It's Raining It's Pouring

I've been down to the plot twice in the last week and have managed to say about an hour in total! I've been picking runner beans in the rain and harvesting courgettes and the occasional bit of Rhubarb Chard (there's lots of it there but you don't want to eat it every day!) and that's about it. Today I hoed four of the beds to try and keep the weeds down a bit and then retired home.

I am hoping that it's just the rain making me feel plot depression again. The weeds are coming back on the rotovated bit quite vehemently at the moment which is horrid, especially as it's so wet and the soil is so loose there that to try and even walk on it would be stupid. The plastic bag covered bed hasn't worked and the weed suppressing fabric at the back has come up as it was just blowing everywhere and doing no good.

I really need it to stop raining so I can mark the final beds and get them covered and then get something into the already dug and marked beds so I can just work them the way I am the others, ie keeping them as weed free as I can and watering when needed. I have my eye on some more potatoes (for Christmas) and also some overwintering onions and the final new bed will get the garlic in it in a few months time just leaving the smaller Square Foot beds covered.

I should, all being well, only have about 2 empty beds on the other side over the winter waiting for the first lots of potatoes, I must find a better way to cover them to keep the weeds down though, it's just depressing as hell when all your hard work disappears under unwanted greenery.

I am hoping that once the beds are in and I have my plan all ready to go that the plot won't seem so big. I think it's just because it's empty open space that needs digging that it's feeling that way at the moment, once it's planted and I have something to look at and work around it should feel a bit more under control, afterall it only took me about 20 minutes to hoe the beds on one side of the plot.

My parents are here this weekend so I may have to drag them out there on Saturday (if there's no rain) and put them to work, this unmarked side of the plot has been bugging me for too long! I also want to finish off my list and plan this week so I can discuss seed sharing with my Mum (ie half a packet each to spread the cost!), still no sign of a 2005 Organic Seed Catalogue though, I requested it ages ago...

Still Going

I made it down to the plot twice last week, the first trip was on Thursday evening when I went down after DH got in from work leaving him to sort dinner for himself and the small one. It was nice to be there when it was quiet and neither of my neighbours were burning things. To both ends of my plot I have neighbours who seem to delight in ruining my allotment experience by starting a bonfire whenever they're there which means that no matter what the wind does I always seem to have smoke over my plot which is really really irritating. So it was nice to have fresh air and also that the temperature was lower.

I worked away like a bit of a mad woman trying to get everything done so that I felt like I was finally 'caught up'. There always seem to be jobs to do that stop me from making progress and I wanted to get them out of the way. I did all the weeding, picked everything that could be picked and hoed everything I could. I also covered the empty quarter of the plot with the weed suppressing fabric so that I didn't feel like the weeds were taking over again, however it doesn't seem to do much good as I don't have enough heavy things to hold it down so it had blown all over the place when I got back.

Yesterday I dug over the second of the three beds I'd marked out on the second side, I found that it was actually easier to dig it than to rake it, and although I've definitely not gotten all the roots out I think I've done enough for now. I covered the bed with more of the weed suppressing fabric held down with a few bricks so I'm hoping that will work, we'll see I guess. I don't want to be in the situation of having to re-dig everything next year so I'm looking for a way to keep the weeds down to a minimum. I did the hoeing and a little weeding yesterday as well to keep the place tidy. I also did a bit of watering as it was awfully dry. We got rain in the early hours which was really needed, we're apparently in for more this week as well which will be nice as lugging water from the tap to the plot is hard work!

I took quite a few shots of the plot but the camera is playing up and only 2 came out. Here are the potatoes that we planted a few weeks back, doing quite well I think:



And these I'm really excited about, they are 2 of the 3 pumpkins I have on my plants!



Aren't they cute? :o) My butternut squash (she whispers in case it all goes wrong) are also still flowering and the plants are spreading so that could be good, but it might be a bit late for them to fruit now I think...

I have been working on my plans for next year as well. I made a list of everything that I want to grow and where I wanted to buy the seed. I started making a list of seed numbers from the Organic Catalogue and then realised that mine was from 2004 so I requested a new one and I will make the list once I get it! I'll obviously post here my plans as well!

So, next visit I have that 3rd bed to dig over and cover and then I want to mark out the square foot beds and get those dug and covered as well, hopefully before the weeds come back too much. It will be easier to do those 1 at a time though as they're so small, which is part of the point of trying it, it's supposed to cut down on your work a lot which would be nice!

