So, whats actually growing in our plots so far this year?

Well, last year I kept a running total of our expenses and our cropping, in the hopes that I could justify (at least to ourselves) that we were not only benefitting from fresh organic produce, but also that we were in fact saving money over shop bought produce, and after a prompt from a fellow allotmenteer on the Grapevine forum (see link to the right), I thought I'd do the same again this year!

Total costs so far this growing year

Rent (for 2 full plots and a half plot) #100
Seeds # 30

Seed Spuds # 20

Compost / Grow Bags # 20

Fertilizers etc # 20

Muck # 10

Total costs #200

So far we're 200 pounds out of pocket so far, but havent had to buy glass or greenhouse fixings, nor tools or fleeces etc, so expenses are far down on last year as we're now getting established, and most of the heavy set up expenses were paid for last year!

As to crops, well, apart from Rhubarb, a few broad beans, some clamped (heeled in) leeks, some Purple Sprouting Broccolli, a few pimento peppers (from overwintered plants), lots of Jerusalem Artichokes and some radishes and lettuce, we've yet to start harvesting in earnest this year, but growing currently we have :-

Fruit

8 crowns of well established rhubarb

85 Raspberry canes - flowering

4 apple trees - lots of imature fruit

2 pear trees - lots of immature fruit

1 dwarf lemon tree (indoor) - flowering

1 dwarf orange tree (indoor) - lots of fruit

6 blueberry bushes - lots of imature fruit!

12 gooseberry bushes - lots of goosegogs

2 jostaberry canes

3 bramble canes

300+ strawberry plants - now have lots of green strawbs, just need some sun to ripen them!

3 melons

3 watermelons

1 huge grapevine - masses of flowers

2 blackcurrants bushes - flowering

2 redcurrant bushes - flowering

1 cherry tree - lots of imature fruit

Herbs

1 bay tree

2 types of mint

2 types of parsley

1 rosemary bush

2 types of basil

3 types of sage

lots of chives

plus cumin, dill and coriander growing from seed to be added once they are of a big enough size!

Greenhouse crops

44 tomato plants (9 varieties) (plus 8 outdoor already planted and other tomato seedlings ready to be potted up for the back yard and hanging baskets)

3 cucumbers

9 peppers (4 varieties)

18 chillies (15 varieties)

3 aubergines (2 varieties) plus another 6 seedlings

Vegetable - Peas and Beans

2 double rows of runner beans 9' long (2 varieties) - with another double row of seedlings still to be planted

48 Dwarf french beans (3 varieties) with further sowings planned

18 Broad Bean plants (2 varieties) with further successional sowings coming along

1 double row mange tout - 10' long

1 double row peas 9' long - with another 2 rows of other varieties planned to be planted tomorrow!

Other bean varieties still to be planted!

Vegetable - Potatoes

4 1/2 beds of spuds, 120 seed spuds in total, consisting of First Earlies (24 seed spuds), Second Earlies (24) Early Maincrops (24) and Late Maincrops (48), of 9 varieties in total

Vegetable - Roots

2 tubs carrots in and approaching edible size

1st sewing of parsnips (only 8 doing well, another direct sowing planned to follow this week once the root bed is fully dug on our plot 1)

2 further tubs of carrots planned for the new plot, and a large bed, 5' by 15' to be planted with carrot root fly resistant varieties in the root bed on plot 1.

Turnip and swede sowings also to go into the root bed on plot 1 once its dug over.

Vegetables - Aliums (Onions and Garlic)

90 bulbs of garlic (2 varieties) - growing away nicely!

450 onions from set (150 overwintered and approaching harvest) - 3 varieties

350 onions from seed - 3 varieties (sown in February and transplanted last month, methinks we should have sown earlier as they seem a bit small yet, but we'll see how they get on!)

100 leeks ready to plant out (with another tray germinating ready to go in later

Vegetables - Salad crops

15 Beetroot (further successional plantings planned)

40 radishes (nearing harvestable size) - further successional plantings planned

9 lettuces (in greenhouse borders - 2 varieties) with successional plantings planned

20 spring onions, further successional plantings planned

Vegetables - Brassicas

12 brussel sprout plants - 3 varieties

6 spring cabbages - nearing harvest

12 summer broccolli

12 autumn broccolli

6 Purple sprouting broccolli

10 red cabbages

20 white cabbages (4 varieties)

12 caulies

more successional plantings of cabbage, broccolli and cauli planned)

Vegetables - Cucurbits

12 jack be little pumpkins

12 courgettes (4 varieties) wwith another successional sowing planned

5 Mars Pumpkins

5 Baby Bear Pumpkins

5 Avalon Squash

6 Butternut squash

6 chestnut squash

5 carnival squash

Vegetables - Other

65 sweetcorn plants (3 varieties)

Jerusalem Artichokes - 1 bed 10' by 5' - already at 3' tall!

2 beds of trenched celery - approx 60 plants

So, all in all quite a lot of things already in, some nearing harvets already, and lots more still to plant out or sow!

Hopefully the growing year will be a bit fairer than last year, and a possibility of good harvests all round!

Hope your plots are growing on as nicely!

New plot fully dug!

