Does anyone keep a gardening diary on MSE?

LavenderBees

Hi, All

I've just been offered an allotment (whoo hoo!) so hope to be soon clearing, manuring and planning over the next few [STRIKE]months [/STRIKE]years :rotfl:

I've just started browsing this gardening forum, and have been struck that I can't find diaries...there are diaries on DFW and MFW. Am I just being dense and not seeing them on this part of the forum? Only nice answers, please :rotfl:

What I'm hoping to do is start a wee diary and log progress/ask questions/ discuss pros and cons as I go. This would be so useful to me, to see how far I get (assuming I do progress, of course!) though I guess that starting a new thread with each query would also do the trick, just it would be disjointed from my perspective.

If there is a diary area, could someone direct me to it. Failing that, is there any objection to me doing a wee diary?

many thanks!

LB xx

Linda32

Hi, I can't see any objection to this being your diary thread. I don't think there is another area like the ones you mentioned.

I've kept a diary/journal this year, but unfortunately I used a note book and pen, so unfortunately others can't see it. But it will be a good tool next year.

Davesnave

LavenderBees wrote: »

Hi, All
is there any objection to me doing a wee diary?

LB xx

I did one of those when I had a few medical problems, now happily resolved. It was no fun!

Here's a suggestion though..... I now do a photo diary of stuff loosely connected to smallholding on Photobucket and give access to some trusted friends. It's sadly out of date ATM due to a computer breakdown, but I can update eventually. I think pictures help to hold others' interest and reduce the amount of writing one has to do.

Of course you could simply upload pictures (as I also do) using Tinypic or similar, but I've no idea how long they host these for, so having an account would give you more permanence and full control over any photos in your diary.

torbrex

mrbadexample keeps a diary of sorts on this board and I'm sure that I have seen others as well so why not just crack on and show us what you are made of

LavenderBees

Ooh Er, Yessir!! :rotfl:

I think I will...I've already been cracking on in my mind! :rotfl:

I'm at work at the mo, so will spend the afternoon (!) thinking of my aims etc, and get them documented shortly.

Thanks for the tip re Photobucket. A friend has given me details of how to post piccies, so I'll be giving that a whirl later. I quite agree the piccies will be very useful to me anyway, as I expect you all to be bored senseless and wander off to your own gardens and lotties :rotfl:

Nice to meet you all though. Watch this space

LB xx

torbrex

I don't do many changes in my garden and I grow no crops as such (rhubarb & blackcurrant) but I took this picture a few weeks ago as a record, I may shift some stuff about during the winter months

NinjaB

I got my first allotment in March this year and I am loving it. Congratulations on your plot. I really really wish I had kept a diary of when I planted things and the outcome so I can either follow suit next year or change what I am doing. I even had a wall calender I put in the shed and have never written on it. I wish our allotment had a simple year planner giving when to normally plant things as a total amateur I spent such a long time on the internet researching and reresearching everything. The other allotment holders have been super helpful though.

I do think it a fab idea to have a diary of sorts. Even though I check seed sites as to when to plant things I have missed the boat sometimes though I am keeping the low producing peas that everyone tells me to dig up as they are just for spring.

http://www.allotment.org.uk/ is a helpful site and you might be interested to look into "square foot" gardening really interesting and good for maximising the amount of plants on your plot

I too have been taking photos to help me remember what went where when and it is nice to see the results of your hard work

LavenderBees

Thanks! I wish that was my garden...you have sunshine (or you did for the few seconds of the photo!)

That looks a really useful site, too, Ninja, thank you! I'll be browsing that tomorrow night and thank you so much for your good wishes. Good luck with your plot, too!

I'm already finding that I could spend my whole time armchair gardening..I've had a great time browsing the internet...do I actually have to go out and dig...really? :rotfl:

I did join an organic veg growers website this morning, before I was properly awake, only to find now that it's mostly Italians, but I already have getting on for a dozen followers...a friend has asked me what they're following...em, dunno really, and I can't ask as I don't speak Italian :rotfl:

OK...seriously now, My Aims for My Diary...not in any particular order...are....

• Keep a record of the small steps taken daily/weekly/monthly that lead to the successes and failures of working towards a hopefully productive wee allotment. What do I learn each month to carry forward to the next month/next year etc?

• Record questions/answers/discussions about all things that crop up (pun intended ) about fruit and veg growing. All contributions very welcome.

• Record ways of trying to keep costs down, where possible.

