A few piccies from the plot!

Morning guys n gals, thought I'd start today by posting a few snaps I took yesterday of some of the flowers and crops we have growing at the plot, with getting in rather late last night (from a lovely - if boozy - night out at Pat and Colins) I didnt get chance to post them, so here we go!

We'll start out with a few pictures of some of the flowers, both ornamental ones (like this foxglove) and some of the flowers n our fruit and veg! Foxgloves are one of my favourite flowers, I love the colours and their ability to grow in any place, they are (to me) quintessentially British!

This dazzling blue flower produces tall spikes of multi faceted blooms, we bought it last year for one of the borders we were working on, and it survived the harsh winter really well! I'd love to be able to tell you what it is (thanks to a more knowledgable gardening visitor to the blog Shayla, I can now tell you its a Delphinium) , but I'm terrible with flower names! Sorry!

One of the Lavender plants Lee rescued from the compactor at Tesco's, they were looking a bit sad when he got them last year, but a bit of TLC and we've now a wonderful Lavender border at the front of plot 1!

A self sown member of the Daisy family, lovely simple blooms! Sadly we had to try and move this from the bed at the front of Plot 1 that we had to clear yesterday, it didnt like being moved in the heat, so I dont know if it will survive or not yet!

Some of the delicate flowers on our spuds, lovely to behold and a tasty crop too, what more can you ask for?

Another veg flower, this time the first flowers on our runner beans, stunning to behold, and usually a bumper crop!

The blackberries (or Brambles if you are from Hull like Lee is) are flowering better than ever this year, not only providing the bees with a valueable source of nectar and pollen, but also food for both the local birds and ouselves!

Our raspberry 'fedge is also looking particularly good this year, with the first summer fruiting canes now beginning to produce lovely sharp fruit! Raspberry jam is a personal fave of ours, especially when made from home grown rasps!

Our late sown peas (Victorian purple podded, a heritage variety) are also doing well, with lots of pretty flowers and are now at 4' tall, being a heritage variety they grow tall (7' I think) and can have the seed saved, so a useful crop and very pretty flowers!

Our earlier sowings of peas are producing like mad, looks like being our best year ever on peas, with lots of pods on the plants!

As you can see though, they arent yet all ready to take..... yet!

Broad bean flowers on our late sowings, looks like these are possibly going to do really well this year, successional sowing should ensure we are kept in beans for a while yet!

Whereas the earlier sown broadies (overwintered) are now producing really well, this plant has already had several crops taken from it, methinks we are going to be freezing some and possibly making some of HFW's baked beans and canning them!

The courgettes have stareted to produce, we've 13 plants in, 10 early and 3 later sown ones (as it didnt look like the first sowing were doing anything, so I planted more - impatient little miss that I am!), so a courgette glut is not out of the question yet!

We've lots of self seeded poppies, some of which we've managed to move to flower beds and borders, but generally they dont like being moved! This bed (which was a tad neglected) is our overwintering red onion sets, and virtually every ne has gone to seed, so they will be coming out and being processed (probably dried), then more parsnips will be going in here! The poppies we are going to harvest for seed, especially as the quiche recipe that Pat is giving us later uses them in the pastry!

First toms are getting bigger, just got to wait for them to ripen now, why is it that it always seems to take forever! lol!

First peppers (inside the hothouse) are getting bigger, although the judges will probably mark us down for using a home made structure (meanies hat they are!), it definitely seems to be working for the plants in there!

Strawbs are still producing..... a lot!

This is 2 days worth of harvests, methinks some jamming is in order!

And finally, grapes on the vine, still only small, but we should get a few bunches by the end of summer, especially if the weather stays hot!

Hope you like the piccies, that your plots and gardens are growing well and that bumper harvests will soon be yours!

More updates to follow soon! Thanks for reading!

So, just who are 'the Dobbies' and why a 'Pumpkin Patch'?

As we've had a few new folks sign up to follow this blog (plus we've been doing it now for almost 4 years and still havent posted a proper intro of who we are), I thought I'd start today with a bit more about who we are and why we grow our own fruit and veg!

