What have you done on the plot today?

[madcow]

Very late sowing of dwarf green beans (14th July) is now producing reasonable qty of small beans. Took a picking yesterday afternoon, some went in the freezer,  some were eaten straightaway.
 By picking small beans you avoid the stringiness and toughness that comes with maturity.
There seems to be enough for another couple of pickings as well if weather keeps reasonable.

[Bledlow]

Watched Mrs B pull up this -



It will be sliced, lightly salted in the traditional Japanese manner, & served as a side dish with dinner tonight. Yum!

Any excess will be grated into a salad tomorrow.

[Bledlow]

Mrs B popped up to the allotment yesterday & got our first harvest of komatsuna. Japanese greens a bit like spinach, but IMO nicer.

[Pancho]

Cleared a patch ready to put some garlic in.

[Bledlow]

Went up there today for the first time for a while to find that Mrs B 'weeded' a lot of green manure yesterday. 

Ah well, she chucked it in the compost, so all is not lost.

[Palinurus]

So our allotments are under threat from development, which means I get to go to lots of meetings with allotment holders. They tend to be a bit older than me, at least the ones that go to meetings are.

About a year ago a storage unit made out of a shipping container appeared on the allotment. In the last week we've found out that it's for our use and we have a key. So, the meeting was asked, what do we use it for?

"tea" was the first answer.

"sex" was the second.

[Bledlow]

Planted garlic while Mrs B harvested pak choi for dinner.

She's just admitted that she picked too much.

[Welsh Man]

Planting my new mini orchard this afternoon , Apple , pear and plum tress.

 

[Pancho]

Garlic all in now.

Not much left to do for the rest of the year - except dig everything over and put it all to bed for winter.

[Chris S]

Not much left to do for the rest of the year - except dig everything over and put it all to bed for winter.

If the local farmers are anything to judge by, you need to tip huge amounts of shit all over it, and leave it to fester for a while before digging it in.

[Bledlow]

Went up there yesterday to pick some komatsuna (Japanese greens) & found the garlic was sprouting. Is that good, or is it too early & making it vulnerable to the winter cold?

Last daikon lifted, along with the last of the late planted chantenay carrots. Only stuff still pickable is pak choi.

[Bledlow]

I was re-arranging storage to optimise use of the plot (i.e. putting it under the trees where nothing thrives, thus freeing up the good bit under where it is now), when the French bloke on the next plot offered me some of his surplus raspberry canes. 

More than I have room for, in fact. I've offered the excess to the next door neighbour.

[Pancho]

Not much left to do for the rest of the year - except dig everything over and put it all to bed for winter.

If the local farmers are anything to judge by, you need to tip huge amounts of shit all over it, and leave it to fester for a while before digging it in.

Which is largely what I tend to do as well! If I'm lazy, it's leave mould from elsewhere in the garden. If I'm energetic with the barrow it's the Real Thing from a stable down the road. But it's time consuming and tiring so the garden often goes without. I quite often think of buying a cheap bike trailer purely for this purpose.

[hellymedic]

Ate some of the late tomatoes, still ripening on the vines despite plants dying back. They are much more tasty than the bland pulp of the early season.

[Wascally Weasel]

Lost it. 

[Tail End Charlie]

I pulled some parsnips and leeks and have just had them for tea. Parsnips both mashed and roasted and leeks steamed.
Still find it hard to get ALL the soil out of the leeks though. No matter how much I was them, some crunchiness always remains.

Put some more chippings down on some of the paths, much more to do yet though.

Tomorrow it's gooseberry pruning time.

[Bledlow]

Over the last couple of days I've planted the donated raspberry canes, finished moving all the storage & the assorted junk the previous tenant left behind to its new location, repaired a raised bed with some skip timber (declining the offer of other stuff from the skip), burned a load of brambles, including roots, lifted the old carpets which were under the old location of the storage (discovering in the process that the path had encroached on the plot a bit), dug in a log to help mark the edge of the plot a bit better & started marking out the new locations for paths & beds now the storage is sorted out.

On schedule for getting everything ready in time for planting.

