Allotment geekery

Oh my days!  I hope everyone likes jam because our strawberry patch is growing and growing and we are going to have so much fruit.  I can't wait!  We've been saving jars for months, unlike last year we're going to make jam and preserve as much as we can for winter.

My lavender is coming along nicely and smells amazing, the bees love it.  It seems it loves it's position because it was a third of this size a year ago.

At last I seem to be getting the hang of carrots!  I have them in a raised bed one half of which is doing really well but on the other half a cat/cats keep digging at it which is just so frustrating, I suppose I should view this year as a practice run and I'll know better what I'm doing next year.

Chopping at mega grass that has built up on the quarter of the plot that we took over earlier in the year, this little fella jumped out.  A year ago this would have freaked me out entirely but now I love them, they eat slugs and snails and that is just fine by me.

Hmm not sure if you can read the labels on this panoramic overview of the plot, but you get an idea of what we're doing :)

Allotment geekery

Yesterday the weather was luuush so of course we had to get on the allotment, at this time of year there is so much to get done.  Not only that we have been so starved of sun this winter it's nice to have the sun on your face, even if it wasn't very warm just being able to get out there was enough.

In the last week the seedlings have really gone for it...

Courgettes at last!  These pesky things weren't germinating at all (or so I thought) so I kept planting more thinking I would have a summer of no courgettes *shudder* but I now have about 10 or 11 plants.  Anyone who has grown courgettes will know four plants are more than enough for two people so the folks at work are going to have to brace themselves for the onslaught of veg I'm going to force upon them.

I reacted in much the same way to beetroot as I did to courgettes, I now have 51 plants growing (oops).  Luckily we love beetroot, if you haven't tried beetroot thinly sliced on pizza you are seriously missing out it is mega tasty, try it.

I have never grown broad beans before so I'm happy with the way these bad boys are turning out.  Other people in the polytunnel have been growing broad beans and their plants have pods on them already, I'm not too concerned, from the looks of these flowers we are going to have plenty to keep us busy (so close to trying out broad bean pesto, I just need to find where I have 'safely stored' the recipe).

Well this is a selection of what we have on the go.  Bottom right we have peas that are ready to go out, on the left many, many beetroots, in the modular tray are the butternut squashes I'm hoping will make an appearance soon, borlotti beans which will be hardened off soon, broccoli, turnips, french beans (purple and yellow) and aubergine.

What we did on the plot: 

• Station sewed our first row of radish
• Got the first batch of carrot seed in
• Dug out the dandelions creeping over from our neighbours plot
• Hand weeded the onions

Allotment Geekery

A week away from the allotment and it has gone crazy!  Our peas have produced a good amount of pods and the additional peas I planted straight into the ground have come up and are looking healthy, I'm optimistic we'll have a good crop.  

As for our strawberries we have tonnes of them!  You can smell our little strawberry patch metres before you can even see our plot they smell absolutely delicious.  MozzyMr is great at making strawberry sauces which we'll freeze and I'm going to give jam making a bit of a go (Women's Institute ahoy!).

Our first garlic!  Planted in November we have waited, and waited and waited for the leaves to yellow and fall over, apparently this is a sign that they're ready to be dug up, and here we are!  The elephant garlic we planted a couple of months ago is making good progress it's all very exciting the only problem is that with all of the veg growing well the weeds haven't been doing so badly themselves so we have a lot of work to do to get things back to how it looked before we went on holiday.

Allotment Geekery

Sunday at the allotment, the butternut squashes have gone in...

the strawberries are flowering...

the lavender is on it's way...

the peas seem to be liking their new home and have started to produce pods already...

carrots!

too many tomatoes...

...and finally kites and shadows.  MozzyMr and I were suffering after a Birthday celebration at the Double Locks for friend Charlotte.  Too many ciders made us a bit broken, so we crawled to the allotment in the hope it might be restorative, a bit of sun and digging sorted me right out not sure about MozzyMr he seems to want to eat all the cake and sleep in his armchair.

Allotment Geekery

A couple of weeks ago we found these wire bakery trays at the dump, hung above our plot in the polytunnel it almost doubles the amount of space we have for germinating seeds and generally growing stuff.

MozzyMr with the peas and courgettes.

We let the tomato plants get a bit pot bound so it was time to get them in the plot, with the wire baskets freeing up lots of space they finally got the root room they needed.  The plan is to plant basil amongst the tomatoes, Monty told me it was a good idea... bloody love Monty.

Rocking crazy allotment hair!