Ok, we'll start with my (Toyboy) husband, Lee, aka Dobby or Mr Dobby (Mr D), his nickname came from when he decided he wanted to realise an ambition and grow the food that we ate, and joined the Grow Your Own magazine forum (the Grapevine), being a Harry Potter fan he chose the forum name of Dobby, and when I then followed him onto that Forum, I took the name of Mrs Dobby, hence the allotment became (because we grow a large number of pumpkin and squash each year) 'The Dobbies Pumpkin Patch'!

Lee is rapidly approaching his 40th Birthday, is a wonderful guy with a high IQ, but is also dyslexic, so although hes very smart, hes not so good with writing, hence I tend to do the blog!

I first met Lee 10 yrs ago on Mayday, when we were both doing volunteer work for a charity together, we soon realised we were soul mates, fell in love, officially started dating at the end of August, moved in together 2 weeks later, after about 6 weeks Lee proposed on my Birthday, and we were married 10 days after that (on Samhain - or Halloween for you non-Pagans!), 6 months to the day after we first met!

We've been together for the past 10 years now, never even having so much as an argument, we share interests and our religion (of paganism), plus a deep respect and love for each other.

So, this is me, Suzanne, aka Mrs Dobby (Mrs D), I'm currently 42 1/2 years old, tall, naturally blonde (going grey - its work pressure that does it to you!), and am not as photogenic as Lee, hence I'm usually the one behind the camera!

I work as a retail superstore manager for a large automotive and bicycle retailer, and have been with them for 22 years now, only another 22 1/2 years until I can retire to the allotment! Lol!

I'm a Pagan Witch of the British Traditional persuassion, and have trained with 3 families / groups / coveen's at one time or another, plus held Handfasting ceremonies for friends in the past. I'm the sort of person who likes to puzzle things out, so during our first footsteps into Paganism together I found myself asking questions others couldnt answer, so ended up writing a 65 page, 180K word website (Silver Wolf's Lair - now defunct, but copies exist on the wayback machine) about the answers we had found, and how what works for you spiritually is much more important than what anyone else can tell you!

Also living with us is Bella (Belladonna to give her full name), a rescue Great Dane Alsatian crossbreed, 7 1/2 stone of fun who thinks shes a lap dog!

Our final pets (for the moment, I know we are going to have chooks sometime, just dont know when!) are the bees that we have living in our 6 hives on the allotments. We look after them with our fellow beekeepers, Pat and Colin (from the plot opposite ours), so the four of us have split the costs of startup between us all, making it a bit easier to handle! In total we've got 6 hives, 2 National design and 4 Smiths design, each of which will hold between 50K and 75K, so currently we've got about 400K bees flying around the allotment (or as I've also been told, 400000 stings flying round! Lol!)

So, why do we have the allotment? Why Grow Our Own? Why Keep Bees?

For many reasons, but amongst them.....

We have the allotments because we cant yet afford a house with enough land to enable us to grow all that we want, I'd be quite happy with an earth sheltered eco house for us to live in (off grid and small if needs be) as long as it had enough land, but until then, the allotments are the only way we can start to live the life we want to!

As for GYOing (Grow Your Own)

Taste! Nothing tastes better than fresh veg direct from plot to table!
Providence! We know where its been, what its been treated with and how its been cared for!
Cost! Although we dont need to GYO to survive, by doing so we eat far better than we would if we had to buy everything from a supermarket.
Food Miles! We live less than 2 miles from the plot, the reduction in carbon footprint from GYO is staggering!
Exercise! We get free exercise on the allotments (no Gym membership needed!), plus a sense of community with our fellow plotholders!
Contact! With the natural world, with growing things, with sunshine and rain, with the changing seasons, with Mother Earth, with nature in all her guises!
Satisfaction! To know that in an increasingly technologically orientated world we are able to provide food for ourselves, from our own hard work, perhaps one day this will then lead us onto further adventures and towards total self sufficiency, which would be our absolute dream!

So why do we keep the bees then? Originally it was something we looked into after hearing that the Honey Bee was in decline, could we make a difference (however small) and was it something else we could add to our allotments? The answer was yes, after getting permission from the council for a maximum of 6 hives between our 2 plots we took the plunge and got our first 2 last year, which quickly became 3, and then this year we were able to increase to 6 hives! Its not just about the honey for us (although an extra product that we can harvest is extremely welcome), but about looking after the bees and enjoying an absolutely fascinating few hours each week working with the bees!