So, another full day at the plot on the Bank Holiday Monday! The weather dawned bright and sunny, but very windy, and started out warm, but once the clouds rolled in at about 1pm it turned quite chilly! Lee finished digging over the new plot last Thursday, and as anticipated he had to construct a 3rd compost bin to take the remoced grass and weeds! So, the new plot is now fully dug apart from 2 small beds which we tackled 1st thing today - the one at the front having had the foxgloves from the half plot transplanted now looks great - as can be seen below!


Foxglove bed at the front of the plot, probably the only dedicated flower bed on the plot!

The other bed we had to tackle was this small one, which has now been planted up as a herb bed, with 2 types of mint (planted in pots to stop it crowding out everything else), rosemary, 2 types of sage, chives and parsley, with cumin, dill and coriander hardening off ready to be added!


The next priority was to try and get the trench celery in, but as it was sooo windy we decided after doing the first bed to delay planting the other bed until Wednesday, when we are both off!


The other things we managed to get done today were to weed and feed the greenhouses, set up the growing supports for the toms, plant the melons into the greenhouses and lean-to, and dig over last years herb bed, ready for the comfrey from the half plot to be transplanted into it! We also fed everything with a foliar feed and removed 8 seed heads from the overwintering onions to stop them running to seed (just means these will be the ones we have to use first!)

I also managed to pick the first few pods of broad beans, which were used in a risotto last night, which was very tasty indeed!

Tomorrow we are hoping (weather permitting) to erect the walk in plastic greenhouse on the new plot and plant it up with 12 toms from the backyard greenhouse, then transplant the comfrey, plant more beans and peas, plant some more catch crops of lettuce, radish, spring onions and beetroot, plant out another 2 beds of sweetcorn and squashes, and perhaps get some of the paths weeded and barked up!

Hope your plots are coming on as well as ours!

New plot is now almost dug!

Well, a day off today for us both, and a chance for me to see just what Lee has been doing for the past few days whilst I've been at work! I have to say just how amazed I am at how much he's managed to do! In less than 2 weeks our new plot has gone from a weed infested mess to a growing space thats ready to be planted! He's now dug over all but 1 main bed and 1 small bed next to the compost bin at the front of the plot (which we are going to fill with some comfrey plants from the plot we're giving up!) Fellow allotmenteers have been joking that he has to clock on to the site at dawn, and isnt allowed to clock off again until dusk!

So, today he dug the last but one bed, whilst I had a good clear up, built another compost bin at the bottom of the new plot, moved all the perspex from the other plot behind the compost bins at the back of the new plot, trimmed the hedges (we have anothre path now, and access behind the shed for storage and to be able to paint it!) and sorted out the pile of wood, tubing, fleece and assorted other junk!


As you can see from this piccy, its much neater and tidier, and a lot less weed infested!

Just to illustrate how much Lee has dug over the past 2 weeks, all these beds are now ready to be rotorvated and planted, and indeed, 8 of the 18 are now planted, with others due to be planted in the very near future (the seedlings are hardening off in the backyard greenhouse as I write!

Another view showing the changes over the past 12 days!

Another task I did today was to rotorvate and then plant up (thru cardboard) the bed in front of the shed, next to the greenhouse! This was planted with 5 full size toms and 3 bush varieties, its a bit early, but the forecast seems ok, and we'll just have to see how they get on!

The 2 beds at the back (next to the goosegog bushes and apple and pear trees) are the ones Lee has attacked over the past 2 days, unlike most of the other beds these 2 have been much worse, with a lot more weeds, methinks they werent touched at all for the past 2 years plus!

A piccy of the new compost bin we built today, which as you can see is now almost full! Methinks we're going to have to build yet another in the near future!

Last piccy for today, showing the tomato supports in front of the shed for the outdoor toms!

I'm back at work tomorrow, but Lee is going to try and tackle the last bed, then hopefully we'll be able to get most of it planted on Bank Holiday Monday, and perhaps start to clear some more of the paths and re-bark them up!

Hopefully with having 2 days off next week I'll be able to give Lee a bit more of a hand, and perhaps we'll also get a chance to catch up on the weeding and to finish digging the last beds on our other plot (the paths of which also want a bit of weeding and re-barking up!)

Needless to say, if we're able to keep up the tempo, then its possible that we'll have the structure in place and sorted by the end of June, which will mean we will be able to get away for a few days holiday this year, hopefully camping with friends at Shell Island in Wales!

Next post will probably be on Monday, after we've spent the Bank Holiday digging!

Hope your plots are coming on as well, and your plants are growing on strong!

Update and News!

So, got to the plot for 1030am, did the work I wanted to do, then had to attend the allotment societies AGM! About 1/2 of the plotholders were there, and it was a good meeting (the first I'd attended as I was working when they had last years), some great ideas coming forth! All the 34 plots on the site are now let, and generally under cultivation, and those present decided that we need to do more social stuff together and perhaps organise a work party or three to improve the site a bit (a BBQ area and fire pit, possibly some flower planting at the front etc) It was decided that we would form a proper allotment committeee, and before I knew it I found myself voted onto it! Not something I was looking for, nor expecting! Fortunately as I work full time I was able to take a non-executive committee position, but I have a feeling that they want me to get involved with the fundraising side of things! Ah well, it could be an interesting period ahead!

