The invalid is recovering, the weather is hot and the plants are growing!

Apologies for the lack of recent updates, but trying to stay on top of the 2 plots, up to date with bee inspections and look after Lee is hard going! Lee's ankle is slowly improving, its still badly bruised, and painful, but at least hes able to do without the crutches most of the time now!

So, as you can see from the piccies, our days off this week dawned hot and sunny, so we were early to the plot, to tackle the weeds that the recent rain had germinated! We also needed to cut back the comfrey from the middle of plot 2, as its started to fall over now, so a haircut (and pop the cuttings into a sealed barrel to rot down to make comfrey tea - a great if foul smelling tomato feed)

Plot 1 had 3 beds at the front that needed sorting out, the big onion bed behind the hothouse to sort and a fair bit of weeding all over!

I started by weeding the autumn sown onion sets, when I started you could hardly see the onions, but now they are nice n clear (if a bit floppy)! As you can see behind, the lettuce, radish and greenhouse are all doing well!

Another task that needed to be done was to plant out our first batch of leeks, only 110 of them (perhaps I went a bit overboard with the seeds! lol!)

Next was the sweetcorn squash beds to hoe, lots of small weed seedlings popping their heads up, with some timely hoeing it should be able to keep them under control!

Next jobs were 2 of the 3 beds at the front of plot 1, as you can see here, the first of them has now got poppies and foxgloves planted in it! The bed closest the camera is the second courgette bed, which now also has 5 red salad bowl lettuce in it!

The other larger bed was where we out the lavender we got cheap last year, and also contained 'volunteer' garlic, 4 bulbs that we missed last year (and grew this year!) Its now cleared and the lavender has had a nice haircut, with 3 more courgette and some 'volunteer' celery planted behind it!

The garlic/onion bed in the middle of the plots is also filled with 'volunteer' crops, this time foxgloves, poppies and spuds, the foxgloves and poppy were carefully moved today, the spuds we harvested a couple of plants, which have given us enough new spuds for tea tonight!

We seem to have more volunteer crops that we've ever had before, not sure why, but the photo below shows the 'volunteer' garlic, a welcome bonus crop!

We've also begun harvesting the first strawbs, raddish and lettuce, all of which are tasty, but nothing compares with the taste of fresh strawbs from the plot! (Especially if they are eaten on the top of a scone with jam and clotted cream on it!)

Other crops that are growing well............ the first sowing of cabbages is looking great under its protective netting! We've got a lot of brassicas growing, 60+ cabbages, 60+ broccolli, 27 sprouts and a few caulies, hopefully this year we'll be able to preserve some by making our own sauerkraut and pickled cabbage!

Yup, brassicas a plenty growing away nicely!

The spuds are growing well too, there's been a couple of blight alerts, with full 'Smiths' periods recently, but (fingers crossed) so far we've been lucky, lets hope that this year the blight gives us a miss! Beyond the spuds you can also see the broad beans (2nd sowing) and the peas, both of which are doing well!

The french beans inside their protective cage, surrounded by peas, all of which seem to be doing really well!

As can be seen here, Lee has had to take it easy with his poorly ankle, sitting with it raised whenever it gives him grief! Hopefully it wont be too long until hes back to full fitness!

I managed to catch this piccy of one of our bees at the watering station we set up for them at the front of plot 1, the bees are doing well, 7 hives all producing brood and a couple already have 3 supers of uncapped honey! Hopefully we'll be able to take some to extract in the next week or so!

Hope your plots are growing well, the weeds arent proving to be too much of a problem and the harvests are starting!

More updates soon, we're on holiday in a weeks time, so should be able to get the plot all spick n span for the judging, and Ill share some piccies of what we've been up to then!

Oh No! Lee has an injury - Suzanne has to fly solo with the plots!

I was in work yesterday when I got a phone call from Lee's boss, hed fell on a customers uneven steps, and had to go to hospital!

As sooon as I could I went to get him, to find him on crutches with a very painfull and swollen ankle. He had it xrayed, but the results were inconclusive, so hes been put on crutches, told to rest it for 24 hours, then he has to try and exercise it, but if it doesnt get any better within a week hes to return to casualty for further xrays!

So, my poor hubby! He's in pain, and totally unable to drive, walk unaided or do anything, which means I'm going to be busy for the next few weeks!

