Life Saver

I had a thought the other night when I was looking through old photos of the allotment and getting that urge of growing things again... I never discussed a time saver I discovered a very good piece of software... it was from GrowVeg

It was very handy indeed as it will map out your plot areas and gives you reminders when to plant certain things out and at what time.... below is a link to the page for more details... note... If you buy this product I will get a small fee, this will just help me maybe buy a new spade one day ;)

Take the free trial, I did and I used it since day 1 of my allotment days

http://www.growveg.com/affiliate-referral.aspx?aff-id=1180&redirect=freetrial.aspx

Catch you all soon

Stuart

Long Time... No See

Hi guys,

Well it's been a while and no updates from me... I’m sorry for that and I promise I will keep posting more regularly. However much has changed in the last year. I have a son who will be one later on in this month. My wife and I can’t believe how quick it has gone! Also as some of you may know I gave up the allotment to spend some quality time with Ted.

I may have given up the allotment but I didn’t give up on gardening all together. I created three new raised beds in the back garden... not much went into them last year but this year will be different as I want to get Ted into gardening from a young age. So with my three raised beds a boarder or two and my greenhouse I am sure I will have enough to keep him entertained.

We had some eventful times with Ted in the last year due to an allergy his got, his allergic to milk protein; you can read more about his situation on my wife’s blog https://mummytalesofanallergybaby.wordpress.com

This is only a quick hello and notification that I shall be uploading more posts etc with the idea that I will explore my trials and achievements with trying to show a toddler how to grow his own food!!

At the moment we are re-fitting our kitchen and our old one is in the garden waiting to be taken down the tip!

See you soon

Stuart

The Edible Garden Show...

Now this was the first time myself and my wife went to a 'grow your own' expedition, and what an experience! I loved it, not only was there loads and loads of stalls offering great products but experts talking about our craft. My favourite by far was James Wong, I watched both of his talks. The highlight of my day was meeting the very same man and getting him to sign his new book 'Homegrown Revolution', which im in the process of reading and getting some great ideas from.

James Wong

 

Mine and Lauren's book signed by James Wong

James Wong is very passionate about his new cause 'Homegrown Revolution' I can understand where he is coming from, why grow something that you can buy from your local green grocer for a fraction of the price... he recommends growing more expensive and unusual foods like New Zealand Yams, Tasmanian mountain pepper and many more things. I shall be trying a few of the things in the book and we also bought three Ka-Pows! Yes you heard me Ka-Pows! A Ka-Pow! is a soft berry that is grown on a bush and it is much sweeter than a strawberry. Lauren and I were very excited about this one as it is a limited edition and only available at the show. I can't wait to prance around my allotment site with these berries ;)

A Ka-Pow! (before I potted it up)

 

Our Ka-Pow!s all potted up!

 

As you may know or not, I have been given a new plot, it is double the size of my existing plot so this weekend I shall be transferring all my timber in my new plot and then I can plant my Ka-Pows!

As you can see I am very excited about all the new and exotic things I want to grow in the future but don't get me wrong I will still be growing all the staple allotment foods like beetroot, runner beans, onions, leeks and peas as these are far superior than the supermarket! I also enjoy growing these types of food. 

 

Other than the experts there was a heck a lot of stuff to do and see, the small holding marque was good, there was a lot of chickens and pigs in there so that was a lot of fun seeing all the different breeds. 

 

 

 

There are a lot of animals I would love to keep, but I am so tempted to keep chickens... the wife isn't too sure! 

 

At the end of the day we were exhausted and our hands were full of bags of goodies. So it was a great day I am only disappointed that the show is moving to London for next year, I wish them all the luck in the world for next year but it is a bit too far to travel for us so we will be hoping other similar shows will be more local for us to access! 

 

Thank you for reading...

 

Please follow me on Twitter @adventuresallot

 

 

 

 

A Trip or Two Down The Allotment

I had a couple of trips down the allotment in the last few weeks to get things moving with my new raised beds... first thing I needed to do was get some compost for the strawberry bed and the root bed. I opted for the councils recycled material compost or as they call it 'soil conditioner'. I picked up 40 bags of it from our local tip.