Well, as you can tell, I managed to get some more piccies of our new plot today, showing just how much we've managed to get done since the last piccies were taken alast wednesday! As you can see, the first 2 beds have been covered with a cardboard mulch (help suppress weeds and retain moisture), and have been planted with courgettes, 6 and 4 respectively! We've left a space for another 2 courgette plants which we are going to sow in a few weeks time, to prolong the harvesting period when those we've currently got in (which were successionally sown in the greenhouse, 4 varieties) run out of steam in a few months time! The bed bbehind this has had the 24 sweetcorn, 4 sunflower and 6 pumpkins moved into it from the half plot we are giving up, and the 5th bed back has got 15 assorted squash and pumpkins in it (dont worry, its twice the size of the smaller beds at the front of the plot!)
I spent a bit of time improving the soil in the new plots greenhouse 1st thing today (after Mr D cleared it on Thursday), as it seemed very dusty and lacking in humus, so dug in chicken poo pellets, growmore, fish, blood and bone, and then top dressed with 3 trug loads of very well rotted pony poo from the 2 1/2 year old compost bin at the front of the plot (lurverly stuff it is too!) Then I planted it up with 8 toms (6 varieties), 2 chillies, 4 peppers, 4 french marigolds (to deter pests) and a marketmore cucumber!
This is the bed of onions from seed that Mr D dug over and planted on Thursday afternoon, hopefully it'll give us a few more onions to help us last thru the winter (we ran out in Feb this year and are determined not to run out this year!)
A general view from the bottom of the new plot, as you can see, Mr D has managed to dig over more than half of the beds in this plot (lots of fellow allotmenteers have been asking him if he goes home at all, or just stays digging all night as he always seems to be first on and last off when I'm working!) Our current plan is to get the beds under cultivation, have a good tidy up on both plots, cut back the overgrown hedge a bit, then do a good weed of the fruit beds and paths before bringing some more bark chippings (fortunately provided free at the other end of the plot) to re-bark up the paths! Hopefully this should give us a nice looking and easy to manage couple of plots!
A view over the 'fedge', looking from the strawberry bed (a little overgrown - we've decided to dig out the half we didnt plant through weed control fabric and then plant it up thru weed control fabric like wot we should have done in the first place! Fortunately we now have some fabric going spare, and Mr D's boss (who keeps horses) has offered us some straw to mulch the strawberries with, so hopefully once we've got the beds into cultivation we'll be able to spend a day getting this sorted once and for all!

As you can also see, the Jerusalem Fartichokes (in the bed next to the strawbs to the right) are shooting up at an incredible rate! We had 2 beds of them last year, and only managed to eat our way thru one of them, so this year we've just gone for a single bed of them!

The beans seem to be coming up quite well, tho some of the French have had poor germination and some runners seem to have been munched (pesky wabbits!), so we've done a second sowing in the backyard greenhouse to replace the missing ones!

Lee is hoping to be at the plot for the next 2 days until 3pmish, and then all day Weds and Thurs, so its looking like he may get the beds all dug over for the end of the week! I'm off on Weds, so gonna have a good tidy up, perhaps some more bean planting, hopefully cut back / trim the hedges and possibly begin weeding and rebarking the paths (tho as always I get the feeling we'll be lucky to get even half of what we want to do done!

Latest pics plot1!

So, before going to the plot today I thought I'd upload the latest piccies from our first plot, sad to say we're not quite as far on as we'd like, but having taken over the plot next door last week we've been concentrating on getting that dug over and crops transplanted into it from the half plot (and before that we spent a weeks hols digging over the half plot too!) As you can see from the piccies tho, we've really only a small herb bed (in the cenre of the piccy) and half of last years brassica bed (the middle bed behind the bean supports and in front of the greenhouse in the pic - now a root bed) left to dig over and plant up, so we're not too far away from being up to date!

Another panorama, this time from the bottom near the pond, we've now got all the space from the back fence (and hedges) behind the pea/bean supports right over to the trees to the right of the picture!
A shot of the overwintered garlic (front 2 varieties) and onions, with the remaining root bed to dig behind! We are thinking of splitting some of the larger beds in half by adding some more paths, as although its good to have the large spaces of growing room, its not good having 9' by 35' beds from a planting or weeding point of view!
The bed that last year was used for shallots, roots and onions is this years beanery! We've 3 types of pea, 2 types runner beans, 3 types dwarf french bean, 2 types of broad beans and 2 types of borlotti beans, most of which have been planted, tho there's still 3 frames to go in and 2 types of bean and one pea still to plant up between the current frames and the pond!

A quick piccy of the greenhouse on plot 1, 9 toms, 2 aubergine, 6 chillies, 6 peppers, 2 cucumbers and some intercroppings of lettuce. All seem to be doing well so far!


Last piccy for tady so far, the 'fedge' that we planted last year, the rasps have really taken well, so its possible that this year we'll do better than the 2

Well, thats us up to date with piccies for the time being! Hopefully I'll get a few more today and post them up later!

Hope your growing year is off to as good a start as ours seems to be!

Piccies from our Half Plot (what last year we called Plot 2)

So, after spending a week digging over the beds on the half plot (2 weeks ago now) and planting it up, we have now come to the point after taking over the full plot next to our first one of having to give this one up (hey, we're good, but 2 1/2 plots would be just too much, even for Lee!) but before we do I thought I'd post the piccies taken earlier this week and look at why (apart from too much space) we are giving up this plot!