Aswell as nursing the invalid (yup, you know hes gonna play on it dont you!), I've still got my full time job (which is an hour away each way), plus walking our boisterous (and in season) dog, Bella (a 7 1/2 stone Great Dane x Alsatian) who likes to walk 3 miles a day, plus do the weekly bee inspections with Pat and Colin and water, weed and generally look after 2 full size allotments!

This is gonna be fun!!

I'll be regularly taking piccies of the plots as they grow, but please bear with me if Im a little lax with posting, with everything else to do it may become a bit sporadic until Lee is back on his feet!

Fortunately its only 2 weeks til we get 2 weeks holidays, so hopefully I'll be able to get on top of things then!

Hope your crops n plots are doing well, and that you dont face any unforseen problems or injuries!

Another 2 long days on the plot!!

2 hot and sunny days, 2 days off, 2 days spent on the plot! On the wednesday we inspected the beehives with Pat and Colin, stopping for a brew and lunch in the glorious sunshine! After that we did some weeding and watering, getting ready for a hard day on the thursday, clearing another 2 beds and planting with broccolli!

Day 2 saw us tackling these 2 beds on Plot2, last year we had courgettes in them, but this year we are using them for overflow brassicas, specifically some of the broccolli!




Once cleared we rotovated and then firmed up the soil by close stepping over it for the brassicas.

Next holes were dug, limed, chicken manured and filled with compost and firmed in, then weed control fabric was laid, holes cut through it and 40 broccolli (4 varieties) planted, then covered with debris netting held up by waste piping (with bamboo canes bracing them so they stand up straight), this combination not only keeps the cabbage whites and cabbage root fly off, but also reduces the weeding and the watering by keeping the soil more moist. The only drawback is that its a haven for slugs, so measures have to be taken to control them in some way!

So, at the end of the day the plot is beginning to look really good!

The spuds are growing well, the squash and sweetcorn seem to be thriving, and most of the other crops are looking good!

Plot 1 is also coming on well, there's 2 beds left to clear on here, small ones at the front, one for curly kale and the other for our 2nd batch of courgettes!

The new compost bins are getting full already, and the path area is a lot tidier and easier to traverse than its ever been before!

The brassica beds netted and growing well, hopefully we'll have some good crops from here this year!

Plot 1, coming along nicely

Plot 2 panoram towards plot1, growing nicely!

1 thing we noticed today was this psychedellic honey bee, it had been gathering pollen from one of the poppies on Pat and Colins plot, and was covered in purple pollen, even more noticeable on the second pictur (click on the piccy for a bigger view!)

So, things are going ok, crops growing well, only 4 small beds left to clear and plant up!

Hope your plot is clear, your crops are in and growing, and your harvests are set to be huge ones!

More updates soon!

So, what we got growing this year?

Previously I've kept a Balance Sheet on the blog, and I'm hoping to do the same again this year, but as we've only harvested a few things so far this year (the first few pods of peas, a few raddish, some rhubarb, a few 'volunteer' spuds and some fartichokes) I thought I'd start out with a list of what we are growing, then list the costs for the year first!

Vegetable Balance Sheet 2010

So, currently growing we have.........

Herbs

Parsley, Marjoram, Chamonile, Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbenna, Coriander, Basil, Rosemary, Mint, Chives, Sage, Thyme, Lavender and Peppermint.

Fruit

6 crowns rhubarb, 85 Raspberry Canes (in fedge) , 2 pear trees, 3 eating apple trees, 3 cooking apple trees, 1 cherry tree, 1 grapevine (trained up the front of the shed, we've plans to build an arbour type extension to support it a bit better, hopefully this year), 300 strawberry plants, 200 in the plot, 100 in planters!

Maincrops

Garlic 3 varieties (Looking fab!) 150 plants

Onions

140 Sturon from set, 140 Red Barron from set (overwintered), 120 White onions from set , 60 spring onions (so far) Total 400 maincrop onions!

Leeks

Musselburgh, 60 seedlings growing away nicely to be planted once the first early spuds are out!

Spuds

30 first earlies , 30 second earlies, 30 early main and 30 late maincrops! Total 120 tubers!

Sweet Potatoes, 3 tubs full, 9 plantlets in total!

