This has been our first winter where we have been 90% self sufficient with vegetables over the winter period and it’s been great! Obviously we won’t ever beable to grow the amount of potatoes needed for a family of four to survive on all year round, but the other vegetables have been fantastic. I still have kale, flower sprouts, chard, leeks and carrots left for harvesting on my little plot. We finished the red cabbage off a while ago and everything was harvested before the frosts got them. Over on my Dad’s larger plot he has swede, sprouts, flower sprouts, calabrese, purple sprouting brocolli, cavolo nero, curly kale, cabbages, leeks and parsnips. We are in veggie heaven right now!
I am an avid second season grower, if theres space on the allotment I’ll be sure to fill it with flowers or vegetables! I’ve always liked the idea of overwintering vegetables to fill in those hungry gaps when nothing else is growing and carrots are one of those perfect crops to grow. They actually say that carrots which grow over winter are sweeter in taste, and I have to completely agree. I sowed these ‘Autumn King’ variety of carrots at the end of August, and I am only just starting to harvest them now. They may be dinky in size but they sure are tasty!
To learn more about my second growing season plans and ideas head on over to the ’2015 Plan’ page.
The 2015 allotment plan is now up and ready to read, Hooray! I’ve created a new page along the top so it’s easy to find, and I’ve just posted a little video where I talk through my plans as well.
I am so unbelievably excited for the year ahead and cannot wait to start sowing seeds and watch them come to life! I’m longing for lazy days up the allotment watching the bees buzzing, frogs hoping around, picking raspberries straight from the cane and being surrounded by sweet smelling flowers. Spring is just around the corner however, there’s big plans and some interesting varieties to grow this year, and not forgetting the anticipated arrival of the chickens (I will post more about them later, I promise!)
But for now, I thought I would share all my plans, hopes and dreams of what my allotment will look like this year and I hope you all enjoying reading (or watching!) x
What a complete and utterly glorious day it’s been today! The sun has been shining, the birds are singing and theres not a gust of wind or signs of rain in the air, Springtime is just around the corner and I cannot wait!
It is however, still too early to sow any seeds and I’m being patient and not risking it, there’s nothing worse then sowing seeds for them to only be destroyed by cold weather a few weeks down the line. Instead there’s a few jobs that need to be done so off I went nice and early to spend the day up the allotment in the sunshine. I miss this place terribly during the working week and especially in the Winter when evening visits are out of the question. I long for Summer days when I can relax outside the shed, surrounded by flowers, butterflies, bees and eat raspberries straight from the canes.
That is all to come though and right now my mind is set on sorting out the fruit cage, ideally I would like it netted and secure before the bushes start producing so I can actually enjoy my homegrown berries this year! It is only the bushes 2nd and 3rd years so I’m not expecting a lot, but last year the cage was unprotected and the birds beat me to it, let’s just say I was not at all happy.
The first job on the list was to sort the ground out. Now I’ve always liked the idea of having a layer of bark on the ground of the fruit cage; one, it would make my life a lot easier because I wouldn’t have to weed, and two, did I mention I wouldn’t have to weed? Ok I admit I’m a tad lazy! However, fate intervened when my Dad decided to prune some large trees in the back garden, he brought a second hand shredder and then all of a sudden we were inundated with tubs of shredded, bark sized brances. So today I find myself on hands and knees, carefully rolling out weed control fabric around the fruit bushes and securing it into the soil with pegs.
I managed to take 5 tubs of bark up to the allotment and it covered roughly about 1/4 of the cage, there’s still a huge mountain of branches to shread at home so it’s going to be a busy few days but so far I’m rather pleased with how it looks. I’ve left around 8 inches of fabric around the edges so it can be attached to the planks of wood that I’m planning on putting around the edge of the cage. The netting will also be attached to the wooden edge and a stronger net will be attached to the roof (which needs to be made higher so I can actually stand up in it!) I also mulched the 4 blackcurrants and 2 gooseberry bushes with a layer of well rotted manure and the next job will be to prune the older bushes. Once the cage is complete then hopefully the fruit can just do it’s thing, with the exception of harvesting and pruning, and I’m hoping all the hard work pays off with buckets full of berries
I also took advantage of driving the car up to drop off my new vintage trestle table. I’m planning on using it in future cooking videos aswell as for picnics and BBQ’s on the plot. The legs fold up for easy storage and so far it’s been very useful for potting on snow drops and for planning out the plot on. Now all I need is a bigger plot and then I can invite you all round for a picnic! x
I was so happy this morning to find out that a layer of snow had finally made it down South, it was only a very small amount but I was so excited! I love this season and absolutely adore the snow, we didnt get any last year but I remember there being lots of snow the year before that. My little allotment however, has never seen the snow (well not in my care it hasn’t!) so I raced downstairs, pulled on a coat and some boots and headed to the plot with my camera.
Luckily I was able to capture the snow before it melted, and sure enough an hour later it had vanished. At least all this cold weather is doing wonders for the garlic, fingers crossed for some delicious large cloves this year!
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?
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…
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!
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
When I decided to make a little pond for my allotment I never thought for one second that it would be such a success and I am so unbelievably happy with all my new little allotment residents. So far I’ve noticed 8 frogs on the plot, I was moving a pile of pallet slats one day and counted 8 amongst the wooden pile (I felt rather guilty that I had moved their home but I needed to weed!) Today I saw 4 of them in the pond, it looks like I might be swamped with frogs next Spring. Not that I’m complaining at all, it would be so interesting to watch tadpoles grow and the more the merrier, especially if they all eat the slugs!
The area around the pond was originally going to be filled with flowers, I planted a climbing rose and a rose bush next to the shed in the Spring and they have both bloomed extremely well. Around the rest of the pond I sowed a wildflower mix and planted a few self sown flowers. Now the mix was a complete failure, 90% of plants which grew around the pond turned out to be weeds, a few wild flowers appeared but it definately wasn’t how I expected the pond area to look. However, the flowers which I planted there as seedlings were a huge success, they were Verbena, cosmos, scabious, zinnias and calendula. I’m thinking next year I’ll grow more of the same flowers, growing the seedlings at home and planting them out later proved to work quite well, this way I will beable to grow the flowers that I love and any weeds that decide to grow can be picked out straight away because I’ll be able to identify them. Amongst the flowers I have decided to plant a grapevine which will climb up the side of the fruit cage, it’s a red seedless variety called ‘Flame’ and it can grow well outdoors in the South of England if facing the sun. I will plant flowers which are lower in height around the base of the grapevine so that there’s no competition, and then the higher flowers like verbena and cosmos will go around the edge. I just can’t wait to be able to pick my own grapes, even though it will be in a few years time!
Now back to the frogs, earlier on I said I felt guilty about destroying the frogs ground cover. They loved to hide in the weeds and amongst the flowers and they particularly enjoyed finding cover under a calendula that had spread over the waters edge, even though it was dead. So off I went to create a special little house for my allotment frogs. This simply consisted of a log pile made from off cuts of my hazel archway, and a cracked terracotta pot turned upside down. And of course I needed to make a little sign for their new home! I really hope they like it, and next year I’ll be sowing lots of flowers around the pond for them to enjoy too.