As you can see from the piccies the half plot doesnt have properly installed paths, which has meant a constant struggle to keep on top of cutting the paths and weeding the bed edges, so much so that after the winter the beds had all but disappeared beneath weeds, so a lot more work just keeping it tidy than our first plot (with its edged beds and barked up paths). As our new full plot also has edged beds and barked paths (even tho the paths need weedoing and re-barking up), this is going to save a large amount of time and effort and allow us to spend more time actually tending crops (and perhaps relaxing!) than if we'd stayed with this half plot! I know we could have barked up these paths, but without having enough wood for edging the 5' by 15' beds, then it would have been difficult to keep the bark chippings on the paths and to stop them making their way into the beds, something we didnt want, but were prepared to put up with (in fact Lee had started to lay a path on the first bed edge when we heard we'd got our new plot, so he abandoned it immediately!!
Its a shame we spent a whole week digging and planting up this plot, if we'd known then that we'd have been getting our other full plot then we wouldnt have bothered, but at least we've been ab;e to allow the plants to grow on a bit and have now moved the majority onto our new plot (although the spuds will have to stay on the half plot as it would be impossible to move them! The courgettes shown here (in the half dismantled 'heath robinson' cold frame) are now safetly planted thru a cardboard mulch in the first 2 beds on the new plot!

The squashes that are planted thru the weed control fabric in front of the compost bins have now also been moved into one of the larger beds on the new plot, again planted thru cardboard mulch! Cardboard mulch isnt something we've tried before, but if it helps reduce moisture evaporation and control the weeds, saving time and energy, then it's something that we will adopt on a larger scale, if not, then we'll try doing the same with weed control fabric or using compost as a mulch and see how we get on!
As you can see here, the 1st Earky spuds are doing well, as is the comfrey and redcurrants in the bed to the right of the piccy!
2 beds of onions from set, all of which seem to be doing ok, they arent as far on as the ones we overwintered on plot 1, but still they do seem to be catching up well, and so far havent started to run to seed, unlike half a dozen or so of the 150 overwintering sets on plot 1!

Well, thats all for the half plot for today, perhaps there may be a few more piccies to follow at some time in the future of this plot, but it'll probably be more about the harvesting, as soon as this is empty, then its being given up!

Piccies of new plot!

Finally! After reinstalling the camera drivers I've managed to get the piccies taken today from the camera!

This is a view from the bottom of the plot, looking towards the fence at the back! As you can see, its a bit overgrown, but the shed and greenhouse are in good nick, and the paths are in good condition, although do need to be weeded and have some more wood chippings put down, a job to be done after we've dug the beds and got them planted up!

Luckily we are going to find it much easier to stay on top of this plot than our original additional half plot, as that doesnt have proper paths, so tends to get very tall weeds inbetween the beds, just a shame we had spent so much time digging it over before this one came up!

A view of the new shed we've inherited! The grapevine is fairly visible in the piccy, lets hope we get some grapes from it this year!

Behind the plywood to the right (as you look at it) of the shed is one of the 3 compos bins, this one of which is full of very well rotted pony poo, its been there for 2 years that we know of, so should be really good stuff!

This is a view from the middle of our first plot, giving the perspective of just where the new plot is in relation to our existing plot, we now have everything this side of the trees to the back, aswell as another bed behind where I am standing to take the piccy!

And last one for today, a piccy of the 7 beds that Mr D has managed to dig over since we took over the plot last Thursday!

The front 2 beds have now had the cardboard 'fitted' properly, and planting holes have been cut, through which we've planted 10 courgettes, along with watering funnels (cut off bottles planted next to the plants roots!)

The 4th bed from the front has also been planted up, with 15 assorted squash and pumpkins, using the same cardboard mulching system. Its our hopes that we'll reduce the needs for watering and weeding with using the cardboard mulching system and hopefully also reduce the amount of digging thats involved with GYOing!

Gorgeous day on the plot and a darn good sort out!

Today we were at the plot for 10am, and got back at about 8pm, a lovely hot, sunny day with a light refreshing breeze that kept us both from overheating, glorious! (Tho Mr D says I look like a Rock Lobster now, eek!)

The new plot has a homemade (very well made from marine plywood and well put together I must say) shed, which is roofed with clear corrugated plastic, and is about 16' by 5'. One half of it is the shed, about 8' wide with the door to the right front, and at the side of this is a 4' covered seating area (now being used for hardening off seedlings on the shelving unit, and next to this is a 5' by 5' glazed area, currently full of nettles, but which we are going to use for growing melons and cucumbers in! Along the front of the shed is a decked area about 3' wide running the length of the shed part, which also has a metal shelving unit on it, and growing up from the back corner and across the roof / front of the shed is a grapevine, which must span about 10'! Aswell as the shed there is also an 8' by 6' greenhouse, and 17 edged beds, along with a couple of fruit trees, several goosegogs and 3 blueberries. Theres 3 compost bins, lots of new netting and supports, lots of new fleece and black plastic, 2 chairs, a table and lots of pots too! There's also a couple of damaged wire netting cages to protect seedlings and some UPVC piping which is great for supporting mesh or fleece to protect cabbages etc from insects! Feels like we struck really lucky getting this plot!

