Asparagus, Rhubarb and Perpetual Onions

All of these 3 things will still be here in their same growing positions in 10 years time. But what else will be here in the same place in 10 years time. Will we? Who knows? But we must plan to be.

I planted the Asparagus only yesterday. I had never thought about or even wanted to grow it, mainly due to the long wait for the first harvest. However, when I saw a pile of crowns reduced to only 19p each in a supermarket, I really couldn't refuse. I bought 7 crowns, and for just over £1 I can't complain if they don't come out too well. We'll wait and see!

In order to keep the cost of growing down we need to be as sustainable and even as thrifty as possible. You just can not justify spending money on needless things when you are growing your own in the long term. The first year is going to be expensive but after that I don't really want to spend another penny. That's why buying quality equipment and planning provisions are essential to long term allotment gardening sustainability.

Composting is the most essential fundamental of sustainability on the allotment. We brought 1 bin up from home, but have since ordered 2 more from the council and these are now doted quite handily around the allotment for easy access when we need it next year..

It is amazing what the compost bins will eat up. Everything from chicken poop to teabags and even the fluff that comes out of the tumble dryer. Just chuck it all in and then next year we will have the best compost going and the cheapest too.

Not forgetting we also have that old, rusty metal bin in the wild area which will be covered by a clematis in summer but will hold leaf mould in bags in the winter..

Water is also such a necessity. What are we going to do if the drought (hard to say when it is chucking it down outside) continues throughout summer and we have a hosepipe ban. The water we are collecting now is going to be invaluable...

If it's a long dry summer then where else are we going to get the water to quench our runner beans thirst.

The slabs and raised beds should also be there in 10 years time, so the foundations of our potting/play area will always give us a starting point in future years.

There aren't many excuses to not compost or collect water these days. They are so easy to do and the equipment you need is often subsidised by the local council authority.

It's always cool to recycle and upcycle on the allotment. Broken and unwanted objects can quickly become quirky or useful parts of the plot. Even seemingly rubbish like old rasberry canes can be used as pea sticks and ultimately spared from the bonfire..

Other rubbish such as plastic bottles can be used as perfectly good cloches, they're giving our lettuces some really important protection right now. Just cut the bottles in half and the remove the tops for a ventilation hole, the bottom half can be used too. Just turn them upside down and use a pair of scissors to cut a couple of small windows in each side. They are really useful for keeping slugs at bay and also keeping them warm whilst the threat of late frost or even SNOW still looms..

You can also use them as great bird scarers. Take the top off and place them on top of a bamboo cane in the ground above your vulnerable peas and beans. The bottles rattle around making both movement and sound hich will scare the birds off...

Have a good day. I've had a few enquiries about the number of courgette plants I've sown so I'll be doing a little feature on how and why I grow them in the next few days!



Martin

The birds and the bees..

Quite a sad post this one.

Our colony of bees didn't make it through the winter. I can't give you a thorough diagnosis, it could be Colony Collapse Disorder, it could have been due to extreme cold or it could just be one of those things. When we regained the colony last spring they looked a bit weak, but by high summer they had really picked up, maybe they still weren't strong enough.

If anybody knows of a swarm of bees causing a nuisance is south Warwickshire then please give me a call, leave a comment or send an email!

We also lost two hens in March in the space of a couple of weeks. We lost a big girl and a bantam. The big girl appeared to go broody which is not too surprising at this time of year but then next day she was stone cold dead in the eglu. A real shock, and completly unexpected. At least she had had a good couple of years, as an ex free range farm laying hen she's done well.

The biggest shock was poor Margot, our favourite hen (don't tell the others). She was absolutely beautiful and was found dead one morning in their eglu nest box...

Here she is last summer when she was 20 weeks old....

So we're down to 3 hens at the moment. 1 big girl and 2 bantams. Not a good start to the year for our livestock, but we'll be building up numbers again come summer. If Amy lets me...

It's a waste of 2 eglus not to!


Martin

Bricks, bark and bloody brambles!

Welcome to the latest installment of our allotment update. It really is strange writing about things that I did at the end of March, but seeing as we were offline during that time, it's the best I can do I am affraid.

When we took over plot 114, the soft fruit area we had inherited really was the problem area. The raspberries had been completly untended and had spread across the whole area. The strawberry patch had ran amock too and I have disposed of no end of runners and plants. The whole area really put Amy off taking on this allotment but I managed to prod her in the direction of all of the positives and remind her that 'in the summer' it would all look fantastic. The patch was also covered in prickly brambles and blackberry bushes, and seeing as there is a bush behind our garden already, we know we have a good supply and therefore could eliminate them from the allotment completly.

