The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - An Allotment and Beekeeping Blog!

Catching Up Part 1 - April 2011

2011-05-17T19:36:00.000+01:00

So, for the first time this year I find myself playing catchup with the blog, for which you have my apologies!

With so much still to do (even after a week off early in May), and the reasonable weather we've been having (apart from the last 2 weeks of torrential rain), we've been spending a lot of time at the plot, not only working, but also a lot of beekeeping (we had early splits from 5 of the hives - pre May! - and Hive 1 went queenless) and a bit of fun with a Plant Sale and BBQ, more about that in the next catchup post!

As you can see, April brought lovely unseasonally hot and sunny weather, along with the daffodils on the plots!

The onions and garlic (overwintering) have been doing wel, although now need a darn good weeding (as you will see), the peas and bored beans are doing well, and its looking really good for a bumper strawberry harvest, along with another bumper rhubarb harvest too!

Tadpoles are growing nicely in the pond on Plot 2...............

.......... And there has been lots of blossom on the apple and pear trees!

Last years brassic beds have now been cleared and planted up with..............

.............. this years spuds, which are now thru and growing well!

And lastly for this post, the strawberry beds are looking very healthy, lots of vigorous growth and huge amounts of flowers! Mmm, strawberries, cant wait!!

Hope your early spring has been good and that your plots are growing well!

More to follow shortly!

Late February 2011 - Piccies, Beekeeping and the Twig Kettle in use!

2011-03-01T10:07:00.000Z

We managed to get to the plot on Thursday last week, to continue with rebarking up the paths and doing some clearing up, but with the weather so lovely (14C and glorious springlike sunshine), we noticed the Bees were really busy, so after taking a few piccies of how the plots are coming along we decided (along with Pat and Colin) to remove the mouseguards and allow the girls a bit easier access to the outside world!

As you can see, the newly relaid bark paths on plot 2 look great, really tidy the plot up a lot, shame that we've temporarily run out of them at the moment, so we cant get plot 1 done until some more chippings are delivered by the council (hopefully for this weekend)

The overwintering garlic and onions are coming up nicely (we were late planting them this year, normally they are in in October, but this year it was late December before the first 3 batches of onions and the garlic were put in!

As you can see, the bees were very busy, this piccy was of one of the quieter hives, some of the entrances looked as though there was a swarm in progress with the amount of bees trying to come and go through the mouseguards! The flying bees were not only fetching water (to mix with the honey), but also bringing home pollen, possibly crocus, willow or maybe even maple!

After donning our beesuits we removed the mouseguards (they stop any mice from raiding the hive in the winter when the bees are huddled together) which allows the girls a lot easier access!

Once we'd removed the mouseguards we did a quick inspection to check that the hives all had enough stores left, on opening them we were amazed by just how many bees were in each hive, really busy and full of bees, and plenty of stores left too!

Closer up, plenty of bees in there!

We also got the chance to play with our new kettle, I placed the base on top of an upturned hanging basket (to raise it from the floor, make it a bit more stable (less likely to be knocked over), easier for us to 'feed' and to increase the wind flow), which worked really well, although it is now permanently attached, as the plastic covering on the hanging basket melted and welded the base to the upturned basket! Ooops!

I have to say we were both impressed with its performance, once the fire was going it only took about 6 minutes to boil 1 1/2 litres of water, quite comparable with a gas camping stove, and a lot more fun to play with (as well as being a lot 'greener'!

Our chilli, pepper, aubergine and first tomato seedlings are now in the unheated greenhouse in the back yard, fortunately the greenhouse is located against the south facing garage wall (concrete), which acts as a heat sink, soaking up the sunshine thru the day, then radiating the warmth back into the greenhouse at night, without this passive solar heating (which was acchieved inadvertantly) we may well have lost a few of the seedlings in last nights frost!

Today we are going to be sowing more seedlings, brassicas, herbs, toms and anything else that we can at this time of year, ready for transplanting to the plot once the weather has warmed up a bit more!

Hope your preparations for the coming growing year are going well!

Twig Kettle - a new 'eco' toy for the plot!

2011-02-17T18:28:00.001Z

We suffered a break in at the plot last month, our shed was opened and our kettle, camping stove, and all the stainless steel gardening tools taken, about £150 worth in total, annoying and inconvenient, especially at this time of year when camping gear isnt readily available (or cheap, as it normally only goes on offer at the end of the camping season!)

We've managed to replace most of the tools, with a few things having been bought on special offer from the net, but the one thing we've struggled with is a new stove / kettle. We found a camping stove like the one we had stolen on offer for £15, but no-one has the gas in stock at the moment (or if they do, then its expensive), so after coming across this twig powered kettle, we bit the bullet and ordered one today!

So, this is the new toy for the plot, a 'twig' kettle, boils 1.5litres using a small quantity of twigs in a fairly short time, the design is ingenious!

The base holds a small fire, a bit of paper or straw to start the fire, then a few twigs, the 'kettle' is then placed on top, and more fuel fed thru the central chimney into the base, the water is held in a jacket around the outside, meaning a large volume of water in contact with the heat source, making a fast boil!

In addition a small pan, a small wok and frying pan are also available, so whilst brewing up, a bacon butty or some homemade soup could also be cooked at the same time!

http://www.theselfsufficiencyshop.co.uk/74-15-litre-twig-kettle.html

Ok, its not cheap to purchase in the first place, but being powered by nothing more than a few twigs means no further runnning costs, so comparing with even a basic gas stove (£20 or so, plus gas for the year at £10 or so plus a camping kettle £10) it soon becomes aparent that actually its not that expensive, and with no further running costs it will actually save money in the future, aswell as being very ecologically friendly by not needing any gas (and the inherant waste packaging that is needed for the gas) and running on what is basically a waste product!

It sould be delivered sometime in the next week, so once we've given it a go, we'll report back on whether it is as good in use as it appears in design!

Lee especially is looking forwards to playing with it, he's got a flint and steel that he recons will be ideal for lighting the base, making it even more eco friendly and fun, plus it gives him an excuse to play with fire on the plot all year round! LOL!

I managed to get to the plot for a short while today, to plant the last 50 onion sets, and to get a few piccies of the newly cleared and rebarked paths on plot 2, hopefully I shall get them processed and put up here tomorrow! The chillies, peppers, aubergines and first of the toms we planted last month are all doing really well, almost every windowsill is filled with 1" to 3" tall seedlings at the moment, cant wait till the temperature rises a bit and we can get them planted!

Hope your preparation for the coming growing year is going well!

Cold day at the plot, but productive!

2011-01-27T18:41:00.000Z

Forgot to take my camera to the plot today, so cant share how good its looking after todays hard work, but I can tell you what we've been up to!

We got to the plot for about 1130am, it was cold (3C max and dropped to 1.5C later on), windy (tho it dropped in speed as the temp dropped) and started out being cloudy (tho it lifted as the temp dropped to reveal low late sunshine). It was one of those days where it was too cold to undertake anything that kept you static, you needed to be moving and generating some bidyheat to stay warm, cold but productive weather!

Lee started off by having a bonfire, burning the grapevine prunings and the raspberry and fartichoke cane trimmings, whilst I started to fetch barrows of bark chippings to relay the paths on plot 2!

We broke for lunch at 2pm, having Pat's homemade carrot and corriander soup and some sausage rolls, then pressed on with the bonfire and barking up!

Lee finished the bonfire at 4pm, so we broke for a cuppa tea, then started to relay the wheelbarrows to bring the bark chippings from the far end of the plot, after 25 barrows full we finished at 5pm, with the temp dropping quickly, after redoing almost all the paths on Plot 2!

A productive (if cold day), PLot 2 is now looking much better than it was when my hols started 9 days ago, hopefully in the next week or so (back at work tomorrow) we'll be able to get the paths cleared and barked up on Plot 1, then it will just be a case of clearing and mucking the beds ready for planting once the weather improves a bit!

Hope your winter clearing and preparations are going well!

Random 'Energy Descent / Post Peak Oil' Living thoughts and plot progress!

2011-01-26T18:44:00.002Z

Well, with only tomorrow left of our hols, we've made some progress on the plots, but with the wet, cold and windy weather of the past week, we've not quite done as much as we'd like, however, plenty of research / reading / reskilling has been taking place as I contemplate the possible realities of life after Peak Oil and living in a world which is sufferring Energy Descent!

(For those who arent yet aware of the possibile problems that could be facing us all in the next few years, take a look at some of the links in the Low Imact Living section (on the right of the screen), or take a look at these links for a bit of basic info.......

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ Doom and Gloom Viewpoint?
http://www.postpeakliving.com/peak-oil-primer Post peak living primer.
http://www.postpeakliving.com/guide-to-post-peak-living Post peak living info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil Peak Oil info - Wikipedia

So, what does it all mean? Basically we've reached (or will soon reach) the point where the amount of Oil we can produce has peaked, although there is still lots of oil in the ground it is going to become more difficult and expensive to extract it (as most of the easy to extract reserves have already been used), yet demand for oil is still rising. This will result in prices getting higher and higher, and a shortfall of the production of oil in relation to its demand, which will push prices even higher.

Our industrialised society relies exclusively on oil to work, we need the fertilizers (which are produced from oil) to grow our food, we need the petrol and diesel to travel to our places of work and for the supermarkets to distribute the food throughout the Uk (typically most Uk Supermarkets have food reserves for only a day or two's supply, if they cant resupply, then they will have empty shelves!), if prices rise for oil, so will everything else, until it reaches a point that we cant afford it and cant travel any longer, we cant afford the prices of basic foods and society is then in danger of falling apart (there have already been food riots in many countries)

You may think that emerging technologies will come online in a manner to reduce our dependance on oil and allow life to continue as it has for the past 40 years or so, but in order to be effective, they need to be coming online NOW, new power stations can take 5 to 20 years to come online (and although they would provide electricity, they wouldnt provide enough in order for us all to have an economically affordable personal transport system) and there are other factors that may prevent them ever becoming the solution to the problem of a world with less / overly expensive oil! (There are problems with the availability of the minerals that are required in order to produce viable electric cars, there isnt enough to allow us to relace all the petrol and diesel cars in the world with electric versions, and how quickly would we be able to produce them anyway?)

There are things we can do, ranging from going totally 'off grid' for all your energy / water / fuel supplies (which needs approx 3 to 5 acres of land per family / commmunity unit) through to less drastic measures such as those advocated by the Transition Town movements. (http://transitionculture.org/ ), (http://www.transitionnetwork.org/ ), who are looking locally at reskilling, building an infrastructure that looks at food and fuel supplies in a world where 10 miles is about as far as you could travel in a day and various other aspects of living in an Energy Descent world.

This is a subject that interests me, not only in relation to how society would fare (would it survive or collapse?), but also in relation to what skills we would need to live in a world where we had to produce the majority of our food, goods, services and fuel locally! Assuming you are able to find a way to provide your home with fresh water (rainwater harvesting and filtration system perhaps?), heating and cooking fuel (woodburning stove with back burenr to rpovide hot water and central heating) and grow enough food to feed yourselves with, then there are a myriad of other things that you need to consider!

Even if you just take a few minutes to look around your kitchen, how many of the things that we use daily could you provide for yourself? Salt? Sugar? Vinegar? Cooking Oil? Tea? Coffee? Milk?

We may know where many of these things come from (such as Salt from mines or from evaporating sea water), but would you be able to source them locally, or even make something that you could trade with others for?

What about those things you need to preserve your crops to allow you to eat them in the winter and spring? Do you know how to make vinegar, how to smoke food, can your surplus crops, how to salt meat (or even where to get the salt from?)

What about something as simple as yeast (for making bread and fermenting excess crops into alcohol - Peak Oil may mean energy descent, but it doesnt mean we need to do without everything thats fun, lol), would you know how to capture wild yeast and cultivate it to bake your own bread?

What about vegetable oil? We're too far north here for olive trees, and a lot of the things we cook need oil, where would you get it from? How about rendering down pig fat for making your own Lard? Or extracting useful vegetable oil from seeds? What about clothing?

Anyhows, if Ive got you thinking, then thats what this post is about, if we start finding out as much as we can now, then when the energy descent begins we should be able to do more for ourselves and pass that knowledge on to others who dont know as much!

A lot of this thinking was prompted by a visit to the Trafford Eco House blog site, a normal family home thats looking at doing what they can to reduce their reliance on oil and fossil fuels, some great ideas (such as their aquaponics system, raising fish in a polytunnel, fish waste feeds bacteria who convert it into plant foods, who then filter the water for the fish, definitely worth a look!)

http://traffordecohouse.wordpress.com/

Another site worth a look, is this one, 3 acres of wasteland in America produces 450000kilos of food and 10000 fish a year, perhaps a way for local communities to feed themselves?

Anyhows, we got to the plot today, planted out the thinnings of Lavender from the seedlings we planted in pots (next to the polytunnel last year) around the edges of the plum tree bed, I pruned the grapevine and we started to bring some fresh bark chips up to the plot to relay the paths, hopefully we should (weather permitting) be able to get the rest of the paths barked up tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Onion sets are in!

2011-01-23T17:56:00.000Z

Weather was a bit warmer today, it reached 6C by lunchtime, so we got down to the plot after lunch for a few hours!

Lee cut back all the rasps in the 'fedge' (edible or food producing hedge) whilst I cleared the bed at the front of plot 2 for the onion sets, all 200 (3 varieties) of onion sets are now planted, some behind the garlic, some in the bed immediately to its left, and the rest in 4 rows in the bed behind, which still leaves us a bed and a half for the onions that are growing from seed (of which there are 3 trays in the back bedroom windowsill!)

After that we had some crocus bulbs to plant (in the grass at the front of both plots) and 2 Thyme plants and 3 Geranium plants we were given by Janet (she was having a clear out and splitting some of her perennials that had got too large), so they went in on plot 1 under the fruit trees, hopefully they should do okay there, look good and also give us a bit of groundcover (and reduce the weeds!)

Finished up just as it started to get dark (5pm ish, lovely that the nights are staying lighter for longer!)

Tomorrow and Tuesday Lee has to work in the evening, so Im not sure whether we'll manage to get to the plot much, but we're off on Wednesday and Thursday, so weather permitting we should be able to get down to the plot and do some more, I really want to prune the grapevine, we've a lot of stuff that needs burning, the paths need clearing and rebarking, then of course there's plenty of beds that need clearing!

Hope your plot preparation is going well!

First crops of the year planted at the plot and Bottling the Port!

2011-01-21T17:49:00.001Z

Today dawned frosty and bright, not a cloud in the sky, so once we'd allowed the sun a chance to melt the frost (and bring the temperature up a bit) we headed straight for the plot, taling the broad bean seedlings and the garlic and onions along to see if we could get them planted!

As you can see from this piccy of plot 2, the frost never truly left us, anywhere in shadow still had frost for the whole of the day, but undeterred by the cold temperatures (and both wrapped up warmly) we set to clear some room, plan out the beanery (going into the beds behinnd the pond), plant the broad beans, clear the garlic and onion set beds and try and get them planted!

One job we also had to do was to get the 'dual plum' tree we picked up from Parkers Garden Center last October! This was due to go into the front bed (on the left), the one with all the Lavender in it!

Plot 2 needs a really good clearing, the sweetcorn / squash bed from last year will become this years 'beanery', with plans for 5 or 6 tall cane support tunnels, a cage for the french beans (to protect them from the wabbits) and plenty of space for peas and broad beans!

The first of the garlic / onion beds at the front of plot 2, now cleared and planted with 120 saved garlic cloves!

The back end of this bed will have onion sets in it by tomorrow night, as will the bed to the right!

The French Bean 'cage', in its new position!

The cloche protecting the first 30 broad bean seedlings, they are AquaDulce, so are frost hardy, but as they were only sowed about 10 days ago we thought it best to protect them with the cloche!

Lee next to the newly planted dual plum tree. hopefully this will take and we should have a couple of varieties of plum to feast on in a year or two!

We also noticed the rhubarb is starting to come up, cant wait till we can harvest the first stalks, rhubarb crumble and custard, yum!

I couldnt resist taking this piccy last night, we had 2 batches of Summer Fruits Wine to bottle, 2 gallons in total, and as I was cooking tea (hence the chopped mushrooms on the chopping board) Lee decided he would syphon it into the bottles, I caught him using his mouth to stop the port from flowing whilst he changed bottles (or so he tells me), and had to run n get my camera, cos it just struck me as funny!

He did manage to get some of the port into the bottles! Lol!

Actually, it was a batch of mixed summer fruits wine, made with 1lb Elderberries, 3lb Rasps, 2lb strawbs and 1lb of blackberries, it came out at about 20% abv, very moorish, quite sweet, but full of flavour, very like a decent port, so its been labelled as Foragers Port, we're taking a bottle round to Pat and Colins tonight, so we'll let you know what it was like tomorrow!

Hope your plot clearing is proceeding a pace, and your early seedlings are coming up in the propogators!

Homebrew Shop visit - new toys for Lee!

2011-01-20T17:37:00.000Z

So, with the weather frosty, cold, wet and foggy all day (max temp at +0.5C) we didnt make it to the plot again today, but instead did a couple of other things instead! Whilst I potted on the peppers, chillies, aubergines and tomatoes, then planted a few more pepper seeds in the heated propogators, Lee made a batch of Traditional Mead (flavoured with cloves and cinnamon), then we had a trip to the homebrew shop in Northwich, called Brew2Bottle!

We'd heard about the shop from a friend who lives in Northwich, and decided to have a trip over to get a few bits n bobs, more bungs and bubble traps (air locks) to go into the 3 demijohns Lee picked up yesterday evening (courtesy of freecycle), plus a couple of things we'd seen on their website that would make our brewing tasks a bit easier! http://www.brew2bottle.co.uk/

The first thing we had wanted was a 2 lever corking machine, we'd inherited a cheapo one (the type you hit with a mallet to force the cork into the bottle), but found it not only difficult to use, but also doesnt force the cork all the way into the bottle, which doesnt look great! http://www.brew2bottle.co.uk/home-brew-equipment/bottling-equipment-htm/twin-lever-corker.html

The next thing we wanted was a bottle dryer, trying to wash, sterilize and dry up to 30 bottles at once is a right pain, especially as we cant fit more than 18 on the sink drainer, so the bottle drying tower (that supports the bottles neck down one above the other) that holds up to 80 bottles is something that will make bottling a lot easier! http://www.brew2bottle.co.uk/home-brew-equipment/bottling-equipment-htm/80-bottle-drainer.html

Lee also spotted a Cherry Brandy strong wine kit, basically a 22percent ABV wine kit with a cherry brandy flavour, they had a few flavours (the shop owner gave us a small glass of the peach schnapps flavour one, which tasted great), but we decided to try the cherry brandy one first, if we like it, then we may well get some more flavours and try them! In addition to the main purchases we got the extra airtraps and bungs we needed, plus some oak chips (for adding that oak aged taste for the wines and meads) and more corks! AAll in all a productive trip, if not a particularly cheap day (although I have to admit, Brew2Bottle's prices are very good, especially his bottles, thet are as cheap as any we've found online, and with the added advantage of no postage to pay!)!

So, we've now got another flavoured Mead (Melomel to give it the proper name) on the go, and undoubtedly will have a batch of the Prohibition 'Cherry Brandy' on the go tonight aswell! I hope the high alcohol spirit kits are as good as they look, as it would be a great way to brew our own spirits without going to the expense of buying a 'still' (which is unfortunately illegal to use for the distillation of alcohol within the uk! You can own one, and use it to make distilled water, or essential oils, but not for making your own spirits!)

9 days hols, plot plans, chillis are coming up, more homebrew news, and homemade bread!

2011-01-19T14:26:00.002Z

Well, today we start our last batch of hols for the financial year, Lee is off for 5 days and Im off for 9 days, time to relax, put our feet up and chill out..... not! Lol!

The actual plans for the week are to get on top of sorting the plots out, ready for the coming growing season, so we've got the greenhouses to empty, clean and some compost / manure to add to the greenhouse borders, the grapevine to prune, the raspberry canes to prune,the compost bins to turn over, onion sets and garlic to plant, beds to clear and muck, planting areas to sort out (I want to move the pea and bean supports into place so they will be ready for use in a few months time), the dual plum tree to plant, the early sown broad beans to plant out, the shed to clear and tidy, paths to weed and remulch with bark chippings, and finally have a big bonfire to take care of the prunnings (and give us a good source of potash for putting on the crops), all of which is going to be very much weather permitting! Sounds like a relaxing holiday huh? Lol!

Our planting plans are already in place, the widget below shows the new layout for the forthcoming growing year, use the right and left arows to switch between the plots!

width="500" height="400" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab">

Planting Update

The chillies, tomatoes, aubergines and peppers are starting to come up, so today Im going to be potting on some of them from the heated propagators, we've got Chocolate Habanero's, Scotch Bonnet, Dorset Naga, Naga Jolokia, Cayenne, De Cayenne, Tokyo Hot, Mohawk, Jalapeno chillies all up, plus a fair number of toms, aubergines and peppers, so they all need to come out of the heated propogators and be planted on! Once they are out of the propogators I can plant a batch of the later chillies and peppers in a week or so!

Dorset Naga, Scotch Bonnet and 2 Chocoltae Habaneros, the first of my fiery hot chillies!

Peppers and chillies, ready to be pricked out from the heated propagator!

3 trays of onions (on the windowsil) and the broad beans (next to the homebrew)

Aubergines and peppers, lots of them!

The Bored Beans, we'll be planting these unddr cover at the plto this week methinks!

