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!
Sue and Lee's Vegetable Allotment pages, detailing all that we've been doing on our allotments, from clearing the 8' tall weeds that they were covered in when we started with our first plot in October 2006, through to where we are today, with 2 neighbouring full sized productive organic vegetable growing plots, 2 apiaries and 6 Beehives!!
FYI
Clicking on any of the pictures will open them at full size in the browser window, which means you will have to use the 'back' button to return to the main pages, whereas clicking to the left or right of any picture will open them in a new window, if you fancy a closer look at any of the piccies we've posted! We've included a Google Earth satelite picture of our plots and this years planting plan at the bottom of the page, next to each other. If you choose the Earth view on the satelite image you can rotate the image until it is lined up with the planting plan, then use the arrows in the plan to scroll from Plot 2 to Plot 1.