Where we are today...

Thank you to everyone who has left kind comments after our posts and to everybody who has given us a warm welcome back to blogging.

For those of you who have been reading you have probably ascertained that Paddington House has already begun its transformation in to a 21st century version of 'The Good Life'. We were without broadband from when we moved in on 27th March and it has only just been installed in the past week.

Therefore the raised bed has been standing and full of plants and seeds for over 5 weeks already despite one of our latest posts only just showing it having been erected. 

So today I will attempt to bring you up to where we are today. 

The first thing we planted when we had finished building the raised bed were some lettuce plants we bought from our local garden centre. They were tiny little plugs when they went in, but now they are almost ready for harvesting. These are 'Little Gem'..

I normally detest buying veg plants from garden centres, but this year I said I would buy a couple of plug packs if necessary. It cost me £1.50 for 12 plants, but I know in some of the 'high end' garden centres they charge around £4 for the same quantity. Rest assured, I have already planted some more lettuce seeds and the plants can be transplanted in to the raised beds after this current batch has been consumed.

Alongside the lettuce is some 'French Breakfast' radish. I absolutely detest shop bought radish, but I could eat the fresh homegrown stuff straight out of the ground. The stuff in the shops always tastes very woody and does not have a nice texture to it. These roots appear to be swelling up quite nicely, it shouldn't be long before they are ready to eat...

The raised bed is up against the shed and in order to maximise growing space I have attached some trellis to the shed and I have sowed some 'Blauhilde' purple podded climbing beans along the edge of the raised bed closest to the shed. I have grown these before on the allotment and they are absolutely delicious, they are fantastic roasted with other Mediterranean vegetables. The plants are just starting to take hold and should be climbing away in no time.. I was hoping to paint the shed before they emerged but they appear to have beaten me on this occasion.

Our raised bed also has beetroot and Swiss chard growing in it. The seedlings have just appeared and are making good progress. I can't wait to taste fresh homegrown produce once again, it surely can't be long to wait now.

Thanks for reading,

Martin

Nights drawing in? Bring your gardening inside!

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!

Martin

A tour around the gardens at Fircroft.

Well you might have seen me mention my new job in several posts that I have made over the last couple of months. Anyway today I would like to formally introduce you to Fircroft College of Adult Education. I am currently working in the marketing department here and I am having a great time to say the least. Fircroft is set in the house and ground of the Cadbury Empire's former family home. Featuring the historic main building and 6 acres of beautiful gardens, it is a lovely environment to work in.

Today I have been on a walk around the gardens to bring you a small tour of the gardens here. Obviously we are coming to a bit of a halt in this year's growing season, so at the end I'll share some pictures of what the place looks like in the spring and summer seasons too.

From my perspective, the most interesting thing about the grounds at Fircroft is the kitchen garden and polytunnel. Seeing delicious veg being grown here all year round and then having the privilidge of eating it in the dining room is a pleasure. The majority of food at Fircroft is home-made and a lot of the vegetable's are home grown too. Today we have had runner beans in honey (sounds odd, but was delicious) and home grown sweetcorn to accompany our roast chicken.

Let's start at the orchard. There are a good mix of established apple and pear trees along with about 10 new trees which were planted alst year....

 here is the kitchen garden...

This is where all of the delicious vegetables we eat in the canteen come from....

Here's the polytunnel....

Only the other day it was full of tomatoes, but now it's just peppers and chillis left....

Here's a vegetable I don't want to see and if you've read some of our previous posts then you'll know why.......

Like all plots there is a lot of bare earth. Potatoes and onions are up and out of the ground. These patches will get a chance to breathe and with some manure or compost will be ready to go again in 2013..

A path from the kitchen garden leads you to a large lawned area...

On the way we bypass this little sign...

That oak tree is now over 50ft tall!!

Back on the path behind the kitchen garden, where will we go now?

Plenty of woodland..

Now the pond....

Needs a little tlc but is a nice feature none the less...

I spotted plenty of dragonflies around the pond. There was plenty of other wildlife I saw on this little tour including some birds of prey which I think were buzzards, there were also squirells, magpies, a robin, bees, and lots more too!

Looking back at the historic main building which as I have said used to be the Cadbury family home...

In the foreground is a small rose garden....

After all that I even bought myself a present back to the office from the woodland floor....