Mr D continued digging over the beds on our new plot, whilst I sorted out the inside of the shed and had a darn good tidy up! It is now possible to see exactly what we've got and where it is, so should make it a bit easier to find things!

After this I hoed the onion and garlic bed, then set up the watering head on the hosepipe and turned it on to give everything a really good water, and also fed and watered inside the greenhouse after hoeing the weed seedlings in there!

Next I dismantled the 'heath robinson' coldframe on our other half plot (the one we will be giving up after harvesting the spuds) and brought all the bits back to the new plot to store away for future use, then pruned the grapevine thats growing across the front of the shed, I cant wait to see if we get any grapes from it this year! After doing this Mr D had manage to reach the halfway mark (the largest 7 beds are now dug over!) with the digging over of the beds on the new plot, so he stopped digging and came to help me!

Next we trimmed and fitted the cardboard bike boxes I recycled from work to fit the first 2 beds on the new plot, and transplanted the 10 courgettes that we'd planted on the half plot 2 weeks ago into here, using the cardboard as a mulch to supress weeds by cutting holes for the planting and sinking bottles into the soil next to the squashes and courgettes for watering. After that we fitted cardboard to one of the larger beds on the new plot and then transplanted the 15 assorted squash and pumpkins (that were planted out 2 weeks ago) from the half plot!

I did take some piccies of the new plot first thing this morning, but the 'puter had to be reset a few weeks ago, and its not now recognising the camera or the bluetooth link from my phone, so atm I am unable to download them, sorry!

I'm back at work tomorrow, but Mr D is off, so he's going to try and sort out the greenhouse (and the lean to glazed part on the shed) on the new plot tomorrow, before continuing with the digging ready for me to move the sweetcorn and squash bed, plus the 2 beds of onion sets from the half plot at the weekend!

Yay, yet another plot!

Well, the plot next to our first plot wasnt worked much last year, and hasnt been touched this year, so we spoke to the council liason telling her we'd like to go on the waiting list for that plot (Plot 1) if it were to become free, and today the plotholder came on and told us he was giving up and handed his keys over to the secretary, so we've now got it!!

Its a full 10 rod plot, with beds that are bordered with timber and has paths that are barked up (tho need weeding and redoing), and is adjacent to our first plot! It comes complete with some apple / pear trees, goosgogs, blueberries, a grape vine, an 8'x6' greenhouse and a very well made shed (approx 5' by 10') which has a glazed end, an outdoor seating area and a lockable storage bit too! There's also 2 compost heaps, one of which is full of 3 yr old pony poo, 2 complete rolls of fleece (about 6' long), lots of blue pipe for supporting the netting, some netting, lots of black plastic and some reinforced clear plastic too!

So, we'll be giving up our 2nd plot (the 1/2 plot over the other side) once the spuds are out, and will be busy clearing and planting this new plot (gonna take some of the veg we planted on our 2nd plot and move it into the new plot next week, before they get too established!)

As soon as I get the Bluetooth dongle thing working I'll post up some piccies!

Getting up to date (again)

Well, a week on holiday from work and it feels as though we are catching up to where we want to be on the plots at this time of year! The broad beans are flowering, the blackcurrants, rasps and goosegogs look ready to flower, the strawbs are beginnning to flower, the rhubarb is already being harvested (loverly it is too), the spring cabbages are beginning to heart up, the first of our lettuces is almost ready to eat, the 1st early and 2nd early spuds are now showing, the tadpoles in the pond are growing apace and the plots are definitely coming to life!

This week we have so far -

Dug over another 2 beds (5' by 15') on plot 2 and planted out our chitted maincrop spuds (rooster and cara)

Dug over and planted out a bed (5' by 15') on plot 2 of 12 courgettes (3 varieties), along with catchrops of beetroot (bolthardy) and radishes (french breakfast III), then built a protective surround from plastic and covered with fleece - to protect from wabbits and frost!

Planted out another 12 assorted brassica seedlings into the brassica bed on plot 1 (total now of 30+ brassicas planted out)

Dug over and errected 4 pea / bean supports on plot 1, and planted up with more Mange Tout, 2 types of pea and 2 types of runner bean!

Dug over and planted up with dwarf french beans 2 beds on plot 1!

Turned over, fed and planted the greenhouse on plot 1 with 9 tomato plants, 8 chillies, 2 cucumbers, 2 aubergines and 6 catchrop lettuces.

Taken delivery of a trailer load (7' by 10' by 4' deep) of lovely sweet horse manure, and moved it into te composters on plots 1 and 2!

Hoed between all of the overwintering and spring planted onion sets!

Mr D has also made a darn good start at turning over the middle bed on plot 1 (last years brassica bed) that has gotten a bit weed infested over the winter, a nasty job, especially as it was well compacted for the brassicas last year! Our hopes are to use this bed for root veg this year!

Removed and given away to Mr D's parents (in Hull) 9 raspberry canes that had started to grow in amongst the strawberry bed!

Fed everything with Chicken poo pellets and blood fish and bone!

Checked and fed the 200+ strawbs and 84 raspberry canes we moved into their new beds / fedge last year, all of which look to be doing really well!

Planted up more seeds in the greenhouse at home, so we've now got sweetcorn, squashes, pumpkins, brassicas, more toms, more beans, more aubergines, more chillies and a few more bits n bobs growing away nicely in there, along with the now hardened off seedlings outside (leeks, 2 types of onion from seed, herbs, celery and carrots in 2 large tubs in tha beack yard)!