Brassicas

21 brussel sprouts (4 varieties), 36 broccolli (5 varieties) 20 caulies / romanesco broccolli, 80 cabbages (6 varieties, golden acre primo, red drumhead and greyhouse)

Beans n Legumes

Broad Beans 60 plants (3 varieties)

Runner Beans 48 growing, 2 varieties!

Borlotti beans, 26 planted!

French Beans 50 plants of 5 varieties!

French Climbing Beans 24 growing!

Peas

2 x 10' rows Klevedon (approx 120), 1 x 10' row Twinkle (approx 40), 1 x 6' row Mange Tout (approx 30)!

Cucurbits

Courgettes 13 plants (4 varieties)

Cucumbers Marketmore x2

Roots

Jerusalem Artichokes, 1 bed full!

2 x 10' rows Swedes (2 variety, approx 40), 2 x 10' rows Turnips (2 variety, approx 60), 3 10' rows parsnips (3 variety, approx 60), 10 x 10' rows carrots (5 variety, approx 200)

Sweetcorn

150 plantlets of 3 varieties in total

Squashes / Pumpkins

41 plants from 8 varieties

Celery

20 plants (overwintered) Lathom self blanching (for seed to make celery salt) + 60 seedlings planted on the plot!

Salad

25 beetroot seedlings, 12 lettuce salad bowl, 20 lettuce little gem, 8 lettuce iceberg.

Radish, 4 varieties, interplanted with parsnips + 2 x 8' rows!

Tomatoes

38 in the 3 greenhouses, 18 in the polytunnel, 36 outdoor toms in the back yard, 12 varieties!

Peppers

8 on the plot in greenhouses, 8 planted up into pots in the back yard greenhouse

Chillies

7 plants of 7 varieties in total!

Aubergines
5 plants, 3 varieties!

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

Total Costs £ 238

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 25
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £5

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 34

So the veg plot has currently left us £ 204 out of pocket as I write, but with none of the harvests yet in, we should easily break even and possibly surpass our £2000 profit that we've had from each of the past few years!

Beekeeping Balance Sheet

Between the 4 of us (Pat and Colin - our fellow beekeepers on Moss View - and ourselves) we've once again spent a fair amount of money on the bees again this year, setting up our second apiary cost over £200 in materials, buying another 5 hives (and frames and foundation) and then making stands for them and building the 4 nucleus boxes (to home the divisions from the existing hives) has cost again close to another £1000, bringing the total spend to well over £3000 in the past 2 years, but with 6 hives and 2 nucleii now on the plot we are poised to start reclaiming some of the outlay soon, though it could well take us another 18 months or so before we break even!

Last years total honey harvest was of 4 frames of capped honey, yielding abut 8lb of honey which we shared between ourselves (and gave to family and friends). This year we will be helping other beekeepers by selling on the divisions we get (above the 6 hives that we wish to keep for ourselves), which will probably be sold (once we are sure there are viable laying queens present in each nuc), then if we have a reasonable year we could get between 20lb and 80lb of honey per hive, so its possible that we'll harvest between 120lb and 500lb of honey this year, which will be sold to help pay for the bees and thier upkeep!

We will also be using some of the money from the sales of honey to donate to a separate projects fund for the allotment association, in the hopes we can use this money to give something back to the allotments for allowing us to have the bees on there!

So, our Beekeeping Balance Sheet is certainly deeply in the red at the moment, but as we took up beekeeping as a hobby (to help protect the honeybee that is facing problems in the uk and to increase our range of organic activities on the plots), then thats fine by us all! We arent beekeeping for profit, its a hobby not a business after all!

Hope your cropping plans are going well, that your plants are planted and happy, and your harvests are bumper ones!

We're off for the next 2 days, and will be on the plot for them both, so more updates and piccies to follow soon!

2 Long Hard Days on the plot - 26-27th May 2010

Day 1 - Wednesday 26th May 2010

Well, after finding ourselves behind with the plot (due to the poor weather this winter and the late frosts) we decided that we'd have a big push at getting it sorted on our days off this week, so we were up early and onto the plot at 8am!

We started with 4 brassica beds still to clear and plant up (and lots of seedlings ready to go out), the bean bed needing finishing (and planting up with the 42 bean plants we'd got growing) and the sweetcorn beds needing completely digging over and clearing ready for the 160 sweetcorn and 41 squash/pumpkin plants that were desperate to go out!

