We are Martin and Amy and we live in a cosy Warwickshire market town where we enjoy growing our own fruit and vegetables on our allotment and we also keep chickens in our garden. We both love cooking and especially baking bread. Welcome to 'our good life'..
Sowing proceeded last week! It was very exciting and filled me with optimism.
You can probably tell I have no loyalty to one particular seed company!!
Things ARE growing though and that's a good start. The lettuce seedlings that I sowed last week are starting to come through. I've put them in my new mini greenhouse and they seem to be doing ok.
On the kitchen windowsill there are tomatoes and chillies. The tomatoes 'Roma' and 'Costaluto Fiorentino' are already up but the chillies aren't yet.
I'm growing these Italian varieties for a good reason. I've always grown the traditional salad tomatoes and although they are delicious, I like to use tomatoes in cooking. Roma is perfect for sauces and in ratatouille and the like. Then the Fiorentina are good for grilling and also for salads so they seem like a win win!
There are 3 different varieties of chillies. 'Tabasco' which I have grown before and 'Black Pearl' which I have not. There is also 'Big Banana' which I think might be a long banana shaped sweet pepper now that I think about it..
This years showings started off particularly badly. I was in the garden and I filled my seed tray with small pots which were sown in to. These were the tomato and chillies and I wanted to put them on the windowsill. As I was coming through the door with the tray the dog clocked on and thought it must be food and jumped up at the back of my legs and the tray landed on the floor..
Oops!!
Today I've been at it again - sowing that is, not making a mess! I have been sowing Swiss chard to transplant later and also sowing my cabbages 'Golden Acre' and Kale 'Tuscano di Nero'.
The allotment is now more or less ready for action. The only bit which does need some attention is the top bit where the pumpkins were last year. It seems like couch grass enjoys congregating in this area and it is pretty rife! My idea is to get this part dug over in the evenings, after work next week. I'm then going to grow potatoes in this area because the couch grass won't like the constant disturbance of the 'earthing up' process. As soon as all of the potatoes are harvested in the autumn - the plan is to cover I over with black plastic to restrict light to the invasive weed and then come next spring the situation shouldn't be as bad as it currently is!
Anyway, it's raining today so that's not much use. Fingers crossed the weather makes up its mind and the sun shines bright in to the evenings!
I have a problem. It's a type of addiction and it mainly happens when I'm in garden centres. It's quite embarassing and it costs me a fortune but for some reason I can not stop buying seeds.
I already have two containers full and I now need a third. On the way back from Ryton we popped in to our local Wyevale garden centre. I joined their gardening club and they sent me a leaflet saying that all seeds were 50p. So I made a visit a priority and stocked up. We managed to get £60 odd worth of seeds for only £12. We also got plenty of seeds for free which were the promotional packs you get when you buy 2 or more packs of a particular variety. Because I bought so many new packets, I promised myself I would sort out the ones I already had and throw out any unlabeled, out of date packets and also chuck any that had a poor germination rate or simply didn't live up to expectations!
Anyway next year I will be trying to grow watermelons, yellow carrots, banana shallots, gourds and many other weird and wonderful things that I have been jealous of seeing other people grow. I am now ready for next year and have a seed collection to envy...
Although it is getting darker and colder every evening, I still have a small sense of optimism and excitement. Buying seeds and sowing them is something that you normally do in March onwards, but in order to get the most out of our plot I've bought seeds to sow now including some chards, lettuce and radishes and I also have seedlings emerging from the cabbage and lettuce sowings I made the other night! With all of this spring like activity, I'll probably forget to put the clocks back next month and will instead put them forward!!
It is nice having a year round vegetable garden. Not using it for summer crops but autumn, winter and spring really does increase it's efficiency and worth. Being able to pick runner beans, dwarf beans, squash, marrows, raspberries, strawberries, cabbage and kale in mid September certainly ensures we don't go hungry!! We've also got the delights of celery, celeriac, turnips, swede, pumpkins, leeks. sprouts, parsnips and lettuce to come before the end of the year. Then at the beginning of 2013 we'll have cabbage, purple sprouting, chard, lettuce and kale still to pick! Long gone are our days of only growing summer crops like courgettes, tomatoes and peppers. This is a 365 day a year thing now!