I really can't believe this is what it used to look like, and for novice vegetable gardener Amy, I can see why she was slightly put off..

After completing Amy's paved area, I set about completing the fruit patch. In order to get Amy engaged I needed to make the place as nice as possible for her, and make a real effort to show that progress can be made on what was a barron wasteland.

It took hours, days, maybe just over a week to clear the endless amounts of nasty stuff. Not knowing whether the raspberries were a summer or autumn cropping variety. I took good advice from Monty Don and just simply removed any dead wood and lef the rest of the canes well alone, and just wait and see what happens this year.

It wasn't just what was on top of the soil it was what was underneath it aswell. You might remember we found tons of carpet under the vegetable area, and udner this there was bin bags, black plastic, rotted weed supressing membranes aswell as rotted tools and cigarette packets. What a concoction!

When I eventually got the patch looking like a patch of earth and not a wasteland. It was time to get planting. I said earlier that I binned a whole load of strawberry plants that were covering large proportions of the allotment and this might seem wasteful, but I wanted to start with new virus free stock in order to manage our fruit properly. We may as well start as we wish to go on..

So I ordered 30 plants from fothergills online, and we watered the strawberry bed right at the very end of the allotment very heavily before covering it with multi purpose compost and then a membrane to prevent weed growth. I then made a slit in the membrane for each plant and then added a top layer of bark which will keep the slugs off the strawberry fruit crop come early summer..

We had plenty of bark left so we made a bark path inbetween the raspeberry frames which makes access a lot better for us. I say two raspberry frames, but it is now actually just one raspberry frame and a frame for a grapevine too! To edge the path and strawberry bed we have just used bricks that we have found on our plot since taking it over, and it certainly looks very posh..

Here is the whole area..

We also have some fruit bushes too. There is one big blackcurrant bush, I've never grown blackcurrants before so that is quite exciting, the only problem being that big bud is present on the bush.

 Just a tip.. NEVER google 'big bud', you won't find anything to do with blackcurrant bushes at all.

Here's a picture of one of the diagnosed buds...

I've also added three gooseberry bushes opposite the blackcurrant bushes at the other end of the strawberry bed. They are young stock, so I'm not expecting much of a harvest this year.

All of the raspberry canes and established fruit bushes have been mulched with well rotted manure and it definately seems to have given them a boost.

I hope you like the area, the photos might not do it justice because of the rain. But we are definately the envy of the allotment site, there are already whispers from old hands about the allotment of the year destination, but I won't hold my breath! It definately looked superb in that scorching week in late July, I mean MARCH!

Come back soon for the next two installements which should be up by the end of the week!

I STILL can't believe it is May already!

Martin

Meet the neighbours...

Welcome to May!

I can't believe it's here already, but I'm glad it is. Things are really going to take off on the allotment this month. But for today, I'll just continue with another catch up post...

We still haven't met our human neighbours on our left hand side, but we have met our neighbour on the right hand side. A rather pleasant fellow with 31 years of allotment experience, he has 2 plots and has very traditional growing methods. He is full of advice and is also kean to encourage people to try something new. He grows grapes for wine and has given almost every single tenant on the site a grape vine he has cultivated himself. I have one on my plot that was given to the last holder of plot 114.

The neighbours at the top of our plot are also newbies and have just took over the allotment and they also seem really keen.

Our plot back on to the road to the site car park, but there also some unusual neighbours beyond this boundary. They don't say much but they are rather pleasant to watch...

There are about 8 of them and I have plenty more pictures to share over the coming weeks....

Martin

In the summer..

Seeing as I am not a first time vegetable grower, I can take huge quantities of optimism from freshly dug soil and the increasing daylight hours we are getting at the moment. But if you are a first time vegetable grower it can be difficult to generate such high hopes so early on. I think this is why a lot of people who take on allotments don't last even the first year. The first few months are a lot of hard work, the hardest work you will ever have to do on your plot and there is almost zero reward apart from dull, brown, soil. If it's going to be this hard, then why bother, especially when it comes to April and all it seems to do is rain, rain and well.. rain!

Amy had a little bit of experience with growing vegetables last year, but we did start late and we did buy plants from garden centres, so after planting our courgettes out we were harvesting them in 4 weeks. When you have to plant the seeds yourself in February, March and April and drag yourself up to the allotment on the rainiest of rainy days to water the seedlings in the greenhouse it can be quite a chore to focus on the long term goals.