Lee started clearing the beds, whilst I watered, then as each bed was cleared, I rotovated it and prepped it for the brassicas, diggin out a small patch of earth to fill with lime, chicken manure and compost (to ensure the brassicas are safe from any chance of clubroot). Once this was done I laid down weed control fabric and cut holes to plant the seedlings through, 24 sprout plants, 26 broccolli and another 20 cabbages, the whole lot then being protected by debris netting draped over piping to keep the rabbits and cabbage white butterflies at bay!

As you can see, there were a few seedlings to plant out today, the brassicas are on the floor, and the beans in the boot of Lee's Panda!!

Once planted and protected, the brassicas seemed to be happy in the ground, safe and secure under the netting!

As you can see, there's still a bed and a half to plant up with the rest of the brassica seedlings, so hopefully they will be going in this coming week! We finished up having to dodge the showers all day, and the weather was unseasonably cold, so we decided only to do inspections on one of the apiaries (the one with 2 hives and a nuc in it), before we called it a day at 6pm, when we went home to a BBQ eith Pat and Colin (fortunately it cleared up just in time!)

Day 2 - Thursday 27th May 2010

The weather forecast for today was for improving conditions, with some sun and less of a chance of showers by lunchtime, so we got to the plot for 930am today, we had a Committee meeting to attend, which took us through to 12ish, then we started in earnest!

The 3 large overgrown beds to the left of plot 2 were our main target today, although we still had the french beans to get in and apiary 2 to inspect (4 hives and a nuc), we were determined to get them cleared, dug, rotovated and planted up with the 41 pumpkins/squash and 160 sweetcorn that were desperate to go in!

The 3 beds that we were putting these in were last years brassica beds, and hadnt been touched at all this year, so were full of weeds - at up to 18" high) and still very compacted from last year, so they all needed to be dug, then rotovated, not an easy task when they each measure 9' wide and over 20' long!
Doesnt look like much when its bunched together, but these plants need a large area, the pumpkin/squash provide good ground cover, suppressing the weeds, and the sweetcorn grow above them, giving 2 crops from one space!

In an epic feat of endurance Lee managed to dig all 3 beds (almost 600 square feet of ground - 1/3rd of the growing space on plot 2!), clearing 20 barrowfulls of weeds and filling 2 compost bins, virtually without a break (apart from when we did the inspection of the 4 hives and nuc in apiary 2), starting at 12ish and finishing at 8pm, when I commenced rotovating it and then planting it!

I managed to plant all 41 of the pumpkin/squashes, and 1 bed of the sweetcorn whilst Lee was planting the french beans out thru weed control fabric (in the bed I'd prepped for him), but at 1035pm we had to admit defeat and go home as it was by then too dark to continue planting!

I returned after work the next day and finished planting the sweetcorn and took these piccies!

The French Beans, safe from rabbits in their enclosure, and surrounded by peas!

The sweetcorn/squash/pumpkin beds, cleared, planted and growing well!

So, after a mammoth couple of days, we are now in a much better position, with only 6 small beds left to clear and plant up, plus a couple of already cleared beds ready for sowing into this week!
Hope you're growing year is off to a good start!

More updates to follow this week!

20th May 2010 - A 'wannabe' polytunnel!

Ok, piccies and update from last weeks 2 days on the plot!

As we lost all our outdoor tomatoes last year to blight (the damp british summer stuck again!), we decided that although we have 3 greenhouses (2 on the plot and 1 in the back yard at home), we still wanted more protected space to grow toms and chillies/peppers/aubergines in, safer from the ravages of blight! The chillies/peppers and aubergines have gone into the 'hothouse' we constructed last week, so all that was left to find a home for was the rest of the toms that Lee planted ('they wont all germinate, will they?) and that we havent been able to fit nto the greenhouses or the back yard!

Although we'd love a 'proper' polytunnel (the bigger the better), they arent allowed on our allotment site, so after successfully seeking permission, we got ourselves this 3.5m x 2.2m x 2m plastic ploytunnel! Its easily big enough for me to stand up in, and holds another 16 tomato plants around the sides and back (I wanted to put a further row up the middle, but Lee was worried we'd get lost in the jungle like foliage if we did that!) Around the outside (on the rain flap and to aid in holding it down) we put large pots of lavender and lemongrass, as its located next to the second apiary the bees should find the lavender of use, plus it looks and smells divine when in flower!