We're still getting used to this plot so we can certainly learn from what we don't have enough of this year and what we have too much of also. So next year we know to only plant 1 marrow plant instead of 3 and to double the amount of sweetcorn plants and broad beans that we sow! One day we'll be able to sit down and say 'yer, we got that just about right', but that's if the weather plays ball of course!!
Never mind, it's an interesting learning curve! Gardener's certainly never stop learning!
You are probably wondering what is wrong with us making so many posts in a week!
Anyway, we really are having to play catchup at the allotment with weeding, sowing, harvesting etc. I managed to get down again last night and bagged up some of the couch grass I had dug up ready to take to the refuse centre tomorrow. Don't put couch grass roots in your compost bin, it will come back and you will be making a huge mistake, trust me!
Anyway I did manage to sort a few things down the allotment tonight, I went down at about 7pm for an hour. Still in my shirt and trousers from work, so it was only some light and not too messy work. Anyway come 8pm I could barely see a thing and this was the seen. Because the perimeter to the site is surrounded by lots of large, established trees it does become a pit of darkness as soon as the sun begins to lower.
Following the recent set of break ins a couple of the old boys are doing a night patrol and walking around the site as the sun sets. Aparently in total 15 sheds were broke in to or vandalised and we also have the recent emergence of a 'phantom fruit picker' who many plot holders (us included) have seen walking the allotment site in the evening and leaving through the gates with a bowl full of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries etc. We don't know who she is, where she comes from but we're gonna catch her nonetheless!!
Anyway, because it was so dark I decided to allocate some homework to myself. I mentioned how I had not managed to sow my spring cabbage seeds yet so I filled a couple of seed trays with compost and put my seed box in my bag.
After dinner I ripped the seed packet foild and made the sowings. We have sown 2 cabbage varieties which were 'Pixie' and 'Durham Early'. We also decided to sow some winter lettuce, we coincidentally had 2 winter lettuce varieties too; 'Winter Gem' and 'Arctic King'. We'll keep them on the windowsill for a couple of weeks to give them a chance to catch up and get to where they should be. I think we'll be ok. I remember last October being quite warm and dry so if that is the case we won't be at much of a disadvantage at all...
Now that I'd finally got that bit sorted, it was time for a cup of tea and a read of my new magazine..
I normally buy this magazine on the day it comes out each month. But I've just been too busy this month that I finally remembered to pick it up at the petrol station today on the way to work. I'd be interested to hear what magazines you like to read. I always buy 'Grow your own' and I subscribe to 'Gardener's World' (just to get the free gift at Gardener's World Live'!
Look at the front cover though! PUMPKINS! Which can only mean one thing. It's almost Halloween, which means it's almost my birthday and it is also almost time for our annual trip to Disneyland where we will be from 15-19th October. I really love autumn from a romantic perspective. Red leaves, the first tender frost, conkers on the ground, christmas things appearing in shops, it's a nice time.
Anyway, we obviously haven't harvested our pumpkins yet but we have had something just as good. Our first ever Turk's Turban Squash! I'm not sure wether to call it ugly or a piece of natural art. We're not going to eat it, we are using it for ornamental purposes...
Not bad, hey?
I'll definately be growing them again this year. This little baby has really inspired me to grow some other varieties of ornamental squash and fortunately look what was attached to the magazine as a free giveaway this month...
They certainly look interesting don't they.
Anyway be sure to follow us on twitter @ourgoodlifeblog and we'll be going live on Facebook next week too. Don't worry, we'll be blogging here as normal these are just some new ways to increase our readership and allow us to share more with friends and family!
Have a good day! Also remember to let me know which magazines you read!
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.
What a strange day we have had today weather wise. I was up at the allotment at 09.30 this morning and there was a light drizzle, but nowhere near enough to put me off a bit of a digging. Then within half an hour I suppose the inevitable happened and there was a terrible downpour which lasted about 15 minutes, I will be eternally greatful to our shed for providing shelter. The showers were on and off every 15 minutes which is really annoying since it was my day off and my main day this week I had allocated to spend sorting out the allotment.
