3 1/2 tons of shit

Delivered today, pictures on twitter as unable to upload on this computer. Lack of blogging so far this year due to  being really busy but things at our allotment are moving along nicely and I am looking forward to Spring and Summer. Lets hope this year brings us some warm sunny days, something that has been lacking the last 3 summers.

As I said I had a large load of manure delivered and have started mulching the beds it's still quite fresh so I will allow some to rot down. Where it is being used I will be growing beans and squashes so not too bothered it is fresh as they will thrive, I think some people are too over cautious whilst using manure and panic it has to be years old before use. Seeds I have sown so far this year are as follows Leek Musleburgh in pots, Mange Tout, Sweet peas, Cosmos, Tumbling toms, Cabbage atlas and greyhound, Sprouts, Basil, Corriander and Rocket.

I have a weeks annual leave next week and hope to get hold of some raspberry canes and more bare root fruit trees for the new plot which as previously stated will be mainly fruit and lower maintainence. This year will also be the year that I finally start an asparagus bed.

Happy gardening and speak soon, don't forget you can follow me on twitter @AllotmentGas but be warned my language and views are not to everybodys taste.

Planning for the year ahead by being prepared

After the rush of Christmas I have now started planning for the year ahead at our allotment, the plan is trying to do as little as possible and let the plot work for us. The first thing that keeps coming  to mind is finally planting asparagus, this is something I wish I had done when we first got the plot as we would be reaping the benefits this year. The seed catalogues are coming out and some internet research will take place to decide which is best variety to purchase they need to be planted out in April and come as crowns.

Seeds have been saved from last years pea and bean crops so no need to worry about buying them so St George runners and mangetout golden sweet will be the peas and beans of choice again. I am determined to be more successful at successional sowing of crops this year in particular lettuces and pak choi.

 The top half of our allotment is no dig so working that is easy I have added organic matter like compost and manure and the worms do the rest. The bottom half which is beds but ones we dig does not need too much as work as beds have been covered that have no crops remaining and 5 of the beds have permanent crops in. The new half plot which we took on already has several fruit trees and bushes and garlic growing away, the rest of it was cleared,dug and covered in thick balck plastic membrane in the autumn.

I don't want to sound smug but to me that is the key to keeping an allotment you need to spend time in autumn and winter getting things oraganised as it saves you time and effort in spring when you have a million and one things to do. All I have to do is sow my seeds plant out and keep on top of the weeds.

New video comingI was lucky enough to be given an HD video camera for my 40th birthday so hope to start making some how to videos as well this year.

Happy new year to everyone reading this!

This years harvests in photos

These are photos I have taken on my phone throughout the year of things we have harvested at our allotment and I thought I would share them with you. Also a big hello to wherever you are in the world reading this, going by stats I see a lot of people who read this blog are scattered all over North America, Asia, Far east, Austrlasia and Europe. Thank you once more for taking time to look at my blog.

Bountiful plot

Managed to get down our allotment today and take some photos and as you can see the plot is still very much alive with winter veg, crops planted earlier in the year that can remain in the ground and next years crops emerging ie garlic. Harvested the last of the tomatoes and peppers today and cut all the peppers right back to roughly 30cm height and trimmed to barely nothing in an attempt to overwinter them. They are within in the tunnel and will be doubly insulated by placing old water cooler bottles over them, I have also dug some up repotted and they are going to live in spare bedroom overwinter, fingers crossed some will come through and start new growth in the spring. Nice to see the garlic emerging I have had to put some pea netting over it as the allotment cat has decided it is a nice bed to shit in which did not impress me, on the plus side he does keep the rat population down.

                                                    The chopped back pepper plants

                                              Cauliflower all year round and Kale hungry gap.

                                                              Florence Fennel Tauro.

                                                           Swiss and Rainbow Chard.

                                                       Winter lettuce unknown name?

                                                                 Kale Scarlett.

                                                      Sweet peas old spiced mix.

                                                           Rosemary cuttings.

                                   Garlic in pots to plug any gaps if any dont germinate outside.

                                                            Garlic just emerging.

                                    Leeks now being harvested these can stay in all winter and picked as required.

                       Savoy January King put on alot of growth due to mild weather, no real frost yet this year!

                                        Brussel Sprout Maximus, slightly decimated by whitefly.

                                   Globe Artichokes putting on new growth due to unusualy mild weather.

                                 First harvested fennel which I will be having with some smoked haddock.

I hope to add more photos of this years harvests soon until next time goodbye.

New plot

We have taken on another half plot which has been cleared and dug over and is ready to go for 2012, we will cover it now with a thick black damp proofing plastic to stop any nutrients being washed away in the winter rains. That is not to say nothing has gone in the ground on our new plot, we could not leave it all empty as that is not in our nature. Garlic music which we had spare after planting out on our other plots was put in 2 rows of 32 cloves also our Blackcurrant, Redcurrant and Gooseberry bushes have been moved to the new plot as they needed more room.

This week also we manged to bag ourselves some cheap bareroot fruit trees from Asda they were priced at £7 but when at the checkout they came in at £3.50 so we got the following trees and they are also planted on new plot.

Conference Dessert Pear.

Bramley Culinary Apple.

Sunburst Dessert Cherry.

Cox's Orange Dessert Apple.

Spartan Dessert Apple.

Idared Culinary Apple.

Beurre Dessert Pear.

Golden Delicious Dessert Apple.

So as you can see by the above list hopefully over the next couple of years Our Allotment will be providing us with lots of fruit to go with all our bountiful vegtables. The rest of the allotment and tunnel is still providing lots of goodies including Parsnips, Carrots, Tomatoes, Chard, Chillis, Celeriac, Celery, Leeks, Sprouts, Kale and J Artichokes. Plus what we have planted and growing for spring more Kale, Savoy cabbage, Offenham spring cabbage and not forgetting enough garlic to sink a small ship. I will try and get to plot this week to take some photos to post but due to inner ear infection everything I do at the moment is a struggle so no promises.

 Hope you enjoyed the update on our allotment take care Jamie.

Saving seeds

 To save money on seeds and to have your own strain of seed now is the time to think about saving seeds, as we have only had our allotment a couple of years this is something we have only started doing and with time we want to save as much as we can. This year we have grown french marigolds,poppys, runner beans and mangetout from saved seeds with great success. Peas and beans are really easy to save as you just leave the pods on the plant to grow to full size and when the plant dies back and they dry out pick and shell them and stick in an envelope in a cool dry place. Flowers like marigolds and poppy's etc will produce their seed pods just collect them and store them the same as before and sunflowers like in the picture above have their seeds in their heads. One of my favourite blogs vegtable heaven which I have link to on my home page goes into more speacilised seed saving and crossing of breeds and heritage varietys, well worth a read and something I would like to be doing in the future.

On another note what is going on with this weather again this year it has been wall to wall sunshine in Bristol the last few days with temperatures in the mid 20's and today looks set to be the hottest October day on record it really has been a funny year. I have taken some more photos for you to see we now have our winter cabbages and kale all planted out and the squahes and the strawberries are still producing, a couple of disappointments something is causing the leeks to wilt and yellow an whitefly have decimated the sprouts.

Until next time enjoy the pictures and this lovely indian summer bye for now Jamie.