I did it - One more year!

Allotment rent paid. Who's ready to go again? I  certainly am!

The allotment has been a complete no go area over the last couple of weeks. Christmas, New Year, Flood and Snow have made it completly impossible to do anything. I still have a good area of land to dig over and I want to get the shed back up again as soon as possible.

Driving past a local garden centre on the way home from work yesterday, I spotted a big sign saying 'SEED POTATOES NOW IN STOCK', so there is some optimism now that things will be back to normal soon. I suppose it is not unreasonable to start thinking about sowing tomato and chilli seeds over the next couple of weeks despite the bitterly cold snap of weather we are having, with even more snow expected at the weekend. I am going to get some Broad beans under way over the next week or so too. It will be nice to have some green shoots emerging from the plot again. That is all weather providing though of course. Last year, I remember sowing broad beans in an old grow bag by the side of the house and moving them up to the allotment at a later date but the plants weren't as strong as ones sown direct, so I won't be doing that again this year I don't think.

I am going to get a bit of rough paper and a pen out at some point and have a quick sketch of what is going where for the year ahead. I also want to make my plot a little more secure so I am going to remove the paving slab path which leads from the road track to the patioed area. I think they must be using the path to get at our plot. Seeing as the site has been so muddy due to the wet summer and winter, I recon that giving them dry access has made our plot more targetable. I am also going to move the patio over and plant some gooseberry bushes on the side where it can be accessed via a grass path between mine and my neighbours plot. Hopefully these prickly bushes will deter them, but we'll have to wait and see.

On another note, I also seem to have amassed quite a lot of gardening vouchers over my birthday and then the Christmas period. I was adamant that I was going to buy a 3x2m polytunnel for the allotment before the last bout of vandalism. Now I am too scared to put it up there and I don't have room at home. Seeing as my mini greenhouses were also smashed I really need somewhere to keep plants warm come the end of February when I start sowing winter cabbage and the like. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet as such but I am looking forward to spending them when I do.

I've mentioned before that we enjoy regular trips to Disneyland Paris from time to time, and although we are back there in just 27 days time, I have also been planning a couple of more trips away this year. I really want to take Amy down to Jimmy's Farm in Norfolk to see the pigs and also just have a country break. We are really looking in to keeping pigs and are actively searching for a plot of land to buy or rent to do so, I think that is one of my targets for this year. To be a pig keeper. I'm in one of those moods at the moment where I want to do something and I think, why should I let anything or anyone stop me? I'll keep you updated on that anyway...




Pig at Hatton last summer..


But for now it'll be dreaming of Spring, seedlings and salads. Roll on March, that's when the fun really begins.

Thanks for visiting as always,

Martin

Hatton Village

We spent an afternoon at Hatton farming world and village on Tuesday. We both hadn't been since we were children and with our seperate families. It was going to be interesting to see what we thought of this Warwickshire tourist attraction now that we are 4ft taller than the last time we went.

The farm village is seperate to the shopping village. The shopping village had a nice garden centre and some pleasant designer shops. The garden centre had loads of great things there and they sold chickens too. I can't believe how much garden centres charge for chickens, at £35 a time I certainly won't be buying any of their stock. All of my chickens I have ever owned only cost between £5 and £10 each!

The farm village was really good fun with lots of livestock about the place.

We decided that if we ever had a smallholding we would need to find out what breed of sheep these were because they were just gorgeous...

They were very wooly, and looked like they carried their fair share of meat too!

They used to have a really nice meadow with pigs roaming around, but this has been downgraded to a cheesy attraction called 'Pig Palace' which was basically a big, blue gazebo with some cardboard cut out pigs dressed as gaurds. I don't understand why tourist attractions feel they have to lower their standards to be more appealing. It is a real turn off. Any way this Gloucestershire Old Spot seemed to be enjoying himself....

We released our inner children when it got to the funfair and games part of the farm village. This skelter slide was real fun. I love getting in to those old potato sacks and whizzing down the tube. We did question our safety though because the whole thing was swaying with the wind, when you are high up and rocking it is not a great sign.

Amy was glad to be back on the ground. She made me retake her photo because she didn't like the first one I took. So here it is anyway... (Edit - She has been whining all night so I've had to change it to the 'articficial version)

They had one of those 'Gold Mine' attractions where you get a pan and sieve through the water and find little nuggets of metal which they call 'Gold'. Whilst pondering around the attraction I found my own little golden nugget...

I wanted to take this girl home, she was so friendly and inquisitive and only too happy to be picked up. Shame, we didn't take a bag big enough to smuggle her out through the gift shop!

We would reccomend this place for anyone passing. Especially if the weather is nice. We had a bit of rain, so the tractor ride was a welcome relief from the downpour. But because of the rain we had to forego the chance to navigate our way through the impressive Maize Maze. Maybe next time.

Have a fabulous weekend! You deserve it!

Martin

It's all down hill from here..

Well, today marks the beginning of summer.

Every day now until the 23rd December we will gradually get less and less sunlight. I've really been enjoying the long late nights in the garden, I recon we've still got a month or so of late nights though. It's not going to get really dark, really quickly now is it!

I don't think vegetables get the credit they deserve, they are much cleverer than you think. The 21st June is a significant day for the likes of leeks, beetroot and many other root carrots. Apparently, these delicious vegetables clock on to the fact that the amount of daylight is gradually reducing and therefore they begin to in take more and more water and nutrients in order to prepare themselves for winter. (Obviously, they won't see the winter in the garden, but they don't know that) With the increased intake of goodness the vegetables begin to swell up and then when they are at their prime we take them in to the kitchen to eat.

Following yesterday's post about the lack of strawberries, we've been searching for locations to go and pick our own from local strawberry fields. I remember that when I was a kid we used to pick our own all the time. But these days it is difficult to find any where to do it. It seems that the health and safety brigade have forced many small businesses to shut up shop. The strawberries still grow, but you can't pick your own. It's very sad really. I am going to do a bit of search tonight and see what I can find, but in the meantime I've found something that is equally delicious and free in the hedgerows, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them. I'll tell you a bit more about them tomorrow.

I couldn't post a blog post without a picture.

So I thought this picture sums up my day...

...tiring!

I took this picture at the Royal Show in 2007. Why did they have to cancel it, it was such good fun.

Have a great day one and all. I still have the candle post and hedgerow post to go up in the next few days so be sure to check back.

Thanks for visiting,

Martin