Dinner time came and I picked Amy up for lunch at my grandparent's house before returning to the allotment where there was CLEAR BLUE SKIES and SUNSHINE but a horrendous WIND blowing. The weather really was throwing everything at us today. But we did manage to get things done.
I finished off digging the 2 beds on the right hand side and I also spread some homemade compost from home over the bean patch. Amy pottered around in the shed sowing seeds for Kale, Kohl Rabi, Lollo Rosso and a a couple of courgette seeds in the hope of an early crop like last year. Amy also planted some raddish seeds in one of our salad raised beds that I filled with a bag of compost this afternoon.
Anyway, it's time to show you Amy's little area that she wanted..
It's not completly finished but the foundations are there. On Friday evening my Dad came down to the plot and helped me move the slabs in to place. We actually had the chairs out on it earlier but we put them away before I took the pictures. The 2 salad raised beds make the border for the slabs and I think this area will look great in the summer. We are going to get a table and put some pot plants in and around the area to make it a perfect hangout for those sunny summer days. Amy is pleased anyway so that is good!
It's nice to be able to show you another perspective of the allotment from the slabbed area...
You can see the beds on the right hand side which I finished today. One of the beds on the left is covered with cardboard to surpress weeds until we need to plant our potatoes out and the uncovered bed is the bean bed where I spread the compost today. The runner bean trench is also there and is now full of rotted manure, grass clippings, banana skins, apple cores, tea bags, shredded paper etc. A perfect mix for the beans to thrive. Again you can see at the back the tarpaulin covered area for the pumpkins and root beds. The soft fruit bed is being tackled tomorrow if I remember to take my gloves up with me.
It was definately nice to sit back today and reflect on how much we have done already. We can't wait for the seeds to start germinating now...
If you've been reading our blog over the last few days you will have joined us on the rollercoaster ride we've been on. We had an allotment. We had 2 allotments. Shall we have both. Let's just have one. Which one?
All of those questions and topics have been discussed in the previous blog posts, but today's blog is designed to give you an insight in to our new home.
Why did we choose Plot 114 over Plot 16?
It has the contradicting type of soil. (Retains moisture, but has good drainage) - We felt this was far better than the chalky/dusty soil on Plot 16. I took advice from my Grandad the allotment guru and he said he'd rather have 1 allotment like plot 114 than 10 of the plot 16 because you'll probably grow the same amount of produce with less work. Our winning soil was definately one of the winning factors.
Plot 16 had a massive apple tree as it's only feature. Plot 114 has a shed in mint condition. Inside this shed is tools a wheelbarrow and lots of other nifty neceseties like netting and poles. Outside this shed is a composter and 2 water butts. Where Plot 16 had apples, plot 114 has raspberries. 2 whole rows of the things.
Ok, Plot 16 was closer to the water supply. But Plot 114 isn't too far at all from the site water supply and is definately reachable by a hose. With the two water butts too we should be able to use some of our own water harvest if it ever does rain again this year.
The really cool thing about Plot 114 is I can even park my car right next to my shed! At Plot 16 you have navigate down a narrow alley in between 2 houses to get there, no good for carrying heavy things. At Plot 114 I can park up and transfer heavy and odd shaped things with ease.
So thanks for reading, here are the photos!
Here is a view from our lovely shed! You can see that it needs a bit of work but it definately has a bit of potential. This place is covered in 'useful junk' such as stakes and small raised beds which would be ideal for sowing salad...
The allotment goes up pretty much all of the way to the shed in the background minus a few ft.
At the end of the allotment there are 2 rows of raspberries and blackberries followed by a strawberry bed. Here is a view from the alternative end...
You can see how the soft fruit area is a bit overgrown and is in desperate need of pruning. You can just about see my car poking out from behind the shed too. (Advice regards pruning and mulching raspberries would be greatly appreciated.)
Walking back down to the shed, we meet these two little fellows who were watching us the whole time...