The most frequently uttered phrase when we are at the allotment is 'in the summer...'. I have to remind Amy that in the summer we won't be looking at patches of bare earth and puddles on the patio, but in fact there will be runner bean plants towering over us, potatoes being earthed up weekly, pumpkins enjoying the beer and sun as much as we are, and sausages sizzling away on the mini barbeque. But snap out of it Martin! We are still looking at bare patches of land right now. But wait, should that be we were looking at bare patches of earth yesterday, but today something has changed. Yep, there is another weed, but what is this? The emergence of the first pea shoot, the onions have started to grow, wait that rhubarb can be picked today. Bring on the custard!

The vegetable section of the allotment (80% of the whole allotment) has been split up in to 4 large beds for alliums, potatoes, legumes and brassicas which will work on a classic rotational basis (sort of). There are also smaller beds for courgettes, sweetcorn, root vegetables, asparagus and pumpkins.

Approaching from the shed the bed on the right is for courgettes and is covered by carpet to keep the weeds off until we need the area,(I'll be doing a post sharing my courgette growing secrets in a week or so). Next the bed on the left is covered with fleece and has potatoes underneath, none have poked through yet, but I'm sure it won't be long, we planted them on Good Friday. On the right the allium bed is really taking off with 2 rows of shallots, 3 rows of red onions, 2 rows of brown onions, 1 row of perpetual onions and 2 rows of garlic...

Moving on up the lottie, the next bed on the right is currently covered in very well rotted horse muck which I need to dig in ready for the brassicas. I was in such a dilemma regards how to prepare my brassica bed, every book and every website conflicts with one another, so I trusted the oldest book I had, so fingers crossed!

The bed on the left is for the legumes. We started some broad beans off in an old grow bag at my Grandad's house and we have transfered them up to the allotment now they are big enough. We've planted a second lot of broad beans directly in to the soil to offer a successional crop..

The new bamboo structure for the runner beans is a big sign that good things are ahead...

Peas have also gone in to the ground and I've put the pea sticks in all ready to hide emerging pea shoots from pigeons, penguins and mice.

At the top of the allotment is one big wide bed, which is going to be 3 smaller beds for sweetcorn, pumpkins and root crops respectively. I just need to source some wood to make the bed divides, but that might not be done until the end of May or the beginning of June. It looks a bit messy, plenty more preperation needed before the end of the month..

So, although I keep saying 'in the summer..' the first rewarding signs of growth and the first harvest of raddish are already upon us. Looking back, there is life all over the plot. Broad beans, peas, potatoes, onions, shallots and garlic are all growing well in the ground. I can't wait for Amy to see what the allotment will look like in the summer, it's going to be spectacular. I promise!

Visit us again soon to see our amazing new soft fruit area!

Thanks again!

Martin

Laying the foundations..

...or the slabs in our case!

Seeing as we are now back online, I am going to be writing several blog updates over the next week or so, focussing upon a different aspect of the allotment each time. After today's post there will be 4 more catch-up posts; veg beds, soft fruit area, navigation and sustainability.
We've had the allotment since the end of February, so almost 2 whole months now. Having the smallest garden in the world at home, and having to use Amy's Dad's house to home our beehive and chickens, we do not have a play area for ourselves. Seeing as we are two young adults, you might think the idea of a play area is quite odd, but what I really mean is somewhere where we can both sit out in the summer, drink chilled ginger beer and pick fresh produce from all around us and maybe accompany all of that with the odd barbeque here and there.

Being the main grower of the two of us, I really want to get Amy more engaged with things happening on the allotment, and to date I have to admit she has exceeded all expectations so far. When we got the plot the first thing she mentioned was a paved area to sit, and being the loveliest partner in the whole world (sickly I know!), I set out straight away to make her area, and I showcased the beginning of this side project in this post here.

If you forgot what it looked like, here it is..

Apart from substantial weed growth all around and the abysmal weather, a lot has changed since this picture. Those rotten bamboo canes in the old blue waterbutt have been thrown out, that rusty old metal bin has been moved to the 'wild area' and of course that particular greenhouse in the picture was stolen! The Rhubarb crowns have burst in to life at the edge of the second raised bed, and the whole 'freshly dug' bed in front of the paved area is now full of establishing onions, shallots and garlic. A third mini raised bed has taken up residence on the left hand side of the bed and is now full of plastic bottles we have grown...

...I meant lettuces......

We currently have little gem and lollo rosso in the raised beds but there are iceberg and more lollo rosso seedlings just emerging elsewhere. The other raised beds are full of....

....and other emerging seedlings including beetroot, swiss chard, perpetual spinach and a hell of a lot more raddish!