Ok, its getting late here, and we're just in from a relaxing evening with Pat and Colin (Fab Quiche that she made, I'll post the recipe tomorrow), so I'll sign off with these last 2 piccies, the one above is the invisble helper that Lee recons we've got on the plot! (Lol)

The piccy below is a beetle we saw today whilst clearing some grass from around the larger greenhouse, anyone any idea what it is? It was about an inch long and had a brilliant blue edging to the carapace, like nothing I've ever seen before!

So, thats it for tonight, hope you now know us a bit better and have a better idea why we GYO! Whats your reasons for GYOing?

Hope your veg is growing well and the harvests are beginning! More to follow tomorrow, including some piccies of some of the veg we've got growing!

Plot Update after our hols!

With the weather hereabouts forecasting rain today, and having done our weekly bee inspection yesterday afternoon (after packing up our campsite n driving home for 2 hrs), today we planned a relaxing day, with a lie in (didnt happen again! lol), a bit of shopping to restock the cupboards, a call in to see Paul at the garage about the MINI overheating (shes booked in for next week) and then on the way home a call in to the allotment to harvest some strawbs n salad for tea and to water the greenhouses and polytunnel! As I said, a relaxing day! Lol!

Whilst we've been away Pat has been watering the greenhouses for us, so I knew they'd be ok, but the rest of the plot had to depend on some rain, which fortunately it got on Monday night (the same stuff that soaked the tent and almost leaked in on us), the only drawback being of course, that any water on bare soil germinates the weeds!

So, with the Trafford Allotment Judging starting on Monday (though we are usually the very last plot to be judged), we've got a bit of work still to do this weekend, fortunately we dont return to work until next Friday!

Still to do are 1 bed to clear and plant, 2 to turn over and sow with seeds, a bit of path to be laid and barked up (near the polytunnel), a lot of hoeing, and plenty of weeding!

Mind you, the crops are looking good, the sweetcorn is growing really well, as are the underplanting of squashes and pumpkins, a possible good year for both crops! Our pea and bean beds are going great too, with more pea pods than we've ever seen before, so a good chance that planting them in lengths of drainpipe before planting out (by sliding the complete length into a prepared trench) has worked really well for us!

The onions are a mixed bag this year, with a lot of the red onion sets having gone to seed, methinks these will have to come out soon and be processed (either dried or frozen as they wont store at all), but the rest of the sets and garlic are still looking great!

The strawbs are still producing well, we took another 2lb from them today, some for 'afters' tonight with ice cream, the rest will be frozen until I've got time to make some jam with them (and the previous harvests that we've frozen). The summer fruiting rasps are also looking great, lots of fruit has set, just a matter of time now until its ready for harvesting! The cherries are beginning to turn, and the apples are also looking really good, not too much 'drop' so far this year!

The salad bed is producing too, more radish and lettuce for tea tonight, beetroot are doing well too, but not ready to harvest yet!

We also had the first courgettes today, 5 medium sized ones, with many more still coming on the plants!

The pond area and flower bed I planted up last week have done ok whilst we've been away, hopefully they will now grow on well and make a nice flower border that will help provide our bees with plenty of nectar to make honey for us! We've now got 14 supers of honey on the hives, many of them almost filled and some of it is beginning to be capped off, once this happens fully, then we can harvest some for ourselves and to sell to friends and family!

The flower bed at the front of plot 1!

Both the greenhouses are doing well, with the first toms developing really well, just got to wait for them to ripen now! This is one half of the 10'x8' greenhouse on plot2, the piccy below shows the toms in the 8'x6' greenhouse on plot1.

Our peppers, chillies and aubergines are in the 'hothouse' this year, a structure we made from the remains of a plastic walk in greenhouse that 'died' last year, and we've peppers at about 2" size and small chillies in abundance, plus flowers on several of the aubergines! Hopefully we'll be harvesting them in the not too distant future!

So, ontop the veg plot 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

Total Costs £ 266

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 25
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £8
Lettuce £4
Radish £6
Garlic £15
Strawberries £20
Peas £6
Broad Beans £10
Courgettes £2

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 100

So we're still £166 short of breaking even for the year, but a long way to go until we've even really begun to bring in the harvests!

Hope your veg is growing well and the weeds and pests are leaving you alone! More to follow soon!

Our Holiday - a few days camping in heaven on Earth!

