What have you done on the plot today?

[Tail End Charlie]

Sieved a few buckets of soil so that the seeds, when I plant the next lot, have a good start.
Am thinking of growing carrots in pots of sieved soil.
Put some more chippings down on newspaper.
Decided where to put some gooseberry bushes I've grown from cuttings.

[Pancho]

More onions in. Carrots in. Parsnips in. Is the family really going to eat that many onions, carrots and parsnips?

Bonfire.

Leaf mould digging, barrowing and spreading.

Found hole in my wellies and gardening gloves. Any suggestions for wellies or welly repair, chaps?

That was all in the morning. After lunch I walked down to the sea and back. Absolutely glorious weather. Beats being in the office any day of the week.

[Palinurus]

Not much so far. Uncovered one of the beds, started digging over another, stuck my bean canes up (borlotti beans later- oh yes), sowed some broad beans.

Dig the potato bed is next.

[Si]

First row of first earlies (am going to stagger them more this year so that I can get the whole lot while they are small and new and buttery).

Wilkos red onions in as they were 'chitting' in the cupboard.

Spring onions and assorted lettuce into the salad bed.  Am intending to eat less curry and more salad this year!

Raddishes have sprouted.

started last bit of digging but but too painful so gave up and nuked it with Wilkos cheapo systemic weed killer - I prefer not to use da chemicals o'deth but if used very sparingly I don't feel that they do too much harm.

[Tail End Charlie]

Planted some Jerusalem artichokes, braaaaap. Was given them by another plot holder. They should do nicely in a shady part I have.

[SteveC]

MrsC and I have this weekend filled seven old compost bags with weeds to go to the tip for recycling.
I am knackered and may have to have a restorative, pre-prandial something as a reward! 

However, both veg beds are now reasonably clear of weeds and the remains of last year's crop (a few beetroot and some small but perfectly formed leeks) so it was worth it.

S

[Tail End Charlie]

Planted some spuds, Pentland Javelin and Picasso.

[Regulator]

Yesterday I managed (despite creaky knees following the Cam to the Coast Ride) to give a final dig over to one part of the plot and to plant white sporuting broccoli and perpetual spinach.

I also dug over the ground in the polytunnel, and planted tomatoes ('Big Boy' beefsteak and 'Black Russian) and 'Little Gem' lettuces.

Two of the raised bed were dug over and carrots (Nantes Early) planted.

Now my knees ache...

[Palinurus]

We planted our spuds yesterday too. And got a bit more of the plot dug over ready for more planting.

[Si]

Went to the allotment AGM.

There was much gnashing of teeth and unrest over petty issues. 

For instance, to help fund raising some people bake cakes to be sold at open days.  They claim back the money that they spend on ingredients, but not for their time or the use of their kitchens/power/etc.  The cakes re sold and what they make minus the money for the ingredients goes into the allotment funds for the good of us all.  The allotments have never lost money doing this.  For reasons that beat me, there were complaints from people (that weren't contributing to the funds themselves), that the cake makers shouldn't be allowed to claim back their ingredient money.  When it was pointed out that the cake makers actually make a personal loss and that if they stopped making cakes then the allotments would lose out, the complainers said that that was how it should be.

Jeez, and I thought cyclists were bad!

[Pancho]

Sieved a couple of barrowfuls of compost and soil. Am knackered and about to look up powered sieves.

Planted loads of broccoli.

Packed the tools away at 11ish and walked to a pub along the coast a couple of hours away. Very low tide today.

[Pancho]

Planted loads of broccoli.

Well, that didn't last long.

Eaten in under 24 hours. Bastard wild life.

[spindrift]

This is my new garden:

https://picasaweb.google.com/solomonsky/LastOfTheHedges#

The nine trees at the bottom of the garden are Amelanchiers.

Three 20 foot by 15 foot gardens, seperated by a 6 foot privet hedge. I've been cutting that hedge for 15 years and stuffing the clippings under the hedge to rot down in the soil. Too big, too much shade, too much work. I lopped them off at about knee height then wrestled the roots out of the ground. The soil is lovely and packed with earthworms.

I've planted a thousand summer bulbs, mostly Dutch Iris , Gladioli, lilies, and the new carpet dazzler lily:

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/medias/sys_tandm/8797075537950.jpg


Next, a bargain from Van Meuwen plants, 450 bedding plants for £14.99, and some shrubs for height and winter form, haven't decided which yet.

I'll keep track of the changes and post photos.

[clarion]

We actually did something!

Set the spuds out for chitting, and Butterfly bought a load of compost and several plants. 

So we dug over the raised beds and added some of our own compost (actually a lot lot better than I thought it would be) and the new stuff.

Put in canes for the beans.

Now to do:  Planting, building fourth raised bed & filling it, digging out the other beds.  Good thing we aren't off camping this weekend as previously planned.

[Wobbly John]

At the weekend, I planted out 4 rows onions (from seed) 1 row Spring onions, 2 rows peas, 1 row lettuceses one row broad beans.