So, its shaping up to be a reasonable growing year so far, we both feel as though we are a long way behind where we were at this point last year, but after checking our notes, it doesnt look as tho we are behind at all! Hopefully the next few weeks will see us fully up to date, with all the beds planted up, follow on crops ready to go in behind the onions and spuds when they come out, and the first of our harvests ready to eat!

Hopefully there'll be some piccies of how the plots are looking in the very near future, keep checking back for updates!

Another Growing Year begins!

And so we start once more!

Although we did fairly well last year, harvesting over £800 worth of fruit and veg from our plot and a half, this year we are determined to do better, especially in terms of catch cropping, successional planting and better planning - to utilise the growing space more efficiently and to get 2 crops from each bed where possible, so much planning and thought has gone into our planning schedule for the year!

Our seed spuds have been chitting for the past 8 weeks (in the loft room, cool, bright and frost free) and we've a total of 120 tubers now ready for planting, 4 varities of First Earlies, 2 varieties of Second Early, 2 varieties of Early Mains and 2 varities of Late Maincrops, we're determined to do better with spuds than last year when we lost our later main crops to blight (much reduced harvests), so have dedicated 2 beds on plot 2 (5' by 14' each) to First Earlies, 2 beds to Second Earlies, 1 bed to Early Mains and 2 beds to Late Maincrops, and are going to keep a much sharper eye on them this year (we will deffo try and treat any blight as soon as it appears rather than leave it to chance like we did last year), and our choices of variety are mainly those that are blight and/or pest resistant, so fingers crossed we do a bit better than last year here!

The early spuds are due to be followed with frost sensitive crops, such as the 3 beds of sweetcorn that we've got planned, 3 diff varieties, which hopefully should give us some decent crops, and 1 bed will be for cucurbits, probably 3 plants each of 3 varieties of courgette! As with last year we'll be companion planting the sweetcorn with sunflowers to help keep the birds and squirrels off the sweetcorn, and also planting those beds with some squashes and pumpkins, to provide good ground cover (reduced weeding) and to double the harvest from the beds! We will however be planting them a little more spaciously than last year!

The 2 beds of second earlies and the one bed of first maincrop spuds will be used for planting out the leeks once they've had the spuds harvested, we did this last year and the 300 plus leeks we planted out are still going strong, with still over 150 left for us to harvest!

The beds that still currently are occupied by leeks will be the ones we are going to put the maincrop spuds in, any leeks that are still in the ground will be removed and 'heeled in' in a clamp for eating in the next few months! These maincrop spud beds will then be planted up with spring cabbages once they are cleared later in the year!

The 2 beds that last year had maincrop spuds in them have today been dug over and planted with spring sown onion sets, 200 in each 5' by 15' bed, a total of 400 more onion sets (half red barron, half snowball) to join the 150 stuttgarter white onion sets that have been overwintering on plot 1 (along with the 100 garlics (50 electrik from last years crops and 50 we bought from the GC - cant remember the variety off hand), all of which are looking good - not as far on as they were this time last year, but thats due to the colder and wetter autumn we've had this past year). We've also a couple of trays of ailsa craig onions that we're growing from seed, which will be planted out a bit later in the year! I dont mind if the onions from seed arent as large as the ones from sets, as they'll all be used, and will probably provide us with pickling onions as they did last year (we're still munching them now, rather tasty they are too!)

Mr D is going to dig over the 2 beds for First Early spuds tomorrow, and hopefully we'll get them planted out this week, then we'll move onto preparing the beds for the second early spuds for planting out sometime in the next 2 weeks!

Mr D has already got some early cabbages and caulis planted out on plot 1 (under a netting frame to keep the wabbits off them), and we've some more of each sprouting in the greenhouse at home. We've also started the first batch of toms and chillies, which seem to be doing ok, and the first batch of broad beans are planted out with the second batch just showing in the modules in the greenhouse, both of which are looking great!

Still lots more to sow and plant, but unlike last year we are going to try not to plant too early and end up with leggy and vulnerable plants, so we're not yet worried about being behind, that'll come in a couple more months! lol!

Hope your growing year is off to as good a start, and good luck for bumper harvests!

Update for 8th October 2007!

Well, its been a while since I last had time to post, and we've a few piccies to pop up here too, but they will have to wait until lower down the post I'm afraid, but although its been a bad summer weather wise we've still done ok with the crops from our plot this year!

The balance sheet looks something like this.........

