For Christmas I made my Dad one of these little A5 journals so that he could write any notes, ideas and lists down whilst on his allotment. Of course I just had to make myself one and so far it has proved very useful indeed, it has my seed list in, my plan, my to-do lists and I’m sure by the end of the year it will be jam packed!
Spring is just around the corner and I am giving you the chance to win your very own allotment notebook so you can get planning for the year ahead. It’s made from real leather with ‘Allotment Notes’ stamped on the front and there is a grey cord to keep the book shut. There is a pen holder inside as well as some handy little pockets.The best thing about this journal is that the notebook is removable so it can be used every year, just simple replace the A5 notebook once it is full to the brim with all those important notes!
All you have to do is simply comment below with your full name and one reason why you are excited for Springtime to arrive.
I will draw the winner at random on the 1st of February 2015.
Good luck everyone! xx
Even though Winter has been a mild one so far, I’m longing for sunshine, for staying up the allotment until 10pm, for flowers, bees and fresh peas straight from the pod. However, the first signs of Spring are starting to show and I noticed a little tulip tip poking out from the trough, just one of 58 tulip bulbs that I planted back in November. I cannot wait to see the trough full to the brim with beautiful tulips and to see all the bees buzzing happily around them!
I am pleased to say that the garlic has survived it’s first test, all 18 cloves have germinated and are sprouting above ground level. I have yet to make some cloches to cover the row of garlic, last year the crop pretty much failed due to the amount of rain we had (and the clay soil didn’t help either!) So this year I am being extra careful by placing a cloche over the single row so that I can control the amount of water the cloves get, that way they won’t be waterlogged, I’m hoping anyway! The variety that I am growing is called Provence and I brought the cloves from the Garlic Farm over on the Isle of Wight, surely if they can grow this variety successfully just across the water then I can too?
The broad beans have also successfully germinated and are safe and sound under their little netted tunnel. Luckily the mice didn’t run off with any of the seeds and the small seedings are safe from any hungry birds! I even sowed extra seeds just incase the mice were hungry but I’m guessing they were a tad upset after I evicted them from my shed, maybe they found a new plot to terrorise? I’ll have to thin the little seedlings out very soon, or move them somewhere else, I was only sowing one row simply because we had such a big glut of beans last year and plus my Dad is growing the next succession so it seemed silly to waste the space with unwanted veg.
Seeing these little signs of Spring on a cold and very windy day makes me even more excited for the warmer months. Hurry up Springtime!
Winter is starting to set in now and the temperatures are dipping ever so slightly (it’s been an ever so mild Winter so far hasn’t it?!) The frosty mornings and cold weather does mean one thing though, and that is soup!
I am a little addicted to making soups and never realised how easy it was to turn vegetables into such a simple and delicious meal. One of my favourite soups is leek and parsnip, it just so happens that me and my Dad are growing both of these vegetables and now is the perfect time of year for harvesting them.
Yet again I must confess that I was never a leek lover before owning my allotment, I had never tasted them before let alone grown them before! However, leeks are one of the easiest vegetables to grow not only when it comes to planting but also when it comes to looking after them. As a matter of fact they don’t need any looking after at all. They are hardy and therefore can be left out all winter, harvesting them when you need them (although this can be a tad hard when the ground has frozen!)
The variety I grew are called Musselburgh and I planted 2 rows out in July, replacing the potatoes that had already been harvested from that bed. They were ready to harvest by October and since then they have been turned into mainly soups and ham and leeks pies and I only have 8 leeks left.
After growing them for the first time ever and falling in love with their taste, I can proudly say that I am in love with leeks. It’s rather lucky I do love them as my Dad planted 6 rows of leeks at the same time as me, and he still has 5 rows left! Now I didn’t really have to grow any leeks at all but I had the spare soil left over from my potatoes and I thought why not?
And anyway, I couldn’t not grow any leeks on my plot could I? 
As a few of you already know, I found a couple of genuine vintage French work jackets at a market once and snapped them up. The plan was originally going to involve taking one apart so I could create a pattern to make my Dad his very own tall fitted jacket. So many of you seemed interested in purchasing the jackets that I decided to go back and buy the other 6 jackets for sale and I’ve finally got round to photographing, measuring and listing them on our business Ebay page.
All 6 jackets are in very good condition, they all have 3 outside pockets and 1 inside pocket, concealed buttons and buttoned cuffs too. Some of the jackets have manufacturers labels on them. They are priced at £25.00 each and range from european sizes 56 - 46, but for more detailed sizes please check the listings on Ebay (the jackets are in the Miscellaneous category).
Here’s the link to our Ebay page:
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/intiquesuk
I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy New Year!
I am ever so grateful for all your comments, love and support throughout the year, thank you so much for following my allotment adventures.
Here’s to a brighter and happier 2015! There’s lots of new ideas and plans underfoot, more videos, a new blog and a new venture aswell! All will be revealed shortly but for now…
Happy New Year!
It’s Christmas eve and I’ve literally just finished making the last handmade gift! Like usual I left everything until the last minute but I do feel a little proud, all my presents this year are handmade and I can’t wait to see everyone’s face’s tomorrow when they open they’re gifts.
