We got a gadzillion Tadpoles!!!!!!

Well, glorious weather today, so after a quick trip to one of the local Garden Centers for some Wolf Tools we'd promised ourselves, we were down the plot for 7 hours, leaving at just gone 7pm! As you can see from the piccies, Plot No1 is looking great, the onions and garlic are going great guns, as are the parsnips and carrots that we planted out the other day, and the radishes in the greenhouse! With any luck we'll soon be eating plot grown foodstuffs!



We took the time to hoe between the 270 onions and 94 garlic plants we've got growing, then made our way to plot 2, in order to continue preparing the beds down there!




Another piccie of Plot No1, from the roadway, it still looks strange to us both having actual soil thats ready for planting, rather than weeds or weed control fabric, but I'm sure we'll soon get used to it!



We started using the new Wolf push/pull Hoe and hand held rotovator, which were so easy to use that we managed to get almost all of the beds rotovated and hoed over, quality tools made it very easy and quick, we are both well impressed with them both!


As you can see, plot no2 is now taking shape, all the marked beds have now been hoed and rotovated, and we've started to dig the trenches for the tatties, hopefully we'll be planting them over the Easter weekend!


Dont know if you can see them, right at the water's edge, but we've got anout a gadzillion tadpoles in our pond, and still more yet to hatch from the remaining spawn! They are very active, the water just seems to be teeming with them! One of our plot neighbours works for the council, and she asked if she could take some for a girl on another plot who's just finished her wildlife pond, so of course we said! Looks like our tadpoles are going to be in 2 places locally now!

I also managed to check up on our hibernating Hedgehog, s/he is still there, and still alive, so it looks like we're going to have a good organic slug control team on hand, tho we've yet to see any slugs this year! (Quickly touching wood as she types!)

Anyhows, thats all for now, hopefully more piccies at the weekend, weather permitting! Thanks for reading!

Saturday 17th March - Update

Woke up to find a grey sky, which cleared by about 10am, just as we were heading to the plot!

Got out of the car to a warm day, with a bit of wind, and sunshine, perfect conditions!

Mr D set about continuing to dig the beds on plot no2, I finished cutting the edges on the other beds on plot no2, then Miss D and I started to uncover the other 2 middle beds that were still covered on plot no1!

As we removed the weed control fabric it was evident that we had missed some of the weed roots when these beds were double dug, so I set to digging the 15 or so dandelions, about a dozen couch and a bit of ground elder out of the 2 beds (one bed is 30' by 9', the other one is 9' by 18', both of which are split down the middle by an 18" path). The roots were very deep, so I ended up turning over both of the beds to about 12" depth, removing anything that was growing, down to a depth of about 2'6", which included a few spuds that were just breaking the surface (on the end Mr D had double dug, and missed them! lol!).

Half way through digging the first of these 2 beds it started raining, and after stopping to take shelter and have a brew it lessened to a fine windborn drizzle, so I decided to press on and finish turning over the 2 beds, as any weeds growing would have had to stay there until next week as it looks like I wont be able to get back to the plot for about 9 days, and Mr D is doing overtime most of the week, so he wont get back until next Sunday!

So, an hour later, with the wind picking up, the temperature dropping, and my fleece soaking through to my skin we finished, picked a bit more rhubarb for another crumble tonight, and came home to warm up! Now going to go and propogate a few more seeds, pot on the toms that are now 14" tall, and generally potter about for a bit before a nice tea, a hot bath and glass of something cold!

Hope everyone elses day was as productive as ours!

Squeeeeeee!!! Planting Time!!!!!!!

Weather was lovely today, light winds, broken cloud and warmish (especially when the sun shone), but as I woke up with a bad back the planned digging on plot No2 wasn't something that would have been wise to attempt, so after moving a few hardy seedlings from home into the greenhouse on plot No1 we decided to finish raking and levelling the bed we double dug last week, then to try a few early sowings of some carrots and parsnips. We planted 2 rows each of 4 varieties in 4' by 4' beds that we've left in our onion set bed (bottom right in this piccy, where we put the overwintering onions and garlic that can be seen growing away nicely!), with any luck we may get an early crop, but it is still very early, so its possible we may loose them! Ah well, nothing ventured, nothing gained and still lots of time to replant more seeds is they dont take or get caught by frost!

This piccy shows the recycled shelving unit that was to be disposed of from work, now full of leek, banan shallot, carrot and onion seedlings and safe from the binmen in our greenhouse! Makes a good unit for seedlings, nice and strong, black plastic so fairly warm, and plenty of room too, tho perhaps I should remove the halfords shelf edging strips! Lol! Much better than it going into landfill somewhere!


I did manage to get a couple of piccies of Plot No2, highlighting the aspect, the flower bed and the 4 beds we now have raked over, which I will post below!


Unfortunately as can be seen on this piccy it is partially overshadowed from the West by some fairly tall trees, but the south and east aspects are clear, so we should be ok for growing this summer!

Mind you, at least the trees do give some shelter from the prevailing westerly wind, so its a little less windy on plot No2 than it is on No1!





A quick piccy of the other side of the plot, including the flower bed with the 2 blackcurrants, and crocuses, daffodils, bluebells and lots of other flowers that I dont yet know, but I'm sure will learn all about as the growing year progresses!


At home we managed to get a couple of piccies of some of our seedlings, including this one which shows some of our 6" tall tomatoes (Lidl, Gartenperle and Beefsteak) and Audrey Too, a pumpkin we inadvertantly sprouted in November and who's been living in our bedroom ever since!

Well, thats all for today, thanks for reading, watch out for the next installment, when we are hoping to plant more seeds, cabbage, brussel sprouts and cauli to go into the cold frame, onion, leek, shallot, spring onion and pickling onions to go into plot 1 and hopefully some progress to be made in digging over plot 2!

Hurrah! Plot No1 Double digging is done!

Well, 6 months after we started work on Plot No1, we have finally finished the double digging! The plot was badly infested with Bindweed, nettle, dock, russian vine and mares tail, so we faced a fairly large job in removing it, but the veg growing areas and paths have now all been cleared of as much as we can, so we are now ready on Plot No1 for growing!

There's still a bit of work to do on the raised rhubarb / fruit bed at the bottom end of the plot, but thats something I think we are going to have to tackle as and when we can!

Yesterday was gorgeous down the plot, warm, sunny with a few showers, so Lee managed to get the last bit of double digging done, and I was in the greenhouse digging the beds over to remove any weeds that had grown over the winter and prepare for some sowing! Managed to plant a catch crop of 6 lettuce, 30 radish, 5 celery, 8 beetroot, 30 spring onion and 30 quick growing carrots, in the hopes we can harvest these before we need the room for our toms and chillis!

Today it is rather wet, so we wont be down the plot, but tomorrow looks nice, so Lee is going to go and make a start on digging the 10 beds that we've still to do on Plot No2.

Other than that we still need to sort out the compost / seating area near the pond (that was damaged in the gales) and sort out the compost bins we inherited on plot no2 that are rotten. Hopefully the pallets Lee salvaged from work will come in handy for this!

At home we've about 15 toms growing away nicely, along with about 12 chillis and a few other bits n bobs, plus the pumpkin that we planted in November is now flowering and producing fruit! Cant wait for the weather to improve enough that we can start to plant out!