Homebrew Update

On another front, our homebrew experiments have been going well, with batches of Elderflower (2 batches), Bored Bean, Summer Fruits, Elderberry, Celtic Druids Mead, Gewurtztramminer (Grape from the plot) all finished and bottled (and a fair bit drunk or given away as Yule prezzies), with a batch of chardonnay (from kit), a batch of red berry and the large batch of 5 gallons of mead all still on the go, with another batch of Mead due to be started this week!

I have to say that most of the wines we've made have been very good, some of them I wouldnt have minded paying £5 to £10 a bottle for them (especially the first batch of Elderflower (lovely and crisp and light), the Elderberry (very fruity and dry) and the Bored Bean (slightly sparkling, very crisp and refreshing)). The wine we made from the grapes from the plot we are a little less pleased with atm, it is quite sharp, tho hopefully a good 6 months to let it age will make it much more pallateable, but only time will tell!

In total we've already bottled 48 bottles of wine and mead, with another 42 bottles worth still fermenting, definitely a good way to use up excess produce and provide a lot of extra value to the produce! Hopefully this year we will be able to make even more, I especially cant wait to try making some of the rhubarb rose wine that Dave (on the plot) makes!

Beekeeping Update

We were fortunate enough to have a lovely dry and warm day last Thursday, so we took the opportunity to do the winter bee inspections (and varroa treatment with Oxyalic Acid) with Pat and Colin, the bees were busy, with plenty flying, and every hive had good levels of stores and a large amount of bees in them! Looks like (so far at least) all 6 of the hives are faring well, though only time will tell how well they come through the winter (but we are hopeful that they should all make it through!) On checking back a few days later, the Varroa mite drop was actually small, with between 50 and 120 mites per hive, which is a very light infestation, so it looks like the icing sugar treatment is helping to keep the Varroa levels low within the colonies, definitely a good thing!

Breadmaking

In October last year (whilst we were on our autumn hols) we had a major problem with our old cooker, we'd already been struggling with an oven door that wouldnt properly seal, then the main oven totally died, leaving us unable to cook anything in it, after looking round we were fortunate to drop on this Leisure 90cm Range cooker (dual fuel), which we knew was not only perfectly proportioned to fit where our old (and cheap) 90cm range had been (a Beko one that was impossible to get spares for), but is also one that spares will be available for, so we took the plunge and treated ourselves to it. Since then not only have we been able to cook up some fab food, but I've also started to make all our own bread!

This is todays batch of bread, just prior to being baked, 2 x lb tin loaves (cooked in the wonderful silicon loaf tins), a 1lb farmhouse loaf and 8 barm cakes. Lee found an online food retailer (www.bigbrandsforless.com) who does some amazing deals, so we've been buying their 3.5kg bread mixes, which is enough to make 7 loaves, for £1.23 each, making each loaf less than 20p each (even better when they did a 'buy one get one for free' offer)! Having seen the ridiculous prices that supermarket bread has now risen to, making a batch of 4 loaves and then freezing 3 of them (to keep fresh until we are ready to use them) has proved not only an exceptionally cheap way of getting our bread, but also has proven to us both just how much nicer homemade bread actually is!

The 1lb wholemeal farmhouse loaf and 2 breadcakes, the bread mixes that bigbrandsforless sell include white (which rises the best), granary and wholemeal, needless to say, we've got 6 months of bread mixes stored in the back bedroom!

The 2 x 1lb white loaves, before baking! The white bread mix seems to rise the best, and the flavour is great too! I tend to do the bread dough in 2lb batches, just pop the right amount of bread mix into the mixxer, and add the correct amount of warm water, let it mix for 7 mins or so, then turn out, knead it a bit, shape the loaves, pop iinto the baking tray and pop into the oven for 1/2 hour to rise! After that a quick bake and you get fantastic homemade bread!

So, after 15 mins baking at 220C for the buns, and a further 15 mins baking at 200c for the loaves, this is what you get! Crusty, tasty, homemade breads, enough to last us for 4 days or so!

All this for less than 20p a loaf? Compared with over £1 for plastic supermarket bread, crazy! Lol!

The homemade bread has been sooo tasty that it even inspired me to write a poem about it!

Freshly Baked Bread - a poem (of sorts!)

There's nothing so fine as homemade bread,
A daily staple to keep us all so well fed,
Nothing more than flour, water and yeast,
Yet once cooked it becomes a veritable feast!

Supermarket bread seems made of plastic,
All so soft and white and so elastic,
Once sold in bulk so very cheap,
But now the prices could make you weep!

Now its cheaper to make your own,
Nothing gives such a sense of home,
As that delicious fresh bread smell,
That from your childhood you recall so well!

Tis so simple and easy to make,
Not as complex as a cake,
Mix it all then knead the dough,
It has to be done, like just so!

Then for a time you have to wait,
Give it a while for yeast to create,
As almost before your very eyes,
Your loaf does now so proudly rise!

Now in the oven its time to bake,
Dont let it burn for goodness sake,
Wont take long and then its done,
Barm cake, loaf, roll or bun!

Let it cool, just a bit,
Then its time to cut into it,
Real butter spread on fresh hot bread,
For it there's truly a lot to be said!

Suzanne Read
11th December 2010

Anyhows, thanks for reading, more updates and plot piccies to follow htis week as we (hopefully) get some sorting out done in the allotments! Hope your prep and clearing is going well, and that you will also be ready for another great growing year!

And so the growing year starts again!

2011-01-09T16:05:00.000Z

Happy New Year, Merry Yule / xmas n all that jazz, and now we've got the festive season done with, the time comes again to start planting for the coming growing season!

Today Ive been planting the early chillies, peppers, aubergines and tomatoes, plus some onion seeds, into the propogatirs which are now sitting on the bedroom windowsills, cant wait for the seeds to germinate, feels like the new growing year has started today! Lol!

Chillies Planted
2 dorset naga,
3 hungarian black,
2 choc habanero,
2 scotch bonnet,
4 orzoco,
8 hot jalapeno,
8 tokyo hot,
8 decayenne,
8 cayenne
8 hot stuff
8 Naga Jolokia

Total of 67 chilli seeds planted, with another batch of other varieties to be planted in late Feb!

Peppers Planted
14 worldbeater peppers
8 Granny Smith peppers,
8 Tasty Bell peppers
8 Padron peppers
8 Sweet Ingrid peppers,
8 Corno Rosso peppers
8 Jumbo peppers

Total 62 pepper seeds planted so far, with another batch of other varieties to be planted in late Feb!

Aubergines planted
6 Chinese Ancestors
6 Black Beauty
6 Black Enorma
6 Moneymaker
6 Viserba

A total of 30 aubergine seeds planted, lets hope they do better than last years (only 3 survived)

Tomatoes Planted
8 Balconi Red (hanging basket)
8 Ildi
8 Red Tumbling Toms (hanging basket)
8 Gardeners Delight

32 tomato seeds planted, 16 of which are for hanging baskets both at home and on the plot (should look good hanging from the new grapevine arbour!)

Plus I've also sown 3 trays of onions from seed, Bedforedshire Champion, Ailsa Craig and Hytech, Im determined to do much better with onions from seed this year, its one of those things I really want to get to grips with, rather than relying on the onions from set (which usually run out about now!)

So, the balance sheet for the coming year now starts again!

Costs
£59.50 for seeds (Wyevales sale),
£7 for onion sets (3 varieties, 200+ sets in total),
£12 for dual plum tree,
£10 for 3 x 70L bags of compost (for planting seeds in)
So a total spend for 2011 of £98.50 so far, with Seed spuds, rent and subs to pay for definite (approx £100), plus any other projects we wish to undertake on the plots, so hopefully this year will be a cheaper year on the allotments than the last few!

We are on holidays in about 10 days time, so hopefully we will be able o get to the plot and get the winter clearing up done ready for the crops to go in when the weather properly improves!

Hope your planting plans are sorted, your first sowings are in the propogators and your growing year is off to a good start!

Late October Harvest, homebrew, balance sheet and a poem!

2010-10-25T18:29:00.000+01:00

Once again Im playing catchup with the blog, for which you have my apologies, as the weather cools, the nights draw in and I find myself wanting to curl up and stay in where its warm, it becomes something of a chore to drag yourself out into the cold to harvest, take piccies and then write it all up for the blog, however, as Im now on holiday for 2 weeks we should get a chance to clear the plot, take the remaining harvests and get ready for next years growing season!

We had our fourth frost of the season last night, a severe frost thats killed off a lot of the more delicate plants, and neccesitated us doing a harvest of any remaining crops today, but the good point about frosty weather is that it usually means we get a bright and clear day, with no wind, even if it is cold! As you can see, the courgettes have died off in the frost, the beans are dying, and a lot of the weeds are also dying back!

Plot 2 looks fairly empty, yet there's still 2 1/2 beds of spuds, a bed of fartichokes and plenty of broccolli still to take!

Despite the frost this rose has decided to bloom today, a beautiful sign of life trying to overcome the problems of the season!

The sprout bed is doing really well, should have plenty to see us through the next few months!

And the cabbage beds are still producing, this is the largest of the red cabbages, going to take this for making pickled red cabbage later in the week!

This one came home with us today!

The borlotti beans have done well, and are almost dry, so they will be harvested this week and stored for winter use!

The last of the toms from the allotment greenhouses! About 20lb of ripe and about the same of unripe green toms, not bad for the end of October!

We also harvested turnips, swede, broccolli, caulie, chillies, peppers, raspberries and a few other bits n bobs today! Not too bad at all for the time of year, yet we've still got a fair bit still growing or almost ready for harvesting, as is shown in the updated balance sheet lower in the post!

Another thing thats been going really well this year is our first forays back into the world of homebrewed wine! As you can see here, we've still got 5 demijohns of wine on the go, 1 of Elderflower, 1 of Elderberry, 2 of summer fruits and 1 made from the pressed juice from the grapes on the plot!

We've also got a big batch of Mead on the go, with 5 gallons fermenting away in this barrel, and we are planning on making another 2 small batches of flavoured mead, 1 of Druids Celtic Mead and 1 of Metheglin, rosehip flavoured mead, which we are hoping to get started in the next few days!

The first batch of elderflower was bottled and labelled about 3 weeks ago now, and the batch of broad bean wine was bottled and labelled last week! As you can see, they've both cleareed really well, and the labels I made in OpenOffice and stuck on with a glue stick really finish them off well!

We tried the first bottle of Elderflower last night, round at Pat and Colins (whilst extracting some honey), have to say we all thought it very good, crisp, clear, nicely dry and very pallateable, something non of us would have begrudged paying up to £10 a bottle for! Very happy with the results!

Just a quick close up of the labels for the 2 types of wine we've so far bottled! I've got some work to do for the labels for the other 4 types of wine, hopefully I will be able to make them as nice as these have turned out!

We've yet to try the Bored Bean wine, it needs a few weeks to mature before we try it, but I am tempted to take some to the Allotment Bonfire Night BBQ and see how it goes down!

So, onto the balance sheet!

Balance Sheet Update - 7th October 2010

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8
Soft Fruits £16
Clematis £10
Arbour materials £ 40
Cold Frames (2) £30 (1/2 price at Argos)
Redcurrant £7.50
Birdhouse £7
Birdfeeders (for arbour) £10

Total Costs £ 504

Next years costs have already started, £59.50 for seeds (Wyevales sale), £7 for onion sets (3 varieties, 200+ sets in total), £12 for dual plum tree, so a total spend for 2011 of £88.50 so far, with only rent and subs + seed spuds to come (should be a total of £120 ish to add), so unless we decide to undertake any large projects on the plot, next year should be a relatively inexpensive one!

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £ 15
First Early Spuds £ 15
Second Early spuds £ 30
Early Main Spuds £ 20
Late Main Spuds £
Lettuce £ 14
Radish £ 15
Garlic £ 85
Strawberries £ 65
Summer Raspberries £ 35
Autumn Raspberries £ 25
Blackberries £ 35
Peas £ 40
Broad Beans £ 70
Courgettes £ 150
French Beans £ 110
Red Onions £ 20
White Onions £ 50
Cabbages £ 30
Peppers £ 45
Chillies £ 50
Tomatoes £ 230
Turnip £ 30
Swede £ 10
Runner Beans £ 100
Broccolli £ 65
Apples £ 20
Plums £ 5
Sweetcorn £ 150
Chard / Spinach £ 2
Aubergines £ 5
Cucumbers £ 11
Blueberries £ 5
Caulieflower £ 20
Grapes £ 35
Sprouts £ 5
Jerusalem Artichokes £
Summer Squashes £ 20
Pumpkins £ 20
Beetroot £ 5
Leeks £ 5

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 1705

So, a total nett profit of £ 1191 so far this year, with a large amount of harvests still to come! We've still got 2 1/2 beds of spuds to bring home, lots more swede and turnips, 27 sprout plants, a bed of leeks, a large bed of fartichokes, borlotti beans are almost ready to harvest, more cabbages, more broccolli, more rasps, lots of chard and spinach and a few more bits n pieces besides! The rest of the crops should bring the total harvests up to at least £1850, and possibly quite a bit more!!

Hope your harvests are safetly in, your plots are cleared and you've had as good a growing year as we have!

Oh, I got an email the other day, from the Government Petition website! I set up a Petition (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/LowImpactLiving/) a year ago past, asking whether we could have a new class of land for planning purposes, to allow those of us who wish to live an ecologically sound self sufficient lifestyle to do so, although more than 300 folks signed the petition, it wasnt enough to guarantee a response, but once arrived this week out of the blue! You can read the response to the petition at the link below!

http://www.hmg.gov.uk/epetition-responses/petition-view.aspx?epref=LowImpactLiving

Nice to get a reply, but a shame that they cant allow those of us who want to live 'the Good Life' to do so!

Finally, I just wanted to share a poem I wrote the other day, I was listening to the Druidpodcast and got some inspiration, so penned this poem in about half an hour, I took my feelings about the fact that although you can buy agricultural land quite easily, it is almost impossible to do so and get permission to live on the land, and with the threats of peak oil, energy descent and climate change I decided to use them as the basis for a clarion call to arms for those of us who wish to live 'with' the land! What do you think?

Making a Stand?

Walking the path that calls to my soul,

Recalled again to play my Role,

Living a life rooted in the Old Ways,

Learning once more for all of my days!

Finding my way along the crooked path,

Sorting wisdom from chiff and chaff,

Living a life rooted in the Land,

Yet yearning for more, to make a stand!

The Land calls me forth to live a greener life,

Sustainable and self sufficient, with all its strife,

Earthen Sheltered I wish a home for me,

Yet without money its not to be!

Short-sighted rules of those who planned,

Keep us chained to a life that’s killing the Land!

Profitable decisions rule the day,

Yet in the long run its All who will pay!

Greenhouse Emissions out of control,

Melting Icecaps at the Pole!

The black gold is running out,

Civilisation is now at it's last shout!

Legacy of past riches squandered away,

For the price of a life lived at play!

Culture of Greed is how most now live,

For tomorrow not one thought most now give!

Yet there is still another way....

Living in harmony, day by day!

Reclaiming our connection with the Land,

Is it now time to make our Stand?

Land is owned by so very few,

But with it, most know not what to do!

Called forth, a new Vision we need to see!

One that’s fair and allows all to Be!

Communities once more come to the fore,

Building together, living within the Lore!

Regaining the connections that once were Ours,

Reclaiming again those once lost Powers!

Land enough to grow and farm,

Living a life with minimal harm!

Reclaiming the skills of times long gone past,

Building a future that’s bound to last!

Managing the Land through permaculture,

Safeguarding the Land for all our Future!

Sustainable building from local resources,

Allowing Nature to run her courses!

Technology yet still has its place,

But it needs a human face!

Not the God of corporate greed,

But as a tool, us to feed!

Learn well the lessons of the past,

Build things that are made to last and last!

Choose to work on a human scale,

Pass on the word with Your Tale!

If we choose to make a Stand,

We still can save the Land!

Its up to you to choose you're Fate!

Act Now, before its too late!

Suzanne Read

Samhain 2010

Well, more updates to follow over the next 2 weeks, thanks for reading!

Making use of the harvests!

2010-10-11T22:25:00.000+01:00

Well, time does seem to be flying this year, although the weather has been fantastic hereabouts for the past few days, there's still a definite feel of the onset of autumn, the trees are taking on a gorgeous hue, there's a distinct nip in the air as soon as the sun dips and the nights are definitely getting colder!

We're still harvesting good amounts from the plots, but also having to take time to process it for storage and later use! Lee spent today processing about half of the sweetcorn, cutting the kernels from the cobs to produce our own sweetcrn kernels for the freezer, half the cobs produced about 10lb of sweetcorn kernels, quite a bit to use through the winter! Methinks next year we'll look into how to use dried kernels in order to maximise our storage!

The 15lb of grapes I harvested last week have been crushed and about a gallon of juice extracted, which is now fermenting nicely, proper homemade wine from grapes! This will make the 7th batch of wine that we've made this year, the first batch of Elderflower (the one from a kit) is now bottled and should be ready to drink by Samhain! The 2nd batch of Elderflower is still bubbling away nicely, as are the Elderberry and 2 batches of summer fruits, but the broad bean wine seems to be nearing the end of its fermentation, so hopefully we'll be racking this off in the next few weeks to clear a bit more, then bottling it for future consumption! One of the things Im finding almost as interesting as making the wine is also making labels for the bottles, a bit of pottering around in OpenOffice with a few free graphics has yielded both the Elderflower labels and the Mead labels below, which I think look great! Let me know what you think about them (yes I know, I dont need fancy labels, its only homebrew wine for our concumption, but as we've 42 bottles of wine and 30 bottles of mead on the go, I thought it best to properly label them, and once the design is done, its seconds of work to print a batch off and stick them to the bottles with a glue stick, much better than writing our the same label 6 or 30 times! Lol!!

The honey we've saved from the wax cappings (a byproduct of the extraction process) has now been processed into 5 gallons of mead, which is bubbling away nicely in a fermenting bucket, and the wax has been melted down and the first 2 candles produced!

All in all its been a good year on the plots, we've still plenty of things left to harvest, plenty of crops still to process, and a lot of clearing and mucking of beds to prepare for next year, but it does feel as though its definitely all been worthwhile!

Hope your growing season has been enjoyable, your crops bountiful and your harvests are still safetly coming in! More to follow soon, thanks for reading!

Puter fixed, time for an update!

2010-10-07T23:31:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the lack of recent updates, poor weather, trying to fix this antique computer after the major crash and the sheer volume of harvesting that we've had to do (plus processing the harvests to make the best use of them) has meant a lack of time for posting to the blog! As you can no doubt see, the recent wet weather has proven to be a boon for the weeds, turn your back for a minute and they seem to take over! ertainly doesnt look like a plot that won Very Highly Commended awards now does it! Lol!

As the nights start to draw in, the weather turns colder, the leaves begin to turn from the green of growth to the glorious autumnal colours of decay and the morning dawn cool and misty we find ourselves once more in the middle of a bumper harvest, our plot time is spent gathering in the crops, clearing the beds and reflecting on whats gone well and what our plans are for next year!

Some of our crops have been spectacular, the grapevine that we spent a large amount of time building an arbour for has repaid us with a bumper harvest, I took 15lb of grapes from it today, and there's still more to come! A couple of demijohns of wine will be made with these shortly!

The green caulies have also done really well, nice compact heads of caulieflower, some of which has been used in branston, some will be used in piccallili, but the rest has been enjoyed already!

The beans and brassicas have also been exceptional this year, fantastic harvests of tasty veg!

The first few sprouts were harvested (and eaten) today, with plenty more coming on, with 26 plants we should be eating sprouts right through until January or February!

The first of the borlotti beans are drying nicely, ready for harvest, with lots more still to come!

Our pumpkin harvest hasnt been all that good this year though, no idea why, but we normally take 30+ pumpkins, and this year we've only got about 20!

The broccolli has been fab, as have the caulies!

15lb of grapes, ready to make some more wine!

Yet more courgettes, another 14 harvested today, with more still growing on!

The butternut squashes have been better this year than ever before, as have the carnival squashes, lots to see us through the next few months!

And the sweetcorn! This is the first of the 2 trugs we harvested today! In total 150+ cobs of delicious, large sweet perfection! Our only concern, is how we're going to process and store it all!

The greenhouses are also still producing, we're over 250lb of toms for the year now, its becoming something of a chore to process them all, I've lots of passatta, puree, ketchup, sweet chilli sauce and pasta sauce made already!

The second trug of sweetcorn!

So, one days worth of harvest, approx £320 worth of organic, fresh, tasty fruit and veg!

As I said earlier, there's still plenty of crops growing, lots of broccolli, caulie, cabbage and sprouts, plenty of turnip and swede, more runner and borlotti beans, more courgettes, more grapes, more spuds, lots more raspberries, more toms, the fartichokes, leeks, borlotti beans, chillies and peppers, plenty more to take over the next few weeks!

As you can see, the rasps are heavy with delicious fruit, but producing sooo much we're having trouble harvesting it all! A lot is going over inbetween the times we are able to get to the plot!

The chillies in the now defunct hothouse are coming up next week, Ill be bringing them home to try and overwinter some of them in the hopes of getting a head start on next years cropping!

And as I said, the borlottis still have tons of beans left on them, once the pods start to dry we'll take these and pod them for storage and winter useage as dried beans! Lovely in a chilli or warming winter stew!