The pair or Robins did give us a good source of entertainment for a while.
Reaching the shed, it's time for a peak at what is inside...
2 hoes, a spade, fork, 2 rakes and a few planks of wood are on the left hand side as soon as you walk through the door.
Well Plot 114 is certainly going to take some work, but we believe we've made the right choice.
We're now feeling a bit better and can't wait to share our adventures with you. From planting the onion sets in a couple of weeks to harvesting pumpkins in September.
Thanks for visiting us and reading our blog we really appreciate it!
Well, I hope yesterday's post left you in suspense.
Well here's the story..
Early last year we applied to join the waiting list for an allotment on any of the local sites. At the time Amy filled out the form and we sent it off dreaming of a smooth process and hopefully in 2012 we would get the call and would be granted a lovely allotment.
Well that day came just under 2 weeks a go when we got the call whilst shopping in Solihull. The town council outlined that they had a plot for us but they had no idea which one! Fantastic. We couldn't wait to see where it was and really get going with it. They were going to let us know within a week and then it would be all spades go! Well on Monday Amy got a letter through the door. We were now the proud tenants of plot number 16! You can see plot number 16 here. We went up to visit with our noses streaming and we were really pleased with our new acquisition.
We got our pencils out and made plans on Monday night. We even popped in to Stratford Upon Avon on Tuesday despite feeling under the weather and bought some raspberry canes and some other essentials that we needed.
It was only when we got home on Tuesday evening that we got a huge shock. At my house was a letter from the town council. We were now the proud tenants of Plot 114. You may be wondering how we managed to be prescribed 2 allotments.
Well when we first applied to join the waiting list we listed Amy's Dad's address on the application form. However, seeing as he has a very long garden which just touches the Parish of Arrow. We were considered to be outsiders and therefore would not be preferred over other people within Alcester parish and would have to pay £5 a year more rent for our allotment.
Being the super scrimper and understanding how much of a demand for an alloment there is I filled in another application form with my address. We told them to withdraw Amy's application and proceed with mine.
Amy was 12th on the waiting list when she joined, and I got an email a few days after my own application saying I was now 12th on the waiting list, so I presumed Amy's application had been dropped as asked.
Well it turns out there was an oversight and both of our applications proceeded. We therefore had a choice of 2 allotments, however they are on completly different sites which meant different soil type, different facilites, structure etc.
We initially thought that Plot 16 was going to be perfect. We thought we were very loyal to it and we liked how I already knew the people either side of us. Well when we visited Plot 114 we didn't think much of it at first but we did quickly fall in love. We did think of having the two of them and then dedicating one to strawberries and pumpkins and doing the majority of our growing on the other. But we decided that this was too much and we wanted to have one 'really good' allotment rather than 2 average ones.
After consideration of the 'really important things' we plumped for Plot 114, our new home.
I will save pictures of Plot 114 tomorrow, so make sure you come back for a look! You won't be disapointed. But here is a small teaser...
It's been 10 days since we last posted. We've been agonising during that period because of the wait for the town council to give us a ring and tell us which plot was ours. We had been drawing up fantasy plans in our head and on paper, and today the letter came telling us which plot was ours.
I could not believe it when I saw which plot we had. Plot number 16.
The reason why we could not believe it is because it is directly in fron of my old alloment. Plot number 17. During my 3 years of allotmenteering on the site plot number 16 had never, ever been touched. It was just a weedy patch with a big fruit tree on it.
It was strange going back to the site today, I expected to walk straight past plot number 16 and on to plot number 17. It looks like in the 2 years I have been away from the site, plot number 16 has remained deprived of the sight of a spade the whole time. Something will be changing over the next week or so when we both recover from our winter colds.
Let me introduce you to plot number 16...
The plot starts at where I am standing and goes all the way past the big tree and then back to the greenhouse that used to be mine. It is a good sized plot, very narrow, but a good size. You can see the two plots either side of me are tended to so mark the boundary. There is a very small path (one foot in front of the other) between the plots.
The huge tree, I think if I remember correctly is an apple tree. But which variety, I do not know. It will be interesting to see what fruit starts forming on there this summer. Here is the view of the plot from the tree down to the houses...