Total costs for this year to date £465 (£995 if you add on the new fridge freezer)

Total harvested crops approx values (as organic fresh veg from major supermarket type prices!) so far this year:-

Rhubarb (at £2 for 3 stalks as currently priced in Tescos) £ 75

Radish / lettuces / cnca salad leaf £ 40

Cucumbers £ 25

Herbs £ 15Strawbs £ 50+

Raspberries £ 30

Garlic £ 25

Maincrop Onions £ 20

Pickling Onions £10

Mange Tout £ 25

Tomatoes £ 50+

New potatoes £ 10

Maincrop Potatoes £ 25

Carrots / Parsnips £ 15

Brassicas £ 15

Broad Beans £ 25

French Beans £ 10

Peas £ 10

Courgettes £ 30

Peppers £ 20

Chillies £ 40

Aubergines £ 15

Cooking Apples £ 15

Eating Apples £ 5

Gherkins £ 3

Pumpkins / Squashes £ 40

Turnips £ 5

Swedes £ 5

Sweetcorn £ 40

Blackcurrants £ 5

Cherries £ 5

Total value of approx £ 703 so far, plus still lots more to harvest -

More Toms

More aubergines

More Peppers

More Cucumbers

About 330 leeks

About 85 Parsnips

2 Beds of Jerusalem Fartichokes

14 Sprout Plants

20 Cabbages

Still more Broccolli to harvest

Still a full bed of carrots

Still 20 celery plants growing nicely

I have a feeling we've still over £ 150 worth of crops to harvest yet!

Not a bad total for a first year, and next year we'll do even better, plus the costs are going to be a lot less, we currently recon about £50 for compost, seeds and spuds and rent total for the 2 plots of £60, so if we get a similar amount of produce next year we should be saving a lot! (and if we get a bumper year, then a lot more indeed!)

Shame we've not done as well as we'd hoped with the outdoor toms, the maincrop spuds and the sweetcorn (only about half of what we expected), but hopefully we'll do better with them next year!

We've struggled with all the weeds this year, the wet summer has proven to be a boon for weed germination, so its been a constant battle to try and keep on top of them, and at times we've been on the losing side, but overall I'd say we are happy with our results so far! There's 7 large jars full of jam, 2 large jars full of pickled onions, the freezers are full, and we've planty of tatties, garlic and onions still to eat, plus about 17 pumpkins for Halloween (and for eating) left yet! And as it says above still lots of things to harvest for the winter, so overall I'd say we were happy with our efforts, but roll on next year, as I know we are going to do much better!

Anyhow here's a few piccies of some of our produce, we entered some of these into the Grapevine / GYO Virtual Veg Show, and managed a Runner-Up position each, me for the Onions and Lee for the houseplant categories, which has both amazed and delighted us both! :D

3 Red Onions, Runner up for Mrs D!

Our Indoor Orange Tree, runner up in houseplants for Mr D!

Some of our Pumpkins, there's another 7 or 8 we couldnt fit in and 3 that we'd already eaten, Mr D has found the most wonderful Pumpkin Pie recipe that means none of these will go to waste!

Our Banana Shallots, we managed to harvest about 40 to 50 of them, about a dozen or so were this size and the rest smaller, but very tasty, Many thanks to Dave (Pigletwillie) from the GYO Grapevine for the seeds!

2 of the outdoor cucumbers, they've not done fantastically well, but the Marketmore we had planted inside the greenhouse produced 30+ large, succulent and very tasty cucumbers, the biggest of which was 21" long!

A piccy of Mr D with our best Marketmore Cucumber! Just a shame he gave away the other we had almost as big before we got a piccy of the 2 of them, otherwise we may well have won the 2 cucumbers category in the GYO Virtual Veg Show! Ah well, there's always next year! :D

3 of the many, many peppers we''ve enjoyed from the 6 plants in the greenhouse this summer!

3 of the smaller aubergines we've had. We've had about 17 aubergines from 4 plants inside the greenhouse, very tasty, especially in home made Moussaka!

5 toms from the greenhouse, we didnt do as well as we'd hoped with toms, all the outdoor ones having succumbed to blight, but we have had a good harvest of cherry toms, so we've not had to buy any this summer and also have lots of frozen passatta in the freezer for the coming winter!

3 Parsnips!

Lots more of these on plot 1 still growing, so should be ok for the winter this year!

Well, thats all for the moment, I'll try and get some more piccies up as soon as I am able, but thanks for reading, and I hope your growing year has been as good (if not better) than ours!

First peas and french bean harvest - 22nd July 2007

Got to the plot to find glorious sunshine, which hung around until about 430pmish, when the heavens opened for a couple of hours, unfortunately just before I was ready to take some more piccies, ah well, will try and get some on wednesday!

Weeded the broad beans, peas and mange tout beds, then harvested more mange tout, another cabbage, another 5 toms, another lettuce, about another lb of rasps, another lb of blackcurrants, 4 more courgettes (2 of which where cannon ball sized!), about 1/2lb each of 2 types of french beans (first harvest from these this year!), about a lb of blackberries, 2 heads of broccolli and about 1/2 lb of victorain purple podded peas! (first pea harvest of the year!)

Came home and made tea, chops with mange tout, new tatties, french beans, peas and broccolli! Scrummy, only thing that wasnt from the plot was the chops!

The carrots are doomed, doomed I tell Ye!

Got to spend about 4 productive hours or so on the plot yesterday (dodging rain after doing other more mundane things that needed to be done first), and managed to get another bumper harvest!

The greenhouse gave us another 20 ripe cherry toms (with loads more growing), another cucumber and 8 more green peppers (most of which have now been processed and frozen), and from outside we got another 9 courgettes from the 6 plants, about another 1lb of rasps (the earlies are about done now, but lots of late rasps growing, so hopefully it wont be long before they are producing) and 2lb of blackcurrants (still loads left on the bushes to get a bit bigger before we harvest them), another 6lb of rhubarb, more spring onions and radishes, another 3lb of broad beans (still lots we've left to get bigger yet) and another 3 1/2lb of mange tout (still more of that coming on too!)