Each bag contained 40 litres, I had to make 4 trips. The paths at the allotment was so bogged down I couldn't risk taking the car up the tracks in case I got stuck. So I had to carry each bag 100 yards. I can tell you I was exhausted after doing that 40 times! To make it worse I kept slipping on wet sloppy mud! Further more after loading my last 10 bags and about to leave the tip... the guy who took my money then told me that I could of actually got it delivered to my plot! I took the chaps number and said I would do that next time... Not my favorite allotment trip!

As you can see I had no energy to place them down nicely

Then I lugged those 40 bags down the plot to empty them into two beds. My strawberry bed took 12 bags and my root bed took 28 bags, my root bed is not yet fully filled but it will do for this season I think!

The root bed...

The strawberry patch...

The main reason why I bought this compost is the price... £2 for 40 litres is very good price so I came to the conclusion that I will use it as a bulking agent and at a later date I would be able to add better quality compost or farmyard manure. I will also be using seaweed extract liquid that I got from Shropshire Seaweed.

Last week a local brewery delivered a few sacks of spent hops! So of course I nabbed myself 3 sacks and one sack went into the strawberry bed and the other two sacks went into the root bed.

The spent hops

The hops before I raked them in

The hops smelt gorgeous when I first got them but after a few days they stunk, as my wife kept telling me yesterday. I have heard good things from other plot holders that spent hops work really well for them. So I took the chance and mixed them in my new compost. 

Yesterday myself and Lauren popped down the lottie to plant the new strawberry runners that I bought from Thompson&Morgan. I got three varieties... Elegance, which is a mid season variety. Florence, a late season variety and Flamenco, an ever-bearing variety which should flower from May to November. Its a good thing that myself and Lauren love strawberries. 

Me separating the strawberry runners (I think I need a tan)

We have a week off this week so hopefully we can get a few jobs done at the lottie like taking a few trips to the tip to get rid of some rubbish and getting the ground ready for planting for the coming spring. 

So all in all I have had a trip or two down the allotment....

Thanks for reading...

Stuart (@allotadventures)


 UA-38992916-1

My first constuction project

Hi everyone, well I decided to buy some scaffolding boards and I wanted to make four main beds and two raised beds at the back of the plot. So last week I recruited the father-in laws help with driving the Transit van and we traveled an hour and a half to pick up the boards. When we got there we saw a French flag flying proud. The chap who was selling the boards to me was a Scouser, so not the typical French man. So when we loaded the boards on the van we had to ask "why the flag?" It wasn't much, he was only in the French Foreign Legion for five years! A man you want to be with in a pub!

Anyway back to the plot we went... First of all the gate was broken so we couldn't get in the site! So I had to jump the gate and the father in law passed the boards through the fence near the plot. We only had 36 of them! We had 16 3mtr boards and the rest was 6ft boards. So after stacking them all on the plot I had no energy to start so I decided to leave it till yesterday.

The plan was to have the main beds 4.5mtrs x 4.5mtrs. Lauren started to measure and it would take a full 3mtr and I had to cut some off a 6mtr board so we would have a lot of off cuts. So we decided instead to construct the beds 4.5mtrs x 3mtrs.

The first bed constructed

As you can see from the pic I constructed the first bed, with this bed I used a hammer and nails, what a mistake! It took me ages! So the wife went to her Dad to get a drill for me! Life saver! Its not a perfect bed but it does what it says on the tin. Eventually this will be filled with organic matter but I'm not overly concerned about that at this stage. This will be done through the years.

This is my sawing bench!

So with the aid of a power drill it made the process a lot easier!

The second bed was constructed. As you might see in the pic, you can see quite a mistake. Look at the gate... is there anything wrong? haha now it can not shut fully! So when I'm at the plot next I'm going to switch the hinges so it opens outwards.

So after most of the day I got the four main beds constructed! As we had to change our plans I have a lot of space still for other beds. So what I am going to do on Thursday (my next day off) I am going to see how much timber I have left and I will construct as many raised beds as possible. I say I used only half the plot for my main beds so hopefully I can construct around 6 raised beds in the available area.

