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

Endless amounts..

Does it ever feel like some things are just endless?

We were only cheering with delight at the emergence of these tiny courgettes a few months ago and now the amounts are just.. endless.

I've been trying to hack down and dig out the weeds at the garden share but the amounts are just absolutely endless.

The tomatoes keep coming and are thankfully, endless.

We've been trying to catch up read everybody's blogs this afternoon. We've missed a few days of reading and the posts are just endless.

You get the idea. If you don't keep on top of things quickly and efficiently you can get the feeling of things becoming endless, but that doesn't mean they are any less enjoyable or unwanted, it means it just takes you a little longer longer to get to that place you want to be.

I've took some time this afternoon to plant out some very late leeks and some cabbage plants. We've planted them in the garden at home instead of the garden share. We were probably being over ambitious trying to get the garden share up and running straight away. It is definately going to need some time sorting bits out and restoring the paths and raised beds. We will definately be ready come March when the plot will really begin to take shape.

We are sorry that we have lacked a bit with blog posting in the last week or so, but we have been glued to our television screens watching the unbelievable scenes that were the UK riots. How can anybody support or not condemn such lawlessness and criminality.

We fully intend to be back to blog writing tomorrow, and I believe Amy might even write her first post in months if you are lucky.

Have an enjoyable evening and keep safe.

Martin

Too good an opportunity...

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.

Martin and Amy x

Grab your popcorn..

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!!

Martin

The Jubilance of July

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.

Martin

Summer is here!

Well, today has been absolutely delightful. The sun has been beaming down on us all afternoon and the temperature has reached 29 celcius.

I was unsure whether the good weather we had been promised all week would actually reach us when the sky was filled with grey all throughout Saturday. There was quite a blowing wind too, which added to our doubts.

We had been searching for somewhere to go strawberry picking in the local vicinity. Like I said in a previous post, the biggest ones in the area had shut down, so we were less than optimistic of finding somewhere really local. However, it was nice to see a sign for a ‘PYO’ in Dunnington, a very small village about 3 miles from us. We went yesterday and picked a bucket load of delicious, juicy strawberries. We enjoyed some yesterday with some scones and cream, and we are going to have some tonight after a barbeque at Amy’s house. The rest will be frozen for use at a later date.

You can see in this picture why I was quite doubtful about the gorgeous weather reaching us..

The wind was ripping through the open field!

Here is Amy with her ‘champion’ strawberry...

It was massive, and the perfect shape too!

Here is the final pickings...

Cost us £9 in total. But compared to buying the supermarket you can’t beat the flavour, freshness and the support to the local producers. When you work it out that Marks and Spencer’s strawberries cost £4.40 a kilogram, these were a bargain because we got almost 4 kilos.

The afternoon was very pleasant despite the grey skies. Picking your own is great fun, and gives you a real sense of getting back to nature.

I’m off now to enjoy the rest of this baking heat , and fill my face with some lovely barbeque food.

Enjoy the rest of your day, please think of me when I start work at 5am.

Martin