The bees have also been busy, we've had a reasonable honey harvest, about 30lb per hive so far, with more still to remove, but as we've a couple of hives that have become very large we are considering leaving a double super of honey on them, which will potentially reduce our harvest of honey for the year! At least we've got enough for our own use and some to sell to begin to recoup our initial outlay, perhaps next year, or definitely the year after we will recoup our start up costs abd it will then become a self sustaining hobby!

So, onto the balance sheet!

Balance Sheet Update - 7th October 2010

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8
Soft Fruits £16
Clematis £10
Arbour materials £ 40
Cold Frames (2) £30 (1/2 price at Argos)
Redcurrant £7.50
Birdhouse £7
Birdfeeders (for arbour) £10

Total Costs £ 504

Next years costs have already started, £59.50 for seeds (Wyevales sale), £7 for onion sets (3 varieties, 200+ sets in total), £12 for dual plum tree, so a total spend for 2011 of £88.50 so far, with only rent and subs + seed spuds to come (should be a total of £120 ish to add), so unless we decide to undertake any large projects on the plot, next year should be a relatively inexpensive one!

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £ 15
First Early Spuds £ 15
Second Early spuds £ 30
Early Main Spuds £
Late Main Spuds £
Lettuce £ 14
Radish £ 15
Garlic £ 85
Strawberries £ 65
Summer Raspberries £ 35
Autumn Raspberries £ 15
Blackberries £ 35
Peas £ 40
Broad Beans £ 70
Courgettes £ 150
French Beans £ 110
Red Onions £ 20
White Onions £ 50
Cabbages £ 25
Peppers £ 40
Chillies £ 35
Tomatoes £ 210
Turnip £ 25
Swede £ 5
Runner Beans £ 100
Broccolli £ 60
Apples £ 12
Plums £ 5
Sweetcorn £ 150
Chard / Spinach £ 2
Aubergines £ 5
Cucumbers £ 11
Blueberries £ 5
Caulieflower £ 6
Grapes £ 35
Sprouts £ 1
Jerusalem Artichokes £
Summer Squashes £ 20
Pumpkins £ 20
Beetroot £ 5
Leeks £ 1

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 1585

So, a total nett profit of £ 1071 so far this year, with a large amount of harvests still to come!

Hope your plots are as productive, your harvests are bumper ones and that you are able to gather them in safetly before the weather turns!

More to follow soon, thanks for reading!

Computer Crash

2010-09-18T20:53:00.001+01:00

Had a major computer crash (whilst trying to update windows) on Thursday, so Im in the process of trying to reinstall evrything aswell as harvest and process the veg and do the bee inspections / harvest honey and jar it up, so please bear with me if the blog updates arent to their usual level! Im unable to download the piccies from the camera atm, but hopefully should have it all back to normal tomorrow!

I've been using some of the produce to make some of this wonderful sweet pickle, I made a batch last year, very branston like and absolutely gorgeous, this year Im making about 5 times as much!

Dark Sweet Pickle (Branston type Pickle)

Ingredients

9 ounces carrots
1 medium swede (rutabaga)
4 cloves garlic
4½ ounces dates
1 medium cauliflower
2 onions
2 apples
2 unpeeled zucchini
15 sweet gherkins
½ lb dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 fluid ounces lemon juice
12 fluid ounces malt vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
2 teaspoons ground allspice
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
3 dashes browning sauce, for colouring

Directions

Cube the carrots and swede, and finely chop the garlic, dates, cauliflower, onions, apples, zucchini and gherkins.
Combine all the ingredients except the colouring in a large saucepan and bring to the boil; reduce the heat to a simmer.
Simmer until the swede is cooked through but still firm (about 11⁄2 to 2 hours).
Then add the liquid colouring until the colour is dark brown.
Spoon into warm sterilized jars and seal.
Leave for at least 3 weeks to let the flavours mature.

Ok, I made it to the plot to harvest today, in the pouring rain, got a load of stuff, 20lb of toms, 15lb of spuds, 4 sweetcorn, 4 summer squashes, 5lb of runner beans, 2lb of french beans, 4 peppers, 12 chillies, 18 courgettes, a load of broccolli, 2 small caulies, 8 turnips, 2 swedes, a full car full!

Balance Sheet Update - 18th September 2010

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8
Soft Fruits £16
Clematis £10
Arbour materials £ 40
Cold Frames (2) £30 (1/2 price at Argos)
Redcurrant £7.50
Birdhouse £7
Birdfeeders (for arbour) £10

Total Costs £ 504

Next years costs have already started, £59.50 for seeds (Wyevales sale), £7 for onion sets (3 varieties, 200+ sets in total), £12 for dual plum tree, so a total spend for 2011 of £88.50 so far, with only rent and subs + seed spuds to come (should be a total of £120 ish to add), so unless we decide to undertake any large projects on the plot, next year should be a relatively inexpensive one!

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
First Early Spuds £15
Second Early spuds £30
Early Main Spuds £
Late Main Spuds £
Lettuce £14
Radish £15
Garlic £85
Strawberries £65
Summer Raspberries £35
Autumn Raspberries £
Blackberries £35
Peas £40
Broad Beans £70
Courgettes £140
French Beans £105
Red Onions £20
White Onions £50
Cabbages £20
Peppers £25
Chillies £25
Tomatoes £180
Turnip £20
Runner Beans £80
Broccolli £50
Apples £12
Plums £5
Sweetcorn £25
Chard / Spinach £2
Aubergines £5
Cucumbers £10
Blueberries £5
Caulieflower £2
Grapes £
Sprouts £

Jerusalem Artichokes £
Summer Squashes £6
Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 1249

So, a total nett profit of £ 745 so far this year, with a large amount of harvests still to come!

More updates and piccies (hopefully) to follow, hope your harvests are coming in well!

Catch up and Tomatoes, tomatoes everywhere + Balance Sheet Update!!

2010-09-14T23:41:00.003+01:00

As the harvests start to come in I find myself pushed for time, and unfortunately, its the Blog that suffers! Please accept my apologies for the lack of updates, but with harvesting the bountiful crops, processing them to store and using the autumn fruits to make homebrew wine, the last week or so has been exceptionally busy!

The Elderflower (from dried), just before the yeast is added to start fermentation!

We've now got 4 batches of homebrew wine on the go, the first kit batch of Elderflower is going well, the second gallon of Elderflower (from dried flowers) is now in a demijohn and bubbling away furiously! We've also got a gallon of Elderberry wine on the go, I picked the berries from down on the side of the ship canal on Saturday, and it got racked into a demijohn today, where it too is bubbling furiously, and finally we've got a 2 gallon batch of summer fruits on the go, this was to use the extra lb of Elderberries, so I added blackberries and raspberries to make it up to a sufficient quantity of fruit, plus the extra Elderberry from the first batch that wouldnt fit into the demijohn went into the bucket! The Elderflower wines should be drinkable in only a few weeks (for the kit wine and a few months for the second batch from dried elderflower), but the 2 batches of berry wine that we've got going will probably take a lot longer, at least 6 months or so! We're also planning a 5 gallon batch of Mead, using some of the granulated honey from the honey harvest! I'll update you on that once we get it started (definitely a long term project, its not normally consumed until at least 12 months old!)

The local birds on the plot have now found the feeders we put up on the grapevine arbour, its quiet amazing to watch them at work! The foliage each side of the feeders is a dual plum tree we got last week from Parkers, its been 'tied' to the upright until the crops that are in the bed its heading for are removed!

As you can see, once again the war against the weeds has been lost, but as the crops are (in the main) ready for harvesting, at this time of year its not too much of a problem! There are some winter crops that we are endeavouring to keep weed free, and any weeds that are going to seed are assiduously removed!

The courgettes are still producing in quantity, and the greenhouse and polytunnel tomatoes are the best I've ever seen! Peppers and chillies are fab, the brassicas once again are good, and please, dont mention the beans!!

Our tallest sunflower seems to have now decided to flower, at about 11' tall! The sweetcorn and squashes below it are really good, and we've still got 2 1/2 beds of spuds to dig up yet, so plenty of potential to see us through the winter!

The first of the pumpkins and squashes are just about ripe, though we'll leave them a few weeks yet before harvesting.........

...... and those beans I asked you not to mention? Runners are running away, the borlottis are bulking up nicely, and the french and broad beans just keep on coming! If nothing else, we'll have plenty of beans to see us through the winter!

And as I said, the greenhouse and polytunnel toms are the best Ive ever seen whilst we've been growing! This was just 1 days harvest, and we've probably got about the same again to come every 3 or 4 days for the next few weeks! 70lb of ripe beefsteak and standard tomatoes was the harvest I took off the plot here!

Tomato Recipies!

So, with harvesting 70lb of ripe tomatoes from the plot a few days ago (and with many more still to come), we've been able to get lots of pasta sauces made (tomatoes, cabbge and courgette with some herbs and garlic, reduced and then bagged for the freezer), but we are fast running out of room in all 3 of our freezers, so I've been processing our harvests into sauces that can be kept in the cupboard (once they have been sterilized in a boiling water batch for 30 mins).

After being asked for a few of them on the Grapevine (GYO forum), I thought I'd share them with you here, in the hopes they may allow you to make use of the tomato glut!

Tomato Ketchup

Roasted at least 4lb of toms in hot oven for 30 mins (brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and black pepper)

Let them cool, meanwhile lightly fry 2 large onions and a whole bulb of garlic in a large pan (until translucent)

Remove the toms from the juice and add whole to onion pan. Heat to boiling.

Add 200ml vinegar, 450grams sugar, allspice (teaspoon), coriander (1/2 tsp), basil (1/4 teaspoon), cayenne pepper (teaspoon), a dash of worcestershire sauce, a dash of balsamic vinegar, more black pepper and salt to tast and boil for 30 mins.

Once cooked to a consistency you like, put into a food blender and blitz it all todether!

Prep your jars, put ketchup into jars and place in water bath to sterilize for 30 mins before sealing!
Tomato Soup

Sweet Chilli Sauce

Sweet Chilli Sauce (borrowed from Galloping Gourmets)

1 kg of peeled chopped de-seeded tomatoes - brilliant if you have a glut, as we have!
A head of garlic - from the garden of course
8 large red chillies - ours were 'hot cayenne'
About two table spoons of grated fresh ginger
4 Tbs of Nam Pla (Thai fish sauce - available in most supermarkets)
600g sugar
200ml or vinegar (I used red wine vinegar for this but apparently any works)

First put your tomatoes in a blender (after peeling, deseeding and rough chopping)

Then take a sharp knife and peel your ginger. It should be juicy and moist not hard and woody.

Grate or finely chop the ginger

Take the garlic and peel all the cloves. Put the garlic and ginger in the blender

Chop up the chillies, seeds and all, leaving the stalks - make sure you wear gloves for this!

Add all this to the tomatoes and blitz to a puree in a processor -
Add the 4 tablespoons of fish sauce

Then add all this mixture into a big pan

Then add 600g of sugar and 200ml red wine vinegar

Stir well and bring to a boil

Lower to a simmer. A small froth or scum will form - skim this off and discard

Maintain the simmer stirring occasionally for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes put 6 half pint jars in the oven to warm for another 15 minutes - keep stirring and skimming the sauce

When the sauce has thickened and reduced, pour into the jars; seal and label.
This sauce is hotter than the commercial stuff so adjust to your taste. Leave for a month to mature - be ready for Christmas in plenty of time and will keep for at least six months.
I hope you found the recipes of interest, and perhaps of use to deal with (what I hope is for all) the tomato glut!

Anyhows, onto the latest balance sheet update!

Balance Sheet Update - 14th September 2010

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8
Soft Fruits £16
Clematis £10
Arbour materials £ 40
Cold Frames (2) £30 (1/2 price at Argos)
Redcurrant £7.50
Birdhouse £7
Birdfeeders (for arbour) £10

Total Costs £ 504

Next years costs have already started, £59.50 for seeds (Wyevales sale), £7 for onion sets (3 varieties, 200+ sets in total), £12 for dual plum tree, so a total spend for 2011 of £88.50 so far, with only rent and subs + seed spuds to come (should be a total of £120 ish to add), so unless we decide to undertake any large projects on the plot, next year should be a relatively inexpensive one!

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
First Early Spuds £15
Second Early spuds £20
Lettuce £14
Radish £15
Garlic £85
Strawberries £65
Raspberries £35
Blackberries £35
Peas £40
Broad Beans £60
Courgettes £120
French Beans £100
Red Onions £20
White Onions £50
Cabbages £20
Peppers £21
Chillies £14
Tomatoes £125
Turnip £13
Runner Beans £70
Broccolli £45
Apples £12
Plums £5
Sweetcorn £20
Chard / Spinach £2
Aubergines £5
Cucumbers £10

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 1083

So, a total nett profit of £ 579 so far this year, with a large amount of harvests still to come!

Hope your crops are proving bountiful, and your harvests are big ones! Thanks for reading, more updates at the weekend (hopefully)!

Hedgehogs, Gardeners Presentation Evening, Homebrew and lots of seeds!

2010-09-09T23:57:00.000+01:00

Finally, a few days off and the weather has been good! Apologies for the recent dearth of posting to the blog, but as any who have an allotment or veg patch will agree, this time of year is about harvesting and then dealing with all the produce to ensure you maximise its usefulness! Rest assured, we've not been idle, far from it, the harvests are coming in aplenty, the bees are producing plenty of honey (that also has to be sorted out, extracted, filtered, settled and jarred)! On top of that we've also had the Trafford Gardeners Presentation Evening to prepare for (the site had to put in a tray of fruit and veg and set it up, which Pat, Sarah and I did yesterday), plus next years seeds to get (in the Wyevale 50p seed sale of course), onion sets to procure, homebrew wine to get started and of course work too!

I'm actually on holiday this week (although had to spend Monday afternoon in a Training Coordinators Meeting wth the other cluster training coordinators from the area, and had a Managers Meeting to attend on Tuesday), so a chance to do a bit of shopping and get some stuff sorted!

Monday morning before my afternnon meeting we decided that as the Wyevales 50p seed sale had just started that we needed to go and stock up on those seeds that we'd run out, in order that we kept our spending to a minimum and maximised our seed choices! A happy hour or two was spent sat in deckchairs going through the sale buckets........... although I didnt expect to spend quite so much! £59.50 later we left with 119 packets of seeds! Other shoppers were looking at our trolley in amazement, though I cant personally see why! If they had 2 allotments, and anted to maintain a good spread of varieties of each type of crop, then the more types of seed that you have, the more safeguarded you are against any particular crop having a failure!

We recently decided )after sampling some of Dave's homebrew Rhubarb wine (at the plot BBQ) and having been to a talk at the Stockport BBKA about making your own mead), that perhaps it would be a good idea to start making our own homebrew again. We've both done it in the past, but hadnt done it for years, so after being given the inclination we decided that now was the time! So, after Wyevales we popped out to the Homebrew shop in Stockport, a few bits n bobs to procure to enable us to start making homebrew again, although we'd already got demijohns and had recently got hold of 3 x 5gallon brewing containers (from freecycle), we were lacking some of the bungs, corks, air locks and other sundries, so a quick trip down there sorted most of our needs! Along with everything we needed we also decided to start off with a homebrew Elderflower Wine kit, as for a first batch it would be good if we had at least a good chance of making something nice, so that was duly started yesterday!

Its bubbling away nicely now (and before you say anything, the kit wine does say to leave as it is for 3 days before you top it up to a full gallon, so I'll be topping it up as per instructions on Satrday)! We also bought some dried elderflowers, so we can get a batch of homemade (rather than kit) elderflower wine on the go too, then we can compare the 2 and see what we prefer! I'm also going to try and harvest some Elderberries over the next few days, so we can get a bacth of that on the go, and then once we've extracted the uncapped honey from the wax trimmings from the apiaries we should have enough honey for us to make 5 gallons of mead!

This must make us sound like raging alcofrolics, which we definitely arent, but if we make something thats drinkable, then not only will it help us save money, but also will let us use any surplus crops and perhaps give us something that we can share with friends and family!

So, as yesterday (Wednesday) was the date for the Trafford Gardeners Presentation Evening, Pat, Sarah and I agreed to meet up at the plot at lunchtime to harvest some produce for the show bench and see whether we could hold up our honour amongst the other allotment sites of Trafford! We managed to put together 2 trays, 6 types of veg on each (as per the rules of the comp) in the stated quantities. It sounds easy, but when you're looking for 3, 6 or 8 of any specific type of veg that are as similar as possible and free from any blemishes, its a lot harder than it looks! The tray to the right of the piccy features 3 sweetcorn, 6 spuds, 8 runner beans, 3 onions and 6 toms from our plot (along with 6 french beans from Pat's plot) and the tray on the left features 3 of our turnips, then an assortment of other veg from various plots on Mos View! We kept it simple (as per the instructions / rules), but were amazed when we saw some of the trays from other sites!

As you can see, the standards of produce was amazing, and we knew fairly quickly that we weren't going to win (even tho our entry was exact to the rules and some of the others certainly didnt follow the rules exactly), but never mind, its the taking part that matters! The tray to the left with the 2 cauli and 1 squash was the first prize winner, and the tray to the right with the peppers and butternut squash was 2nd.

Some of the other trays were also excellent!

Whilst we were harvesting the produce for the show Pat noticed this yound hedgehog, sat sunning himself!

He had a small injury to his right ear, and was being bothered by the flies, so after checking he was ok, we decided to move him away from the flies by taking him to Pat and Colin's hedgehog house (they've had it for a few years and its not been used yet), but on showing him the entrance he decided he didnt like it, so took off at a fair click up the path towards our plot! A few minutes later I looked around for him, only to find..........

.................. that he'd decided that our hedgehog house was far more to his liking! A few seconds after we took this piccy, he turned round and went inside! Lovely!

So, after taking the hedgehog pictures and setting up the trays for the Gardeners Evening we went our separate ways to get ready for the night, and met up again at the Gardeners Evening!

There were 7 of us from Moss View who managed to turn up, to the venue, Flixton Ex-Servicemans Association, where the coucil liason, Janet had done a fantastic job decorating the large function room! There were piccies of plots, plotholders and other related pictures all over, must have been over 900 pictures on display, all at least A4 size.... even the piccy of the rabbit I managed to take a few months ago was on display!

After an intro from the Head of Services for Trafford MBC the local Mayor gave a speech, then the awards part began, with all those who had managed to earn a Very Highly Commended Certificate called up to receive a framed picture of their plot and a certificate from the mayor, where they had their picture taken for the local newspaper! There were about 24 VHC's for the plots (out of 1400 plots), of which only 3 went to allotmenteers who were running 2 plots, and these 3 got a big round of applause! Lee was the 3rd of them to be called up (as the plots are in his name), and as my name hadnt been called, I stayed firmly sat down! Lol!

After that was a talk by a locla wildlife expert (about encouraging wildlife onto allotments), then a break for a buffet, followed by a Gardeners Question Time session and the raffle! Amazingly we won a prize in the raffle, of a Spear and Jackson Stainless Steel Ergonomic Spade (10 yr guarantee!) Overall we had a good night, it was great to see Lee receive such a big round of applause (I think he was the youngest person in the room to get a VHC, and certainly the only non retired person to get 2 VHC's, 1 for each plot!

So, today being Lee's last day off we had a few bits n bobs to do before meeting Pat and Colin at the plot for lunch and to do the bee inspections! First off we went to Wilkinsons in Eccles to see if they had any tannin extract (the elderflower wine recipe in CJ Berry suggests using it) and to see if they had any (they didnt, but after talking with a friend, he suggested using a strong cup of cooled earl grey tea - without milk of course - as this contains plenty of tannin!), and also to see whether they had any onion sets yet! We left with a few more homebrew supplies and 2 types of onions sets, with 50 sets in each packet!

On the way back home we popped into Parkers Garden Center as they were advetising the new fruit trees had arrived, so after a good look around we ended up with another packet of 100 onion sets and a dual plum tree, 2 varieties of plum grafted onto a single root stock! This will be planted into the bed behind it on the picture, the one with the lavender in it, which is what will be growing beneath the plum tree!

With the purchase of the plum tree and all the seeds on Monday, we've actually begun spending for next years balance sheet, the plum was £13 and the seeds £59.50, so next years balance sheet is at £72.50 currently, with the allotment rent and subs (usually about £100 or so) and the seed spuds (£20 or so) plus compost (£20 or so) and a load of manure (£20) still to come, which should make our spend next year significantly less than this year at about £232 for next year compared with the £504 we've spent for this growing year!

This afternoon we completed the bee inspections, with another 4 supers of honey almost ready to be taken for harvest (shuld be ready for next week) then we did a quick harvest, took a few piccies and came home to start melting the wax trmmings from the hives (the cappings from extraction and the bracecomb from the hives that we've been saving) in order that we can use the honey from them to start our mead and the wax to make some candles for the Stockport BBKA honey show in 2 months time!

Ok, so onto a few piccies from around the plot!

I think the Heath Robinson Hothouse has had its day!

The sprouts are coming on nicely!

As are some of the cabbages!

And finally, a piccy of some of the sweetcorn we had for tea, absolutely fantastic taste! We gave our Beekeeper friend Dave a cob last night (the third one we took for the Gardeners Evening Tray) and he rang us tonight just to say 'Wow' at the taste! Lol!

Ok, Im off for the next few days, still on holiday, so I should hopefully get to the plto and do a good harvest and get some more piccies, plus get some more past sauces made and frozen, some courgette soup made and frozen, some herbs dried for storage, some more wine started and hopefully some more pics and an updated balance sheet done before I return to work on monday (for a rest! Lol!)

Hope your harvests are coming in well and your balance sheets are more than healthy!

Thanks for reading!

