Snowy weather at the allotment.

I went down to the old  allotment to get some vegetables and a load of horse manure had been left.  Well you can't look a gift horse in the mouth; so I set to work taking as much as I could down to the compost bins.  As the snow gently fell,  I eventually got about seven barrow loads and capped the lot with two barrow loads of mixed leaves and lawn mowings.   I have now filled two compost bins with manure and lawn mowings.  I will probably use this later on the potato bed.

I raked up as much of the horse manure as I could but what is left will be barrowed up when I get the rest of the leaves and lawn mowings.  I thought that I would leave these down in the communal bins until I needed it mainly because there is no space on the allotment to store it and nobody else seems interested in it.  I could put it on top of the green manure growing on the potato bed but this will just waste the green manure.  I would much rather allow the tares and rye to grow on until just before I plant the potatoes.

So much for not doing very much down the allotment.  However, it only took me about two hours to barrow the manure. This is probably just as well because the ground was rock hard with frost and it began to snow heavily.  I had already slipped on the ice in the roadway and I did not want to slip over again.

I have also got a new plum and pear tree for the new allotment.  The new allotment was always going to be mainly fruit so the trees will be planted down there.

Now that I have seen the Birmingham borders photographs, I don't think that I have enough plants to fill them.  So, I went down to the garden centre and bought some dwarf french beans 'Yin Yang' and 'Purple Teepee' ;  climbing french beans 'Cobra' ; tomato 'Tigerella'  and pepper 'Numex Twilight' seeds.  Together with some 'Swift' potatoes, that should fill the border quite well.  It is always good to write the names in this blog because I am sure to forget what they are by the time I plant them out.  I will sow some of them now for the show border but the majority of them will be sown at the proper time for the allotment.  The trouble with growing for show like this is that you have to count back from the show date to find out when to sow seed.  This will give you mature plants that are either flowering or fruiting at the time of the show.  I would like all  the  plants to be flowering or fruiting in June and this is quite difficult with these South American plants.  I may also be doing a show border at Shugborough ( http://www.shugborough.org.uk/Homepage.aspx ) if I get a chance and I would like to do a 'La Culture Maraîchère'  technique using some of the old cloches they have there.  I am hoping to get some manure from the farm to make the bed. If the seeds for the Birmingham bed germinate, then I will probably have too many and I will be able to use them for other projects or just down the allotments.  

Actually, I would be planting the tomatoes and peppers now anyway.  I will be planting all my onion seeds this week if the weather warms a little more.  I have some 'Red Barron' red onion sets to plant as well.  If they do not fit in the old allotment allium bed, I will plant them at the new allotment.  I like red onions in a salad sandwich  

I bought the seed at Ashwood Nurseries ( http://www.ashwoodnurseries.com ) because I wanted to have a cup of tea and a bite to eat in their cafeteria.  I like to go around their displays because the plants are really good and well labelled.  It helps me with my identification using Latin names.

I am going to make some charcoal soil with some marinaded charcoal and some New Horizons multipurpose compost to grow them on in.

So, even with the cold weather - the temperature this afternoon was -1^oC,  there is still lots to do.  I am still trying to revise for the RHS level 2 diploma exams in February.  I really must get on with that.  

Allotment Garden Planning for 2013 (Old Allotment)

These are the plans for the old allotment for 2013.  If you look at the plans for 2010, 1011 and 2012 you will see that everything moves on one bed each year.  This give a really good rotation and allows me to remember where to put everything.

The top bed of allotment 25 will be filled with early potatoes.  I have ordered Sherine, Rocket, Red Duke of York, Premere and Arron Pilot.  I have only grown Red Duke of York and Arron Pilot.  Arron Pilot seems to have been around since Pontius was a pilot. It was certainly a while ago that I grew it.    The Kestrel second early potatoes will go on the new allotment.

I will have to put some additional fertiliser onto this top third of the allotment because it has only had green manure, which will be dug in

The roots and leaves bed will have carrots, beetroot, parsnips, Hamburg parsley and salsify for the roots and  Dill, sage, chamomile, lettuce, coriander, tarragon, fennel,spinach, Swiss chard, celeriac and celery.
This is a lot to fit in and if it can't be done some of these will be sown on the new allotment.

The blackcurrants have been pruned and mulched with copious amounts of horse manure.  On the bottom third of this half allotment, I have already planted the strawberries.  I will be relying on these strawberries because I am still transplanting the ones on the new allotment which means that they will not fruit well this year.

Six lines of peas and two lines of climbing french beans should be enough this year.  There are still Brussel sprouts and winter cauliflowers in this bottom bed but they should be out long before I want the ground for the peas and beans.  I am a little worried that I will have a lot of slug and snail damage on the beans because they will be right next to my neighbour's shed and compost heaps.  We will still give it a go though.

