Allotment Diary: Devastation!

sweet cicily and aquilegia growing on our allotment

We arrived at our allotment this week after a 12-day gap. Everything was greener, there were more plants in flower. It was a lovely, sunny day.

On closer inspection – devastation! Most of the seeds that we’d sown in toilet roll tubes had been dug up and their cardboard containers unceremoniously strewn about the place. We reckon the culprit or culprits were of the squirrel variety after an easy meal.

Our original plan for the day was to clear debris from the sunny spot and turn it into a bed and our seating area. We weren’t anticipating having to re-sow garden peas, sweet peas and sweetcorn.

The garden peas we planted (without cardboard tubes) a couple of weeks earlier were sprouting nicely. Lesson learned for next time!

Thankfully, we had a few other positive green shoots to report. Some of the lettuce seeds we planted on our last visit were already sprouting…

…there were lots of strawberry plants that were sending suckers out all over the place that we divided & potted up…

…the gooseberry flowers were turning into little fruits…

…and a pair of wood pigeons were busy building a nest in a tree just above our heads.

We eventually got around to working on the sunny spot in the late afternoon – clearing away the pile of rubbish, plastic water drums and levelling out the ground. Hopefully no more nasty surprises will await us on our next visit!

Allotment Diary: Sow & Sow

Last week on our allotment we returned to the important business of sowing more seeds. We had 3 different types of beetroot. We love it with parsnips, squash, garlic and rosemary in roasted vegetables.

Remember those old, heavy Belfast sinks we salvaged from a far corner the previous week? Well, we stood them on some bricks, filled them with compost, watered them in and sowed them with seeds.

One’s been given over to herbs – coriander, flat leaf parsley and basil…

…the other will (hopefully) provide us with a selection of cut & come again lettuce – mizuna, rocket, land cress and red & green salad bowl mixed. We even had a little space left to plant a single drill of some lolla rosa seeds we got from the BBC Dig In project a couple of years ago.

It was the sunniest day since we had the allotment and it was only then that we discovered that the sunniest part of the entire plot was what we’d designated as our ‘dumping ground’! Next time we’re there, we’ll be making it into a better location for a break and spot of lunch!

Allotment Diary: Gone to Seed

This week, we finally got to do some proper planting on the allotment. We bought a selection of vegetable seeds, got given some allium bulbs by our neighbour and sent off for some wild flower seeds that were being given away by BBC Countryfile & Go Wild.

We sowed some sweet corn kernels using toilet roll inners a few days before we went to the allotment…

…and transplanted them into a newly-laid bed when we got down there.

When we get to the allotment, the first thing we did was to have a quick inspection to see if anything looked any different. And lo & behold, a few of the sweet pea seeds we planted up a couple of weeks before had sent up little shoots – no more than a couple of centimetres tall!

Adelle set about sowing some cornichon seeds into one of the other beds we’d prepared the week before…

…while Justin continued with laying paths and beds…

…and Fudge did what he does best… loaf!

He sometimes gets a bit bored which can often lead to naughtiness so we keep him occupied by giving him a big bone to gnaw on.

We found this old wire basket on the plot so we decided to use it to keep all our tools tidy.

We also found this snail skulking around. The first live one we’d seen up to that point. We doubt it will be the last!

The last job of the day was to clear out these two sinks we found at the back of the plot and put them into place, ready to plant up next time.

Allotment Diary: Allotment friends and foes

The last week on the allotment had us pondering mortality – the cycle of life, decay, death and rebirth. We did some hard pruning of trees and shrubs, some much-needed weeding and a little bit of seed planting.

This beautiful flagstone fencing was ubiquitous in the local area once upon a time. It’s made of the local millstone grit and borders one edge of our allotment. It’s such a shame that it tends to get broken, removed or demolished in favour of indeterminate brick or concrete walls or wood panel fencing. It’s all higgledy-piggledy like a mouthful of teeth in dire need of a good orthodontist – but we like them like that. A perfect Hollywood smile would look completely out of place! We think it may have originally been part of a vaccary wall – to keep herds of cows in check!

We posted a photo of Mr Robin in last week’s allotment post, but not all the allotment dwellers are our friends. These snails, along with the army of slugs, are definitely our foes – needless to say they came to a sticky end! Having said that, they have a beauty of their own

This 10-foot length of green chain link fence was already on the plot when we took it over. We though it might be a nice spot to run a few climbers up.

We turned over and weeded about a foot on each side of the fence and sowed a few garden peas and sunflower seeds.

In a few months time if all goes to plan, they’ll germinate, flower and provide us with seeds to both eat and resow for next year.

H is for Home Harbinger

Tag: seeds

Allotment Diary: Devastation!

Allotment Diary: Sow & Sow

Allotment Diary: Gone to Seed

Allotment Diary: Allotment friends and foes