The Grapevine Virtual Vegetable Show 2010 - our entries (so far), plus Balance Sheet!

2010-09-02T23:22:00.000+01:00

Well, once again its that time of year when the GYO Magazine's excellent forum, the 'Grapevine', runs its popular (for fun only - there's no prizes) Virtual Vegetable Show! Its a free to join forum, with a great bunch of enthusiastic and fun folks on it, and the veg show is a great bit of fun, a chance for us all to share our best piccies of our crops! The first year they ran the competition we did well, getting 2 second places, in categories! The next year we got 2 first places, 2 second places and a third! Last year we didnt enter (as with my bad back we were unable to spend as much time on the plot as we wanted), but we've both decided to enter as many categories as possible this year, even if we dont win at least its a bit of fun! We've got until the end of September to post our entries, so as I've been saving a few piccies for the show already, below is a selection of what we've entered, hope you enjoy!

3 Garlic.......................

................ same 3 garlic!

2 courgettes! Zuchinni

3 Tomatoes (cant tell you the variety, we had a bit of a labelling accident this year!

3 Stutgarter Overwintered Onions from set.

3 Climbing French Beans, Cobra

3 Potatoes, 2nd earlies!

3 Bramley Apples to enter the 3 fruit section!

For the Anything Else category.......... a jar of freshly extracted Organic Honey from our plot!

A cabbage for the 1 Brassica category...........a Golden Acre Primo! (The cabbage variety, and no, hes not a cabbage either!)

Peppers / Chillies, open class entry!

Pretiest Rose Entry

Best Scarecrow entry..... Fester from Plot 2!

Its all a bit of fun really, but its nice to see others reactions online when they see what you've grown!

Anyhows, time has been at a premium here recently, especially as with large harvests coming in we've got to process them to ensure that we have the produce available for the winter, the new branch at work is great, we're hitting KPI and sales targets and the team seems to be a very good one, but still a bit of work to get it to a place that I will be happy with!

We had another 34 frames of honey from the bees yesterday afternoon, which we had to extract last night (to give them back the frames so they have plenty of room for bringing in more honey), so starting at 7pm we had 60lb of honey that we extracted last week to jar up first, then 34 frames to extract (approx 70 - 80lb of honey), so we finished them at 230am last night! In total that brings our total honey harvest to approx 160lb, although some of it has already granulated, so that will probably be used for baking and for making mead with!

I managed to get some piccies of the plot today, so Im hoping to get them up on the blog in the next few days, but we're struggling with processing our crops, and although I do enjoy keeping the blog up to date, processing our current bounty has to come first!

Anyhows, after a fair bit of recent harvesting, here's the latest Balance Sheet!

Balance Sheet Update - 2nd September 2010

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8
Soft Fruits £16
Clematis £10
Arbour materials £ 40
Cold Frames (2) £30 (1/2 price at Argos)
Redcurrant £7.50
Birdhouse £7
Birdfeeders (for arbour) £10

Total Costs £ 504

Next years costs should be significantly less than this year, as we wont be building the arbour, buying the polytunnel or cold frames or scaffolding boards! Costs will go up next week tho, as we're off to Wyevales 50p seed sale to stock up ready for next years growing season!

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
First Early Spuds £15
Second Early spuds £15
Lettuce £14
Radish £15
Garlic £85
Strawberries £65
Raspberries £35
Blackberries £25
Peas £40
Broad Beans £60
Courgettes £100
French Beans £80
Red Onions £20
White Onions £50
Cabbages £17
Peppers £14
Chillies £9
Tomatoes £55
Turnip £13
Runner Beans £50
Broccolli £35
Apples £12
Plums £5
Sweetcorn £10
Chard / Spinach £2
Aubergines £5

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 893

So, a total nett profit of £ 399 so far this year, with a large amount of harvests still to come!

Hope your harvests are bountiful! Thanks for reading!

Piccies, new work branch, plot updates and Balance Sheet!

2010-08-27T19:50:00.000+01:00

Well, I must apologise for the lack of updates recently, starting in my new branch on Monday, attending a Managers Meeting on Wednesday and working my new (3 out of 4 weekends working) rota means I've been a tad bit busy to say the least! The new branch I'm working at is 25mins from home, along a route that is fairly traffic free, so Im saving a good hour a day on my commute, which is great! The branch itself is a smaller one than my last, with a slightly smaller team, but I have to say that it is exceptionally well designed, well laid out and looked after by the team and so far appears to have a fantastic team of highly committed staff! There's a few areas I've found that I need to look at, but nothing major, so the stress levels here will (I hope) be much reduced! I'm back in my old area now, working for an Area Manager I've known for 20 years, who was originally my store manager, and was instrumental in developing me to progress within my career, which is great, not only because I know and trust the guy, but also because I find his style of management one that gets the best out of me, he's supportive when needed, but challenges you to deliver and is always pleasant to deal with, so I'm looking forwards to seeing how the next few months develop at work!

Anyhows, my new rota means I dont get the same 2 days off every week, I get 1 weekend from every 4 off and a 2 day break on a Weds / Thurs every month, plus 2 days off a week for the other 2 weeks, so not as many days off with hubby as I'd like, but a small price to pay for a much reduced commute! This week Lee, Pat, Colin and Sarah did the bee inspections on Wednesday (whilst I was at a Managers Meeting), and were able to take 23 frames of capped honey from the hives, which we all extracted on Wednesday night! 2 of the batches (from hives 2 and 3) were lovely smooth light coloured honey, but the 3rd batch (from Hive 6) appeared to be very heavy, possibly 'rape seed' honey, and looks like it will granulate very quickly, so we are thinking of using this to make a few gallons of mead! In total it appears we extracted about 70lb of honey, 20lb of which is the rape seed honey, so the 50lb from hives 2 and 3 will be bottled on Wednesday next week! They also reported that they think there will be more frames ready to extract next week, so fingers crossed we may yet get a good honey harvest this year!

I got up this morning to a lovely clear and bright day, although a bit chilly, its that time of year when the dew hangs heavy on the grass in a morning, the first autumn fruits are ripening in abundance and the feel is that summer is giving way to autumn, so after Lee had headed off to work I took Bella out for her morning walk, and brought along my camera to take a few piccies (inspired by a friend of ours whos been producing some excellent pictures, Jim)

Walking Bella along the Manchester Ship Canal I spotted this marker buoy, which with the reflections looked as if it was floating in the air, as Im always one for a photo out of the ordinary I thought Id snap it, what do you think?

The industrial buildings the other side of the canal, in Irlam, were beautifully reflected in the still waters of the canal, so again I snapped it!

And finally another reflection, this time of the chimney!

The Rowab trees hereabouts seem absolutely dripping with ripe fruit now, its one of the things I associate with autumn, yet they are very early this year, usually large crops of Rowan berries means we're in for a long harsh winter!

The rosehips are also ripening, another sign of the encroaching autumn!

Dew on the Rosebay Willowherb (at least I think it is, its something the bees are visiting very regularly as it provides a high nectar flow)

I hope you find the piccies to your liking, photography is something I enjoy, but rarely get the chance to go out and take piccies, or to display them! A few months ago at the Stockport BBKA meeting we had a talk on photographing bees, with a practical session, at which we were allowed to take our cameras into their apiary and then the resulting digital images were critiqued by the guest speaker, a beekeeper who is also chairman of the Stockport Photography Club. I was glad to have my pictures approved, and delighted when he invited me ti join the Photography Club, but unfortunately working a rota means its not possible atm for me to do so! However, at the Honey Show in November there is a photography competition, so I will be entering that! I was fortunate the other day to be loaned the use of a 100mm macro lens for my cannon, so I had a quick play with it today, capturing a couple of images of our bees having a drink, I'm hoping that next Wednesday I'll be able to take it into the apiary to see if I can get some prizewinning photos for the show!

This was the first of the 2 piccies Im happy with, it was a difficult picture to take because of the backlighting, but with the position of the sun at the time I was taking them, it was impossible to take it from another angle!

This was the second piccy I am happy with, you can see the bees tongue taking a drink! These piccies look even better if you click on them to view at full size!

Anyhows, onto todays harvest and some piccies from around the plot!

Just a bit to pack into the car for the journey home! 12 lb toms, 5lb spuds, the first 2 sweetcorn. 4 peppers, 4 chillies, 4 turnips, 2 swede, about 2lb broad beans, 3lb of french beans, chard, spinach, broccolli, 2 cabbages and a few courgettes!

Potato harvest from just 3 plants! I'm very happy with this, especially as this was from the second earlies, which got blight and succumbed!

All to be processed for winter useage, apart from the sweetcorn, which we will be having tonight for tea!

Broccolli and cabbages, 1 savoy and 1 golden acre primo!

We're taking about this amount of toms every couple of days now, there's plenty on the plants, but they are very late ripening this year!

So, onto the plots! The courgettes are still producing quite well, I took another 18 of them today, some the size of small dogs! I'm going to turn a lot of these into ratatouille (with the toms) and soup (with garlic and spuds), both of which will be frozen for use throughout the winter!

The mid sewn broadies are about finished now, the late sown are just starting to crop!

The late sown peas are now beginning to pod, for the first time ever we've managed to successional sow peas to maintain a good fresh supply, plus be able to freeze some for the winter!

The early sown dwarf french beans are still cropping like mad, and the climbing french beans are also now producing a good amount!

The late sown runner beans are now starting to crop, the borlottis are podding up nicely..........

.......... and the early sown runners are romping away, producing far too many beans! We gave away bags of beans, turnip, spuds, cabbage and other stuff to Yo and Bobn and Mark and Craig when they came to the BBQ at the weekend, but we've still got lots left to harvest!

The cabbage beds are still fairly full, we've been harvesting cabbages for our and friends use, but theres still more coming on behind, ad the main broccolli beds are still producing enough florets to do us about 6 portions of broccolli a week!

The sprouts arent looking too bad this year, even the purple ones are now producing tiny sprouts! Cant wait till they are at edible size, I love sprouts!

The chard and spinach is still doing well, we've been taking a bit for use in pasta dishes, but still plenty coming on for future use!

The hothouse is still standing, the aubergines are just about ripe, so Ill be harvesting them soon, theres lots of peppers and chillies coming on too, with several that will be ready to harvest next week!

The toms in the greenhouses had a collapsing fit when the support string broke, I tried to rehang them, but after breaking the first stem I let them alone, it looks untidy, but they are still producing fruit!

Plot 2 looks a lot more empty, yet in fact there's only 2 empty beds! The foliage from the spuds has now been cit back, we should be harvesting them next week! The beds the onions and garlic came from are currently empty, apart from 1 with the maincrop carrots in it, and the only real crops left are the greenhouse crops, the broccolli beds, the raspberry fedge, the fartichokes and the pumpkin / squash and sweetcorn beds!

Plot 2's greenhouse, still lots of toms, even if some of them are now growing in a heap!

The sweetcorn and squashes are really doing well! The first 2 sweetcorn were harvested today, they are jusy going in the pan now!

Lots more corn to come..............

... some of which is almosy ripe! Looks like it could be our best ever year for sweetcorn!

Pumpkins are also looking good...........

.............. as are the butternut squashses! Sooon be ripe enough to harvest!

So, although the nights are drawing in, the weather is beginning to feel autumnal and the weeds are becoming a problem, there's still plenty of crops still to harvest over the next few weeks!

As I've not produced a balance sheet for a while I thought I'd include one in todays post!

Balance Sheet Update - 27th August 2010

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8
Soft Fruits £16
Clematis £10
Arbour materials £ 40
Cold Frames (2) £30 (1/2 price at Argos)
Redcurrant £7.50
Birdhouse £7
Birdfeeders (for arbour) £10

Total Costs £ 504

Next years costs should be significantly less than this year, as we wont be building the arbour, buying the polytunnel or cold frames or scaffolding boards!

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
First Early Spuds £15
Second Early spuds £10
Lettuce £14
Radish £15
Garlic £85
Strawberries £65
Raspberries £35
Blackberries £10
Peas £40
Broad Beans £52
Courgettes £85
French Beans £65
Red Onions £20
White Onions £50
Cabbages £15
Peppers £9
Chillies £4
Tomatoes £35
Turnip £13
Runner Beans £36
Broccolli £25
Apples £12
Plums £5
Sweetcorn £2
Chard / Spinach £2

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 766

So, a total nett profit of £ 272 so far this year, with a large amount of harvests still to come! The toms are definitely late this year, we've still a large amount of fruit on the plants in the greenhouses and polytunnel, but its very slow to ripen, however, at least they have started to crop about 10lb or so twice a week now!

I'm working for the next 4 days, but then I;ve got Wednesday and Thursday off, so I'm hoping to be able to post a couple of full updates then, but if I get the chance to get to the plot over the weekend for half an hour I'll see if I can get a quick update in for you!

Hope your crops are harvesting well and your balance sheets are healthy! Thanks for reading!

40th Birthday BBQ on the plot!

2010-08-22T22:32:00.001+01:00

Today dawned bright and sunny, a glorious day for Lee's 40th Birthday and the plot summer BBQ! I'd arranged with Pat and Colin for them to decorate the shed with some 40th birthday paraphenalia that one of our best friends had brought over for me (thankyou Mark and Craig, it was really appreciated), so I had to get Lee clear of the area until at least 12ish, which I did by dragging him round B&Q (for some wood to make a couple of birdhouses and a bat box from, which they didnt have in the correct sizes!) and Tescos (for some BBQ stuff). We decided to drop the BBQ stuff at the allotment before coming home to fetch the BBQ and a few othr bits n bobs (cutlery, condiments and booze - non alcoholic for me as I was driving)!

I'm sure Lee was half expecting something to be waiting for him, (as he got me with a decorated greenhuse on my 40th), but as we drove up to the plot (with several plotholders shouting happy birthday to him as we passed), I'm sure he wasnt prepared for the great work Pat and Colin had put in! (Many thanks you guys, a fab job!)

As you can see, he was very happy with the results, like me he doesnt think anyone is going to make a fuss, he doesnt like to be the center of attention, but he took it in his stride! We dropped off the stuff for the BBQ, then came home to fetch our BBQ and a few other bits, before returning to the plot for 2pmish!

By 3pm a few folks had arrived and the tables from the cabin had been bought out and the 2 BBQ's lit! 2 dear friends of ours, Yo and Bob (and their gorgeous 17 month old daughter, Esther) arrived shortly after, preceeded by 3 of my team from the branch I had just left, who brought a great prezzie, a keyring with an enamel bee and a watering can, guess the plot keys are going to look cool on it!! We met Yo and Bob through the GYO Magazine's online forum, the Grapevine, where after conversing in cyberspace we met up and became firm friends! Yo and Bob invited us to their fabulous wedding, held at Yo's folks farm in Todmorden, and their wedding prezzie was a days digging at their allotment in Huddersfield (which we organised with about 7 other folks from the Grapevine)

Esther was resplendant in her 'Queen Bee' outfit, (worn in honour of Lee being a beekeeper) and had driven here singing 'Old Lee Dobby had a farm, Ei, Ei, Oo!'

Esther took am instant liking to the Koppaberg cider, though thankfully it was one of the alcohol free versions that we were drinking! Lol!

In total there were about 23 of us there, plotholders, and their families and friends, enjoying the August sunshine, good food, good company and some gorgeous wines (Dave brought some fab Rhubarb wine homebrew, and Pat brought some of her Elderflower Champagne, both were very well received!)

The Birthday boy enjoyed himself immensely, until after we'd satiated appetites on jacket spuds, sweetcorn, greek salad, burgers, sausages, chicken, chinese ribs, crisps, scones and cream, Pat then pulled out the pieste da resistance, 3 cakes, a chocolate sponge, a vannila cream sponge and a strawberry gateaux!

'Ta Da!!' Compl;ete with 40th sign and candles - tho not 40, we wouldnt want to cause too much global warming with the number of candles used!

As you can see, 40th on the cakes!

Birthday Boy gets to blow them out, and make a speech! 'Erm, plot needs weeding...... anyone wanna give me a lift?'! Lol!

All in all a great day, Lee got some fab birthday gifts, a bottle of Jamesons, a pyrography kit (for making plant labels next year), socks, 2 belts, a very nice bottle of port, a fab extrabright led wind up torch, a fleece, a wall mounted thermometer and a large wall mounted clock (for the plot), a personalised pen, a tool box and the keyring with the enamel bee and watering can charms on it! I've also managed to bag him a load of homebrew gear off ebay, so we'll be picking that up on Wednesday, just in time to start some Elderberry wine off!

Hope you get the chance to relax and enjoy the fruits of your labours with fellow allotmenteers and friends on your plots, thanks for reading!

Greenmen, Building a Hedgehog House & Pruning the Trees!

2010-08-21T19:38:00.000+01:00

So, we're on holiday for the weekend as its Lee's 40th birthday tomorrow, and he's already had one prezzie, a sting on his head from one of the bees! Lol! Today we spent the day on the plot doing a few jobs (including securing the frog guards for the compost bin to the front of plot 1), but tomorrow we're at the plot for a BBQ, although we may get a few more jobs done aswell beforehand!

The Greenmen plaques I got through ebay arrived on Friday, so first job today was to put them up, 3 at the front of the arbour and 1 to the side where it joins onto the shed! They are really nice, cast in frost proof material and done in a 3d relief style, just finish the arbour off really well!

This one is Spring, apt anough as its to the East, the usual direction (in the northern hemisphere) of youth, spring and waxing life)..............

.. the next one is Summer, at the next point of the circle, facing south on the corner of the arbour, towards where the sun is at midday!

Next is Autumn, in the center of the arbour.........

........ and finally is Winter, to the far side of the arbour! I think we both agree they look really good, not only hiding the joints between the bars that make up the arbour, but also giving the structure a pagan feel that is in keeping with our own beliefs and in keeping with our organic ways of working the plot!

Once we'd done this, we decided to finally get round to building the hedgehog house in the corner near to Apiary 2 (on Plot 1)

We started by using 2 of the old solid floors from the beehives (that the original hives came with when we bought them 2nd hand 2 years ago), 1 for the floor and 1 for the roof. Then we built the side walls from bricks we brought from home (see, hoarding things you dont use is GOOD! Lol!), 2 courses high above the 18" square floor, with a side entrance that runs to the front (this entrance tunnel provides safety from predators and also stops the wind from blowing straight into the main hibernation area!

We used an offcut of piping to provide a ventilation hole, which would poke out through the side back wall once the house is burried in bark chippings!

The center was then filled with nesting materials, straw and leaf mulch, to keep the hibernating hedgehog warm and comfortable! We used empty plastic sacks to provide waterproofing......

............. then ensuring the accessway is clear.............

........... we fitted the second hive floor as a roof..............

.............. before burying the whole thing under a pile of bark chippings, which should provide good insulation! On fetching the bark chippings I found the offcut of log, so thought it would make a good feature to top the hoghouse off (and give me somewhere to put a sign on in the future!)

Hopefully one or two of the hedgehogs from the allotment will decide its a des res and move in soon, but only time will tell!

After that we decided it was time to tackle the overgrown fruit trees at the side of plot 1. We've been trying to prune them back to a more manageable size since we took the plot over 18 months ago, but despite our best efforts we've not had a great deal of fruit from them, so we decided the time for drastic measures has now arrived......

.......... armed with secateurs, loppers and a saw.............

.............. this is what Lee did to the fruit trees! Hopefully this should allow them to grow in a better way, although part of the problem is the overshadowing from the trees beyond the plot boundary, so after tackling another small job on one of the newer planted apple trees.....

.......... namely building a support system to try and pull one of the branches back a bit so it doesnt grow forwards over the bed...........

...... we then set about chopping back some of the overhanging branches to allow a lot more light into the side of plot 1!

Some of the trees that were overhanging are very tall, and cast a lot of shade, so the only way we could reach one of the worst offending branches was to hook the extended ladders over a branch, and rest them ontop of the 4' high compost bins at the side of plot 1! This is not really a recommended way of working, but other than call out a tree surgeon (which we cant as its not our land that the trees are growing in), there was no other way to tackle it!

Success! It was quite a big branch, but removing it has let in a lot more light, so hopefully our fruit trees will have a better chance of growing in a better shape now!

Ooops! The hothouse yet again needed emergancy repair work!

Which I managed to do without too much difficulty, at least its only got to last us till the end of this growing season, next year we've the new coldframes to grow the peppers / chillis and aubergines in!

At this point it started to rain a bit, so after watering in the greenhouses and harvesting about 10lb of toms, we decided to call it a day! Not sure if I'll get an update done tomorrow, as we're BBQing and its Lee's 40th birthday, but I'll get some piccies and hopefully be able to share them with you on Monday, after my first day at my new branch!

Hope your crops are still doing well, and that your weed infestation is much less than ours! Thanks for reading!

Last Day at my old branch, start at new branch on Monday!

2010-08-20T19:17:00.000+01:00

Well, did the official handover to the new manager taking over my old branch today, my team seemed sad to see me go, box of choccies, card and flowers from them, plus a shout out on the local radio station! I've been there 2 1/2 years, and tbh its time for a move to a new challenge, I took it over with major problems, and am handing it over in a lot better place, so I can be happy with what we've acchieved there!

2 days hols this weekend, its hubby's 40th Birthday on Sunday, so we're BBQing at the allotment on Sunday afternoon, got him a few prezzies n stuff, but can say what as it will ruin the surprise! Lol!

Then Monday I start at my new branch to accept the handover there, looking forwards to the new challenge, new team and a much reduced commute!