I think next trip I will pull up the onions, I've no idea if they're ready yet or not, the tops have died off half of them and not the other half, but they're an ok size to use. I have no idea how I'll hang them though as a lot of them don't have leaves at all anymore... That bit of the bed is very very weedy (the only really weedy bit of my whole plot so I guess it's not that bad) so it's probably time to give up and get 'em out and use them as best I can!

Finally The Cabbage

My cabbage were getting to be one of those things where, should I have ended up on my death bed in the last few weeks, my last words would have been 'but I've not spaced out the cabbages'! Each time I left the plot I'd think 'damn, I didn't do that cabbage bed again', and this went on for far too long. So, yesterday I made sure that I got it done, and I now have a bed with more cabbage plants than I thought I'd grown which is nice, hopefully they will keep going now they have more room to spread out!

I raked out the second of the new beds and covered it with plastic rubbish bags held down with various bits of wood etc that I could find about the place (I think may have made a mistake letting my cheapskate nature pick the rubbish bags and they may be a bit thin, I will reassess in a few weeks and if that's the case replace with more expensive bags!). Only about another 6 or so to go! I have decided that in the middle of the newly dug side of the plot I will do 6 4 foot x 4 foot beds to try out my square foot gardening, along with a couple of pit beds as outlined in the book for growing things vertically (I want to try a lot more squash etc next year and maybe some cucumbers as well!). Beyond those I may have room for 1 more regular bed, we'll see. My basic plan in my head is to grow potatoes (early, salad, regular and lates), onions, courgettes and garlic in the regular beds and try the rest of the veg in the Square Foot beds to see if it works. If I find I'm not getting anywhere with that I will still have enough room to get stuff into the bigger beds. The Square Foot Gardening book is really interesting reading. Obviously his growing season and weather is very different from ours, but the ideas are worth trying I think and I'm looking forward to getting my seeds and a bit of a plan together and having a go with it!

As for food off the plot at the moment, we're still getting courgettes, we're not over run though as I didn't get that many plants going. I'm actually disappointed about the courgette situation and will definitely be trying harder to get more plants next year as courgettes are used a lot in this house and can be expensive so they're a real way to save money, I wanted to get some in the freezer, we'll see if that happens. The potatoes are going down well and we had some smashing roast potatoes yesterday. We're also eating the Rhubarb Chard, or rather I'm putting it on all the plates but am apparently the only one partaking! I've got a few more peas, about enough for a serving for my 2 year old! It's very funny blanching a dozen pods worth of peas but I'm collecting them in the freezer until there's enough for us all to have some! We're also carrying on with the blackberry picking, we've got 7lbs in the freezer so far, my goal is 14 lbs for all the jam and jelly I want to do and then if we get a few lbs more on top of that I can use them for baking etc, seems silly not to be picking them as they'd just go to waste if we didn't.

On the growing front I have 2 pumpkins which is very exciting! They're about 3 inches across each at the moment, hopefully nothing will eat them and they'll carry on growing. A few of the turnip thinnings took and the turnip seeds and swede seeds have come up (either that or my weeds are growing in rows to confuse me!). The parsnips and leeks are growing well still and I have a few butternut squash plants growing well and flowering but no sign of squash yet. Funnily enough the Spaghetti Squash which were the ones that grew the fastest and strongest inside have all died when planted outside, I will be trying again with those though. The potatoes we stuck in are also growing well, there's a lot of them up already. The runner beans are flowering their hearts out, so there should be a good crop of those coming in soon, I may let 1 courgette grow huge so I can treat myself to 'marrow' and beans, I might put 1 marrow plant in next year as well and try and get DS going on marrow, DH doesn't like it and it's not worth growing them for 1 really. I think I will pull up the onions in the next dry spell we have, they're not huge but they'll do for this year, I will cover that bit of bed once they're up.

So, I still have a lot of work ahead of me this year getting the plot ready for next year and finishing off getting actual beds in the plot. Then there's the exciting bit of planning and buying all my seeds etc. I have a master list I made before I got the plot of what I'd like to grow and what month they're supposed to be ready in but ran out of time and beds this year. With all the beds ready I will be able to grow much more and try and plan it through the whole season, especially with the Square Foot thing if it works. The vertical growing is also exciting, I will be pricing up copper pipes during the winter and building frames with them as soon as the ground is soft enough to take them!