Allotment number 26(a) will have the brassica bed and the sweet peas.  I have already got the summer cauliflowers and cabbage sown and germinated.  It is just keeping them alive over the cold weather now. They are tucked away in the cold greenhouse and they should survive, if there is no prolonged cold weather.   I sowed some of my saved broad bean seeds in the autumn and they have made some good plants now.  Again, I just need to keep them alive over the winter in the cold greenhouse.  I planted some new raspberry canes last month replacing the soil to avoid raspberry soil sickness.  I am hoping that most of them come but they will not fruit this year.  The old canes I have taken to the new allotment where I will put them in as part of my permaculture area.

The alliums and the curbits will go on the bottom bed of the allotment.  I have already sown some leeks and onions.  The rest of the onions will be sown before the end of January.  I doubt if I will have four rows of garlic and I will be planting more rows of onions.

A long time ago, when I first started to grow seriously, my next door neighbour put scaffold planks alongside his leeks and filled the inside with soil to blanch the stems.  I have earthed leeks up but I have never put planks alongside to hold the soil in.  I might give it a go this year.

This is the planning for this allotment for 2013, however I have not even though about planning for the new allotment.  I have been putting in permanent things like fruit trees and rhubarb but even these may well be moved if they do not fit in with the planning.  When I have a clearer idea about the size and shape of the beds on the new allotment then I will put the planning on this blog.

January jobs on the Allotment

I went up to the old  allotment primarily to get some vegetables for the week but I knew  that I really should start to dig in the green manure (winter tares and grazing rye) sown when the potatoes were harvested.

The very wet weather has battered the grazing rye about and it looks a little unsightly now.  The green manure needs to be dug in because I will be planting out the alliums soon.  I have a greenhouse full of garlic, elephant garlic, shallots and onions.  All these plants can be put outside if the winter is not too extreme.  I was thinking of covering them with a plastic cloche anyway but the cloche will be squashed if we have a lot of snow.

The other option is to leave the alliums in the greenhouse until the weather changes in March and this will restrict what seed can be sown now.  If I do not have any space to put seedlings then there is no point in sowing seeds. However, if I can put the alliums  somewhere else, I can get on sowing tomatoes and peppers.

The other option and one that I am seriously considering now  is to repair the cold frame and use that. I was given the cold frame but it had very little intact glass.  Almost all the glass needs to be replaced and this is expensive.  Regardless, I do need the space to put plants and to protect them a little.  A glass cold frame would be ideal because it is less likely to get squashed or damaged by snow.  Apart from replacing the glass, I need to find a permanent position for the frame.

The most ideal place to put it is where the green manure is growing.

So that is another reason for digging in the green manure.  I dug about four feet by eighteen feet into this bed today and will continue to dig whenever I go down to the old allotment.  I am just single digging  because this bed was triple dug and sieved last year.  All that is needed is the green manure to be dug in and left to rot down for a couple of weeks before I begin to plant out the onions.

I am planning  to plant the broad bean plants next to the new raspberry canes and this area need to be dug as well but not at the moment.  

In order to get some big plants the All the Year Round cauliflowers and the summer cabbage were sown.  Tomatoes and sweet peppers sown in three inch pot and brought into the house to germinate.

Some leeks, Brussel sprouts, carrots and parsnips were harvested from the allotment and onions and pumpkins taken from the store shed.  They were put into some plastic crates which will be used as  surfaces to put seedlings on in the green house.  I can carry the harvest home in plastic bags so I can use the crates for other things.

I have been triple digging the new allotment for some weeks now.  It is time consuming because there is so much bindweed and mare's tail deep in the soil.  Mixing in the pigeon manure with the top soil and home made compost is very time consuming particularly as I am using the sieve.  It does make very good friable well mixed soil though so I am loath to stop sieving.  I get rid of all the bindweed rhizomes, mare's tail and large stones by sieving. 

I am mixing into the soil what I think is an old compost pile under the hawthorn hedge.  It has a lot of organic  matter in it and it sieves down to a fantastic crumbly compost.  I have dug down into the subsoil under the compost heap to get what is probably quite infertile soil; sieved it; and added it to the digging trench to plant my grape vine into.  The poorer the soil the better for the vine. I am  not sure that the vine has survived but I planted it anyway.  It has got a sunny position at the west side of the allotment. 

The hole that I dug to get  the subsoil will have to be enlarged because there is a large oil drum on the allotment that needs to be buried.  I am using it for a dustbin at the moment for rubbish plastic and glass which will be buried with the oil drum.  I would have kept the drum as a water container but it does not seem to be water tight. Once it is buried I will fill it with stone  sieved from the dug soil and use it as a soak away under the shed.  More of the stones will be used as a foundation for the shed; covered with a little subsoil with slabs laid on top.  This will give a sound base for the shed; get rid of the stones and position the shed under the hedge where it is too shady to grow vegetables. 