Despite feeling ill, we've been drawing up plans and shopping lists so we can get started quickly...
We want to have 6 beds on our allotment and we will rotate the crops grown in each bed every year to ensure good crop rotation and ensure we care for the soil correctly and avoid diseases building up. The six beds will be for soft fruit (which will be permanently fixed), squash, potatoes, roots and beans, brassicas and alliums. The top 1/5 of the allotment will hopefully be slabbed with the shed and a table positioned there. There will also be a couple of compost bins and a raised bed for growing salad leaves and a few lettuces. The beds will be divided by maintained grass paths to enable easy access around the plot.
We really feel that a shed is an absolute essential for the plot, it is somewhere to store tools, shelter from rain and to do all of the small potting jobs in the summer. We are going to ask for permission to erect a shed from the town council tomorrow when we go to pay the rates for the year. For £25 per year you have to admit this really is a bargain. However, it has gone up £9 since I vacated plot 17 just over 2 years ago, which is quite an inflation!
I've written a comprehensive shopping list and a production target for each vegetable (You can tell I study operations management at university) and I am going to work out how much it will cost us to start up the allotment this year against how much the worth of our veg should be.
We are both completly excited about the project and can't wait to get our hands dirty as soon as we rid of this cold!
Thanks for stopping by and reading. With spring now in the air we hope to bring you lots of interesting updates over the coming weeks about the advances on the plot!
There is nothing more frustrating than wanting to do something, but not being able to do it.
We're at war with the elements at the moment and this is what we are having to fight against...
A soft sprinkling of 2cm of snow surprised most of us last night. However at least it wasn't the 10cm that we had been promised last night on the weather forecast. Amy and I watched the snow sprinkle over the road from our bedroom window until midnight and we envisaged waking up to a collossal level of the white stuff. However just the small sprinkling was all that was left at 8am but it did pick up again at 9am and it hasn't stopped lightly snowing ever since.
The reason why I am so frustrated is that I really want to get a move on with preparing the ground for the new growing season. I've already dug over half of the patch and covered it with organic material but because of the snow at the end of last week I have not been able to do the other half. The last thing I want to do is to lock the extremly cold ground temperatures in to the soil which could of course prohibit this years plants from growing as quickly as we would like.
In this situation the best thing to do is definately to wait. But I'm just so eager, so I'm going to have to find something to do inside instead. It's a good job I bought a mini propagator last week then isn't it?
You wouldn't know the trouble we've had trying to find some cabbage plants this late in the season. We wanted to get something in the ground at the garden share plot. We've tried numerous local garden centres and all of them proved fruitless. It seems that garden centres think the vegetable growing season ends when the final strawberries ripen. All those grow your own banners have been taken down, the vegetable plants have gone.
We were lucky to find a single pack of cabbage plants and a single pot of leek plants on a shelf by some limp and lifeless strawberry and chilli plants. We felt quite lucky to get these as they were just what we were looking for.
They were a bit pricy though, but what do you expect from a fancy garden centre in an affluent shopping village..
Having all of that space just to simply over winter at the garden share would be a real waste. We've been up there a few days this week to clear all of the raised beds, and cover the two side beds for over the winter. The middle bed has been dug over and is ready for the cabbage and leek plants as well as some late salad.
I was hoping that we'd have some more brassica plants but some wretched caterpillars have eaten the lot, and there is nothing worth saving which is a real shame. We were lucky to have a few to plant at home, but that is it.
Next year it is really important that we plan properly, we will have 3 spaces to plant up, and ideally we don't want to spend a penny on seedlings and plants because we haven't planned properly. If we use saved seeds and the ones we already have then it will be much more cost effective all round.
I hope you enjoy the remainder of your weekend and a good week is in store for you! The football season has just started again., which excites us both (well one of us more than the other), let's hope for some good weather for the first few matches. We shall see...
Well, I presume most of you have heard of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. He's the crazy celebrity chef, slash grow your owner who campaigned for us all to eat free range meat. Got it?