Arbour / Pagoda grapevine support is finished, plus pictoral crop updates & balance sheet at 19th August 2010

2010-08-19T19:04:00.000+01:00

Once again I get 2 days off with a weather forecast thats less than perfect, but none the less, we managed to get a fair bit of work done before the rain arrived!

Yesterday we had a trip out to see if we could find something to top the uprights on the arbour (we found nothing that was at the right price, but we have hit upon an idea..... large pinecones!), but we did manage to find a bargain or two, a lovely birdhouse for £7 and a large redcurrant bush for £7.50! After a lovely lunch at Pat and Colin's (courgette soup, with courgette bread and courgette cake for afters!) we managed to get to the plot for a couple of hours (between the rain showers) and get a bit of painting done on the arbour (first coat on the uprights), then off to Stockport BBKA meeting about showing honey, along with candlemaking and making Mead! Needless to say Lee and I are now very interested in getting hold of some homebrew supplies to try our hand at making mead in the not too distant future!

So, the arbour is now basically finished, its been painted, the birdhouse has been mounted at the back of the shed, and the bird feeders are hanging from the front, plus the 2 clematis have been planted in the beds directly in front of the uprights, next year they should grow up and over the front, making a lovely floral display!

I've managed to get 4 lovely 6" celtic greenman plaques from ebay (spring, summer, autumn, winter), which will be hung from the front of the crosspieces, to cover the joints where they meet the uprights, I'll take some piccies to show you once they arrive and are mounted! All thats left to do now is repaint the shed, then find and mount some large pine cones at the top of the 3 uprights! I'd also like to set up a weather station of some type, possibly with a 'witch on broomstick' weathervane mounted on the arbour, but they are a bit too expensive atm, so I'm hoping that I may be able to either find one as a bargain, or perhaps get one for my Birthday!

Lee planted the redcurrant and the clematis for me whilst I was painting, a relatively easy job, but one that left him with mucky hands....... mind you, not as mucky as me, I ended up covered in green paint!

The redcurrant is a self fertile variety, we popped into the Vicarage Garden Center nearby, looking for a greenman plaque or something paganish for the top of the uprights on the arbour, and Lee spotted this redcurrant for £7.50, we'd seen them elsewhere for this price, but about 6" tall, so this lovely specimen just had to be brought back to the plot and planted! We cleared the bed and added some well rotted FYM before planting it, and are hoping that next year we can underplant it with a stunning floral display..... if we can learn what and how to grow!

The 2 frog tealight holders (at the top of the posts on the compost bin) were something one of our friends bought us last year for the plot, we've not yet found a place for them..... until now!

I managed to get some general piccies of the plot today, once we'd done the bee inspections (Hive 7 now has 5 good queen cells in it, hopefully this will enable them to get a queen hatched, mated and ready for winter, even if we have to feed them), no-one got stung today (makes a change, its been 5 weeks since I wasnt stung!)! We've also got another super of capped honey in Hive 2, so hopefully it will be extracted next week!

So, as you can see, all the recent rain has caused a lot of weed germination, and with out attention being on the harvesting and building the grapevine arbour / pergola, they have got a bit out of hand, but hopefully we'll be able to get them taken care of soon!

The sweetcorn, squashes, pumpkins, sunflowers are doing really well, this is one bed that doesnt need much weeding!

The late sown broadies are just starting to crop nopw, the borlottis beans and late sown runners are doing well, but the purple podded peas are about over! We've left some pods to dry for next years seeds!

The early runners are going great guns, and the leeks (although weed infested) are doing really well!

The new strawberry bed we planted this year is coming on really well, these were grown from seed this year, so next year they should be well established and possibly be ready to provide us with a good crop!

The late maincrop spuds are still growing, although they are fighting the blight!

The main strawberry bed, pretty well established now after being cleared and replanted last winter, we're going to give it a good top dressing this winter and hopefully they will be even better than they were this year!

The herb bed, flowering!

Some of the toms in the greenhouse! We've had mixed results in the greenhouses, lots of crops, but because of this the string supports we set up have been snapping, so we've a few plants that are now growing in a heap, I've tried to retie the string on a few, but doing so usuallt damages the plant even more, so we've decided to let them be and use better string next year!

The aubergines and peppers / chillies in the hothouse have done really well, despite the hot house falling apart around them! This is the reason we decided to treat ourselves to a proper coldframe before next year, we've seen one on another plot that we liked, but hadn't seen any for a reasonable price.....

........ this is the design we like, but online they were going for up to £50, until I spotted one in Argos sale, at half price! So, we bought 2 of them at £14.99 each! Next year the peppers and chillies and aubergines will be growing in 2 of these, not sure exactly which bed they are going in yet, or whether we will extend them upwards a little bit by using some scaffolding boards, we were hoping to have a look at them today, but then the rain started to fall!

Anyhows, cropping is going well, but with everything else that we've been working on we've not been concentrating as much as we'd like to, so with the weekend booked off as hols (for Lee's 40th on Sunday - BBQ on the plot with friends and fellow allotmenteers), its possible we may have another bumper harvest day on Saturday.... weather permitting!

Anyhows, onto the balance sheet!

Balance Sheet Update - 15th August 2010

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8
Soft Fruits £16
Clematis £10
Arbour materials £ 40
Cold Frames (2) £30 (1/2 price at Argos)
Redcurrant £7.50
Birdhouse £7
Birdfeeders (for arbour) £10

Total Costs £ 504

The costings have again gone up, with the purchase of the bordhouse, some birdfeeders and 2 cold frames for use next year as our pepper / aubergine hothouse, a bargain at £14.99 each!

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
First Early Spuds £15
Lettuce £12
Radish £12
Garlic £85
Strawberries £65
Raspberries £35
Blackberries £8
Peas £40
Broad Beans £42
Courgettes £70
French Beans £50
Red Onions £20
White Onions £50
Cabbages £5
Peppers £4
Tomatoes £15
Turnip £4
Runner Beans £20
Broccolli £20
Apples £4
Plums £5

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 623

So, a total nett profit of £ 129 so far this year, with a large amount of harvests still to come!

We've spent more on the plot this year than ever before, with the polytunnel, scaffolding boards, building the grapevine arbour and the 2 coldframes, but next years spend should be back to a much more usual lower level of just seeds, onion sets, rent, subs and seed spuds...... hopefully!

Hope your costs arent too high, your weeds are manageable and your crops are providing bumper harvests!

Thanks for reading!

Construction Time Again!

2010-08-15T20:14:00.000+01:00

Well, as we were pretty well covered with staff, I managed to take back my unpaid ovetime today, so had the chance to get to the plot in gorgeous weather! As you can see, everything has gone bonkers recently, especially with all the rain! Weeds are becoming a biiiig problem!

Plot 2 is looking good though, the maincrop spuds are still blight free, the early maincrops are ready to come up now, and the sunflowers, sweetcorn and pumpkin/squash are amazing! Mind you, first job for today (before harvesting) was to try and get the grapevine arbour / pergola extension to the shed finished!

I still had to add the reinforcing bars to the front, then finish wiring the main area and tightening it up, plus pop in the corner braces! Unfortunately, someone forgot to put the drill back on charge, so I had to charge it up in the cabin before I could use it, so I spent the first few hours sawing the bits of wood I'd need, and unfortunately sawing my finger too! The blood was everywhere, the saw I was using jumped and caught my left forefinger with 2 nice deep cuts!

But once the bleeding had stopped and the drill had charged up, there was no stopping me! The side bracing struts for the corners were cut and fitted...............

.......... the support wires fitted and tensioned..............

............... then the grapevine was unravelled and allowed to fall naturally over the arbour!

Its already at the front of the arbour in some places!

All thats left to do now is to paint it, then plant the 2 clematis at the front of the uprights, train the vine properly over the top, and then find some nice objet d'art to cap the upright posts! Methinks a weather vane and perhaps a couple of gargoyles (plus a greenman plaque) would look good, then possibly a bird feeder or two and next year a hanging basket or two!

Anyhows, whilst we've been playing with building the arbour, the crops have been growing well, tho unfortunately, so have the weeds! I've not shared any piccies of the crops recently, so I took some for you today!

Our early planted Runner Beans are cropping like mad, they are covered in beans and in flowers! Looks like being another bumper crop again this year!

Our broccoli is hearting up nicely, this one was one of 10 I harvested today!

French climbing beans, absolutely gorgeous and pretty prolific too! Next year we're going to grow more of them, and start them earlier inside, rather than sowing them direct!

We've 3 aubegines nearing harvestable size, moussaka methinks!

Lots of sweetcorn, although its not quite ready to harvest yet!

Lots of pumpkins and squashes too!

Including these little fellows, lovely baked and then stuffed!

Our sunflowers have been brilliant this year, some spectacular blooms, and the tallest is now over 7' tall!

Another pretty sunflower! The seeds will be harvested and fed to the wild birds hereabouts!

Finally, the late sown courgettes have just started producing, so although we planted these as insurance (and to continue the cropping once the main ones had finished), we've now got 13 courgette plants all in production! Eek!

Todays harvests....................

............... cabbage and broccolli.....................

............. another cucumber and more toms...................

................... lots more runner beans and climbing french beans.......................

.............. another 2 peppers and 2 jalapeno chillies, plus a few more blackberries!

Balance Sheet Update - 15th August 2010

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8
Soft Fruits £16
Clematis £10
Arbour materials £ 40

Total Costs £ 440

The costings have escalated due to building the arbour, however, we're both happy with it and do feel its going to prove its value in making the plot a tidier place, supporting the grapevine properly and give us a comfortable shaded area to sit in! I've also got some more plans for spending on the plot, Argos have the exact coldframe I want to get to use as a hothouse for next year, and at present they are half price, so I've reserved 2 of them online for Lee to collect tomorrow! Bargain at £14.99 each!

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
First Early Spuds £15
Lettuce £12
Radish £10
Garlic £85
Strawberries £65
Raspberries £35
Blackberries £8
Peas £40
Broad Beans £42
Courgettes £63
French Beans £46
Red Onions £20
White Onions £40
Cabbages £5
Peppers £4
Tomatoes £10
Turnip £4
Runner Beans £15
Broccolli £14
Apples £4
Plums £5

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 584

So, a total nett profit of £ 144 so far this year, with a large amount of harvests still to come!

Hope you're harvests are bumper ones! Thanks for reading, more updates to follow soon!

Another long day at work!

2010-08-13T21:22:00.001+01:00

Had to do a 13 hour shift on Tuesday, after the keyholder on the late shift rang in sick, it takes it out of you, especially when as Management I dont get paid overtime, so got to work today thinking I'd have to try and take some time back before I go to my new branch in a weeks time, only to get a message that another keyholder wasnt well, and I was the only person who could cover him tonight, so 2nd 13 hour day of the week, and 5th in the past 3 weeks!

I dont mind working hard, but its getting beyond a joke at times, so if we are covered, then I'm going to try and take some time back on Sunday and spend the day at the plot finishing the grapevine arbour / pagoda thingy and painting it!

I've been looking for something to top the uprights, perhaps gargoyles or something similar, but as yet havent found the right things at the sort of price I want, so will have to have a trawl around n see what I can think of! I have seen a fab windvane, with a witch on a broomstick on it, but its far too expensive! Ah well, perhaps Ill manage to come up with something myself!

Proper pictorial update in the next couple of days, I promise!

Ongoing work on the vinery!

2010-08-12T18:33:00.000+01:00

We had to pop to B&Q this morning for some more screws, eyelets and wire before going to the plot to do the weekly bee inspection and continue work with the arbour, so only arrived at the plot for 11ish, in glorious sunshine!

Got a bit more done on the arbour, then Pat and Colin arrived, so we stopped for elevenses, danish and a mug of tea!

Did the bee inspections next, hive 2 is producing lots of queen cells which we had to remove (too late to allow them to swarm now), but otherwise all is fine! Lots of honey almost ready, so we may get to harvest some soon!

Broke for lunch after the bee inspections, then continued with the arbour, we got the 2 central crosspieces (front to shed) in, the eyelets in and 4 of the side to side wires in when the sky darkened and the heavens opened, so we had to call it a day!

Shame really, because another hour or so and we'd have finished the whole thing and been able to get it painted, plus get some piccies! Ah well, have to see if we can get it done in the evenings over the weekend, or otherwise next week!

I did notice that one of the front crosspieces has a nasty bend in it, looks like the wood has split a bit next to a knot in the wood, so we'll have to put another front crosspiece below it to reinforce it, sp we'll have a double front board with a gap inbetween of the same size as the wood, should look rather good!

Anyhows, its stopped raining now, so I've got an errand to run, then we'll see if I can persuade hubby to come back to the plot to do a bit more (and possibly do some harvesting) beofre bedtime!

Sorry no piccies, the rain put paid to the camera leaving the car! Hope your plots are growing well and the crops are bountiful! Thanks for reading

The Vinery starts to take shape!

2010-08-11T20:43:00.000+01:00

Day off today, the weather forecast says its going to be nice n sunny, and I've got to go to the Allotment Federation meeting first thing (Pat as site secretary and me as site chairperson are expected to go), so I didnt manage to get to the plot until lunchtime, to find Lee and Colin had already started work on the first of our projects, the vine supports for the front of the shed! Lee had been to B&Q for the wood, wire and ground spikes (to hold the uprights) first thing, then he and Colin had met up at the plot to puzzle out the design I had in my mind, of course they soon realised its best not to really start until I got there, as they knew they'd only get it wrong! Lol!

The grapevine on plot 1 (at the front of the shed) was one we inherited with the plot, and its always been very vigorous with its growth, so much so that last year I put some supports out from the front of the shed to help keep it up, but its now grown beyond them (as you can see), so the idea of building an arbour at the front of the shed and training the grapevine to grow over it was one we had been toying with for a while. When we picked up 2 clematis at Aldi last week that then gave us the incentive to get it done asap, as the clematis could then go into the bed at the front of the shed and grow up the arbour supports!

So, the plans were to get 3 new pieces of 2 by 2 timber and ground spikes (to prevent them rotting) for the uprights, and use some of the 2 by 1 1/2" timber that we already had on the plot (another inheritance that came with the plot) to build the horizontal pieces to link the uprights together and tether the whole lot onto the shed! The first upright was easy, in line with the end of the shed and at the edge of the bed in front of the shed, but the opposite end one was a bit more problematic!

The other end upright was sited just 6" away from the greenhouse, and just to the right of the greenhouse door, so although easy enough to put the spike in, it made screwing the wood crosspieces togather a bit difficult!

The middle upright was much easier, just measure the spacing from the ends with the wood we want to use as front crosspieces and hammer the spike in!

So, 3 uprights in, time for lunch? Pat and Colins turn to provide lunch, a couple of mugs of tea, fresh barm cakes with ham, cheese, salad and salami, sausage rolls and followed by homemade courgette cake! Mmmm!

The next job was to attach the side crosspieces to the shed and to the end uprights, this would not only make it sturdy, but also give us a level to work to with the front crosspieces!

As you can see, working above head height does have its problems, esp[ecially if you've only got one step ladder! Mind you, we did have a wooden stool that I did stand on to make it easier to hold the wooden crosspieces up whilst Lee and Colin drilled and screwed them, but after about 30 minutes it decided to disintegrate from underneath me, dropping me straight to the ground without even moving my feet!

Once the end crosspieces were secured, we set about attaching them to the end uprights, making sure they were completely level!

Then the front crosspieces were added, again making sure they were level! Once we'd done that we secured another central brace from the shed to the front middle upright, using a shelf bracket and piece of the inherited timber!

And then, as it was getting late, we called it a day! Tomorrow we are due to do the weekly bee inspections, then we want to add another 2 bracing bars (from the shed to the front crosspieces), 4 corner braces and then put in the wire supports from side to side and front to back! After that a dash of paint and we can then let the grapevine grow over it to its hearts content, plus get the 2 clematis into the bed and let them grow up the supports!

We're both really happy with the way its looking at the moment, and I do think its going to be really good once its finished, not only will it give the grapevine better support, look a lot better than it currently does, but will hopefully also give us a lovely shaded seating area for those few hot and sunny days when we are at the plot!

Lots of crops to harvest tomorrow, plus the bee inspections and the vine arbour to finish, so it looks like being a full day, but hopefully I'll get some more piccies to show you our progress!

Hope you like the 'vinery', hope your plots are looking great and cropping well! Thanks for reading!

The (Almost) Naked Beekeeper!

2010-08-08T20:11:00.001+01:00

With working weekends we dont seem to get much time to get to the plot after work atm, but after not seeing any evidence of the emerged queen (or eggs/larvae) in the last nucleus we took (after 3 weeks and seeing that the queen cell is open) when we did the bee inspections this week, we decided that the four of us would open up the hive and make a thorough check on Sunday, so we all met up at the plot after work to have a look!

Lee and I arrived first, so after watering in the greenhouses and ploytunnel we suited up, although not as thoroughly as we normally do!

As you can see, here we have the 'Tesco Beekeeper', Lee, still in uniform (though I dont think they'd let him wear his wellies to work, I was also in my uniform, which is black in colour and consists of cargo type pants (that are fairly form fitting) and tshirt, and seeing as we weren't planning on being in the apiaries for too long, I put my bee jacket over the top of my uniform! This proved to be something of a mistake!

Now, normally I wear gaiters over my shoes, to seal the trouser legs (and prevent bees from crawling up them, which has happened once before, and normally results in a sting to your leg when you move - as the trousers then squash the been against your leg and it retaliates by stinging you!), but seeing as we werent doing a full inspection, I didnt bother with my gaiters, and also forgot the fact that bees dont like black clothing, it makes them think you are a 'bear' come to steal their honey, not a great situation when you've got black trousers on and are upsetting them by opening the hive!

So,as Pat and Colin hadnt yet arrived, Lee lit the smoker and we went into apiary 1 to have a look at hive 7 (aka the nucleus)! On opening the hive and having a good look, we have to conclude that its gone queenless, there's no sign of eggs, grubs, larvae or a queen in evidence anywhere within the hive, so we've only got a couple of choices of what we can do with it!

Without a queen present the hive will not survive, and with no eggs present, then the workers cant raise an egg to become a queen, so they are doomed unless we do one of two things! The 2 choices we have are to combine it with another hive (possibly hive 1 as this is our weakest colony), by putting the brood boxes above each other, separated by a layer of newspaper (once the bees have eaten their way through, then they will already have gotten each others scent, so wont fight and will combine happily together), or (as its still - just about - early enough for a new queen to be mated and start laying) we could give them a frame of eggs to enable them to raise an egg as a queen and hopefully the colony will then become strong enough to survive!

We decided to take a frame of eggs from Hive 3 (in the other apiary) as this is a hive with calm bees and thats nice and strong, so after sealing up hive 7 temporarily we moved over to apiary 2 to see if we could get a frame of eggs to move! As we went into Apiary 2 it was to find that our smoker had gone out, so Lee quickly relit it!

Hive 3 is a strong colony, and has 4 supers on it at the moment, so before we could remove a frame we had to remove the 4 (heavy) supers, then the queen guard before we could start looking for a frame of newly laid eggs! As I removed the first frame of bees from hive 3 they realised I was wearing black trousers, so one decided to sting me on my leg straight away! Ouch!

We then found the smoker had gone out again, and the bees were getting upset at being disturbed at such a late hour, so there were a lot of angry bees flying around! We managed to find a good frame of newly laid eggs, removed it and gently shook the bees off the frame, only to find that some of the uncapped honey from the frame then flew out and landed on my black trousers! This sent the now angry bees into a bit of a feeding frenzy, so my legs were covered in bees, and worse than that, I could feel them crawling up inside my trouser legs!!!

Pat and Colin arrived at this point, to find me stood with my legs unmoving, a frame of eggs in my hand and Lee laughing! Pat relit the smoker, then took the frame of eggs over to hive 7 (in the other apiary) and closed up that hive, before coming back to us!

Lee had managed to clear the bees off his legs by this time (gently brushing them off), so he got the smoker and smoked me to remove as many of the bees from my trousers as possible, but I was stuck with bees inside my trousers, if I'd have moved either leg they would have stung me, and I could feel them getting higher, one was already above my knee!

I tried lifting my trouser leg, but as my work trousers are fairly form fitting, I couldnt raise them far enough without risking squashing a bee and receiving a sting, so only 1 alternative was available to me........ I'd have to take my trousers off! Ok, I'm no prude, its not something that I'm accustomed to, but it doesnt worry me, except for the 200000 stings flying angrily around the enclosed space of the apiary!

Nothing for it though, either I remove my trousers and hopefully get the bees out without a sting, or try to walk out and invariably get a sting! I got Lee to give me a thorough smoking, then managed to remove my trousers without getting stung (although I'm sure my bottom made a nice target for some of the bees to aim for) and freed the trapped bees, before exiting the apiary, luckily without any more stings!

The only good thing about the whole situation though, is I'm gald I wasnt 'going commando' today, as that definitely could have been embarrassing, not to say downright painful! Lol! And, before you ask, no, I didnt let anyone get any pictures of me trouserless in the apiary, you'll just have to take my word for it!

Anyhows, the nucleus in Hive 7 has a frame of freshly laid eggs now, so we'll let them alone for a couple of weeks and see whether they manage to requeen themselves!

I havent shared any piccies of the polytunnel recently, so I tok a couple today, the toms in there are fruiting well, but with it being soo close to the fence and hedges its quite shaded in there, so they arent as far on as the ones in the greenhouses............

............. mind you, I have to say that the lavender we grew from seed has done fantastically well! Some of this is going to be transplanted into the front of Plot 1 next year, as underplanting of the plum tree we hope to plant there!