The scrap metal man came past the allotment so I gave him the metal drum and some other metal off the allotment.  This got rid of the problem much faster than trying to bury it.  I will fill the hole with stone.

I really need to get on with the triple digging because I have a lot of plants to put into the new allotment.  There are the new raspberries, blackcurrant cuttings, asparagus, gooseberry cuttings, an apple tree and the bay tree cuttings.

I have buried all the brushwood  two spits down and really need some more.  There is still a lot of brushwood that will come from the hedge at home.  I will also continue to take out the shrubby Locinera and bury that as well.  I have already cut back the hedge at the end of the allotment and buried the brushwood but I am thinking of making the hedge a little thinner still.  It is all grist to the mill. 

My neighbour allotmenteer has given me some woody stuff that he was going to burn together with his old runner bean plants.  Lots of nutrients in these. 

So tomorrow  it  is digging again.  I am  beginning to ache.

Sowing Sweet Pea Seeds

Now, I  have seen in two books:  "Plant Propagation  for the Amateur Gardener" by John Wright and "Science and the Garden" edited by David  Ingram among others, that sweet pea seeds should either be chipped with a knife or sanded to make a hole  for water to enter the seed.  This they say will help to overcome seed dormancy.

Well  if you think that I am going to chip over 300 seeds then you are sadly mistaken.   I have been growing sweet peas since I was 16 and I have never chipped or sanded sweet pea seeds.  They are tiny little beggars in any case and I think that I would be chipping and sanding the ends of my fingers rather than the seeds.

Although I cannot remember every years germination rate, in most recent years I have had more or less 100% germination without chipping.

Having run  out of both pots and room  in the greenhouse, I have decided to wait before I sow the rest of the sweet pea seeds.  I  have until March to sow them.

I will choose a warmish day to plant out the shallots, broad beans and garlic that I have started in pots and cover them  with plastic cloches.  This will give me more than enough pots for the sweet peas.

This is the first time that I have run out of space in the greenhouse in December.

I will  have to make  room  for the giant leeks and onions when they need transplanting  into pots.  Also, I  will  need to transplant the big cabbage and cauliflowers.

I am hoping to grow  some big plants next season. 

Problem is that I can't get the digging done.  Will the rain ever stop?  I have still got over half the new allotment to dig over and put plants into.  I will try to get down there tomorrow.  I also need to get the veg from the old allotment.  I need some more carrots, onions, pumpkins (if they haven't gone rotten now) leeks and brussel sprouts.  I will  see if there  is any more kale or broccoli but there wasn't much last time I looked.  I will spend a little more time on these next season.

The kale and broccoli seed were given to me so I didn't bother too  much with them. 

Cleaning more plant pots

After searching around in the shed I have found quite a few three inch pots.  There is probably enough for at least one more variety of sweet peas to be sown.  I spent the morning cleaning them out and putting some more staging in the greenhouse.

If I  am going to sow some more seed I  will have  to have the space to line them out in the greenhouse.  The staging is  falling apart and will need some woodwork to put it together again but at the moment I  am just going to cover it with some large compost bags and use the trays  to  support the pots.

I cleaned the pots with the hand  brush and a damp rag.  I thought that I had washed a lot more of the pots at the allotment  but I was cruelly mistaken and had quite a few to do.

They do  look  good when they are  carefully cleaned though; almost as good as new and a lot cheaper.  I have at least three hundred pots and have never bought one.  They have aways come with a plant, mostly tomatoes, planted in them.  I   only throw  them  away when they get very old and  decrepid.

 I have been given quite a few of them as well.  Still  haven't enough though.

As  some of them have been given to me,  there  is a chance that they may have diseases or pests in their residual soil.  Regardless, cleaning them  is always the best  policy and avoids bringing  nasty bugs into the greenhouse.

It is  remarkable  how  much growing  medium is left in the pots when you knock out plants.  I have almost half filled an  old bucket with this residual growing  medium.  The growing medium  is probably still  full  of added nutrients even after a year so it  will be added to  the compost bin.  Its all grist to the mill Tone.

Tomorrow  I  will sow some  more  sweet pea seeds in the morning.  It seems that I will be  going to the cinema to watch the new Hobbit film  in the  afternoon.  This might suggest that I  would  rather be sowing seeds rather than sampling the visual interpretation of Tolkien's magnum opus and you might be right.  It is just the  though of his  little  book being  stretched out into three films.  What do they think they were doing?