Well, another one of his campaigns was called Landshare. A relatively straight forward campaign where people with spare land allow potential growers to work it and grow and produce their own food. We have visited the Landshare website sparingly since it started out, however a couple of months ago it appeared that somebody in our area had land to share.
More research and contact lead to us discovering that in fact an individual didn't have land to share. The icon on the map was actually an organisation called 'Transistion Stratford' who were trying to regenerate Stratford Upon Avon. They run not a landshare but a garden share scheme. We would have been keen on a plot in Stratford, but after talking to some of the people involved they let me know of a potential plot in Alcester, and only ten minutes walk away too.
So on Friday evening we visited the house for the first time, and weinstantly fell in love with the garden that we could potentially get to grow some veg in. The garden is centred around 3 long raised beds, so all we needed to do was clear the area.
Well, after falling in love with the potential of the plot, the agreement was signed up, and I started the clear up process today!
Here is the classic 'Before' picture...
Hopefully this time next week we can show you some 'After' pictures. We are going to be using the raised bed in the middle to grow spring cabbage, leeks and some other brassicas, and some hardy salads too. The raised beds on the right and left will be covered with some old carpet ready for next year's main growing season.
It's not in a massive state, it's just overgrown with weeds, most will pull out easily...
Not only does the garden have 3 assembled raised beds, but it also has compost bins, sheds, an outside toilet, electric hook up, a tap. All which we will be able to use. Here are the compost bins...
Not only is it a great place to grow veg, but there are also chickens. They are not the house owner's chickens they belong to the next door neighbour, because ironically they are having problems with introductions. The great news for us is that the house owner said we could keep some hens their too. It's definately something that we can discuss further. Here are the current two resident hens...
Our minds are brimming with ideas. There is so much potential with this area of land, and we are greatful to the house owner and the team at Transistion Stratford for making this all work.
We'll be posting some more about the plot over the next week and beyond. We'll also take a look inside the beehive this week via another... video!
Before, we go we'd like to thank everybody who has entered the contest already! Thank you, and keep them coming for those of you who haven't entered yet. There are some great prizes to be had!
Thanks for reading our blog. We really appreciate it.
I love going up the narrow path to the beehive, it's discreetly tucked behind the shed, and can't be seen from anywhere in the garden. If you know where to look you can see it from the bridge which the main road goes over. I don't feel a threat from vandalism or anything like that because it looks like a pile of old boxes on the side of a slope.
I didn't don the whole outfit yesterday afternoon, I did that in the week. But sometimes I just like going up the path to take a look at the bees flying in and out of the beehive.
I've gone video crazy these last few days, and there is another one to follow tomorrow too.
You can just about make out the flighty bees as they come home...
I appologise in advance for the 'WHAT!' in the middle. Amy was shouting me from down the garden because Barbara thought it would be nice to eat the freshly sown grass seed.
Grab your popcorn now and sit back...
Have a good weekend.
I realise that this weeks post has been mainly chickens, and now bees. How about some fantastic, exciting and amazing vegetable news on Monday? Definately stay tuned!!
I put some chilli pepper seeds in four small pots about two months ago. They were cheap seeds, and unsurprisingly they didn't germinate. However, I transfered them over to the greenhouse when I got it and still nothing emerged.
To my utter amazement, they germinated a couple of days ago!
I can't believe it. I had wrote them off, but for some reason I hadn't thrown the soil back on the compost heap. We are already growing 'Cayenne' and 'Fillius Blue' so we won't be short of chillies, but we are now going to be growing these too. The thing is, I can't even remember what variety they are so I will have to post pictures if they eventually grow and bear fruits. They were an ornamental type with a mix of orange, yellow and red chillies.
I think that by the time they are ready to develop fruits it will be too cold to have them outside, so they may go on the window ledge, but the mini greenhouse might still be warm enough. We shall have to see. Well, I'll have to buy a digital themometer..
July. Probably the best month for being a veg gardener. All of your hard work during the previous months have lead up to this point. Over there the tomatoes are doing well, over there the potatoes are almost ready, over there the courgettes continue to come, over there the lettuces get bigger, over there the pak choi has bolted. Everything seems to be doing well (there is always one exception, stupid pak choi!!), and there is little maintenance to carry out.