Alongside courses for adult learners including literacy and numeracy we also host courses for professionals in the voluntary sector, but if that isn't your cup of tea and you've stumbled across my blog whilst looking for gardening start up advice then we also run gardening courses in the summer. It would mean a lot if you took one moment to have a look at our website and see some of the really important work that we do. There should be more details of the gardening courses and their dates on the website too, and maybe some more pictures. www.fircroft.ac.uk

Well, I hope you have enjoyed today's mini tour. I'll try and do at least a monthly update from within the college and let you see what we are up to in the gardens. One of my ambitions that I have is to open up the gardens for the general public next summer, so I'll keep you posted on any developments as and when they happen.

Before I finish here are a couple more pictures of Fircroft at more favourable times of year and also taken with a good camera as opposed to an iPhone!

Also, you may notice that there is a bit of maintenance going on behind the scenes here at www.our-good-life.blogspot.com , so don't be alarmed if when you next come back some bits have changed or are missing, we are actually updating a few things here and there to bring the live facebook stream to you. I also have a lot of emails throughout the year about growing, gardening, chickens, quail, you name it, so I have decided to add a couple of pages with some FAQs and 'How To Guides'! We hope you'll like them and will let you know when they are ready.

Thanks once again for reading this blog! Your continued comments, emails etc. they mean the world to us and it is always nice to know that people enjoy reading about us and what we are passionate about.

We'll be back tomorrow with an update from tonight's shift at the allotment!

Martin

Food, Glorious Food

Hot crumble and custard!

( Not the original words, but more appropriate in our circumstances!)

Well the produce keeps coming. It's a daily battle with the soft fruit bushes to keep on top of picking. We have huge amounts of Raspberries and Blackcurrants. I've actually got a blackcurrant and apple crumble in the oven right now, so it is an ideal time to sit down and write a blog post.

The rain hasn't stopped in recent weeks but admitedly the weather is starting to ease and believe it or not they are predicting that we might have a week long summer next week. I'll certainly be getting my shorts and wellies on to get up to the allotment. Due to the weather the only visits we are making is to harvest fruit and vegetables for dinner. The weeds keep growing, but there is little chance to do anything about it until we get a break in the rain. We had planned to have a whole day down at the plot on Friday but due to the weather it turned in to a solitary hour, but we managed to weed the onion bed in that time.

Aside from soft fruit, we've been harvesting lots of vegetables too. We are harvesting potatoes every other day and each plant is giving us a good amount and is plenty for just the two of us. We are getting between 7-10 potatoes off each plant and they range from golf ball size to just under the size of a tennis ball. Some of them are the biggest charlotte potatoes I have ever seen. When I have grown them in the past they have been small and kidney shaped, but these have completly dwarfed all of my previous efforts.

The courgettes keep coming and you could say we are beginning to enter the glut period. One of my favourite times of year! The other cucurbits doing well are the pumpkins, their plants are almost 10ft long now. They are running away from their patch and encroaching on paths and other beds. We're really hoping for a giant pumpkin this year but at the moment we'll settle for a giant marrow and giant lettuce. The rain must be good for something. Although this marrow isn't a giant, I read that you shouldn't let the first one get too big and then pick it and this will encourage more growth. We're not growing for the show bench, but for the dinner table so this is a very good size.

I was about to sow some lettuce seeds about 10 weeks ago when a fellow plot holder came over to me offering me some of his spare lettuce seedlings, not only did it save me a job then but it has also provided us with lettuce in the kitchen. We have had it in salads, in sandwiches and on top of big juicy burgers in a bun and it has been great. He didn't know what variety it was and I still don't know exactly either. It looks like a cos, but what variety, who knows? I've decided to call it Jumbo Gem and you'll see why...

Other things we are picking include broad beans, strawberries and other varieties of lettuce. The runner beans and dwarf beans are flowering now so it can't be long until those. I must remember to take pictures of the allotment. You can just about see it behind Amy, but the weather never really does it any justice when we take pictures of the whole plot. I'll try it tonight after dinner, we'll be making a flying dash to pick some more soft fruit and courgettes to top our pizza for tomorrow night.

It's an absolute delight being back on the allotment site after a 2 year absence due to studying. It's fantastic to be picking and eating delicious food again, and great to see Amy's enthusiasm continue to rise every time we pick something new.