The area we chose to put the ploytunnel in is the last uncleared area of plot 1, the only space we arent already using for growing (or keeping bees!), and is where the compost bins have been for the last 2 years (so there's some lovely soil thereabouts!), so our first job was to move these to the walkway at the right hand side of the plot!

The 3 new compost bins fit nicely on this path, and also have the benefit of looking a lot neater (and being more out of sight)!

So, as can be seen from the front of plot 2, we've got the beanery (peas and all the beans) in this row of beds, with the hothouse behind, and the polytunnel beyond that, next to the apiary and in the most sheltered area of the plot!

We've grown 3 types of lavender from seed this year, and this has been planted in the large planters along the rainflaps surrounding the polytunnel!

Inside the ploytunnel we've laid down weed control fabric, then planted the toms in 'ring culture' thru the weed control fabric, supporting them with string from the frame of the polytunnel to direct their growth upwards!

Thought I'd also include a couple of piccies of the pepper 'hothouse' that we constructed from the frame of the plastic walk-in greenhouse (the brackets and cover were damaged beyond repair this past winter)! Its 9' long, 4' tall and 4' wide, and again we've covered the ground with a couple of layers of weed control fabric.

We've planted peppers, chillies and aubergines through this using the 'ring culture' method, lets see if growing away from the shade of the tomatoes in the greenhouses gives us better crops in here!

So, things are beginning to take shape on the plot, we've lots of plants ready to plant out this week (41 squash and pumpkin, 141 sweetcorn, 24 sprouts, and a lot of cabbage, broccolli, cauli and assorted other brassicas), all hardening off in the back yard, so we face a big job to clear the last 4 brassica beds and the 6 pumpkin/sweetcorn beds, which we are hoping to make big inroads on this week, weather and bees permitting!

I hope you're planting and clearing is going well, and that you havent fallen behind like we have thanks to the poor winter weather and the late frosts!

More updates to follow soon!

17th May 2010 - Update, piccies & More Bees!!

Well, as promised, some pictures of the plots and an update! Plot 1 isnt looking too bad, as you can see in the picture! The left hand beds are cleared and planted, and the right hand ones are over halfway done, with courgettes under the poly cloches and cabbages under the green debris netting! We've 4 brassica beds (behind the greenhouse) and the 2 small beds (at the front) left to clear, plus a bit more to plant up, then move the compost bins from the rear of the plot and a plastic walk in temporary polytunnel is going there (to take the rest of the toms that Lee didnt think would germinate!), just behind the clear plastic 'short' hothouse that you can see behind the canes (towards the back) that was made from the frame of the old plastic walk in greenhouse that 'died' this winter!

Plot 2 on the other hand is a bit more of a work in progress! The greenhouse is planted up (see next piccy), with a salad bed next to it, then the onions and garlic, and the central beds are mainly planed with the spuds for this year (and fartichokes in their usual position behind the scarecrow of course!), but the first 2 beds (for late maincrop spuds) and the beds to the left (for sweetcorn n squash n pumpkins) are still to be cleared and planted!

We've planted the greenhouses with ring culture this year, and covered the flooring with weed control fabric, in the hopes that it will keep the weeds in their more managebale and delay any chances of blight occuring! We also took the decision not to plant peppers and aubergines with the toms, and have built them a hot house (I'll get a piccy of it soon for you!)

The strawberrys we moved this year, planting up the runners into pots and completely clearing the ground, in the hopes this will make the weeds easier to control and give us a better crop! Judging from the flowers they are producing, we may do ok with strawbs this year!

The garlic once again seems to be growing really well, tho we have had some problems with the first batch of onion sets, only about half of them grew this year, hence its a bit patchy, but we planted some spring sown sets where there were gaps, so hopefully all is not yet lost!

Through the spring Lee and Colin sorted the approach to our first apiary (on plot 2) and built some really neat steps, making it not only nicer to look at, but also much safer!

We've also finished the new apairy (number 2) which is located in the bottom right corner of plot 1! After splitting the 3 hives into 7 last week we put the 4 new nucleii into apiary 2.

We thought that was going to be it in terms of new colonies for at least a month (whilst they got themselves established), but Sunday afternoon (whilst I was merrily sowing seeds) there was a tremendous buzzing from apiary 1, and as I watched a swarm came out of hive 3 and settled in the trees to the right of plot 1! Fortunately we were able to capture the bees and rehome them in one of the nucleus boxes that Lee built this winter. On checking we did find a queen cell in hive 3 (along with enough bees for it to hopefully become a viable colony once the queen has been mated) which we must have missed when we inspected them on Thursday!