Anyhows, the moral of the beekeeping exerience, dont think you can just quickly do anything where bees are concerned, and dont cut corners with your bee protection! I was lucky today, I could easily have been stung a lot more than the once that I was!

Hope your plots are cropping well, and if you have bees, I hope they are behaving themselves and not forcing you to do a naked dance around your apiary! Lol!

Thanks for reading, more updates to follow soon!

New fruit plants, new projects for the coming winter, crop updates and some piccies! 5th August 2010

2010-08-05T21:36:00.000+01:00

So, 2nd day off and it dawns with the rain lashing down, doesnt bode well for being able to do the bee inspections or get much done on the plot, however, as they have to be done, then needs must!

We started the day with a trip to Aldi to take advantage of thier soft fruit offers, got there at 855am, to find a queue of 5 people in front of us (and another 15 joined behind us before the doors opened), yet when the doors opened no-one moved, so we went in first and got first choice of the fruit plantlets!

2 clematis, the fig, tayberry and 2 goosegogs, need to do some work on the plot before we'll be ready to plant these out!

5 Gojiberry, 2 kiwi, 2 red gooseberries, a tayberry and a fig all found their way into our trolley (3 of the goji were for other folks from the allotment), along with 2 lovely 4' clematis (£4.99 each), so the plot spend went up by £26 in a short space of time, but we got some lovely soft fruits for the plot!

On arriving at the plot (when fortunately the rain had ceased, although it threatened to return until about mid afternoon when we sat down for lunch) we had a chat about where everything was going, and what we were planning on doing with a few areas of the plot over the winter, some of which were inspired by our new fruit purchases! When Pat, Colin and Sarah arrived we started to do the weekly bee inspections (no major problems), then sat down for a late 'al fresco' lunch!

Its become a bit of a tradition between us all to have a late lunch on the plots when we do the bees, generally we take it in turns to buy it, today was a whole roast chicken, with large barm cakes, fresh cucumber, tomato and lettuce (from the plot), pickled onions, pork pie, a mug of tea each (earl grey for me) and followed by scones, cream and home made jam!

Before now we've had melon for starters, followed by roast pork sandwiches, or even freshly cooked BLT, and ended with cakes ranging from the gorgeous 'bogey green dome cake' (aka festival gateaux from Morrisons), through scones and clotted cream, through doughnuts to the fantastic Coop caramel/coffee buns!

After lunch (and despite the protests from Lee that he now wanted to go to sleep) we started to plant up the new soft fruits, or as many of them as we were able to (without having done the projects that we need to complete in order to plant the rest of them out!)

The 2 Goji berries got planted into the center of the 2 front beds on plot 1, about 2/3rds of the way back (to leave some room for a flower border), they arent massive (probably take us a few years to get much of a crop, if anything) at about 8" high, but they both look healthy enough!

The second one, in the flower bed at the front of plot 1, lets hope they survive and grow on quickly enough to make a decent sized display next year!

The 2 kiwis were planted into sunken (bottomless) pots on the outside of apiary 2 (on plot 1), 1 near the entrance door, and the other........

............ around the corner, inbetween the 2 surviving loganberries (to the left of the jasmine in the pot at the corner), I know the kiwis can be vigorous, but being only 8" tall, its probable that it will be a few years yet before we ever get any fruit from them (if we ever do), but without trying them we'll never know, so its worth a go!

We bought the clematis to climb up something that is going to be one of our next projects, our grapevine has come on really well over the past 2 years since we took over this plot, so much so that its not able to be supported by the front of the shed and ends up falling forwards as you can see from this piccy. I've been toying with an idea of building an extension to the front of the shed, kind of like an arbour, to trail the grapevine over the top, not only neatening it up and giving it some proper support (plus allowing the fruit to hang more freely, giving better circulation of air around them), but also to make a pleasantly shaded area for us to sit under when the weather is at its hotest! (In front of the shed is a lovely sheltered spot, but when its sunny its a definite sun trap and gets exceptionally hot, so a shaded place to sit would be lovely!)

So, with the good value clematis needing a home in the very near future, we've got to get our skates on! I got Lee to hold one of the spare bits of wood (that we inherited with the plot - leftovers from the building of the shed we think) at the front of where the supports will have to run, right next to the bed in front of the shed! Our plans are to get 3 of the metal fence spikes (go into the ground and hold the supports up vertically), then put 3 vertical supports, linked horizontally to each other and the shed, with a reinforced wide mesh and wire system filling in the center, so the grapevine can grow over the mesh! The 2 clematis will then be grown up the front supports (the ones next to the flower bed), and should look good once they get established! The work involved isnt massive, although with the grapevine being in full leaf and fruit at the moment we cant put the mesh up (yet), but we are hoping to build the supports in the next week or so, then add the mesh once the vine had died back for the winter!

Another project we are going to have to tackle this winter is to sort out the 'fedge', the raspberry canes have gone mental this year, so it looks like aswell as cutting them back in the late autumn we are going to have to rethink our support system!

When we first out the 'fedge' in we had a run of 4 posts, which were then wired together at 3' and 5' to hold the rasps up, as they've gotten established this system has been overwhelmed, so I think we're going to have to double the number of posts and wire them in a better way to keep them from making the paths unaccessable, as you can see here to the right of the fedge!

Yet another project for the winter is to replace some of the bed edging (that has rotted) with the 20 scaffold boards that we purchased recently, hopefully these will neaten up the edges and mean we can actually raise the beds a bit too!

We also want to get hold of another plum tree (for the front lavender bed on plot 1) and a redcurrant (for the front bed next to the right hand front compost bin on plot 1) to plant out, and if the plum at th back of plot 1 doesnt do anything (after a good pruning later this year) next year, then we will also look at replacing that too!

Our final project for the winter is to use some of the scaffolding beds to remake the retaining wall beneath apiary 1 on plot 2 (which holds the raised rhubarb bed up), and to create a seating / viewing ares to the left of the apiary, which will also have the 2 red gooseberries planted in it and possibly also the tayberry (to grow up the side of apiary 1 on plot 2)!

So, once the growing season is finished (another 10 weeks or so yet) and the beds are cleared, mucked over (with 2 yr old well rotted FYM) and covered (probably with recycled bike boxes from my work) for the winter, it looks like we've got enough to keep us busy into next year!

So, with plenty of plans to keep ourselves busy for the foreseeable future, how do the plots look at the moment? Well, the early sown broadies are just about finished, as are the early peas and the victorian purple podded peas will be harvested very soon. The courgettes are still cropping well, we've a bit of a glut atm (tho not as bad as Pat and Colin, who currently have 50+ courgettes in their garage), but once the tomatoes start to crop a bit heavier then I'll process them into pasta sauce for the freezer!

The early sown runners are now cropping well, and the later sown are flowering like mad, so along with the dwarf and climbing french beans it looks like it is going to be a great year for beans! The late sown broadies are also beginning to drop, so plenty for the freezer too! The maincrop carrots are also looking good, if a bit weed infested (as you can see in the bottom left of the picture), although we dont know whetehr we will get a usable crop yet as we usually suffer with carrot root fly problems on the plot!

About half of the maincrop onions have now stopped growing, and their tops fallen over, so I took them out today and laid them out to start drying the outer skins..............

.............. as you can see, there's some lovely onions in amongst them (the shelf they are on is about 12" wide, to give you an idea of their sizes), and about the same amount again still to harvest! Think we should be alright for onions for the next month or 5!

The brassicas are all still doing well, lots of small cabbages and broccolli, enough to keep us going for a good while, plus the sprouts are looking really good too, even the red ones!

The sweetcorn and squashes seem to be growing every time you look at them! Methinks we could be in for our best ever corn year (fingers crossed!)

Although we've usually done well with pumpkins, one thing we've never really done well with is butternut squash............ until this year! We've quite a few fruits, the largest of which dwarf anything we've ever seen in the shops! This one is the second biggest, at about 10" diameter and 18" long.............

............. whereas this one is the largest, at about 14" diameter and 24" long! If they keep growing like this, then perhaps we'd best look at exhibiting in the giant veg shows! Lol!

Finally a quick peek at some of the toms in the greenhouses, lots of lovely fruit in there, but not many ripe as yet! Once they start to crop heavily I'm going to be busy making pasta sauces and ketchup, hopefully enough of both to see us through the year!!

We did manage to get some harvests today, more courgettes (8), about a lb of runner beans, a lb or so of climbing french beans,another decent head of broccolli, the first of the blackberries (about a lb), more rasps, a few more toms and another couple of turnips! Some of the crops are soo prolific (turnips) that we're probably going to have to compost some of them as we wont be able to use them all, but better too many than not enough!

So, onto the balance sheet!

Balance Sheet Update - 5th August 2010

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8
Soft Fruits £16
Clematis £10

Total Costs £ 400

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
First Early Spuds £15
Lettuce £12
Radish £10
Garlic £85
Strawberries £65
Raspberries £35
Blackberries £5
Peas £36
Broad Beans £39
Courgettes £58
French Beans £36
Red Onions £20
White Onions £30
Cabbages £4
Peppers £2
Tomatoes £4
Turnip £2
Runner Beans £5
Broccolli £4

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 509

So, a total nett profit of £ 109 so far this year, with a large amount of harvests still to come! Hope your growing year is going well and your harvests are bumper ones! Thanks for reading!

Planting Plans 2011

2010-08-04T12:26:00.001+01:00

Well, 2 days off, and its currently raining, so although we want to be on the plot weeding, the weather really isnt currently fit to work the soil at all, so we're going to go and do some harvesting later, and get the house cleared up a bit, something that rarely happens during the growing season!

As we cant currently go out (waiting for a phone call), we've rejigged the planting plans so we've a firm plan for next year - 2011, which are shown in the pdf below! I know its early, but advanced planning is useful and allows us to get an idea of what we need for next years crops, so tomorrow we are off to Aldi who have a special offer of soft fruits at only £1.99 each! (Gojiberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, figs, kiwi, raspberries) We're hoping to be able to get some Goji, redcurrant and kiwi, which will be going in around the 2nd apiary and in the beds at the front of plot 1 (along hopefully with a plum tree), which will then be underplanted with a proper flower border, the plum will be going to the left (nearest the greenhouse on plot 2) in the largest bed, and will be underplanted by lavender, then (left to right) a goji, a redcurrant and another goji, all of which will be underplanted with flowers and herbs, something we've bot been great at before, but will give a go for next year!

We found out the other day that during the allotment judging we'd been listed as one of the top 15 sites in Trafford, and if on the second inspection we'd had no weeds, we could well have claimed one of the top spots (we acchieved marks - out of 100- of 94 for veg, 94 for tidyness, nothing for flower border and nothing for environmental award (as we should have put a separate entry in for that, D'oh!)

So, if we manage to maintain the veg and tidyness at current levels, put in a proper flower border at the front of plot 1 and do an entry form for next years environmental award (plus add a few environmentally friendly bits n bobs - nesting boxes, hedgehog house, etc) then we could be in with a chance of getting one of the highest spots!

Its not the reason we have the plots, but it would be nice to be able to knock some of the folks off the top who win it every year, mind you, as the 2 top growers are both retired (and thus can spend as long as they want on their plots every day, whereas with both of us working full time we cant), the odds are against us, but thats never stopped us before! Lol!

Anyhows, hope your plots are looking good, your crops are bountiful and you're enjoying the growing season!

More updates and piccies to follow soon, thanks for reading!

Crop update piccies + balance sheet update - 1st August 2010

2010-08-01T17:33:00.000+01:00

Plots 1 & 2 from the road nearest the gate - showing how they lie next to each other!

So, an unexpected day off, a chance to relax, to get some washing done, a bit of tidying up, cook a nice meal and to get to the plot for a bit to do some harvesting!

Plot 1 - 1st August 2010

Both plots are looking quite good, there's a few weeds we need to take care of this week, but the plants themselves are looking nice and lush, methinks all the recent rain has let them grow as they want! The courgettes are still producing a lot of fruit, although I'm trying to harvest them a bit smaller, so today was able to get some more reasonably sized fruits! The 3 later sown plants are just about to start producing now, there's lots of small courgettes behind the female flowers that should be open in the next few days!

The early sown broad beans are almost finished now, as are the early sown peas, but with another 2 successional sowings of each just about to start cropping, we should be ok for peas and beans through the summer, and depending on the late yields, possibly even through until next year! The victorian purple podded peas are about ready for harvest now, so I think we'll be taking a decent crop off those this week (although I did sneak a few for tonights tea! Lol!

The Borlotti beans are coming on nicely, looks like a possible good harvest from these this year, which will be good as we did poorly with them last year!

The early sown runner beans are just about ready for first takings, so I picked about 10 small pods for tonights tea! Give it a week or so and we'll be innundated with runner beans! Lol!

The brassicas are also doing well, I took another cabbage for tea tonight, about the size of a bowling ball, nice n healthy on top, but signs of clubroot under the soil, so I guess they wont stand for as long as we'd like! I also managed to harvest a lovely big head of broccolli for tonights tea, our first of the year so far! Mind you, with another 50 plants in the ground, I guess we should be able to get enough to freeze some as well as eat it fresh!

The new strawberry bed (from seed) has really come on well, in just a few short weeks they've filled this old cold frame, we're going to give them a feed of well rotted FYM this winter, and then hopefully bumper crops of strawbs will be ours next year!

The tomatoes in the greenhouse are also starting to turn, we had the first 5 or so this week, but theres another 8 turning nicely now, with plenty more to come behind!

Plot 2 - 1st August 2010

Plot 2 is also looking good! There's some more broccolli nearing a harvestable size at the front, so looks like we'll be having it for tea later this week!

The sweetcorn and pumpkin / squash are also looking really good, we may have a problem in storing or eating all the corn if it holds up to its current promise!

The maincrop spuds are still looking good too! The late earlies and early maincrops are still struggling with blight, but these maincrops seem to be coping ok, only time will tell though what sort of harvest we get from them!

This week we'll also be taking out the last of the onions, there's some still stood up, but the majority have now fallen over, so its time to remove them and dry them ready for storage through the year!

So, apart from the weeds, the plots are still looking good, plenty of crops growing well and lots of promise for another years decent harvest!

Balance Sheet Update - 1st August 2010

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8

Total Costs £ 374

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
First Early Spuds £15
Lettuce £11
Radish £10
Garlic £85
Strawberries £65
Raspberries £30
Peas £32
Broad Beans £36
Courgettes £58
French Beans £36
Red Onions £10
Cabbages £2
Peppers £2
Tomatoes £1
Turnip £2
Runner Beans £2
Broccolli £2

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 441

So, we're in a positive as far as the balance sheet goes, by a total of £ 67 , but saving money isnt really why we grow our own fruit and veg (although it is nice to know that we are saving money and not putting extra profit the way of the big supermarket corporations), for us both GYOing is about much moe than saving money!

Its about having the connection to the land, feeling nature all around you, working with the land to care for it and safeguard its future, reducing our impact on the planet by reducing the food miles that we consume, sharing our enjoyment and companionship with other likeminded friends on the allotments, producing some amazingly tasty, ultra fresh organic fruit and veg, and of course eating some wonderfully tasty fruit and veg!

Stocktake results are in!

2010-07-31T20:32:00.005+01:00

Well, after the 2 x 13 hour+ days I worked this week to sort out the mess that our computers made of my final stocktake (in my current branch, only 3 weeks till I start at my newer branch), I was a little trepidacious of seeing the results, which are posted on our internal internet on a Friday after the stocktake! The figures include the original loss on the day, the ammendments made in the 2 following days and the combined total stock loss, plus the % of turnover that the loss for the year represents!

One the day the cost loss was 20K, caused in the main by the computers loosing 10% of my count, but we made ammendments worth £17500 (entering the missed departments back in and some bits we found that hadnt been counted), so the real loss on the day was £2500! That means with the cumulative loss from theft and breakages brought into account, we lost a total of £7200 for the year, or 0.57% of our total, a great result (in comparison with the norm, though £7200 of theft and breakages isnt something I'm happy about, I'd much prefer it to be nothing! But in the environment we work and with current staff levels, anything less than 1.2% is considered acceptable)

It's an improvement over last years good result of 0.89%, so I'm relatively happy with it, and am also glad that I will be handing over my current branch to its new manager with a nice accurate stockfile!

One good thing about having to work the 2 x 13 hour days is that I as I have a full team in tomorrow, I can take the time back, so as we do a 7 hour day on a Sunday, I'm having the day off! A chance to catch up on some housework and get to the plot to do some harvesting and (hopefully if the rain holds off) some hoeing / weeding, plus plant out the next batch of leeks in the bed the first early spuds came from!

I also managed to get some piccies of all the plots on our site and some general piccies of the allotment site that I've put onto a new page of the blog, the link should be at the top of the right hand tool bar, there's the main blog posts page, an About Us basic page (I'll get some more on there soon) and a page for Moss View Allotments, take a look if you like and see how some of the folks on our site are doing!

I popped to the plot tonight to water and feed the greenhouses / hothouse / polytunnel, and have to say that everything has come on loads, so I should be able to get some piccies to share with you tomorrow!

Until then, hope your crops are growing well and the rain isnt germinating too many weeds, thanks for reading!

Very Highly Commended!!!!

2010-07-28T22:00:00.004+01:00

We got the results of the Trafford Allotment Judging today, our site, Moss View in Partington has again got several plots who have been deemed worthy of mention, 4 plots have received a Commended (the basic notice that the judges liked their plot), 5 plots have received a Highly Commended (a certificate, a mention at the Gardeners Evening, and basically means you impressed the judges with the condition of your plot and had at least some great looking crops) and 2 plots received a Very Highly Commended! (A certificate and framed photograph of your plot which is presented to you by the Mayor at the Gardeners Evening, where you have your piccy taken for the local paper, it generally means your plot was very well presented, and you impressed the judges with the variety and quality of the crops you were growing!)

After 4 years of having the plots (and never even getting a commended certificate) we decided this year that we'd ensure we did everything possible (short of bribing the judges) to get at least a commended certificate (as those who read the blog will no doubt know by now), so imagine our delight when Pat rang us this evening to tell us that she'd just got the results...... and our 2 plots had both been voted as Very Highly Commended!!

We're both cock a hoop about the results, neither of us thought we'd ever get one plot to a VHC condition, let alone both of them! Pat and Colin both got a Highly Commended for their 2 plots, so I guess we're going to be buying the drinks at the Gardeners Evening! To be honest we didnt think (with our home made wonky heath robinson hothouse and a few other bits n bobs that we've recycled for use on the plots) that we'd actually get a certificate, so I guess its a signal that they are becoming more open to folks using their initiative and reusing / reworking things on their plots!

Award winning Plot 1


Our Award winning Plot 2, good job they dont judge it now, with all the rain we've got too many weeds to win even a commended! Lol!

Well, finally we get a day off, and the weather doesnt look too great, but having spoken to Pat and Colin we decided we'd chance it and see whether we could get the bee inspections done today, leaving tomorrow (with a better forecast) to do some harvesting and planting / weeding on the plots!

The inspections went well, Sarah (Pat and Colins daughter) got stung (again) within 30 seconds of opening Hive 1 (living up to their nick name of Psycho), Hive 2 had 2 capped queen cells (which we unfortunately had to remove), but apart from that everything was fine. The wet and windy weather of late has meant though that our bees havent been able to get out to forage as much as we'd have liked, so there wasnt any more honey ready for harvesting yet, but hopefully there will be in a few more weeks!

I managed to get a few piccies of some of the crops for the blog, but as we didnt finish the bee inspections until late (and then had a late lunch sat outside Pat and Colin's shed) we decided we'd spend tomorrow harvesting and weeding!

One thing we did decide to harvest though, was our first ripe tomato!!

There's plenty of tomato fruit in both of the greenhouses (and the polytunnel), but only a few that are beginning to ripen at the plot, though we do have some in the hanging baskets at home that are also almost ready! (And a lot more that are still growing, both in the back yard greenhouse and outside in the back yard itself)

.The other side of the main greenhouse!

The aubergines in the wonky homemade hothouse have now set fruit, we've 4 small fuits on them at the moment, this one being the largest!

And this one being the smallest! There's also a lot of peppers getting bigger in there too, and a fair number of chillies too! Looks like it may be a good year for greenhouse crops!

The brassicas are also still doing well, we've lost a couple to club root, but none (yet) to caterpillars (the debris netting seems to be working well), and the first couple of heads of broccolli are looking good! This one is about the size of a large cooking apple.......

............... and this one about the size of a tennis ball!

The sprout plants are just starting to produce baby sprouts, so hopefully (like last year) there should be plenty of our Yule feast this year!

The beanery on Plot 1 is also looking good, a few weeds that need sorting (hopefully tomorrow), but plenty of forthcoming crops if looks are anything to go by!

The borlotti beans are beginning to pod up now, with a load more flowers, so hopefully there will be a good crop of them this year!

The early planted runners are going great guns now, plenty of flowers and lots of small runner bean pods forming, we think we'll be harvesting them soon now!

The dwarf french beans are still producing like mad! These Tendergreen pods have a lovely purple marking and are delicious with no stringyness that we have found on cooking!

These are Delinel Dwarf French Beans, and are fantastic slim pencil sized pods of stringless tasty beans, another heavy cropper!

The sweetcorn have now topped 6'6", and are filling out nicely, I have a feeling we may have a good year with these this year, the underplanting of pumpkins and squashes are also looking good for crops!

One of the 2 largest Butternut squashes! Hopefully there will be plenty like this, I love roast squash mixed in with roasted winter veg, a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkling of garlic and herbs and slow roasted in the oven!