So, a few days away camping at Shell Island, one of the most beautiful and relaxing places in the world, with a view said to rival that of the Bay of Naples!

Shell Island is actually a peninsular, joined to the land by some of the highest sand dunes in europe, and situated between Harlech and Barmouth on the coast in Cardigan Bay, just to the sea from the small village of Llanbedr.

It is reached by a road that skirts the disused RAF/RAE Llanbedr air station and then comes across the tidal bay, and at high tide 2 weeks of the month it is actually covered by the sea at high water, something wonderful to witness and great fun for kids (and big kids too!)

The views are spectacular, ranging 180 degrees, from Harlech Castle right the way through to the end of the Llyn peninsula, encapsulating Snowdonia and the northern Cardigan Bay.

The northern end of the 'island' has a rocky foreshore, with rockpools and a beach full of shells (hence the english name of Shell Island, although its proper Welsh name is Mochras), which stretches about 2 miles to the harbour and marina at the very northern end (the place the panorama was taken at). The picture above is a photomontage of 8 pictures, spanning 270 degrees of view, apologies if one or two of the joins are visible, its the best I could do with the software I've currently got!

The southern end is dominated by huge sand dunes, and sandy beaches that run 6 miles to Barmouth!

The island is run as a camp site by the Workman family, and is for tents only (no caravans, although campervans are aloowed as long as their owners have a tent for sleeping purposes!)

It is divided into fields which each have a tap in them, and there is a central complex with camp shop, cafe, bar, restaurant, small supermarket, shower block and toilets, with other portaloo toilets also dotted about the island. Basic but clean facilities that are all you need for a holiday camping!
We set our camp up in a central field, towards the sea side of the island, near the top of one of the highest points, which although exposed to the weather does give a fantastic view! If the weather is good, then it can be heaven on earth, but if the weather is bad, then camping here is a bit of a nightmare!

This year we set up on Sunday in glorious (if windy) weather, and BBQ'd that evening, seeing the pod of 14 dolphins that live hereabouts pass whilst we ate.

Monday, the following day, we had a trip out to Barmouth (for lunch at the harbour chippy, then sit at the harbour and eat fish n chips - wonderful), followed by a drive to Porthmadog (and some shopping at Tescos).

On returning to the campsite we encountered rain, which stayed with us, getting heavied and gusting winds until the small hours of the morning, so for tea we treated ourselves to Pizza from the brilliant Pizzeria in Maentwrog.

Tuesday morning dawmned calm and cloudy, but as the day wore on the clouds cleared, so we went for a drive to do some photography and called in at Harlech, a fabulous viewpoint and a castle amongst the best in the world! Tuesday night we BBQ'd again and spent a few hours watching and photographing the sunset!

So, this was the starting point for our sunset photography, at about 8pm, using a tripod and sunset filter.

Zoom in a bit to catch the mist defining the 2 mountain ranges in the distance and dispense with the filter for this shot.

Sun getting a bit lower, and heading for a cloud bank, hmm, not so good for shots with the sun in them!

Yup, just before the sun disappears into a cloudbank! This stopped any chances of decent pictures for a while, until the cloud bank slowly moved on!

The afterglow over the snowdon range a bit to the north of the actual sunset! The following pictures are all taken later on, using long exposures ranging from 2 seconds to 30 seconds in length! Slightly different exposure combinations and processing gives them each a different feel, I'm not sure I can actually pick a fave myself, but possibly the 2nd and 3rd are the ones I find most pleasing.

The waters edge becomes misty with long exposures, as you can see here and surrounding some of the rocks in the sea, especially if you click on the image to open it full sized!

I think this one is the most dramatic, what do you think?

Pretty, but possibly lacking in impact?

It was 1130pm by the time we finished playing with the cameras, and we'd had to resort to exposure times of up to 30 seconds to get some of the piccies, but I'm sure you'll agree, they were worth staying up to take!

Wednesday was time to pack up and come home, so we were on the road for 11am, and home for 2pm, followed by doing the bee inspections with Pat and Colin (and Sarah, their daughter)

All in all a good holiday, pretty good weather for most of the time and a relaxing time!


The last pano is a bit of a failure, I cant get the programme Im using to match the edges properly, as they were not overlapped enough, but it gives you an idea of the whole sunset vista on Shell Island!

Hope you get a holiday and that its enjoyable and relaxing!

More updates from the plot soon!