I just wanted to quickly say how grateful I am for all you lovely people that follow this blog, watch my videos and follow me on instagram, facebook and twitter. All your support has been so amazingly brilliant and I just wanted to say thank you before the festivities begin and before I stuff myself on homegrown veg and delicious turkey tomorrow.
I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and a very Happy New Year! xx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0tLjaa37-c
Hooray! Today is the Winter Solstice and I am welcoming it with open arms. It’s the shortest day of the year which means one thing, the daylight hours will start increasing and we can start to spend more time outside.
I love this time of year but I am longing for Summer, not only the heat but I’m missing the amount of time I could spend up the allotment pottering away in the shed and watching the bees bumbling around the plot. Time has been hard to come by since the nights have been drawing in, in the Summer I was up the allotment until 10pm and these days it starts getting dark at 4pm, whilst I’m busy working. Which means evenings and early mornings were out of the questions and it left allotment time for the weekends only.
So here’s to less evenings working up the allotment in the dark and to more time in the glorious sunshine!
Happy Winter Solstice everyone x
I’ve found a new love for robin’s that is almost verging on obssesive! This little beauty has been visiting our garden everyday for almost 3 weeks now. He waits patiently at the patio window in the morning for us to put some mealworms out, he even sits right on the wooden step with his beak pressed against the glass urging us to hurry up! Later in the afternoon he joins me up the top of the garden where I wrap parcels to send out, he sits ontop of the summer house singing me a merry little tune and often jumps down onto the table. He is a clever little Robin though, he knows that I will always bring him more mealworms in the afternoon and he is becoming one pampered little red breast.
I’ve always been very interested in animals and wildlife but I must admit that I am becoming rather fond of this little Robin and whenever I go into the garden I will always keep a look out for him.
It’s that time of year again and hasn’t it just come around so quickly? I do love Christmas time though, the traditions, the songs on the radio, christmas dinner and of course spending time with the family. I do apologise for the lack of posts but I have just been so busy getting ready for christmas and of course there was plenty to do on the allotment along with videos to film. I did get round to putting a few metres of tinsel in the shed as well as a little christmas tree and some lights on the allotment, it looks very festive indeed!
There’s been plenty of jobs to keep my busy up the allotment, I managed to plant my grapevine, sow some broad beans, plant the garlic and tulips, plant some herbs and get the chicken area dug and leveled out ready for the coop to move up. Winter has caught up with me though and I never got round to weeding or digging over other areas of bare soil, so my allotment it looking a little bit sorry for itself and a tad messy, hence the christmas decorations to try and cheer the plot up!
Now that the allotment is being tucked away for the Winter I can concentrate on the christmas presents. Over the past couple of years I have tried to make my gifts, whether it’s sewing, cross stitch, woodwork or jewellery. There’s something special about making a handmade gift for someone and I just love taking the time to create each unique gift. Next year there are plans to create allotment themed hampers for the family, my allotment will hopefully be more planned out and ready for it’s second growing year with lots of herbs, flowers veg and maybe even some eggs!
However, yet again I have left the gift making process a tad late and I’m starting to get a little stressed, there is only 10 more days until Christmas!
I hope everyone is having a lovely and stress free run up to christmas x
I had this weekend all planned out and on Saturday on I headed up the allotment with a packet of broad bean seeds and a handful of garlic cloves ready to plant. That was my mission, to sow the beans and the garlic along with a few other small jobs.
When I opened up the shed door I noticed something had nibbled through a bag of tulips and there was a half eaten bulb on the floor. The next tell-tell sign was the large sunflower head which had been tunneled into, along with a trail of seeds on the cabinet. I instantly assumed that a mouse had nibbled a hole in my shed and after frantically checking the outside I sighed with relief, the mouse hadn’t nibbled a hole in my beautiful shed. We soon found the problem though, my stable door has dropped slightly to reveal a small gap in the opening corner, you could tell that the mouse had entered this way due to the little claw and teeth marks on the wood! What a cheeky little mouse!
I decided to tidy the shed up and to clean any cups which I keep there for tea breaks, so the morning turned into a big shed tidy up. I started to empty the bottom cupboard and found more signs of the mouse, a bag of straw which had been left over from mulching the strawberries had been nibbled and bits of my poor tulip bulb was sitting inside, it looks like the mouse had started to make a nest. To make matters worse I found my stash of biscuits has been nibbled open and 4 custard creams had vanished! And then I found the biggest clue ever… Miss Mouse was sitting on the shelf behind a flower pot, staring right at me!
I turned into a big girls blouse and super Dad came to the rescue. He emptied the rest of the cupboard but still no sign of the mouse, I thought I had gone mad until he pulled a drawer out and the mouse jumped at him before running out the door and under the shed. Lets just say that I caught a great moment on the camcorder so stay tuned for my next video which will be uploaded over the next couple of days!
After the mouse had been evicted I started the big job of cleaning the cabinet out and then putting everything back inside. It gave me the perfect opportunity to get rid of a lot of rubbish that I had acquired over the year though and the shed looks a lot tidier and cleaner now. I also managed to sow the broad beans and plant the garlic so the day wasn’t a complete loss. My Dad also helped me to temporarily fix the door, he nailed a small piece of wood to the door frame so when the door is shut the little gap is covered from the inside.
I did feel a little guilty for evicting the poor mouse, she probably thought she had found the perfect nest with enough custard creams to last through Winter! Sorry Miss Mouse