We had a taste of the very first raddish the other day. Amy always thought I didn't like raddish and that is because out of principle I refuse to eat shop bought raddish. You can not compare the taste of the shop bought stuff to the home grown crops which are so quick and easy to go. They indeed were delicious and most were perfectly formed!

Following on from the theft of the greenhouse, my grandparent's actually bought me 2 more for Easter which was very kind of them. These have been bolted to the shed and cemented to the ground and are therefore unmoveable, they have also been marked with our names and plot number! In a way the burgular did us a favour, because if we didn't have 2 greenhouses now I don't know what we would be doing! The two are rammed to the brim and we have so many seedlings that constantly need potting upwards and onwards. Here is a sneak peak....

We actually have about 30 courgette plants, it's a good job they are one of our favourite vegetables and we have a whole bed dedicated to them! Bring on the glut!

So anyway, in case you were actually wondering here is Amy's area/the potting area/the shed today..

Not bad hey with table and chairs too, we even have a parasol in the shed, but I think that is a bit optimistic in this drizzle!

I also spoke of the 'wild area' and this is something that happened by accident. We inherited an established rosemary bush and we planted a few rhubarb crowns nearby. This patch has burst in to life but was missing something. So the old rusty metal bin is now in the bed and the plan is to have a clematis grow around it in the summer, but then use it for holding bags of leaf mould in the winter. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but we shall see! Here it is...

I'm hoping all of the contrasting colours and leafy growth will look great in early summer.

Well that concludes today's mini tour and update. Check back over the next couple of days for a re-cap of the vegetable beds and soft fruit area!

Thanks for reading. It's now my turn to catch up on your blog too!

Martin

A taste of things to come...

It is with absolute pleasure that I am able to announce that we are back online!

We now have 2 fully functional laptops between us after a period of time with only our phones to use as internet access and therefore there has been no blog posts for a while.

The allotment has transformed superbly over the last few weeks and we can not believe how well things are going. You would not recognise it from the day we took over to now. We are so proud of our achievements and we are so pleased to have a small taste of things to come.

We had planted raddish seeds in a raised bed planter days after getting the plot, and it was very rewarding to have a nibble on the first few a couple of days ago.

I'm going to do a bumper pack of blog updates over the coming days and week so check back for more pictures and blog entries.

As a teaser, here is the picture of the first raddish out of the ground. You can see some of what the allotment look like now in the background.

It was delicious!!!

Speak soon,

Martin

Happy Birthday Blog!

Wow! It's been a whole year since we started blogging again and if I might say, we've done rather well in my opinion. I did have the urge to do a review of the year in January like so many other bloggers did, but that would have actually been a review of the last 10 months as opposed to a year. So waiting until our blogging birthday was definately more suitable.

Every year, it is nice to go back and look through the blog posts that have accumulated. Having made around 150 posts, averaging about 3 per week, it can take a long time to look through them all. However, it is really beneficial to refresh your memory of what you should be doing now and also remind yourself of the things that worked particularly well and then of course.. those that didn't!

April
This is where it all started again. A spontaneous trip to a local garden centre resulted in us returning with a bag of early seed potatoes and some courgette plants...

These courgettes were a fantastic success, but the potatoes which we grew in bags were not so great. After giving up my allotment 2 years ago to concentrate on studies it was definately nice to get my fingers dirty again...

May

This was a very exciting month. Amy who had never grew anything before was witnessing tomato plants shoot right up  and we also saw those two measly courgette plants burst in to a jungle of foliage. This month also brought our first pickings of courgettes too. Simply delicious..

The above photo show our measly patch turning in to a green canvas of leaves and growing produce..

June
It was nice to get the bees back. After 3 years of beekeeping I have still not managed to harvest a good deal of honey. I only ever intend to take what the bees don't need and with the bees being quite a small colony they have never produced  a great deal. I'm hoping for a much more vigorous honey crop this year. The first inspection of Spring is upon us!

July
My highlight of the year was adding the Bantams to our ever growing very, very, very, very small holding. Having had 2 hybrids for eggs already in an eglu classic, it was nice to add some more chickens to the menagerie. Lesley and Geraldine our two original hens were rather shocked to see the impecably beautiful bantam trio of Margot, Barbara and Mrs.Weaver pitch up across the path in another eglu. These young, point of lay ladies came to strut their stuff and takeover the ruling of the roost.
There was some sadness to this story. Who can forget when one morning a 'cock a doodle doo' rang throughout the house, and upon very close inspection we realised that Barbara was more of a he than a she. No wonder there was a short term lack of eggs from these 'point of lay' pure breeds.
Here is Barbara in all of her 'cock-a-doodle-doodlingness'...