All in all I had a good day, I made the plot my own and I have added structure to the place, this enables crop rotation to be easier, weeding will become easier as I will see separate areas to weed instead of a whole plot.

On another note my rhubarb is starting to make an appearance :)

Spring is almost upon us! I can't wait for the long evenings and the warm sun... and wearing shorts!!!

I hope you enjoyed reading this....

Twitter @adventuresallot

Allotment T-Shirt Venture

Hi guys, I hope everyone is fine... I have created an allotment themed t-shirt which is good quality fabric and printing. I hope that I can sell them and create more designs in the future. Here is a picture of what I have created :)

 The War Is Still On!

They come in small, medium, large and extra large. They retail at £7.99 plus £2 P&P.

If you want one please e-mail me on... allotmentadventures@hotmail.com or you can buy one on eBay Allotment Adventures New T-Shirt - eBay

I hope you like the t-shirt :)

Thank you for reading

Stuart

Compost, Manure and everything else

Let me first start with it is a fundamental principal that you must replace any goodness to the ground that was taken out by growing vegetation. This is a basic skill that every grower must do to ensure good yields season to season.

However there are many manures and composts that can be used, not only natural manures as in cows, horses, chickens and pigs. You can also buy man made plant food, for example you can buy brands like 'Miracle-Gro' and 'Osmocote' which gives plants and veg all they need. This is really only good on a small scale as products like these cost a lot more money compared to a trailer load of manure from your local farmer. Of course they are not organic so would not suit everyone. (I use them, as I am not a 100% organic grower).

Everyone knows what cow and horse manure is, it's that steaming pile of crumbly, rotting poo that sits on a farm, this is great stuff if you can gain access to it, it comes in the trailer load and it spreads lovely on your veg patch. However it must be well rotted before use as it will burn most vegetation. So you must plan a head when you want to use it. It normally takes between 6 - 12 months for it to be usable. Some crops doesn't like the ground when it has been manured like carrots as these will fork and split. As good as cow manure is, it does have a disadvantage, it can sometimes carry weed seeds, so when your spreading it on your plot you are also spreading weeds. For me it is not a major concern as my plot is full of weeds anyway but for some people this is a BIG no no!


This takes me on to Chicken manure, you can buy chicken manure pellets from your garden centre, and most hardware shops like B&Q. I use chicken pellets as my main manure as they don't have any weed seeds in them, they are easily distributed, you can store them away in your shed and they don't cost much. If you struggle to get manure I would strongly recommend using chicken pellets as they are easily obtainable. You can also buy them in a organic form!


I don't know whether it would fit in the category of manure or compost, but I have a worm farm which I have in my back garden, two reasons why, they make a great compost also they make a tea, this tea makes a great instant plant food. It has to be diluted 10 parts to 1, this shows how strong it is. I haven't yet used any, so I can not tell you the results! If you want to own one of these please keep the farm from direct sun light as this will cook the worms alive! Also in the winter make sure that they are somewhere in which is frost free. There best temps are between 5 - 10 degrees, for the next few months my farm is safely tucked away in the shed.

Compost is great as it uses up all your kitchen waste, I think local councils should issue a free compost bin to each household as it reduces waste dramatically, after we got our new bin it cut our waste down to one black bin a fortnight. Any kitchen scrap which is a raw vegetation can go into the compost bin, any old paper and cardboard can go in there too. Give it a year and all that scrap will be turned into a brown crumbly heaven in which you can spread on your plot or use as a potting compost. If you don't have a compost bin you can dig a trench or hole and throw your scraps in there and dig them over, in a year this will be a thriving place for worms and plants. You can also buy compost from your local garden centre, not badly priced as well.

You can now buy lots of things from the garden centre that will get the goodness back into the ground. I have only scratched the service, you can buy things like 'Grow More' 'Fish,blood and bones' 'Nitrogen' and many more. One thing you should always remember, don't go season to season without giving the ground attention, you will only regret it as you won't have big yields and each year they will get smaller and smaller.

Digging Up The Strawberry Patch

Well I popped down the plot on Thurs just to check out my onions, well I ended up staying for four hours. I love when that happens (the wife isn't too fond of it).