If you're lucky I might upload some more pictures tomorrow. I was busy at a job intereview today for next year's placement year at university, I was amazed to see their fantastic grounds and gardens. It is located in Selly Oak and the manor was owned by George Cadbury who was of course the founder of the iconic chocolate brand. They also had an allotment area and polytunnel and ran gardening courses. I would be deligthed to get the job there and contribute not only to the business function side of it but also get in and amongst the gardens too! Paradise!

Will be setting time aside tomorrow to catch up on my favourite blogs, have not had time to read them for well over a week.

Hope the sun shines for you!

Martin



A note to the sky..

I have had enough of this weather! Have you? Yesterday morning we were sat in the living room being deafened by rain pelting against the windows, the whole road was flooded and there was no sign of it letting up. Then came the thunder and lightening, what a great insight in to summer time this was.

However, cometh the afternoon it was blazing sun with temperatures at 25 degrees celcius. I made my way to the allotment and came back in the evening with blackcurrants, lettuce, strawberries, raspberries and a tickle of SUNBURN!

Absolutely unbelievable. It is so hard to plan days at the allotment when the weather is so varied. Thankfully yesterday afternoon was good enough for me to get a lot of weeding done and also plant out the carrots we had started off in old loo rolls. We also planted some lettuces which we bought from a large food retailer that I work for. They were those cut and come again 'living lettuces' that are quite fashionable in the high end supermarkets. They had apparently exceded their sell by date and thus were destined for the bin (how a living thing can exceed it's sell by date is beyond me!), but I did manage to get them via a friend for 8p each from the staff waste sale. We had 15 so they are all now planted up and should in theory give us lettuce throughout the summer. We've picked some leaves from all of them to encourage them to produce new growth!

They are a gorgeous colour and I will be letting them go to seed at the end of summer to save seeds to plant again for next year!



We've planted 12 out in between the broad beans and dwarf french beans to fill a gap from the second lot of broad beans that failed to get going due to mice/bird problems. I don't normally use slug pellets but I've had to give in. We were losing a lettuce per day last week due to the wet conditions. We had tried using 100% natural organic pellets but they made no difference. So we have reverted back to the blue pellets but they are supposedly repellant and non toxic to domestic wildlife so that is good.

There are plenty more weeds to remove over the coming week, and I also want to get straw down at the top half of the plot to keep weeds down. The top area was awash with couch grass and the only way to get rid of it/to reduce it is to cover the area for 6 months or more. Obviously it would be suicidal to cover 1/3 of the allotment and not grow on it so we have dug over it several times and have planted it up with pumpkins, sweetcorn and some brassicas, so now I can cover around them with straw to keep the weeds at bay but also retain moisture for the vegetables if we do get a warm patch. Unlikely I know..

Anyway, I'm going to be catching up with other blogs today if I can. However, I do need to get up to the allotment and weed around the strawberries. I'll try and take lots more pictures to give you an idea of how the plot is doing.

Have a great weekend!

Martin

Flaming (wet) June

Well, I'm glad exams are out the way and a long, luxurious period of time on the allotment is now upon me! Poor Amy still has another 2 weeks to go until she put her feet up for a short time and join me on plot 114.

It makes me chuckle that the last time I made a post on this blog I entitled it 'Cost Del Allotment' referring to the scorching temperatures we had at the end of May. Almost 2 weeks on and the allotment is full of puddles and I haven't had to water for at least a week which is great in a way!

The courgettes and pumpkins are loving it, but the weather has stressed the onions and many of them are starting to bolt which is highly frustrating! These things happen though.

I was hoping to get down to the allotment to take some pictures to show you but the weather and bad light doesn't make them worth posting in all fairness. So you'll have to wait for the sunshine before you see the pictures of the plot now.

The good thing to tell you is that we are now eating fresh produce off the plot. We've had raddish but now we're harvesting a couple of lettuce per week which is ideal. Here's a few of our perfectly formed and delicious little gems....

 I see the strawberries are tinged with red too! Can't be long now, when's Wimbledon??

Everything is growing really well, especially the brasicas which look like they are already beyond the stage my brassicas usually get to, so fingers crossed there.

Off to Gardener's World Live on Friday so will do a report like last year. Last year's report had hundreds of hits from around the web so it was obviously popular.

I haven't logged in to the blog for a few weeks and our number of followers has jumped up so welcome all, I hope you enjoy reading.

Enjoy the rest of the week, sun or no sun!

Martin

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