Lee went to the plot to water today, only to see a swarm of bees from outside our allotment make their way into the same trees as the swarm settled in yesterday!

Fortunately we were again able to capture this swarm and house it in another nuc box. On checking we are absolutely certain that this swarm has not come from any of our hives or nucleii, so it must be a swarm from another apiary or local beekeeper! (we are aware that there are beehives at a farm less than a mile away, perhaps thats where they have come from!) It seems strange to us both that we had a swarm of bees just turn up on the plot, free bees from somewhere else, but we're not looking a gift horse in the mouth and are hoping that they settle and stay with us! Perhaps word has gotten out amongst the bees locally that our apiary is a nice place to live! lol!

This brings our total number of colonies now to 9, the 3 that overwintered, 4 divisions from them, 1 swarm from hive 3 and another swarm of unknown origins! We are going to keep our original 3 colonies, plus the swarm from hive 3 and 2 more of the colonies, the others (plus any further divisions we get this year) will be sold to local beekeepers to help them recover from the losses over the winter that many suffered!

Hope you like the piccies, more updates to foollow soon!

2010 first update!

Well, its been a while since I last updated the blog, sorry about that, we've been pretty busy!

My bad back has been ok thru the winter, but the sciatica is still there, I just gotta learn not to overdo it and to ask for help when lifting rather than just struggling on like I normally do!

Our plans to get chickens have taken a back seat at the moment, we were saving up to get a hen house and run built in the back yard, and were nearing the target we'd set ourselves when unfortunately we had a big bill come in to get one of the cars thru its MOT, so the money had to be used to keep it on the road! How I wish we could kiss goodbye to the rat race and start living an eco friendly lifestyle in a self build earth sheltered earth house, growing our own crops, raising our own animals and living off grid, but until we can do that I'm afraid we'll have to stick in the workforce and pay our way!

The plots are coming along nicely, both the greenhouses are fully planted up, and over half of the beds have been cleared and planted up, with a further 1000 seeds planted at home ready to be planted out in the next few weeks!We've a pair of blackbirds nesting in the lean to area of our shed, with 5 chicks that are already growing feathers and getting big, and the tadpoles in the pond are growing nicely!

All 3 of our beehives survived through the harshest winter around here for many a year (temperatures were down to -19C during the worst of the nighttime weather), and after we had a DEFRA inspection today, we were pleased to find that we had enough queen cells to be able to split the 3 hives into 7, filling the 4 new hives (3 of which we bought for yule prezzies to each other and one that Pat and Colin bought) with nucleus's (nucleii?) of 3 to 5 frames each with 4 to 6 queen cells in each hive! These divisions were taken in order to stop the colonies in our first apiary from swarming by removing the pressure on the very full hives, and the 4 new colonies were moved into our larger second apiary (that we built with Pat and Colin this past winter) on plot 1.

All in all things are going well on the allotments, the first flowers are showing on the tomato plants, the broad beans and peas are flowering nicely, the garlic and onions are growing well, the rhubarb is going really well (and its verry tasty too!) and the early spuds are beginning to show above ground!

All we need now is to finish clearing the last 14 beds and plant them up, weed and rebark up the paths, then move the compost bins from the back of plot 1 to the side, in order to fit in a new 3mx2m walk in temporary walk in greenhouse/polytunnel.

Hope your growing season is off to a good start!

Hoping to get some piccies of the plot ready for posting in the very near future, lookout for more regular updates soon!

Getting Chooks - a warning about an ebay seller!

Hi Guys!

I just wanted to warn you about a chicken coop supplier and his apparent methods of trying to sell his products for higher prices than he lists them for!

We recently took the decision to get ourselves a chook house and run for xmas, and found the perfect one on ebay, winning the 2nd auction we bid on. Great news, but only the start of a saga which has left us both deflated and the prospect of getting chooks has now lost some of its shine!

A week later after hearing nothing we emailed the seller, to be told they were having delivery problems, as their courier wouldnt deliver as the item was 10cm too big (hmm, not really my problem, but more a case of it was going to cost him more for delivery than he had allowed, which I also offered to pay half of any difference if he used another courier), but his son was going to Scotland and would deliver it sometime on the Tuesday, great we replied, one of us will be in and have a brew n mince pies waiting!