In fact, it is very nice to pour a glass of homemade lemonade, sit back and look at what we have done. We have turned an old fenced off chicken run into a small producing plot, with plans to make it even better next year! (Hopefully)
We have enjoyed a few completly home grown meals. We used the saveable pak choi leaves in a stir fry last night, with some courgette, spinach, mange tout and some very hot chilli peppers. It was delicious. We've had a nice salad, and a vegetable fritatta, with some courgettes and mange tout in an omelette. It's been great.
We are just waiting on a few other things to mature and then there will be plenty more meals like that to come.
I said there was no maintenance on the plot. Well that is a lie. There are jobs to do, but there is nothing major really. If you afford yourself fifteen minutes a day then it is easy to keep on top of things. Although everything is going well, we need to be vigilant. At any moment, we could see blight overtake the tomatoes and potatoes, cabbage fly wip out the cabbages etc. If we keep a good look out for these things then we will definately be in a good place. Picking the odd weed from between the rows of veg is not particularly stenuous on our small plot.
Yesterday I spent a little while doing some of the simple jobs.
I've given the sunflowers and sweetcorn some support. The sweetcorn are planted in a triangle to aid pollination, but they were all leaning in to the centre and it looked a bit of a mess. So some bamboo canes have been added and I've loosely tied the sweetcorn to them.
The sunflowers are not in the sunniest spot in the garden, so they have decided to start leaning towards the sun, although they would benefit from a bit more sun, they are not in the world's worst position so these were staked back too. My Grandma and Grandad gave me the seeds for the sunflowers so I gave them three plants in return and these are now planted too..
Since the pak choi plan went bottom side up, there is a bit more space at the end of the plot furthest away from the shed. We have had our cabbage growing in pots in the greenhouse ready for transportation when some more space becomes available. I planted out three of the cabbage plants we planted a few months ago. They are in a good spot by the damson tree.
There is still time to sow some more salad leaves and lettuce so I did that to give us some late summer salad greens. We will definately appreciate them come late August and early September.
We are really looking forward to the sweet peppers we are growing in the mini greenhouse. I placed them more centrally in the greenhouse as they seem to be growing well. The middle of the top shelf in the greenhouse is the highest point.
I have always had fantastic luck with chilli peppers but not so much with sweet peppers. We have 4 sweet pepper plants and 5 chilli pepper plants this year, so hopefully there will be plenty of peppers of different shapes, colours and sizes over the next couple of months.
The flowers are going wild in those hanging baskets too..
I had to pick out a few dead heads, but nothing major. I am really pleased with these!
We are both really enjoying reading everybody's blogs and seeing what you are picking from your own gardens, allotments, window containers, greenhouses, polytunnels, smallholdings and farms. It is amazing that all of us bloggers have different sized growing area. From Rachel with her small city balcony to Mo and Steve and of course Sue with her much larger site. It is superb to see how we all grow things, both similarly and differently.
Have a great day, don't forget to check out some of the other blogs on the right hand side toolbar, and see what everybody else is doing this wonderful summer's day.
With the lush sunshine and nice sprinkle of rain that we have had during the last few days the whole vegetable garden is growing mad.
Everything is coming on so well.
We've seen ....
plenty more of these.....
the first tomato fruits appear...
(but the picture won't load, I will edit it in later!!)
the first pods on the manage tout...
the ripening of our own raspberries...
the flowers are appearing on the potatoes...
the cabbages are outgrowing their pots...
the first sign of a marrow....
and finally germination galore for the winter veg in the greenhouse....
This is the best time of year when you grow your own vegetables and fruit. To see all your hard work beginning to pay off, and the prospect of home grown meals are suddenly on the horizon. We've been harvesting courgettes for a long time now, but not much else, that will be changing in the next few days and weeks of course..
We both really enjoy reading every blog post that people put on (If we follow you). If you haven't already checked out some of the blogs that I follow on the right hand side of my blog then please do. If you enjoy reading my blog, then you will enjoy reading these too. They have many similarities to mine, but major differences which make it all so relevant and interesting.