Wishing For More Time

I really want more time to get down the plot, there is so much that needs to be done that I feel like I'm rushing from one job to another and not actually enjoying it very much at all. I had intended to go down at least one afternoon this week but as DS isn't well I'm not sure we'll make that.

Saying all that, Sunday was lovely, and I do feel like I got a lot done, but the fact that there's still so much more to be done kind of takes the shine off!

First I dug up all the potatoes. There weren't as many as I thought there would be which was a bit disappointing, but at least I know that I need to grow more next year! Then about a third of them have centipede damage, little holes all in them... I have taken out all those and put them to be used first as we can cut off the eaten bits and then hung the remainder up to dry out a bit in my net bag from the back of the kitchen door. I got a paper potato sack from my local fruit and veg shop so as soon as I figure out where to store the bag so that the dog doesn't eat through it and play with the potatoes like she enjoys doing I will take them down and put them away. There's enough there for at least a few months for us which is great!

I can't remember if I said that we planted the front bed with more potatoes? I can't find the slip of paper that had the name on it, they begin with a P. I was given them by another allotment holder and they had chitted well in a box in my shed so I figured as I had the space I may as well throw them in and see what happens!

I also got a few more courgettes on Sunday which is nice, we've not eaten them yet as we are a house of sick really and none of us feel like proper food, but I will get around to using them soon I'm sure! I had more of the Rhubarb Chard as well and have nailed how to cook it so it's lovely. Take a little olive oil and gently fry a chopped or squashed clove of garlic, add the roughly chopped chard and stir fry for a few minutes until wilted and then throw in some coarse sea salt. Yummy!

On an earlier visit I planted out the Cauliflower and Kale plants that I got at Tatton Park. I've lost a few of the cauli plants to something slimy, hopefully the rest will stay, but the Kale is still hanging in there and appears to be a bit bigger.

I finally hoed out the carrot bed as well and found that I have about 6 carrots growing in there! Now that it's weed free I threw in the rest of the seeds that I had open and will see if anything comes of it. I used B&Q Early Nantes 5, Morrisons Chantenay Red Cored 2 and Mr Fothergill's Autumn King 2. If they don't grow I will try another bed and something else next year.

In the newly empty (and thus newly dug over!) potato bed I planted some turnip seedlings given to my by my plot neighbour as he happened to be thinning his that day! I figured what the hey and threw in a packet of turnip seeds as well to see if I could get any, they were Thompson and Morgan Oasis, which very oddly say on them 'Unique - Tastes Like Melon'... Whether melon is a taste that will go well in a winter stew I don't know... As I had half the bed empty still I also threw in a packet of Swede seeds, B&Q Best Of All.

Next I weeded the courgette and squash bed again, I seem to have 1 little tiny pumpkin and 1 other pumpkin plant doing well. The Spaghetti Squash are giving up the ghost one at a time and the Butternuts aren't faring much better, but I tried. I have a few different varieties I want to try next year that I learnt about at the talk at Tatton and if they grow well down the road in Preston they should grow well here!

After that I got half the pea and bean bed weeded. I should have peas ready this week, they were still a bit too small in the pod when I opened one. I think that with what's on there I will have enough for one portion! :o) The runner beans are flowering all over the place so we should get a good crop of those I hope. The second planting isn't doing so well, looks like I left it a bit late.

My purple sprouting broccoli and regular broccoli seem to have died. I put them outside to get hardened a bit before going in the bed and lack of time getting to the plot meant that they didn't get watered during a dry spell... I think that I will be preparing and covering the beds rather than planting them (except for some spring cabbage and then garlic) as I'm a bit late for much to grow. I thought about the green manure idea but I think that as the major weeds I'm fighting are Mares Tail and Bindweed it would take a pretty major manure to outgrow them, so I'm best covering and trying to kill them that way.

I've been picking blackberries up the plots as well, I now have 3lbs in the freezer and will get another punnet each visit until I have enough for blackberry and apple jam and blackberry jelly, yum, nothing like free food you didn't even have to weed!

My Square Foot Gardening book is now on the way to me after an ordering mistake on my part (ordered an older version which of course they couldn't get hold of instead of the 'dispatches in 24 hours' new version) so I need to spend some quality time with that, my seed catalogue and a pen and paper planning my attack for next year. I would like to have something growing at all times if possible and that will take some organisation!

So, plans for next visit are more weeding and to get some of the new beds raked out before the weeds start growing back and it was a waste of money! I also need to buy more edging so I can mark the rest of the beds out but that may have to wait until after payday I think!