The pond area has come on really well! Needs a few weeds pulling out, but its looking good!

Our sunflowers are also starting to flower, the tallest are almost to 7' without having the flowers open, so we've no idea how tall they are going to end up!

And finally, the grapes! There's lots of bunches on the vine, so we're thinking of pruning out the smaller bunches to ensure that the rest of them fill out and ripen properly (as last year we didnt have them all ripen)

Hope your crops are growing well, your sites appreciate your efforts and your harvests are bumper ones!

Thanks for reading, harvest and balance update hopefully tomorrow!

I HATE STOCKTAKING!!

2010-07-28T10:17:00.001+01:00

Just a quick post to apologise for the recent lack of blog posts, work pressures have meant a distinct lack of time recently, especially after returning to work 2 weeks ago (to find my store a complete tip - thanks to staff off sick, a messed up delivery schedule due to the new delivery center coming on line and some inexperienced new staff) and so I've been working really hard!

We had a week to get it straight before we were due (this week) to do our annual stocktake (another large piece of work and high stress time for all, but especially for the manager.... me!), so its been a bit hectic, especially with one member of our (5 person) full time team off sick and another on holiday (leaving us with only 3 full time staff to cover 9000 sq foot of 2 floor store, each of which has 2 days off a week to take, so most days its 1 ft to open and 1 to close, with a couple of part time staff to support).

We managed to get the store looking ok, and the major disaster of the wharehouse sorted out (couldnt move in there when I got back from my hols), then Friday I had to start doing the stocktake preparation, for us to count the whole store on Monday! Labelling the store and setting up the departments is a whole day job, which was done on Friday, then Saturday we concentrated on looking after customers, with a couple of extra part time staff in to get as much stock out from the wharehouse as possible.

Sunday I had a team of 4 staff start counting the wharehouse and areas of stock (display items) that we dont sell from the displays), which went well and we left at normal time with the store ready to count!

Monday I was in early, with a lot of my staff in extra to do the counting, and allegedly help from 9 nearby stores (who due to being short staffed themselves mainly didnt turn up, we had 4 helpers arrive out of an expected 9!)

Everything seemed to be going really well, until 3 pm, when the hand held terminals (the scanner guns we use to count the stock) all crashed, and we lost the departments that were in the process of being counted! A pain that we could do without (that set us back about 16 staff hours, or about an hour and a half with the number of staff we had counting), but after deleting them and resetting up we resumed by counting them again. By 6pm the store was about finished, when we noticed a department that hadnt closed its count properly, so we had to delete that one and do it again, another pain, but with 2 staff working on it we had it all finished for 630pm.

So, we then checked that every department was showing on the computer as being counted, that we had a print off for each count and that we were ready to complete, and after double checking we hit the GO button!

45 mins later the results started to come off........... normally we expect to loose (through delivery errors, shoplifting and damages) about 1% of our yearly turnovers worth of stock, or in my store about 20K, last year our loss was good at 0.89%, so I was expecting something similar........ but was horrified to see £85K of stock missing (or about 2.5% loss)!

As manager of the store, its my responsibility to ensure we dont loose too much stock, so I was mortified to see those figures, I've always prided myself on doing a good job, but I went home Monday night (after a 13 hour day) feeling a complete failure, stressed out and upset.

Tuesday I got up after a very poor nights sleep and headed in to work to look at the results and try and work out what went wrong (as I know we didnt miss any stock, the count was very thorough and the backchecking proved we'd done a good job), only to receive a phone call from our systems people at 810am asking if we'd deleted 9 of the 119 count locations!

It turned out that for some unknown reason, a systems glitch at the computer center had 'lost' almost 10% of our stocktake counts, so that was the main reason for the apparently high stock loss figure! Relief?? You bet!

In order to sort it out we had to get the print offs of those locations and then enter them in line by line as a stock adjuctment (with reason of stocktake investigation), a total of 4500 lines of stock with 4 input fields per line that had to be manually entered! In addition to this we also had to check on some of the other losses to see whether any stock had been missed (no matter how good you think the count is and how good you know the backchecking is there will always be something thats gone wrong somewhere), so I had 600 pages of stocktake gains and losses to go through and backcheck........

Well, I had to input the corrections as soon as possible (as our computer automatically reorders anything it thinks we havent got on a Wednesday night - and if it thought we had not got 4500 lines of stock it would order more of all of those lines for our next delivery, which we dont have room for and dont need), so I finished the majority of the investigations and entered them plus the 'lost' locations before I went home, but again it meant another 13 hour day!

Mind you, I came home a lot happier than I did on Monday! No idea what the result is going to be, our system isnt able to give us immediate results, but I have a feeling its going to be a lot better than the £85K, I have a feeling its going to be much closer to £25K or about 1.2%, which is acceptable!

We've still about 9 departments (that didnt have so bad a result) to backcheck, which I've left for my Sales Managers to do whilst I'm on my 2 days off), so there's a possibility that there will still be some more ammendments to make, but the majority of it is now sorted!

So, Im on 2 days off now, we're hoping to get to the plot today - even though the weather isnt looking particularly good - and I'm hoping to get some harvests (and piccies) plus do a bit of weeding, then tomorrow (with a better weather forecast) we will be doing the bee inspections, and hopefully have some more honey to process!

Hope your plots are growing well, the harvests are big ones and your working week has been a bit less stressful than mine!

Thanks for reading and hopefully another update later on today with piccies and harvesting updates!

Harvesting, piccies and the balance sheet moves into credit!

2010-07-22T19:11:00.009+01:00

Today was a day of harvesting, with the recent rain its still too wet to hoe, so a bit of handweeding was all we managed, apart from getting some of the crops that are ready harvested!

We met up with Pat and Colin, plus 2 of the folks from Trafford Council to have a chat about the community orchard, Pat came up with the idea of either espaliered or cordoned fruit trees along the right hand side of the orchard plot would make a great feature aswell as giving us a clearly demarked boundary, so its probably the way we'll look at going with it!

One of Lee's workmates met us on the plot, to have a look at why Lee does very little overtime at work, his usual excuse is 'I've got 2 plots to look after', he ended up picking himself some rasps, and digging up some first early spuds with Lee for his tea! Needless to say when he left it was with lettuce, spuds, broad beans, raspberries, garlic and courgettes!

These are the 20lb of first early spuds that Lee dug up from one of the blighted spud beds, about 2 lb per plant, not a great harvest, but the spuds look really good!

We were going to take both the early spud beds up, but after harvesting this lot we thought we'd leave the others for a week or so yet!

More courgettes, we've already got a glut of these at home, so some courgette recipies are going to be researched this weekend!

As the GYO magazine forum (the Grapevine) has an online veg show (for fun only), I took a few pictures of some of the crops ready for entry when the categories are opened in September!

We also took 2 reasonably large peppers today, we shared one with another plotholder, and the other one is now here at home!

We also managed to harvest the garlic today, 140 bulbs of garlic from saved cloves (that have been naturalised to our region by replanting the best ones every year), about 15 or so were quite small, the majority tho were a decent size, and 1 in particular was enormous!

Just look at the size of that garlic bulb!! In total there's about £70 worth of organic garlic that we've harvested today!

And cleaned up ready for entry to the GYO virtual veg competition!

We also had a great harvest of french beans today, as the piccy shows, a rather smug trug, and the plants are still dripping with beans!

The early sowed broad beans are just about finished now, but the later sown ones are just beginning to bulk up nicely!

Another plotholder gave us a spur of blackcurrants, which are now in the dehydrator to make our own currants! We also managed to get a cutting from the spur, so hopefully we'll have our own blackcurrant bush next year!

In addition to these piccies of the harvests we also took our first (admittedly small) cabbage, another few lb of early peas, another lettuce and a few lb of rasps (the summer fruiting rasps are now coming to an end, but the autumn fruiting are looking good for a great harvest!

So, 2 of the beds on plot 2 are now empty, tho the one from which the spuds came will have some leeks in it on Sunday (after work), we just need to rake it flat and pop the leeks in! The bed the garlic was in still has some onions in it, but once they are ready, then we'll be putting some spring cabbages into it!

The toms in the greenhouses are also coming along nicely, these are in the larger 10'x8' on plot2, plenty of fruit, and the first ones do appear to be starting to ripen now!

The other side of the 10'x8' greenhouse!

And the next cucumber is on its way, with lots of flowers to produce more fruit in the coming weeks!

The late broad beans (that I mentioned earlier) are looking good for another good crop of beans! We should have enough in the freezer to see us thrugh till next year!

The (slightly skewed) repaired hothouse, next year we are going to treat ourself to a new one, a proper bought one like we've seen on another plot, but until then we'll soldier on with this one! The plants tho dont care what accomodation they have and seem to be doing really well!

More peppers coming along nicely.........

........... And chillies! Looks like it may be a good year for them this year!

The late sown runners are just starting to flower..............

................. whereas the early sown 0nes are flowering well and beginning to produce pods!

The borlotti beans are also flowering well, so there should be a good harvest from them............

.............. and the climbing french beans are just starting to flower now, so we're still hopeful of a reasonable crop from them this year!

The first sweetcorn tassles are now visible...............

......... and the underplanting of squashes and pumpkins are also setting some decent sized fruit too!

So, all in all the crops arent looking too bad at all, still plenty of opportunity for the plots to produce their best ever year of produce!

And now onto the balance sheet!

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8

Total Costs £ 374

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
First Early Spuds £15
Lettuce £11
Radish £10
Garlic £85
Strawberries £65
Raspberries £25
Peas £30
Broad Beans £35
Courgettes £45
French Beans £26
Red Onions £10
Cabbages £1
Peppers £2

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 402

So, we've managed to move from a debit to credit of £26 on the balance sheet, after a total of £142 worth of crops today, not bad at all for one days harvest!!

Hope you're crops are growing well, your harvests are beginning and the weeds arent too much of a problem! Thanks for reading!

Hothouse disaster averted, Queen Marking, allotment judging, community orchard and some great news!

2010-07-21T19:52:00.010+01:00

What a difference a week makes! We've had some good news this week, the permission for the community orchard we've been talking about has been granted (though we cant start work until the autumn), and I've been given a different branch at work! The new branch is 10 miles closer to home (and a much easier drive, which should halve my travelling time), a lot newer building and a better size, smaller but with the same range of stock (making it much easier to run on our new staff structure) and means I'm going back to working for my old boss, a fantastic guy whos the best manager I've ever worked for! (Originally he was my branch manager, helped me get promoted to supervisor, then when he became an Area Manager he was the one who appointed me to my first store as manager!) I'm really looking forwards to the new branch and working for my old boss again, its going to be a lot less stressful and will free up 45 mins to an hour a day!

So, we got to the plot at a reasonable time today (our first of 2 days off), to see everything has shot up! Its got to be something to do with all the rain we've had recently, but most of our crops are looking really good, full of vigour and growing at a tremendous rate (unfortunately, so are the weeds, but thats another story!! Lol!) The plots arent looking too bad at all really, a few weeds coming up in the paths and a fair number of weed seedlings in the beds (which with the ground being so wet are impossible to remove with the hoe), but as soon as we get a dry enough spell for the topsoil to dry a bit we'll soon have it weed free again! Unfortunately the second visit of the Trafford Allotment Judges (the top judge who comes to check the plots that could be on for a possible certificate) has already happened, so removing the weeds wont make any diference to the judging, but will allow our crops to grow to their full potential! We should find out the judging results on Monday, so fingers crossed that the plots werent too weed infested to negate our earlier hard work in the hopes of getting a certificate!

The garlic is now finally ready for harvest (hopefully tomorrow, if the rain breaks for long enough), the early spuds are also looking about ready too, so we're going to take them tomorrow and plant that bed up with some more leeks!

The sweetcorn / squashes / pumpkin / sunflowers are all growing like mad, looking really good this year! Mind you, Lee thought he'd try and make you think that they were even bigger, so he had me take..........

......... this picture, in the hopes you'd think they were up to 9' tall already! Lol!

Mind you, its not all good, the blight we've been treating against seems to be gaining the upper hand in a couple of beds, this one of early spuds will be coming out tomorrow, along with......

........ this bed of second early spuds! We'll be planting the last of our leeks into these beds once they've been emptied!

The early maincrop spuds however are still fighting the blight, we'll keep treating them with bordeaux mixture and see how they go!

The late main spuds are looking much better, hardly any signs of blight here!

The heavy rain and winds we've had recently have also taken their toll on our hothouse, some of the brackets that we've reused from the old plastic greenhouse (that broke last year and we cannibalised to make the hothouse) have given up, so some emergancy repairs had to be carried out! Fortunately none of the plants were damaged in the collapse!

So, some of the things we spotted today....... the first broccolli crown is beginning to form!

The grapes are fattening up nicely..........

.............. and the first blueberries are now ready!

The brassicas are looking fab..............

............... as are the maincrop onions, these 2 are 4 1/2" diameter, and still swelling! Looks like its going to be a bumper year for a lot of crops!

The Dwarf French Beans are cropping like mad, we've had french beans the last 2 nights, and theres enough on the plants to allow us to freeze a few lb tomorrow!

The turnips and swede are fantastic, another bumper crop from these this year methinks!

The early runner beans have topped the cane supports and have loads of flowers, another possible bumper crop!

The borlotti beans are just topping the canes and beginning to flower, so hopefully these too will be nice and productive!

The Climbing French Beans however are still only just climbing the cane supports, so no idea yet as to what sort of crops we may possibly get!

The new strawberry bed (from seed) has alos come on really well, although we possibly may get a few fruit from it (some of the plants are flowering), but hopefully it will be well established for next year and increase our strawberry yield!

The lavender we grew from seed (in the pots surrounding the ploytunnel) is doing really good, we'll be transplanting some of these into the front beds on plot 1 next year, to supplement our soft fruit planting plans!

Whilst dodging the heavy showers today (inbetween doing the bee inspections) we talked about our soft fruit plans for next year, we've decided that these 4 beds at the front of plot 1 are going to have (from left to right) a new plum tree (underplanted with lavender and foxgloves), a goji berry (underplanted with sage and a few flowers), a redcurrant (underplanted with other herbs) and in the last bed (next to the compost bin) another goji berry (underplanted with flowers!)

So, onto our beekeeping adventure today! Pat and Colin were away today at the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show, so as the weather forecast looked better for today than tomorrow, we decided to get the inspections done! Aswell as inspecting the hives today we decided that as our hives are all now viable, we needed to 'mark' the queens, which makes it easier to spot them and allows you to be sure that the queen hasnt been superceeded by a new queen without your knowledge!

The queens are marked with a dot of colour on their back, the colour changes every year, so the idea is that you can tell how old the queen is from the colour of her mark. This years colour is blue, and last years colour is green! The marks are made with a special paint marker pen, that doesnt smell (which could cause the colony to reject the queen as any smell could mask her pheromones), but in order to hold the queen still - to apply the dot of paint - you have to use a 'crown of thorns'!

A crown of thorns is a queen cage that can be pressed into the honeycomb in order to trap the queen and hold her still for marking!

You have to be careful not to drown the queen, so its a good idea to dab the pen before use (we know of one queen that was suffocated when the paint came out too fast), then apply a dot to her back! This queen is the one from our Nucleus in Apiary 2.

And this queen is the one from Hive 5 (the headbangers!)

Once marked its much easier to spot the queen!

So, the inspections went ok, the bees were a bit feisty (possibly due to the weather and threat of thunder), and one from Hive 4 (Hippy Hive) managed to sting Lee through his gauntlet! (His first sting, hes officially a proper beekeeper now! Lol!) One mistake we did make tho, was to bring the super of frames we extracted into Apiary 1 before we were ready to put it onto a hive! As soon as the bees discovered it, they went beserk, masses of them went to it to remove any remaining honey that was coating the comb, so we had to leave it there until they had finished!

We didnt find any frames of honey fully capped, (although there are some not too far from being capped), so we werent able to harvest any this week (and as all the hives still had space for bringing in honey) nor did we actually need to give the super to any of the hives!

So, fianlly, a couple of pictures of the area thats going to become our new allotment community orchard in the not too distant future!

Currently its being used as a tree nursery, which was set up by Groundworks and is operated by Red Rose Forest, but due to budget changes it hasnt been used much recently, so we applied for permission to take it back, and got the word today! Not only can we have it as a community orchard, but Red Rose will help us with clearing and possibly with some fruit trees! We're going to have a word with a couple of folks from Trafford council about plans and what (if any) support we may be able to get, either through the council or from any grants that we may qualify for!

Tomorrow we're off again, so will be going to the plot and harvesting, so there could be a balance sheet update tomorrow!

Hope your crops are growing well and your harvests are bunper ones! Thanks for reading!

Its a conspiracy!!

2010-07-21T08:55:00.000+01:00

THIS IS HAPPENING RIGHT HERE IN OUR OWN COUNTRY!
We Must Stop This Immediately

Have you noticed that stairs are getting steeper. Groceries are heavier. And, everything is farther away. Yesterday I walked to the corner and I was dumbfounded to discover how long our street had become! And, you know, people are less considerate now, especially the young ones. They speak in whispers all the time! If you ask them to speak up they just keep repeating themselves, endlessly mouthing the same silent message until they're red in the face! What do they think I am, a lip reader?

I also think they are much younger than I was at the same age. On the other hand, people my own age are so much older than I am. I ran into an old friend the other day and she has aged so much that she didn't even recognize me.

I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair this morning, and in doing so, I glanced at my own reflection well, REALLY NOW - even mirrors are not made the way they used to be!

Another thing, everyone drives so fast these days! You're risking life and limb if you happen to pull onto the motor way in front of them. All I can say is, their brakes must wear out awfully fast, the way I see them screech and swerve in my rear view mirror.

Why are the clothes companies so uncivilized these days. Why have they suddenly started labelling a size 10 or 12 dress as 18 or 20? Do they think no one notices? The people who make bathroom scales are pulling the same prank. Do they think I actually 'believe' the number I see on that dial? HA! I would never let myself weigh that much! Just who do these people think they're fooling?

I'd like to call up someone in authority to report what's going on -- but the telephone company is in on the conspiracy too: they've printed the phone books in such small type that no one could ever find a number in there!

All I can do is pass along this warning:

WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!

Unless something drastic happens, pretty soon everyone will have to suffer these awful indignities.

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE SO WE CAN GET THIS CONSPIRACY STOPPED!
PS: I am sending this to you in a larger font size, because something has happened to my computer's fonts - they are smaller than they once were.

Filched from the Grapevine GYO Forum, hope you enjoy!

Balance sheet update - 19th July 2010

2010-07-19T19:26:00.002+01:00

Well, since the hosepipe ban came into force, all it seems to have done around here is rain, its been soo wet that we cant even hoe the weeds at the moment, as all it does is redistribute them around the beds! We've been harvesting courgettes like mad, and plenty of broad beans and peas too, plus a fair number of rasps, with more of all of them coming along nicely!

We're off on Wednesday and Thursday, so I'm hoping that we can get a good weeding session in on wednesday .... if the weather allows us to, then we'll check the bees on thursday (and possibly harvest some more honey from them (as there were plenty of super frames that were partially capped (but not at 90% capped - which is where we need them to be before we can harvest the honey)

Anyhows, only a short post tonight, so on with the balance sheet!

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8

Total Costs £ 374

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 35
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
Lettuce £10
Radish £10
Garlic £15
Strawberries £65
Raspberries £20
Peas £25
Broad Beans £30
Courgettes £35
French Beans £6
Red Onions £10

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 268

So we're now £106 away from breaking even, but with most of the harvests still to start, then its possible we will soon have a positive balance sheet!

Hope your balance sheets are healthy, your crops are growing well and your plots are weed free! Thanks for reading, more updates to follow soon!

Jaring honey!

2010-07-18T23:30:00.002+01:00

Just a quick post as we've just got back from Pat and Colin's, where we've been to jar up the honey we harvested on Thursday!

After seiving it into another tank (to ensure there is nothing but honey to go into the jars) we managed to fill, seal and label up another 28 jars, bringing the total number of jars from 8 super frames to 30! Thats 22 1/2lb of honey that the girls have produced for us so far this year!

Lee mentioned to some of his workmates the other day we'd got our first honey harvest, and took orders for 20 12oz jars, so hes got 20 of them to take to work tomorrow, we're giving our plot neighbours a jar each (to thank them for putting up with the bees on our plot), which (after taking a jar each for ourselves and one for Sarah) leaves another 4 that will be offered for sale to other plotholders on the allotment!

It's quite likely that we will have more super frames to harvest again this week (as there were quite a few that were almost capped), in which case we'll be extracting, filtering and bottling again later this week! Its even possible we may have enough to be able to offer some for sale via the blog, depending on how much demand there is from Lee's workmates and other plotholders!

Anyhows, I'm hoping to get to the plot tomorrow evening for some harvesting and weeding, and possibly there will be a balance sheet update then, but until then, thanks for reading!

Planting Plans 2010

2010-07-17T20:53:00.006+01:00

After spotting a lovely pictoral planting plan on one of the blogs I follow (thanks Steph of the Green Grower blog), I thought I'd have a go at making one of our plots, (as it makes it easier for folks to work out where everything is on the plot and exactly what I'm talking about), which I did using Star Office, then found I couldnt convert it to a jpg format to post here, so ended up having to convert it into an acrobat document and then post it via an acrobat thingymajob to allow it to show up!

Anyhows, its below here (and in the side bar as the more observant will have noticed)and shows plot 2 (which is to the left of plot 1) at first, but if you hit the scroll arrow it will then show Plot1!