When growing your own fruit and vegetables you can end up with a period on your plot where there is a lot of green, green and more green. The only things ripening fast enough are courgettes and they are well.. green this year. We did buy some yellow courgette seeds for next year though. Then there's the lettuce which is.. green. Tomato plants are.. green, although the yellow flowers are dwarfed by mountainous amounts of.. green.
Following our visit to Gardener's World on Wednesday, I was inspired by some of the show gardens where there is less.. green... and more... purple, yellow, orange, red and blue. I'll remind you of a couple of the 'Grow your own' style show gardens. Look at them closely..
and..
I've learnt my lesson this year. When you are in a small garden you need a bit more colour. We did buy some seeds for yellow courgettes, purple runner beans and purple sprouting.There is the Fillius Blue pepper plant too with the georgeous purple flowers. But what can I do immediately to brighten the place up a bit?
No... flowers?!?!
I am no flower expert. I won't pretend to be one either. Ask me about fruit and veg and I have had the input from my grandparents, I've read all the books, and I've read your blogs, and I've been experimenting with varying degrees of success and failure all my life. So I may be able to answer your questions. However, look at those photos again if you need to. What can you see? Yes, flowers. Look at the bizzy lizzies planted in the children's wellington boots in the second picture. Look at the rows of marigolds inbetween the tomato plants. Sunflowers too!
Amy was keen to get flowers but I consistently said to her 'they waste valuable growing space' which I suppose is still true. But she has twisted my arm, with the help of the endless amounts of green fly sat on our tomato plants.
We took a visit to that garden centre in our town that Amy didn't know existed two or three months ago (she is a regular now). They have a great choice of flowers. We didn't want too many, just a few.
So we bought 84 marigolds, two trays of labelia and two trays of something which I can't remember the name of (and two cheeky pepper plants of course!!). The marigolds are an ideal companion plants for tomatoes as they deter the ever persistent green fly. On sunny evenings at the moment, Amy only needs to go over to the vegetable patch to get swarmed with them, and then have to pick them out of her hair afterwards. I'm sure they get in my hair too, but Amy's hair is a really light blonde so they show up easily.
Well, you know that blue tubtrug we bought on Wednesday. Well we decided we would use it to store our tools. Until today....
We filled it 3/4way with compost. Before placing a tomato plant in the middle. Then we placed 16 marigolds around the edge. This tomato plant won't be touched by green fly that is for sure. We've now put the planted tubtrug next to the tomatoes in the grow bags so hopefully this will work out well in fending off the invasion.
The one blot on our veg plot was the ghastly old hanging wall baskets that had been untouched for well over a year. So using some more of the marigolds and the labelia. The veg plot has had a bit of a much needed face lift.
We had a few left over marigolds so I have planted these strategically in the garden. I've just sown some wild flower seeds and we have 3 sunflowers that are ready to go in to their final positions.
The raised squash bed which I have mentioned before. Is now a seprated area of the garden. Last month I made a post called 'Windy' where I said that the old water feature had fell over thanks to the rapid winds and the top of it had smashed in to bits. Although there were many small bits that were not useable, I saved the large bits because I knew they would come in useful at some point. Well, they have and they are now the edging around the raised area which is the squash bed. I planted some more marigolds next to the edging to give it even more colour. There is also the giant yellow tubtrug and the Rhubarb in the blue pot.
Look at the sweetcorn in the yellow tubtrug. Because it is in the tubtrug it doesn't compete for root space with the squash and (soon to be planted) pumkin. Therefore because the squash plants should swallow the majority of the area and need the root system to support it, we are ensuring that the squashes, pumpkin and sweetcorn get their fair share of needed nutrients.
The green has definately been brushed over with the flower power and the introduction of the new brightly coloured tubtrugs and the yellow plant labels. Here is the new and refreshed view..
I'm hoping for a bit more colour soon when all of those fruit and veg start to ripen up nicely, ready for harvesting.
We are making the homemade beeswax candles tonight, so that's something to look forward to.