[Wobbly John]

Really struggled to get parsnips out of the ground before Christmas. they have gone down into the very heavy clay, and the top 'spit's worth' is so waterlogged and sticky that it offers no leverage. I still have 2 rows (10 metre rows) of them to dig as well as 2 rows of carrots. 

Yesterday I managed to burn up all the tree & shrub clippings I had built up down at the allotment (2-3 cubic metres of them) using Christmas pressie boxes & wrapping to get it going. 

[Bledlow]

Busy busy busy!

After weeks of being ill on & off but mostly on, & only being fit to do anything for a couple of days, then it all being covered in snow, fine weather coincided with wellness, at last.

Marked out the new beds & paths on my plan. Roughly dug one bed & mulched it with the heap of vegetation I piled up last summer (rotted enough - the worms can finish it off). That'll be for potatoes, which shouldn't mind the rough digging & incompletely rotted mulch. hacked down the green manure on another bed which was prepared last year, to start getting it ready for planting. Started digging another new bed, half of which was previously under carpet (the previous tenant was very keen on carpets) & was packed down hard. Filled with stones (garnered from vegetable beds) a hole in a path which filled with water when it rained heavily. Laid a couple of old strips of left behind carpet on paths, after scraping off all the stuff growing on & through them, & the earth adhering to them. That'll provide something to walk on that isn't mud until I can sort out a more permanent covering.

After that lot I felt a bit tired, so gave up. I may be restored to health, but I've lost a lot of fitness.

[Tail End Charlie]

Checked on the rhubarb which I started forcing two weeks ago. The stalks are appreciably bigger than the uncovered ones already.
Saw there had been a delivery of wood chippings, so nipped down and got in early to grab a load for the paths.
Tidied up the rear of the plot and tied some pallets together to make two more compost bins. I'll earmark one of these for leaf mould as there is a huge pile of leaves which the council have delivered.
Love mornings like that, lots achieved in really windy weather.

[Bledlow]

Of the three new beds I decided to make (that part of the plot had been neglected long enough for boundaries to disappear, & part of it had been used for storage which I've moved under the trees at the site boundary, hence new plots were needed), two are done, & the third is cleared of all the carpets, marked out & half dug. Digging's a bit slow because of all the roots which need to be got out. There were lots of nettles there. Stones, too, which are going to paths.

Buried a dead rat, in case it had died of poisoning. I'd not like a cat or fox to suffer from eating it.

[graculus]

Went up there for a couple of hours this morning as it was the first time being free and good weather had coincided for a couple of weeks.
Split some chunks of the rhubarb root for friends who want some and my Dad (whose existing clump had all but died).
Cut down autumn raspberry canes from last year and pruned blackcurrant bush.
Dug up the remaining leeks - mostly pencil sized, they didn't do at all well this year.
Picked a few kale leaves.
Surprised that there was only one other person on the site given how sunny it was.

[Pancho]

Rescued a flower bed from overwinter neglect and early brambles. There are very few flowers I actually appreciate so this bed will soon be filled with more edible and productive greenery. As it's next to the "formal" lawn, I'll make some nod towards appearances by maybe making it a herb and strawberry patch.

My job for this afternoon (ie now - the rugby's on in 50 minutes) is to chainsaw off a tree branch. I've been procrastinating as I really don't like chainsaws.

If I don't post again, it'll be because I've lopped my arm off and am unable to type - or I've just died from bloodloss; expired out of sight of the house.

[Pancho]

My job for this afternoon (ie now - the rugby's on in 50 minutes) is to chainsaw off a tree branch. I've been procrastinating as I really don't like chainsaws.

If I don't post again, it'll be because I've lopped my arm off and am unable to type - or I've just died from bloodloss; expired out of sight of the house.

Back safe. The tree lost the limb, as intended, and I have retained all mine (also as intended). Still really don't like chainsaws, though.

[Wobbly John]

Over the weekend, I've harvested the last of the leeks and parsnips and also dug as many carrots as we need. The cleared ground has been rotovated. I also planted a couple of rows of broad beans.