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

Glamping

Glamping is camping for glamourous people. You get dressed up in your best frock, buy a pop up tent and set off for the campsite. Ok, we bought the pop up tent but the night's sleep was far from glamorous. I had Amy whining all night, that the tent was leaking and she was cold. It was only spitting, so I said she was being silly. (By the way, I was snuggled up nice and warm and was also completly dry). I can only appologise for dismissing her concerns during the night when I saw how waterlogged her half of the tent was this morning. We are in need of some waterproofing spray before we go again in a few weeks time. Not comfortable to  be sleeping in the wet. (Sorry!)

I don't have many memories of camping, other than in my back garden when I was a kid. So the whole experience on Wednesday and Thursday was very new and refreshing. All the simple things were such good fun.

We played games such as tennis, catch, football and boules..

What tremendous skill...

Getting back to the real basics regards eating and drinking was nice. Boiling the kettle on the gas cooker, and preparing dinner and breakfast in the same way too! The whistling of the kettle was lovely...

We had chilli con carne with pasta for tea and a fry up for breakfast. Divine!

The tent it self looked good, despite the rain problem later in the night.

The campsite was really cute. It was easy to find, and the location was stunning. The pitch was well shielded from the wind, we were surrounded by tall trees and bushes. The campsite was lovely and quiet. It was only us, an elderly couple and the members of staff on the whole site.

There were lots of walks to do. The majority of fields in the area were planted with either rape seed, poppies or broad beans. Some had a combination of all of them where seeds had obviously spread from previous or neighbouring crops...

We walked through a broad bean field which had a public footpath in the middle of it...

It looked like they were up for a good harvest anyway.

There was plenty of reading to do in the evening too. We bough almost every self-sufficient book/magazine we came across when we did a spot of shopping in Bourton itself...

We have definately extended our home library. We bought some great magazines, and some books about chickens, bees and home brew. We also bought some more books when we popped in to the town of Brodway on the way back home. Ooops!

There were no lights on the campsite so during the night it was nice and dark and you could see all of the stars. Due to the brillaint location and landscape we got a good view of the evening's sun set....

We've only been back a day, and we already can't wait to go back!

We'd like to reveal, that we will be running a blog contest from Monday, which will run for 3 weeks. If you would like to enter the competition for a chance to win a £20 'Our Good Life' hamper including seeds, tools and other great resources then please visit us soon. How to enter will be posted at 5.30pm on Monday!

Good Luck if you decide to enter!!

We hope you have had a good weekend.

Martin

Winter

It's strange to think that on a lovely, sunny June day the topic on my mind is the hard months of winter.

We're going to have a go at growing a range of brasicas including cabbage, brocolli and purple sprouting to name a few of the seed varieties we bought at Gardener's World.
We also need to get a move on with some of the root crops including parsnips and turnips, otherwise we really will have missed them for this year...

Don't worry, we're not only confined to the doom and gloom of the 'hunger months' but we are still preparing and sowing for summer and early through to mid autumn.

I transfered the lettuce seedlings in to the ground directly next to the leeks and then  planted a row of beetroot too. The beetroot looks great, it's been sat in a pot up until now and they have come on great in the short time we've had the greenhouse. Amy doens't like beetroot, so it's only done a small row for myself. We can plant a row of lettuce each week now for a few weeks time so that we have a continuous crop in to the autumn.

The broad beans look really good, seeing as we only bought 12 plug plants that were a bit battered and starved and thus reduced at a local garden centre, we are both amazed how well they have come on. They are all flowering and we watched the bees hard at work on them. I noticed the first mange tout flowers today aswell which is fantastic. Here are a couple of pictures of the bees doing their business..

There are plenty of tomato flowers on the tomato plants, and the first sign on peppers on the pepper plants. It was great to have Amy back in the garden now she has finally finished her own exams. She helped me move the sunflowers on to larger pots, and they will be moved over to my Grandma and Grandad's house next week or just after. We are keeping a few for our own garden and I plan to save the seeds. She also got her infamous pink watering can out and gave all the plants a little sprinkle this evening. Everything seems to be thriving, even the scorched runner beans are coming along really well...

Have a good day!

Martin

What is this??

This is rather bizzarre..

Anybody know what it is or what has happened? It seems to have happened to the majority of the runner bean bushes I've been growing. The leaves have shrivelled up and  are now really crisp and they break/crumble/disintergrate instantly when touched.

Answers on a postcard (or via comment) and thanks in advance!

Martin