Our Allotment Journey - Day 1 !

jtb2412

Hi everyone !

Just wanted to pop in quickly and let you all know I haven't fallen off the face of the earth ! lol ......... just really busy with everything (including the lotty!)

Am off to Guide camp this weekend so will promise to try and catch up next week. I have popped in occasionally to read all about your progress ...... everyone's doing great !

Have a good weekend everyone .... cya soon xx

Rummer

Hi Everyone, sorry I haven't been about, just read all the posts I missed and I will post properly myself later!

Frugaldom

Hi guys, how is everyone getting on with the growing?

The potatoes in my 'potato well' have sprouted and it's already been built up to see how it looks. It looks like a beehive! :rotfl: If this works, I'm going to build 3 of them for next year and use the ordinary beds for something else. I just need to get some more wood before the yard sells out of it, so am trying to work out how much I need against how much I can afford. Here's how the first one looks so far, although I'd like to add another couple of layers to it:



We've cleared out the corner behind this and I now have an artichoke corner, the cage alongside is my turnip/swede cage - everything is fenced in to keep the hens & ducks from eating them.

This is what we've done with artichoke corner



Not quite such fancy double glazing panels as Shaz has acquired but double glazing nonetheless. :rotfl:

Laura_D_3

Evening all

I've spent a glorious day down my allotment for a couple of hours this morning, planting pak choi, marigolds, butternut squash and pumpkin :cool:

Then spent a couple more hours down at my dads allotment for his fathers day pressie he got some more home grown veggie plants and Terry Waltons My life on a hillside allotment book which seems to have gone down well.

Anyhow off to clean the car :eek:

Frugaldom

I hope everyone is making the most of whatever time they can spare in their gardens and lotties. It's getting to the exciting time when things are growing and almost ready for eating. :j We're a little bit behind the south but I'm ahead of the north, so I have just, this morning, sampled the first strawberry. To be honest, it was the only one that was ripe, but it was a lovely, juicy, sweet strawberry, nonetheless.

Peas are growing everywhere, I just love homegrown peas. I haven't harvested any yet, but have popped a pod and sampled the contents. Yum! So far, I can't see many major catastrophes in the new garden, apart from one rhubarb patch that the hens got into and wrecked. With luck, it isn't past saving. It's still trial and error here but I'm quite pleased with what has been achieved since moving here, especially as there was no garden to speak of. I realise that it will be next year before we properly see the fruits of our labours but if I could grow enough to last us from this year's crops until next year's, I'd be well on my way to my self-sufficientish lifestyle that allows me to spend as much time working on food production as I do at the desk earning 'real' cash. :j

My bush apple trees have apples on them, however, one must have been wrongly labelled. The one named 'Greensleeves' with picture of green apples, is growing rosy little red apples! Now I'm off to G00gle 'spaghetti squash' as someone mentioned they are growing it for the first time. I've put all my other updates on my blog and will try to get it bang up to date soon.

What is everyone growing in their potato beds after the first potatoes are all lifted? I'm not sure what to do next. All suggestions welcome.

savemoney

I applied for allotment 2 days ago its just 5 minutes walk to the site

A friend of mine who shared a allotment with a relative has just got an allotment at weekend. I am hoping I might get her old one which is only half a one for time being, I be happy with that but there is the uncertainly that the person who won it might give it up

She was on a waiting list for two years but she said they think they got lucky as they know someone in the know at council

When I went around allotments there is around 4 empty for along time now, which seems such a shame given the waiting list

I saw on channel 4 landshare web site someone in my area has waited 6 years for one

I dont mind even sharing with someone

I want to grow a mixture of fruit (raspberries/strawberries), veggie and flowers and perhaps some where to relax and call it my space

spirit

Hi all,

i've been around and about. Very busy on the lottie just like you all I suspect. Been eatng strawberries from the poly - very few have made their way home :rotfl:

I also thinned out the beetroot at the weekend and had some malteser sized ones which i roasted and steamed the leaves to have with dinner.

Had loads of lettuce, chard, mizuna (yum), and pak choi. the runner beans are doing well and are at the top of the canes now.

Couple of other interesting goings on at the lottie recently. to give you the history, the plot I have (had since end March) belonged to the lady who lives in the house which backs on to my lottie. for personal reasons, she couldn't keep it, however there is a tiny bit of lottie next to mine and which borders her back fence that she wanted to keep.

She has not touched it at all and so i mentioned to the site rep that if she couldn't keep it up that I'd quite like to take it on. After a few days I saw one of the lottie regulars who had been asked by the site rep to strim this tiny bit of land. I kid you not the grass and weeds were waist high by then. this was last Sunday by the way. This guy was a bit cross about it because he wanted me to take it over because he knew i'd look after it, but this lady said she wanted to keep it and would he strim it.

anyway, he did strim it last weekend. Monday or Tuesday I went to mine and lo and behold there is a mound of earth and turves dumped on her bit. I thought it looked a bit odd. Anyway, saw the site rep in passing the other day and she asked if I knew where the earth and stuff came from Because my plot is right in the corner, the bit at the back would have no other access other than her garden. I'll see if i've a pic to show you.



I had a look again last night and you can see over her 5' fence that where it was previously as weedy as the mini plot had been, there is now a mown path through to the gate and the lottie. She told the site rep she didn't know anything about the earth/turves but I reckon she's either had something done in her front garden or a neighbours and allowed them to dump the soil etc there. :mad:

And even funnier still, on the Monday i found a chalk written note on my shed to number my plot! (it did have the exclamation mark too) It's funny because they would have to have walked past the biggest no. 1 sign to get to my shed :rotfl: should've gone to Specsavers.

Rummer

Hello! Why do weeds have the ability to grow so fast but my veggies seem to be taking ages!!!! I was so impressed by my garden a few weeks ago and then it rained and as if by magic it has now become covered in a thick blanket of weeds, they are everywhere! So don't want to have to clear them, maybe they will just vanish by themsleves??

Top_Banana_2

I dug up my first potatoes today. Two plants produced this many Maris Pipers:

spirit

Those spuds look great Top banana. :T Have you got any other crops in the ground now? I had a furtle at the weekend and hoiked out my charlotte potatoes - yum.

I've planted the strawberries in the space now (they were in the poly)

yehar! its just started raining in Winchester - shan't need to water.