Anyway Barbara was replaced with Barbara II or Barbaradeux as we like to call her. The Bantams have been laying better than expected through winter and have been putting Lelsey and Geraldine to shame at times.

August

Our first green pepper came this month along with plentiful amounts of courgettes, tomatoes and mange tout. The potatoes however were a bit of a damp squib, with the potato in bags experiment being less successful than I had hoped it be. A lovely sunny month full of fresh produce on the table, what could be better?

September

A new academic year saw our blog posting tail off slightly, but good things still happened in our good life...

This month saw us doing lots of nice things inside rather than out. We got our Christmas cakes baked and I also helped Amy bake her first loaf. It is certainly a taste to savour, fresh homemade bread. We also went foraging in the park for crab apples which made a splendid jelly. Christmas things started to appear in shops and our countdown really began..

October
One of Martin's favourite times of year and not only for the soul reason that it is his birthday. October is a month of Orange. Orange leaves on trees and of course the wonderful pumpkins that emerge on doorsteps around the world at Halloween. We had an extra special Halloween this year with our trip to Disneyland Paris. A truly magical month, but food produced in the garden started to dwindle..

November

Our only post in November was an introduction to Barbaradeux. It certainly started to feel like Christmas in this month. Barbara was definately glad she wasn't a turkey...

December

 We had a very merry family christmas this year, which was splendid. With the bees sleeping for the winter, and the eggs starting to come to a stop we weren't up to too much in our good life venture but we did get crafty and make some homemade cross stitch cards for our nearest and dearest..

January

A very happy new year! Christmas seemed to have flew by without stopping and it was time to sit exams for us both. Not the best month from the 12. Roll on Spring!

February

Amy's Birthday was celebrated for what seemed forever. With such a large family we had birthday meals here there and everywhere but she certainly wasn't complaining..

I taught Amy how to make perfect bread this month and I think you can agree she is a quick learner..

February is such an important time for vegetable growers and gardeneres. The seed potatoes are ready to start chitting and it's time to think about early broad beans and garlic. Tomatoes and Chillis can be started off too, a small taste of things to come..
A late Christmas present came to us at the end of February in the form of our new allotment. Initially being allocated Plot 16 brought so much happiness, but when faced with the decision betweet Plots 16 and 114 there was only one clear winner. Plot 114 became our new home and definately ensured next month was going to be a busy one..

March

Like I stated earlier, Plot 114 ensured March was a busy month for us. Clearing the site and getting it ready for planting took some time but we are sure that it is going to be worth it come harvest time..

What next?
Well here's to another year of blogging for a start. We have really enjoyed giving an account of our good life and sharing it with all of our 54 followers and those who don't follow publicly aswell. We have really enjoyed reading everybody elses blogs too and we always try to publicise others blogs as much as our own, so I think that this month I will start featuring our favourite blogs in special posts. You can learn so much from every blog you visit.

For us, Plot 114 is such an exciting project. We can't wait to get things in the ground and start picking them soon. Martin also fancies some new chickens, but that is something we will have to see about, and we really hope that we get a honey harvest this year no matter how small.

One thing we are really keen on is improving the readability and graphology of the blog. So all of your feedback will be appreciated. We hope to include better quality photographs and more posts sharing hints and tips as opposed to just accounts of our days. We've already taken your feedback on board to remove the word verification process when posting comments.

Last but not least we really, really want to thank all of our followers and readers. Our site has been visited over 10,000 times in just under 12 months and from all corners of the globe too. Thankyou so much and we hope you continue to visit throughout the rest of 2012 and beyond.

Thanks again,

Martin and Amy

A rare opportunity..

I have a very brief period of access to a computer this morning, so I'm just going to let you all know that we are still alive but the computer isn't! Well almost isn't..

Our allotment is coming on fantastically and we now boast a barked area, patio, stone paths and more..

The only setback so far has been the theft of our mini greenhouse - a most peculiar crime indeed which I shall tell you about when we are back to normality at this end.

We already have a post written and scheduled for 12th April - a very special date and you will see why if you visit back then to have a read.

We can't wait to share pictures with you and write all about it, but for now it's Good Friday and hence time to plant the potatoes.

We hope you all have a fantastic Christmas... I mean Easter. But you can't be sure these days judging by the weather!!

Martin and Amy

Out of Order

Just a small notice to say that we are currently out of order.

Our laptop is broken so it is difficult to make  a post at the moment, but hopefully we'll be able to in the coming days...

We're having so much fun on the allotment and we can't wait to tell you all about it.

We're also missing not being able to read your blogs too!

Hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly...

Martin and Amy