Had a good look at the sweetcorn, which is now producing cobs, and the squashes and pumpkins, which have a few fruits set, and placed some wood underneath the forming fruits to keep them off the ground as they grow! Two of our batches of peas are also now coming good, the rondo are beginning to pod and the purple podded victorian peas we got from a fellow 'grape' have loads of pods and more flowers, so I think we'll be ok for peas this year!) Our carlin peas are also now flowering, and the broccolli is going great guns, as are the cabbages! Looks like there's another 4 almost ready to harvest and the ones we planted that got munched by wabbits (that are now protected inside Fort Tesco do seem to be making a decent recovery!)

We also pulled a few carrots and a single enormous parsnip for tea, only to find that theyd been tunnelled by carrot fly, (tho we did manage to get some edible bits from them, about half of the 12" long parsnip was ok) so it looks like most of the first sowing of carrots (which were companion planted with the overwintering onions - doesnt look like that worked for us this year) and the parsnips (planted alongside some very nice and very smelly mint, in the hopes the mint would mask their smell) we've had growing for a while may be useless, but we'll leave them where they are and see what happens!

Because of the carrot fly we're going to build a second 'Fort Tesco's' on a couple of beds on plot 2 and plant them with carrots and parsnips in the hopes that the 4' high perspex walls will protect them from the attentions of the carrot fly (and the attentions of the wabbits that have been a munching the foliage) and perhaps give us some crops, even if their size is reduced by being planted late!

Thanks for reading, and I hope your carrots are fairing a bit better than ours have!

Plot 1 Update for 15th July 2007!

Once again some more piccies of our Pumpkin Patch!

Well, despite (or is it because) of all the rain we've plenty of stuff growing away nicely! Our pumpkins in the first bed seem to be going mad, standing almost 2' tall and spreading like nothing I've ever seen, we've even got some fruit setting on them, so looks like we may be ok for halloween this year!

The minipop corn in the same bed is doing ok, but not as well as the sweetcorn in the top ned next to the fartichokes, which now has cobs showing (tho they've a long way to go to reach an edible size yet!)
So, the fartichoke / corn / leek bed mentioned above! The fartichokes are now at almost 8' tall, the corn is up to 4' tall and the leeks are doing ok, but unfortunately, so are all the weeds!

Methinks we desperately need some dry weather to be able to do some hoeing! With all the wet of late all the weed seeds are germinating, and its not easy to try and hoe in damp earth, so we've been having to remove them by hand, hard work and time consuming, not to mention heartbreaking when within 2 weeks it doesnt look like its ever been weeded! Ah well, at least its a good way to keep fit, or so I keep telling myself! lol!
The outdoor cucumbers we planted to grow up our 'cucumber ramp' have finally started to grow with a bit of vigour, as you can see they are beginning to climb and one even has its first set fruit! The lettuces inside the 'ramp' are also doing well, and with the netting they do seem safe from the attention of the local wabbits that have become a problem on many of our neighbours plots! (Touching wood here, we've had some carrots and brassicas nibbled, but otherwise we've not been hit too badly, yet!)
One of the upshots of all the wabbits is after planting 50+ brassicas out we came back the following day to find that many of them had been nibbled, so we errected 'Fort Tesco's' to protect them! Lee recycled a load of perspex (from the roofs of the trolley park thingies) from his work, and we used it to build the Fort, with a huge nod to Messers Heath and Robinson! Mind you, since its been up it does seem to be protecting the brassicas, and most of the seedlings seem to have recovered well, so fingers crossed that we'll have lots of cabbages and caulis later in the year!

We've had one or two comments about our 'Fort' tho, including one asking how much for admission to the pool! After all the rain we've been having we have foudn once or twice that the water had lain in pools inside the fort, especially as the ground has been copmpacted for growing brassicas in it!

Once again another piccy of our courgette plants, just so you can marvel (as do we every time we visit the plot) at how big they are getting!

Not only have we been harvesting courgettes for a few weeks now, but we had our first marrow from it yesterday, thats now stuffed and in the oven cooking ready for Lee's tea when he gets home from work!

Another panoramic view, this time looking down the mange tout netting, past the peas to the broad beans and greenhouse!

The mange tout has been really good so far, not only have we been having it with almost every meal, but we also froze about 3lb of it yesterday too! And its still flowering like mad and producing enough pods to make harvesting it a couple or 3 times a week a definite must! Heartily recommend this veg, and we will deffo be growing it again next year!

And last one for today, a quick piccy of about 2/3rds of our overwintering red onions, harvested yesterday in the rain by Lee! In total about 250 of them, ranging from about 1 1/2" size up to 5" diameter!

Unfortunately with the weather this year we had about half of them start to go to seed, so once we got them home we had to sort them out, those that hadnt started to run to seed (about 140 or so) were put out to dry on the racking in the back bedroom (only place we have thats dry enough atm, tho I have to say the smell does clear your nose when you go in there!), and the other 110 or so were peeled, sliced and frozen in the chest freezer upstairs, as we know onions that have run to seed dont store well, so rather than wasting them we thought we'd freeze them and use them after the stored onions are finished!

Anyhows, hope you liked the piccies, and thanks for looking!