Also planted several trays of baby sweetcorn, Mange tout, french beans & runner beans in the greenhouse at the allotment.

Planted several trays of peppers, tomatoes, caulis, courgettes, cues, butternut squash & pumkins in the greenhouse at home.

Carrots are up and shallots are sprouting.

Plenty of blossom on the plum tree & the currant bushes. Picked Rhubarb during the last 2 weeks. Still picking last years spring onions & leeks.

Next week I'll plant maincrop spuds & carrots, red onions & leeks, french beans outside (got hit by frost when I tried last year, but I have pleny of seed saved).

[Mike J]

I don't know if I'm going to have an allotment much longer

We got ours in July last year and have dug a small amount, but it was in quite a state when we got it and had a bay tree that had been cut down on it.  I got a letter today saying we hadn't complied with the rules (not that I've had any) and if we don't cultivate 75% in a months time, we will lose it 

[Tail End Charlie]

Planted some parsnips and beetroot on the plot. Shoved in some Jerusalem artichokes in an out of the way part. Broad beans coming up well and the beetroot and parsnips I sowed a while ago are showing. Generally faffed around aswell.
Planted sweetcorn, French beans (climbing and normal), leeks in the greenhouse at home.
Where does the time go??

[Ashaman42]

Well I've started late but didn't do any growing at all last year so doing better at least.

No allotment but lucky enough to have a south facing garden so will try and grow a few bits, the year before last I had four successful tomato plants (at least until the wind blew them down and they were too bushy/big to get upright again) and a couple cucumber plants that grew well initially but suffered from being on a patio that retains water when it rains.

Hoping toms and cucs will do better this year, our neighbour has said yes to me putting some trellis up on our garden's dividing wall and I've read that cucumbers can be trained vertically so that'll avoid the patio problem.

Over the past couple days I have:

• turned over the compost, bin is only half full despite being there 2 years and doesn't seem to have rotted very well
• seeded some seed trays with toms, cucumber, lettuce, spinach and broccoli, possibly some carrot as well but didn't keep a note of what went where so will be a surprise
• started building an anti cat-poo device, have some wood from the skip at work and some wire fencing/netting that I'm making into a box to protect the flower beds earmarked for veg

Main job left is to dig out the flower bed (which is 80% poo at this point) and replace the soil with the contents of the year before lasts grow bags.

Have seen some signs on the way home from work for sacks of manure so might grab one or two to dig in as well.

[clarion]

It's been a busy weekend.  Planted some stuff yesterday, and today started digging out for our fourth raised bed.  Lots of deep woody roots   May take a bit longer, but it's for the spuds, so we've got some time.  I've done a third of it, and may do a bit more after tea.

Had fun taking the trailer to the garden centre to get compost.  I got a 35 litre bag, cause I wasn't sure how hard it would be to tow, but I should have got more.

[mike]

busy here too - broad beans, spuds, carrots, lettuce all safely in the beds and 2 of the others dug & weeded, the bastard climbing rose pruned back quite hard, lawn mowed (again), half a tonne of horse shit wheelbarrowed from the drive down to the garden and three tonnes of gravel spread out on the drive. 

might cancel my gym membership at this rate.

[Tail End Charlie]

Put in two gooseberry bushes which I have grown from cuttings 18 months ago. Still have two more to plant.
Started off two water barrels with comfrey in them to make a superb feed. 
Transplanted some broad beans which I had planted too close in the expectation that not all would germinate, but they did!
Put up netting for climbing beans.

Need to put up supports for the mangetout. Last year I used pea sticks, which were OK but made picking awkward. Bit of time here as I've only just planted the seeds.

[Regulator]

Well, I've put up a pea and bean frame, and planted broad beans and mange tout.

Also got courgettes and aubergines planted.  Last part of the last bed dug over, ready for  planting.

Plus we've been asked if we'll put our allotment in to the "Open Gardens and Allotments Weekend" in June.  They want an example of how you can turn round an unused, overgrown plot.   

[delthebike]

Dug up from the base of a 30 year old compost heap.

Name that jaw bone.




I think it's a dog fox but ICBW and probably am.

[clarion]

Anywhere near Piltdown?

[Ashaman42]

Dug out a section of flower bed, moved some soil and a lot of plant bits elsewhere in the garden.

Inserted a piece of board sideways into the front of the bed to try and stop the lawn from collapsing into my new hole, dug too deep for board though and then had to fill in under it so not sure how secure it'll be, plus it's softwood from an old pallet so it'll probably just rot to pieces very quickly.

Covered the area with cardboard (weighted with the rest of the above wooden pallet) for the time being as still lots of bits of root in the soil, not sure whether to give it a decent bit of time covered over or just dig in my old grow bags tomorrow and risk needing a bunch of initial weeding.

Meant to take some 'before' photos but only remembered once I'd dug the top layer off, haven't done the whole length of bed though so could take some side by side shots for comparison.

A couple of the seeds in my little veg set propogator have sprouted but some of the other compost plugs and just covered in a fine white 'hair', not sure if this is mould (too much watering?) or what. May take some photos after tea.