I know its fairly basc, but it gives you an idea of where all our crops are, and how the 2 plots fit together (they are adjacent) and how our 5 year crop rotation works with the 5 runs of beds (3 on plot 2 and 2 runs on plot 1), plus exactly where the apiaries are! You can choose to view it full size using the tools that are embedded into the gizmo!

I hope you find it useful to work out where we've got everything and how the pictures all fit together!

Yayyy! First Honey harvest of the year!

2010-07-16T19:04:00.009+01:00

Well, delaying the bee inspections until Thursday was a good idea, not only because it meant all 4 of us could be there (and thus cut the time in half by tackling an apiary for each team of 2), but also because weather wise, wednesday was a washout (thundery and heavy showers every 10 to 30 mins) and thursday, although not ideal (windy and cool, but less rain), was a much nicer day!

Lee and Colin tackled Apiary 2, whilst Pat and I did Apiary 1, its amazing how different each colonies behaviour is, from playful to relaxed, from feisty to aggressive, you quite quickly get an appreciation of thier personality and temperament!

Pat and I started with Hive 1 (formerly known as the Lazy Queen, but now renicknamed 'Psycho' - as the bees stung Sarah 4 times recently, and this week got me once on my inner thigh, que sharp intake of breath!!Mind you, its rumoured that bee stings can be beneficial, a lot of folks claim they ease the pain of arthritis!) Hive 1 was fine, if a bit feisty, a few play cups, and we saw the queen, they are now on 7 frames and filling the super with stores, so much better than they were only a month ago! Hive 2 (nicknamed 'the Incredibles' as the queen is incredibly productive, has masses of bees and is filling supers like mad) was calmer than Hive 1 (no stings!), and there were 8 frames of capped honey, which we removed (gently brushing the bees off before transfering the super frames to a spare super) and put into Pat and Colins car as quickly as we could! On checking the nucleus in Apiary 1, it still has bees in it, along with some stores, so we left them alone as its far too soon for the queen to have emerged as yet!

Lee and Colin started with Hive 4 (now nicknamed the 'Hippy Hive' - as the bees are sooo calm and relaxed they are almost horizontal, they must be stoned on poppy pollen or something!) which is doing fine, a really nice colony, next they looked at Hive 5 (now nicknamed 'Headbangers' as the flying bees kept 'nutting' Lee and Colin!), again this hive is doing well, with some stores almost capped and almost all the frames drawn out! Hive 6 (Stingray) was calmer than the last few weeks, and has some super frames that are almost 90% capped (which is when we can take them) and Hive 3 (nicknamed 'Popodopolis' as the bees keep gumming everything up with propolis) was at about the same temperament and the same position with the supers as Hive 6. The nucleus in Apiary 2 ws also checked, we saw the queen, a beautiful dark coloured lady, and there were eggs present, but not yet capped, so we should be able to tell next week (if there are worker cells present) if she was properly mated and whether the colony should be viable, in which case it will be going to its new home very soon after!

So, we managed to remove 8 supers of capped honey, which should be about 19lb or so, but as we've been asked several timews now, 'Once you have a super of capped honey, how do you convert it into something that is ready to eat (and sell on)?'

Well, as it was our first honey harvest of the year, we decided we'd extract the honey that night, so i managed to take some piccies and will detail the process below for those that are interested!

Obviously the first thing you need is the super frames of capped honey, as you can see here, the bees 'cap' the honeycomb containing the honey stores with a thin capping of wax.

The next thing you need is a way of uncapping the honeycomb, there are many ways of doing it, but for the hobby apiarist the main ones are to either use an uncapping fork (like a steel afro comb that can be used to prise off the caps in small batches, easy to use but very time consuming) or an uncapping knife (either a basic one like we have or a heated one - a lot more expensive).

The next thing you need is a way to get the honey out of the frames once they are uncapped. Most folks use some sort of centrifuge (these can range from cheaper food grade plastic ones, through to 4 frame manual tangential ones - like ours - to radial and electric powered ones (much more expensive)). The one we have is a food grade stainless steel one, and comes with an integral fine mesh filter and a settling tank with a tap!

Looking in from the top the spinner is designed to take 4 super frames at a time for extraction!

So, once you've got the kit, then its time to start! First thing to do is to put down some protection (as it can be a very sticky and messy operation), then standing your frame on a tray (to catch the cappings and the dripping honey) you use the knife (which has been warmed by immersing in very hot water - makes it easier to cut the wax) to gently cut away the capping.

The closer to the cap you can cut, the less mess and the easier it will be for the bees to repair any damage to the super frame when we give it back to them (so they can refill it)!

Almost there now Lee! After each frame is uncapped (on both sides) it is placed into the extractor, ready for spinning!

We all had a frame or two each to uncap, Pat and I chose ours first (so we got the nice flat ones), leaving Lee and Colin to uncap the more awkward shaped super frames! Lol!

So, once 4 frames are uncapped, they go into the extractor........

......... where the honey begins to drip out and run down the sloping base to the holes through the bottom to drip into the seive!

Next you fit the clear plastic lid (you dont have to, but its a good idea if you dont want to have to wash the whole kitchen down!)

Then the extractor is spun up to high speeds, firstly 1 way, then in reverse, then again the one way, then again in reverse, this ensures as much honey as possible is spun clear to drip down through the filter and into the settling tank! Once 1 side of the frames has been spun, then the 4 frames are reversed and the extractor is spun up again in the same way, to remove the honey from the other side of the frames! Time consuming, but ultimately worth it!

Once the honey has been spun out of the frames they look like this, a little damaged from where they've been spun against the mesh of the extractor, but the bees will soon repair it in no time once we give it back to them!

The cappings that were removed are then also seived into the extractor, and after the honey has dripped down into the metal seive (below the centrifuge section) we remove the spinner and wash it, whilst also using a spatual to ensure all the honey within the extractor has passed down into the bottom part! (Then like big kids we fought over who could lick the spatula clean! Lol!)

The integral metal seive catches any dislodged wax and ensures that the honey is not filled with bits of wax and dead bee!

And below the filter...... liquid gold, pure, fresh organic free range honey from our own hives! Generally the honey is then left to 'settle', allowing any air bubbles caused by the spinning extraction process to rise to the top and disperce, but as it was our first harvest of the year we couldnt resist filling a jar each!

The tap on the settling tank allows you to easily bottle the extracted honey, we only did 2 jars yesterday, the rest we are planning on bottling on Sunday (after work) as by them it will have settled and become even clearer than it is now! At this point we shuld have an idea of how much honey we managed to harvest, our estimate is about 18 to 20lb, not a great deal, but as Lee has some of his colleagues queing up to buy it, then we need to get some bottled asap for selling to them!

And finally....... the finished product! Doesnt it look good! And it tastes even better, much nicer than anything you can get from a supermaret (you wouldnt believe the difference in taste), plus you are eating something produced locally and which can have health benefits (particularly for those who suffer with hayfever, its been documented that eating local honey - produced within 30 miles of where you live - can help with hayfever symptoms!). Personally though, I enjoy it for its taste, and the fact that in selling some of the honey on we are then able to reinvest that money in both looking after the bees and in the allotment itself!

Last piccy for today, I pulled into the drive tonight to watch this cheeky chap eating our cherries, he sat there as bold as brass wioth one in his mouth! Methinks the cherry harvest needs to come in NOW!

Hope you enjoyed the post, that it gave you another insight into the mysteries of beekeeping and perhaps answered some questions that you'd always wondered about! Thanks for reading!

We're ont he plto tomorrow night after work, so I'll try and get some update piccies to show you.... along wiht some more harvests of course! Hope your crops are growing well and your plots are looking good!

Rain, rain, glorious rain!

2010-07-14T14:16:00.006+01:00

Well, the first of our 2 days off together this week dawned cloudy, with a weather forecast of heavy showers - possibly thundery! Not the weather really for inspecting the bees (they get very aggitated and aggresive when thunder is around), so after talking to Pat and Colin (Lee saw them walking their dogs past the front of our house whilst I was watering the greenhouse toms and peppers at home), and with the fact that Pat is off to see Hairspray tonight (with Sarah), we decided to put the bee inspections off until tomorrow!

Yesterday we had a fair bit of rain, with more forecast for today, so hoeing on the plot is almost impossible today, and as we need to get a bit of shopping in (plus I want to go and look at another branch of my company nearby), we decided to just pop to the plot, do some harvesting, then process it this afternoon, after shopping!

In addition to whats pictured - 11 stalks of rhubarb (possibly our last harvest for the year as we need to let them rest now), 10 more courgettes (with lots more coming), another 1 1/2lb rasps, another 2lb broad beans, 1lb french beans, 2lb peas, another lettuce, our first 3 turnips (milan purple top) and our first cucumber - we also took another 2lb of strawbs! I didnt get a piccy of them, because it started to rain just after I took this piccy, so we had to load everything into the car!

We didnt need to water the outdoor veg today, thanks to the rain, but we did water and feed in the greenhouses, polytunnel and hothouse! Plenty of toms, peppers, chillies and cucumbers all coming along nicely!

We also got a chance to look at the crops, this golden acre primo cabbage is beginning to hearten up, so hopefully a few weeks and we'll be using home grown cabbages to make our own sauerkraut!

The strawbs we planted from seed, really coming on well!

The late sowing of maincrop carrots are now coming up, as too are the weeds! I'd love to hand weed them, but its probably best to let them alone for a few days to allow the carrots to get established, then take the weeds out when the ground isnt quite so wet!

The late sown french beans are also coming on apace! Just look at the difference 48 hours makes, I can almost see them growing by the minute!

In addition to doing the bee inspections, we're hoping to harvest the garlic tomorrow, if the weather is dry enough, and possibly sow some pak choi or chinese leaf cabbages into that bed, we're also considering taking up a bed of spuds, the one thats been worst hit with blight, its still growing, but it doesnt half look a mess compared with our other spuds, and we've more leeks to go in after the spuds come up, so we'll have to look at what the weather is doing and how long it take us to do the bees inspections!

Hope your crops are growing well, thanks for reading!

Yippeee, rain!! Oh wait........ not on the plot! :(

2010-07-12T21:47:00.002+01:00

Typical, I spend the day in work looking outsde to see a sky that were filled with torrential rain, and get home (30 miles from work) to find that we've only had a light shower at the plot, and there's me thinking I would get away without having to water today! Lol! Ah well, at least having several watering cans make s it a bit quicker!

Well, the harvests of soft fruit are going well, the bees from our apiaries obviously did a good pollinating job, the summer fruiting rasps are absolutely dripping with fruit, took 3lb at the first pick alone! Strawbs are just about still producing, another 8lb or so the other day, but I think they are now coming to the end of their fruiting, there doesnt seem to be much more coming along, except on the new bed we sowed from seed, this one seems to have a few flowers still coming! The blueberries at home are plumping up nicely, and the cherries are ripening too, the peas and beans also giving us a lot, as are (of course) the courgettes!

Our brassicas are looking good, the sprouts and broccolli are bulking up nicely, should be a reasonable crop from them this year (we hope), but the star brassicas at the moment are the cabbages.............

............ These are really coming on well! The savoy type are beginning to heart up, as are some of my fave (Golden Acre Primo)!

The sweetcorn is also looking particularly good, and the underplanting with our pumpkins and squashes is also working well, its adapted from the native american 3 sisters bed system (we did try a 3 sisters a few years ago, but the beans didnt do anything much, so we've not bothered planting them in with the other 2 sisters ever since).

We've even got our first set pumpkin and squashes, with plenty more flowers still present! I cant wait for the plants to fully fill out, they do a great job of smothering any weeds, so a light hoeing is all they ever need, no backbreaking weeding!

Our last sowing of Dwarf French beans are now coming up, you can just about see them in this piccy!

The overwintering onions are bulking up really nicely, I've got a feeling its going to be another good year for onions!

The first sowing of leeks are doing well (apart from ne or two that have been nibbled by our furry friends), and the early runners (on the canes to the right of the leeks) are now setting beans, shouldnt be long till we can harvest our first runners of the year! The borlotti beans (on the canes to the left of the leeks) have also shot up!

The victorian purple podded peas are going to produce a great pea harvest, and the late sowing of broad beans are also going to do really well! The late sown runners (to the left of the broad beans) are also now growing on apace!

The spuds on the other hand are still growing, despite the blight, but as many folks have been telling us of a really poor spud harvest, we're going to leave them in as long as we can, to ensure we get the best possible crops! The ealry mains are relatively blight free (to the left), the late earlies are suffering a bit, but by treating with bordeaux mixture and removing the blighted leaves, we are keeping it somewhat under control...... so far at least!

The late mains (behind Fester - our scarecrow, whos decided to try and help us by watching out for cabbage white butterflies and catching them in his net) arent looking too bad either, the bordeaux mixture seems to be working so far (fingers crossed!)

We've been talking about our plans for next year on the plot, we've a plum tree on plot 1 thats never fruited (we inherrited it with the plot), that we both feel needs to come out, but where its located is rather overshadowed to the north, so we're not sure if we are going to plant another plum there, or whether to plant some other soft fruits instead. The area to the left of apiary 1 (on plot 2) which is currently covered with plastic (from where we peer through the fence to see what the bees are doing) is going to have a step put in and a proper leveling, plus be barked over, possibly with some flowers planted around it. We also want to plant a redcurrant and some goji berries (as we both like them, especially in spicey chicken broth), but as yet we're not sure where they will be going, I think the redcurrant will be going in the bed to the right, at the very front of plot 1, and the goji's may be going into the lavender bed to the front left of plot 1. Lee also would like to plant an almond and possibly some other nut trees (I want a chestnut tree, but they grow too tall for the plot!), but instead of planting them on the plot we may be starting an allotment orchard!

There is a 'tree nursery' that was set up a long time ago by Groundworks and is occassionally used by Red Rose Forest, but as its been untended (and overgrown until we cut it back during the prejudging allotment tidy up 2 weeks ago) and unused, we made the suggestion that the allotment society takes it over and plants it as an orchard! This was well received by all present, and with a friend of ours (Dave, our beekeeping mentor and good friend) having already set up (regenerated) a community orchard at Balmorral Road Allotments, we are hoping that if we can get permission, then Dave may be able to help us with lots of good advice!

If we are able to take it over, then as well as some heritage apple and pear varieties, we are hoping to get a few nut trees in there too! As our concil liason is busy with the allotment judging for the next week or so, we wont know for a while whether its going to be possible to reclaim the tree nursery and develop it as a community orchard, but thats something we are hoping will be possible for the future!

Anyhows, its been a while since I posted a balance sheet, so I thought I'd share the latest update with you!

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28
Scaffolding Boards £100
Watering Cans £8

Total Costs £ 374

The plot costs have gone up a bit recently, as Lee got the chance to buy 20 scaffolding boards for £100, so as we have some beds with poor edging (where the wood has had it), we decided to buy enough to sort out a few beds and rebuild the retaining wall on the rhubarb patch on Plot 2! Plus with the hosepipe ban we had to get another 2 watering cans to let 2 of us water at the same time with 2 cans each, to cut down the number of trips back and forth to the taps!Y

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 25
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
Lettuce £10
Radish £10
Garlic £15
Strawberries £60
Raspberries £10
Peas £15
Broad Beans £20
Courgettes £25
French Beans £1
Red Onions £10

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 208

So we're now £166 away from breaking even, but with most of the harvests still to start, then its possible we will soon have a positive balance sheet! There should be a healthy harvest either tomorrow (assuming Im home from work early enough to get it) or on our days off (wednesday and thursday) as we've rasps, broad beans, salad, peas, french beans and a few other things that we may take out this week, so I'll try and get another balance sheet up in the next few days!

Hope your balance sheet is looking good, and that your crops are growing on well and harvesting a plenty!

More updates soon, thanks for reading!

Wildlife locally on the allotments!

2010-07-11T20:30:00.010+01:00

As we are in a fairly rural location here (on the very edge of Manchester and Cheshire, with the Cheshire border only 1/2 mile from our house, and with a 5 mile journey from Partington - down country lanes - to any form of metropolitan civilization), we are fortunate to have a lot of wildlife locally, so as I drove onto the allotment site today (after work to meet up with Lee for some weeding, hoeing and watering) and was met with the sight of this fine fellow, I thought perhaps it was time to do a blog entry showing some of the wildlife I've managed to capture with my trusty camera on the plot!

Quite often as you round the corner at the bottom of the site on the road that runs round the site you will catch sight of the local rabbits, usually youngsters, but as you drive up towards them, then they usually run off and leave the site! This one today allowed me to get close enough to take this piccy with my 300mm telephoto zoom lens before it decided to run around the corner, as I followed I got closer, and when it stopped in a bed (in a plot at the top), I managed to get the following picture!

They are beautiful creatures, but they can cause havoc with our crops, so generally we do try and discourage them (although they do taste nice in the pot - if you can get one)! They do face a lot of problems locally, there is a pair of buzzards living within 1/2 mile of the allotments, plus a fox that regularly visits the plot (we've not seen him, but his runs are visible, and a couple of other plotholders have seen him, a young male) and these do seem to be doing well with keeping the rabbit numbers under control!

This little fellow is one of a family of squirrels that live in the woods surrounding the allotment site, they can be a bit of a problem, eating sweetcorn, burying acorns (that sprout in the middle of our beds!) and pinching strawberries (Lee watched one last week sit and eat one on Pat and Colins Plot), but generally they dont cause too many big problems for us! Mind you, HFW does say they go well on a BBQ! Lol!

Other mammals we have also seen Hedgehogs (there were 5 hibernating in one plots compost heap one year, as you can see in this piccy), fieldmice and I'm sure the other day I saw a Shrew!

We also have a colony of Pipistrel Bats living nearby (in a cave off the side of the Manchester Ship Canal that runs just to the north of Partington), which we often see in an evening, flying round the houses!

The local birdlife is also proliffic, a pair of Blackbirds nested in the alcove of our shed earlier this year.

They hatched 5 chicks........

....... who all fledged succesfully! The nest is still in the shed alcove, though is no longer being used!

Other birds we are aware of living on the plot, wood pidgeons, magpies, robins, blue tits and great tits, sparrows, jays, peregrines, buzzards, blackbirds, ravens, crows, barn owls, and a heron who lives locally too! There are also seasonal visitors such as the swifts, goldcrests and others besides! I need to spend some more time with my telephoto lens on the plot to catch some piccies of some of these feathered visitors, but that will come with time!

We also have both frogs and toads on the site, both of which use our pond for spawning, and are regularly seen around the plot!

All you have to do is turn over something and out jumps a toad!

Or look into the undergrowth, and there lurks a frog!

Last year we also saw a small lizard at the site cabin, no idea what species, but if I see it again I'll be sure to get a picture!

There's also lots of insect life around, especially if you take the time to have a look, this orb spider was busy making its web when we noticed it!

Hover fly, there's lots of polintating insects on the plots, as well as our honey bees!

Plenty of butterflies too, I believe this one is a Monarch, which is quite far north for the breed, though one or two types (cabbage whites in particular) we could do without!

There's plenty of other fauna on the plots too, though one type we could definitely bear to see less of is the common garden slugs and snails!

Locally we've also got plenty of fields, the Dunham Massey NT Hall and plenty of nature in all its guises, sometime in the future I may get round to taking some piccies locally and do a future blog on it!

Anyhows, I hope you like the piccies and get more of a feel for the beauty of the natural world we have around us hereabouts!

Hot, humid, working long hours and a hosepipe ban!

2010-07-10T21:21:00.004+01:00

Well, after one of the driest springs on record, we here in the North West now have a hosepipe ban in place. Normally this wouldnt be too much of a problem, as allotments and food crops are usually exempt, but this time allotments are included, so we arent allowed to connect the hose to the taps to water the crops! We can however water as much as we like using watering cans, so today on his way home Lee called into B&Q and bought 2 of their last ones to join the 2 we already have on the plot, so 2 of us can water with 2 cans each at a time! We are going to leave them on display so that folks know that we are watering by hand and not using the hosepipe, I definitely dont want anyone trying to claim that the reason our crops are looking good is because we are watering with a hosepipe!

With the 2 full sized allotments next to each other, and only across the road from a tap, we are better placed than some of the plotholders, but even so, with all our fruit n veg and a serious lack of rainfall, we have a mammoth task on our hands to water it all!

Fortunately with being off work last week we did water well every day, so there should be a decent level of water in the subsoil, which should help, but now we have to water everything by hand!

For a bed like the sweetcorn and squashes, this means each square metre of bed needs a full watering can every week, and with this expanse of bed, thats a lot of watering cans and trips back and forth to the tap!

Watering the plot with a hosepipe takes about 1 hr 20 mins for 1 person, watering the plot by hand with watering cans will take approximately 8 hours, so we've devised a plan!

Every day we will spend some time on the plot watering, the greenhouses, polytunnel, hothouse, seedlings and strawbs will all be watered every day, along with anything that looks like its in desperate need of a drink, but other than that we are going to concentrate out efforts on 1 run of beds a day, so each run of beds will be watered every 5 days on average, with a good soaking from the 2 of us!

We tried it out tonight, and with 2 of us working with 2 watering cans each, it took us 1hr 30 mins to do the greenhouses, polytunnel, hothouse, seedlings, strawbs and the brassica run at the right hand side of plot 1!

Tomorrow all the sweetcorn and squashes will get a good drink, and as we finish work a bit earlier on a Sunday, we should be able to get an hour or two's hoeing and weeding in too!

Hope the hosepipe ban isnt affecting you, that your crops arent too thirsty and that everything (except the weeds) is growing well!