New Year - New start...

It is with much sadness that I have not blogged since the middle of November. Christmas has passed us by leaving some wonderful presents on the way. Amy and I noticed an increase in 'joint' presents this year, of which the majority of them were very thoughtful and gardening related. Thankyou everybody. Santa also brought me a new iPad so there is no excuse not to blog more frequently now.

You will probably remember the unfortunate news I posted about last time where our shed had been tipped over and our contents ruined, moved or stolen. Well due to the awful recent weather and localised flooding which affects the bottom part of the allotment site near to the river we still do not have a shed standing. Instead, each time we visit we are greeted with this rather depressing sight.

By the looks of things it will probably be February now before it is upstanding once again. There is no sign of the weather letting off and January is going to be a very busy month anyway.

At least the new year will give us chance to have another go on this plot. Some things didn't work so well this year from things like onions to even getting around the plot. We've reevaluated our plans and we are all set to go. It may even be worth thinking about sowing some seeds next month, chillies, peppers, tomatoes and the like. How exciting!! It is also a great relief that I dug over 2/3 of the plot at the end of November. This should give us a really useful head start next year and will save a lot of back ache in early March. I hope this early start will also give the couch grass a bit of a battering. As you can see in the next picture the paths surrounding the plot are all grass and that makes it easy for it to quickly spread through the plot.

I'm hoping to sort the rest of the plot out before I go back to work on the 8th of January. But of course that is going to be weather dependant. Any more rain and the plot could quickly turn into a lake.

Well, I sincerely hope the new year brings you bucket loads of joy and happiness even if it comes in the  form of a trailer full of manure. Happy New Year, and a toast to happy gardening!!

Martin and Amy

Scum

Had some devastating news yesterday. We got a call from the Town Council to tell us that on Saturday night our Shed was ramsacked and tipped over. When we arrived last night in the pitch black the roof was leaning on the ground and the base was high in the air. It looks like it has been rolled too. It's about 1/4 of the way down the plot now as opposed to right at the front side.

We could tell it was a mess last night when we went up but it was so dark that we could not see a thing. I went up this morning on the way to work and this is the site of devastation....

It makes you feel like strinking a match and burning the lot and walking away for good. Our mini greenhouses are smashed to bits and our books and notepads are soaked due to the rain over the weekend. We are still unsure what is missing but we have noted a few things already. My allotment neighbour told me he discovered the sight and called the town council straight away, but obviously being a weekend there was no response. I had only started digging it over for winter on Friday, how frustrating. Since yesterday the shed has collapsed and crumbled.

Absolutely gutted. Not sure what to do or where to start...

But we will fight on and I will dig for victory!

Must do before November...

Well, the last time I made a blog post I am sure the leaves on the trees were green if not with a slight tinge of yellow. Since then the glorious autumnal colour show has really got off with a bang. Red, Orange, Purple are just beautiful colours to see on the side of the road, back garden or at a public park. It makes a nice change from the mass quantity of green we have seen over the last 7 months.

With the end of Autumn and beginnning of winter does come a tinge of sadness, the first frost has been and gone and it is a timely reminder that the clocks go back on Sunday morning. I like to pop up to the allotment when I can after work, but I know that from next week it will be very dark at 5pm and I won't have a chance of getting up there. The next 'day at the allotment' will probably be in February. Only sparing visits will take place from next week until then. However, the allotment isn't being completly put to bed. Some things continue to grow like Purple Sprouting, Leeks, Parsnips and lettuce. Broad Beans can be sown from next week. So some joy still does exist.

We have just got back from our annual trip to Disneyland Paris and that really enforces the message that this time next week it will be November and Halloween will have been and gone. There were a few things I really want to get done on Friday at the allotment which didn't take too long which included tidying the shed. The last thing I want to do is go to the allotment on February 16th to find that the shed is a mess and I can't find the right sized seed tray to make my sowings. Other things to do in the next week or so include collecting leafs for leaf mould and making christmas cakes.

I also raked three barrow loads of compost in to the old bean bed which is going to be next years' brassica bed.

The frost had killed off all the bean and squash plant a few weeks ago, so it was also time to harvest the dried runner bean shells so that I could save some seed for next year. Runner beans in a small little bag sealed with a ribbon make a wonderful gift for those family members who have birthday's early in the year. There were plenty of beans left so we have a good stash of seed now..

We also picked up a couple of butternuts I had missed before when the foliage was still quite big, they are going to go on the window ledge to ripen up. The leaves are all curled up and black now so they were easy to spot. We also harvested the first 'purple top milan' turnips and the last pumpkin, which is going to have a big job on it's hand to be orange enough for Wendesday.

I think that last pumpkin may end up as soup. Never mind the other 5 pumpkins in the conservatory are ripening nicely as you can see. The one in the bottom left is particularly orange...

It was also my birthday last week. I had asked for euros for our trip to Paris as well as Gardening Vouchers if they prefered so that I could buy a small polytunnel. Tomatoes and cucumbers have been a small disaster over the last few years, so I want to give them a bit of a helping hand next year. I have £65 in vouchers so that will be very helpful indeed. We're going to be changing the allotment layout again next year based on what worked well and what didn't for us this year.. More to follow soon..

I think that's all for now.

Thanks for reading..

Martin

The big sort out and a taste of... SPRING!

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!

 

Enjoy the rest of your week!!!

 

Martin

 



The sweet taste of success...

Well here we have it. The first sweet taste in 2012 of homegrown sweetcorn..

It was absolutely delicious! We served with plenty of butter and I have to say it was a) the sweetest and b) the biggest I have ever grown it. It was simply perfect, and I can't wait to harvest plenty more of the coming weeks!

Today we also picked kale, cabbage, runner beans, borlotti beans, strawberries and raspberries. The beans and brassicas were taken to my grandparent's house and the strawberries and raspberries are waiting to be devoured as soon as I publish this post. Amy has been down to the allotment three times this week to pick strawberries and we have picked over 50 each time. We also have raspberries by the bucket load too...

 



 

You might already know if you have seen our live twitter feed on the right, but at the weekend we visited Ryton Organic Gardens near Coventry. We had scheduled to visit West Midland's Safari Park because we HAD some free tickets, emphasis on the HAD because as we about to step out the door we noticed that they expired the week before! Typical!

Anyway we ended up at Ryton. Amy had never been before and I hadn't been in a couple of years. I love the idea of growing heritage varieties and this is something they really promote. We obviously paid most attention to the vegetable growing side of things.

This would be idyllic wouldn't it...

They also had a greenhouse full of interesting tomatoes. This tomato really caught the eye. They didn't seem to form on 'trusses' like normal tomatoes do...

They were actually dangling on their own. They were absolutely huge and almost pepper like. Here is the placard with the variety name on...

The amount of tomatoes growing perfectly was very enviable. So many fellow bloggers (ourselves included) have reported about the widespread blight problem that we've had in this country this year. A real shame. For all of us who forgot what home grown tomatoes look like, here is a reminder...

 

 

Right, I'm now off to enjoy those strawberries and raspberries. Don't forget to follow us on twitter @ourgoodlifeblog ! I am slowly making it around everybody elses blogs leaving comments. Thanks again for reading. We hope you have a plentiful harvest this week! I have another blog post planned for later this week, so keep your eyes peeled.

 

Thanks,

 

Martin