found a couple of stakes for the two kale plants that were leaning the most but will need to install more to stop the others being blown around. While doing this I was pleased to see that there were quite a few sizeable buttons on the Brussels nearly ready for harvesting. When I had finished you could actually see bare ground between the plants.
At the side of the tunnel the Kilaton cabbages were hearting up nicely, as were the Omskirk Savoy cabbages. The Kilatons were a bit moth-eaten. I picked the smallest to check the damage, worried that the butterflies had got in to lay eggs but found most of the holes were caused by slugs. I have used very little slugbait and hope the damage is superficial. I also picked a fennel, worried that the recent frosts might have affected them. A neighbour was carrying bags and buckets of weeds to his car to take to the tip but, being less fussy, I persuaded him to dump them in my compost bin and then added the brassicas leaves from my work in the tunnel on top. It all helps to make more compost! Sunday 6th November As last week I decided to start my Sunday morning visit by doing some rotavating for the Association. A near neighbour of mine who took on the plot a month or so back, has been labouring away removing the grass and weeds. He asked that the cleared ground be rotavated last week and paid his 'donation' in at the Trading Hut. He had done such a good job that the machine coped well and left a lovely tilth. There were some patches where the underlying soil was so compacted that I couldn't get the times very deep and there were lots of couch grass and bindweed roots but they were left mostly on the surface. It certainly looks easier to work with and John Bachelor has lent him a huge tarpaulin to cover over the ground he wants to leave fallow for the time being. Having done that, and enjoyed my coffee and cake, I returned to my plot and rotavated a couple of small patches to mix in the compost I had spread. That meant I could plant some more winter onions and shallots. I put in half a row of home grown large 'Grizelle' shallots, a row of similar but very small 'Escallote Grise', and a row of bought in 'Radar' onions. Then, before going home for lunch, there was just time to harvest some fennel, two for a nearby plotter and one for home, pick some curly kale, banging it to remove the whitefly, and the last dregs of raspberries. I also sprinkled a little more paraffin on the emerging pea seedlings to deter the mice - it seems to work but has to be done frequently.
Cleaning up the Brussel Sprouts and kale in the second brassica tunnel will have to wait until next time. Thursday 3rd November I was planning a visit to the plot this afternoon when I got a call from the farmer to say he could come to the site with his tractor shovel. I had been waiting for this call as there were a couple of important jobs the committee wanted doing. I arrived to find him waiting so we set to. It took him very little time to tidy up all the manure/house litter bins, something a team of volunteers on the working party would have taken hours to complete. It also has the advantage that he lifts the oldest and best manure that is at the bottom up to where you can get at it. Just unhitch the rope from the post if it is in the way but please replace it as it marks the limits for when manure is tipped. I then got him to smooth out an abandoned plot that was very rough ready for it to be re-let. It took him a little while but when he had finished it was clear smooth earth. I think someone on the waiting list will jump at it. After that he took several bucket loads of road stone round to the first track and filled most of the pot holes that we didn't fill last time he came. Finally he finished off the couple of hours we had booked by putting a couple of buckets full of horse litter on the plot of a member who is working very hard to maintain his plot but would struggle to barrow enough in to mulch his plot for the winter. Once the tractor had gone there was just enough time in the gathering gloom for me to pull up the last of the French beans as last night's frost had got them. I also picked another small crop of autumn raspberries. The frost had decimated the beans and the dahlias and some of the asparagus fronds on other plots but mine are still green and wafting all over the pathway so I will be glad when I can cut them down.
Planting the rest of the shallots and autumn onions will have to wait until my next visit. Monday 7th November While I planned to work at tidying my Brussel Sprouts, I needed to check I had put the rotavator away properly and once I had opened up the store and pulled it out I decided to use it. It took very little time to cultivate three patches of my plot so the soil was lovely and crumbly and the mulch dug in. This patch is where I grew my peas this year and will be next year's brassica patch once I have mulched it with horse litter for the winter. The pea haulms and weeds, together with a neighbour's garden waste of trimmings from her herbaceous border, went into the compost, a good balance for the grass cuttings I get so much of.
Having put the rotavator away - properly - I went on to do some harvesting. I collected the fennel bulb I had left behind yesterday in the compost bin! Then I dug up some root crops. I lifted a huge beetroot, much too big but it may juice. So I also lifted a couple of smaller ones for normal consumption together with a couple of turnips. I also tried pulling some carrots and had some very peculiar shapes. I hope they taste good! Having had a frost I thought I would lift the first parsnips. The first one was an excellent conical shape but had been protected from the frost by a fleece cover, meant to be protection from carrot root fly, so I lifted the one outside the cover to find one that it was just about a usable shape. Finally I pulled up a cauliflower which was a bit small but perfectly formed, much better than the 'All Year Round' caulis I had grown from seed myself which are producing a cluster of white sprouts with leaves growing out between them. Fortunately most of my plants I bought from the Trading Hut and crop much better. Monday 31st October The first job I set about on arrival on the plot was to reinforce the compost bins. After the problems I had earlier this year 29th them splitting open I wanted to strengthen them. I screwed two battens down each side to hold the front on the left hand one so it matched the central one. Then, having noticed that the front of the central one had started to bulge, I screwed a bar across the front. That done I planted a row of garlic using only the plumper cloves from the three bulbs I bought from Stewart's at quite a price. Next to them I planted half a row of Jermor shallots. I will plant the rest of the row with saved shallots from last year of Grizelle. I may also plant another row of these. I then moved into the brassicas tunnel and picked a very scrappy cauliflower and a couple of cabbages that had not hearted that may give some 'spring greens' if the whitefly haven't spoiled them. I also cleared all the dead leaves and removed a large number of old leaves and threw them all into the compost bin. In the space in the middle of the tunnel I planted a row of 5 'Pixie' cabbages and a row of 5 'Durham Early' spring cabbages using a good dose of lime for each plant. The courgette haulms looked pretty shot so I pulled them out and added them to the compost bin. These were easy to remove as the stalks broke off with a gentle tug. The bin is already half full though it will settle.
As it got dark I picked quite a crop of raspberries (they are still cropping!) and pulled three more French bean plants laden with beans before going home. 30th October 2016
I started my usual Sunday morning visit to the allotments by rotavating a plot for an association member. He had done such a good job of weeding and clearing his plot that it hardly seemed necessary but I know he would find it difficult to dig it over. While it was hard work wrestling with the machine when I had finished the soil was nicely fluffed up ready for the mulch he wants to put down. After recovering with my coffee and cake at the cafe, I went back and cleared the soil that had spilled onto the paths. This is not part of the usual service but he works hard at the plot and deserves a bit extra! Then I started on my plot and finished digging out the rest of the compost in the end bin and shovelled it over into the middle one. I tidied up the landscape fabric lining and screwed the front back on. Then I was able to empty the bags of garden waste into the bin, selecting the ones containing woody stems to ensure good drainage at the bottom. Then, before going home, I pulled up a few French bean plants with beans still attached - ready for the evening meal. |
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