Tuesday I finished work early (I was owed some hours back) to go and relieve Lee so he could go to work on time, then at 8pm we got an email saying the van had been broken into and the dashboard damaged, so it wouldnt be coming, and he didnt know when it would arrive.

I replied, thats ok, as long as we get it in the not too distant future, along with a list of dates and times when we would be in.

Next morning I got an email saying sorry for messing you around, I've cancelled your order and refunded your money as I dont know when it will be possible to deliver. I replied saying that we didnt want to cancel, and that we hadnt agreed to cancel, that we wanted the goods specified at the price we won the auction for, and if the delivery was such a problem, then he should immediately remove all of the other 57 of the same items (that were at higher prices) that he was still selling on ebay that were with delivery (these have now been ammended to state that only local delivery is available).

He then emailed us back saying he didnt need difficult customers, and that if we wanted it we could collect, as that was the only way we would get one from him. I replied that as we both work full time and have small cars it wasnt possible, hence the reason we had bought from someone on ebay who said they were able to deliver.

And since then I've heard nothing more from him!

He has been reported to ebay, negative feedback has been left and has also been reported to Trading Standards, who are looking into a 'loss of bargain' claim for me (potentially he could be liable for the difference between what he was supposed to sell the item to me for and what I would have to pay to get an equivalent item from another seller).

Thanks to this guys lack of customer service we are now both very disappointed and upset, with our only xmas prezzie to each other now no longer being delivered, all because it appears he doesnt want to sell to us because we won his auction and he cannot deliver for the price that was agreed!

Xmas is now ruined and our hopes of getting chooks in the next few weeks are sadly disappointed!

Please, please, please spread the word, feel free to post it to your blogs and other forums to get the word out there about his poor customer service!

Now the harvest is nearing its end, but the new growing year begins anew!

Now is the time to begin clearing the plot and to plant the overwintering crops for spring harvests, and so we've got Garlic and Onion sets, broad beans and overwintering peas ready to go in, along with some winter salad to go into the greenhouses, spring onions and spring cabbages! Lee has been doing a great job of clearing and mucking the beds ready for next year! My bad back has precluded me from helping him, but as it continues to improve with the effects of the accupuncture I am hoping to be fully fit again in the not too distant future!

Still coming are more of the autumn raspberries, leeks, carrots, parsnips, more squashes and pumpkins, broccolli, cabbages and sprouts, plus some more sweet potatoes! There's still a few tomatoes, chillies and peppers growing on, we'll see how many more ripen before the first frosts, but we've had a reasonable harvest from them this year and have 50+ 1 1/2lb bags of tomato pasta sauce in the freezer to see us through till next year!

Blight has hit us hard this year, the spud harvests have been reasonable, but not quite as good as we'd hoped, however, we should be ok for spuds until February!

Anyhows, onto the balance sheet!

Total Costs 2009

Rent + subs for 2 plots £85
Debris Netting £70
Seed Spuds £20
Compost £20
Seed Compost £5
Seeds £20
Plant feeder / feed £12
Growbags (4 for £5) £15
2 Apple trees £30
Herbs and Flowers (for underplanting 3 beds of fruit trees) £40

Total costs so far £317

Harvests 2009

Rhubarb (£1 a stalk in Sainsburys) £50
Spring Onions (£0.99 a bunch for organic) £20
Lettuces £15
Radish £10
Peas £25
Broad Beans £90
French Beans £55
Runner Beans £90
Cabbages £35
Cucumber £20
Courgettes £105
Marrows £10
Broccolli £40
Caulieflower £16
Turnip £18
Strawberries £50
Raspberries £100
Blueberries £10
Blackberries £14
Potatoes £145
Tomatoes £100
Peppers £30
Chillies £15
Garlic £50
Onions £50
Apples £30
Plums £15
Mange Tout £10
Sweetcorn £40
Squashes £25
Sweet potatoes £5

Total Harvests 2009 £1303

Thats a profit of £986 for the year so far! With the rest of the crops still to harvest over the coming months we should hit a total harvest figure of approx £1500-1600, down on last year (thanks to my bad back and us both being ill with swine flu), but still not a bad haul for the year!

Hope your crops are producing and you're having a bumper year!