• Keep myself motivated when the going gets tough, as I know it will....bloomin slugs and diseases getting in the way of my perfect veges.

Ok, I think that's enough aims for one wee diary :A

LavenderBees

One of the reasons I want to share on this forum is that I'll be working the allotment on my own, and I don't really know what I'm doing :eek:, so I've been doing a wee bit reading the past few nights, and I'm now a (wo)man with a plan...well, a teeny bit of a plan...

Today's plan was -

1. Source and buy a wheelbarrow. Now I know there's Freecycle etc, but I wanted to have some choice given that it's going to be a willing workhorse for me, hopefully for a few years, so I've gone down the route of buying one - being MSE, I did of course use my nectar card, and a cashback credit card - achieved! :T

2. Think about how to enrich the soil on the lottie as I'm digging it over...yes, I've decided good old fashioned digging is the way forward for me - good exercise, good stress buster to offset poo-y work and honestly, I genuinely believe no pain no gain - sourced and bought green manure seeds - achieved! :T

Small steps, I know, but I'm inching closer to "D(ig)-Day" on Saturday, being the first day I'll be able to get properly stuck in

What have I learned today...?

Well, as I stood looking at the green manure seeds, I could see that one packet would cover 25 sq meters..and I hadn't a clue what size my lottie is, or how big 25 sq meters is but it didn't sound like a lot...so I bought 4 pkts...:rotfl:I've been (reliably?) informed that this would probably cover the centre of Newcastle easily, so I may have overbought just a tad :cool: Maybe I do need to look into square foot gardening...I've put that on my list of reading..

Ah well...learning point of the day, then is -

Measure the lottie as soon as possible and don't buy anything unless you know what you're doing

Now I'm off to see if I can post pictures, so you know what I'm talking about in future. I may be gone some time... :rotfl:

LavenderBees

Well, I'll probably never manage to do it again, but we have lift off on the piccies :T

The first picture shows my new allotment looking from the east to the west, and the second picture is from west looking east. I think it's a really nice little allotment - it is slightly overshadowed by a tree at the west side, but so are allotments 1 & 2 to the side, and they are prolific producers, so hopefully, mine will be too, with a lot of hard work.

It's flat, which I think is reasonably good. Not sure about drainage, but no doubt will find out. Hopefully it's fine, at least I didn't spot a swimming pool...:o. I have inherited 2 small water butts of completely filthy stagnant water, some cold frames (not sure if previous owner will nab these back), and a small heap of rubbish, so not too bad.

The weeds look to be mostly just annuals. I believe that the allotment was used quite well until fairly recently.

It has a grass path up the middle (not sure if I want to keep that), and a couple of marked out large beds either side. The weeds from the allotment on the other side are encroaching so I'll need to do something about that fairly pronto.

I luvs my new allotment :heartpuls....today, anyway :rotfl:

Well, I'm pooped, and I need to get to bed. Tomorrow, I hope to do a bit more reading...maybe look into the square foot method Ninja mentioned earlier, and I'll check back to see if anyone has posted thoughts on my new love

My first question if anyone has time to help me is - should I think about changing the layout at this stage...my instincts (for what they are worth at this stage), are to keep the current layout for now and get digging up weeds/manuring, so I can plant/harvest asap next year. And then gradually change the layout as I learn more about what works and what doesn't.

What do experienced gardeners think? Any comments greatly appreciated.

LB xx

NinjaB

I would say keep the present layout. It probably worked for the last person or it wouldn't be like it is. Also, they may have been manure users so the goodness will be in the beds as they are rather than digging into unused soil. Also if you can chat to other people to see if they remember what was where so you can rotate your crops to help cut down on disease.

My biggest piece of advice at the beginning is you cannot do it all in one go. Decide what you want to plant imminently and clear the bed you are going to plant that in. When you have done that move onto the next piece then you really feel like you have achieved something.

I didn't have a rake at the beginning and after you have dug it is invaluable to smooth the chunks out so I would say get one if you can and also do it as you go, no point digging and leaving mountains around like my other half did as we then had to do it all again.

Advice I was given and I shall use this year is the bits that have nothing in, shove on the manure in the autumn then cover with plastic weighed down to cut down the weeds and help prevent nutrients being leached over winter.

I also found it helpful to have seed company catalogues. You cant always sit and search a whole seed site but they are great for browsing and getting ideas of things you might like to grow that you might never have searched on the internet for in the first place

Good luck and wishing you many happy hours