 Impressed by my winter onions

So I decided to dig up the strawberry patch, I didn't save any runners as I didn't know what variety they were. The books say you should only have your strawberry plants for three years and as I only took the plot over this year I have no idea how long they have been there. I will be buying bare roots for the next growing year.

 A Strawberry flower but no bees to pollinate

The strawberry patch after it was dug over

 

The person who had the plot before me also laid down some weed membrane, I don't like this stuff as I believe it doesn't do the soil any favours also weeds was growing through it anyways! So I pulled up all the weed membrane and dug over the patch. She also put the membrane down under the fruit bushes, I put a hand full of chicken poo pellets down for them but I thought the goodness won't get through the membrane so it had to come up. I mixed it with the soil, so hopefully this will give them an extra boost for next Spring.

As I was giving the fruit bushes some chicken pellets I thought i'd give some to the rhubarb.

My rhubarb crowns

 

I can't believe that the rhubarb will grow into such a giant compared to what it is now! If I took the plot over this week I could of quite easily without knowing dug up the crowns. What a crime that would of been! 

I am making plans for next year, I have ordered my seeds already and should be arriving in the next couple of months. I ordered them through the allotment assocation so I don't know how and when they will be delivered. 

I shall be going up the plot this week if the weather permits just to tidy up the place, get the paths sorted and make a compost area. I will also need to think about constructing a raised bed for the new strawberries that will be going in next year.

Thank you for reading and I will see you all again soon

The Winter Dig

Hi guys, I hope everyone has had a great weekend and what a weekend have we had with the weather. I woke up Saturday morning and the sun was shining... so after visiting the butchers and green grocers (the green grocer advised me to spray 'round up' on all my plot weeds and crops so that I will come more often!) and after all the hello's in town I walked down the allotments, I was faced with a challenge my first winter dig. I had an experienced hand advising me how I might go about it, I asked him whether he used any horse muck, he said no as it has a lot of weed seeds in it so he only uses chicken manure pellets, his allotment is producing a lot! So it must be working for him, so I might try the chicken pellets as I have a few tubs of the stuff in the shed and the car actually, I must get those out of there soon. He gave me a marrow which was very nice so I got some good advice and some of his produce... bargain!

Before

After

So I started with the dig, it was hard work but fun, as you can see I have left the soil in big chunks as the frost will do the hard work of breaking the soil down, I think working with nature is a partnership, if I do some hard work I expect nature to do some aswel :). I had plenty of time to think about next season while digging. I've decided against converting my whole plot to raised beds as it is a big expense which isn't necessary, so what I will do is if I can get any timber for raised beds I will do one by one. I will be planting my strawberries in a raised bed so I can control the soil and be able to put up some protection for them.

So it took me around four hours to dig over half the plot. I am glad I did it yesterday as a hard frost was upon us last night. So when I got home I thought a nice hot bath would be great for my aching muscles.

So today my muscles are aching but it is a good ache as I know I did something with my two hands and next year I will get my rewards with a lovely crumbling soil!

At home I have a worm farm which I have had for about four months, the worms don't like direct sunlight or low temps. Many people leave there worm houses in direct sunlight and all this does is bake them alive, not very nice for the worms or our noses! So if your thinking about keeping one, keep the house in the shade and in winter make sure they go somewhere which is inside so the frost won't kill them. So I have moved them to the shed which keeps the frost off.

 The worm farm, before being moved in the shed

I hope you guys have a good week and lets hope for a few more frosts to get rid of those slugs and snails!

What a few weeks

First of all sorry for not updating as much, its been a busy few weeks, with getting a new puppy 'Pixel' and getting her to the vets each week. It almost seemed like it has been raining everyday! Going to the allotment was being sacrificed. I finally had time to go to the allotment on Saturday and what a day, the sun was out and no rain! So I went down for about five hours.

My main objective was sowing my 'over-winter onions' white and red, my peas and broad beans. I had a patch covered with carpet and plastic which my very nice neighbours lent me a few months ago. The first thing I had to do was to return them, a heavy and messy job. There was some big puddles on that plastic sheeting! I was covered with mud at the end of it, I didn't mind really.

Then I went to pulling up my runner beans and canes, I was tempted to dry out the pods so I would have free seeds for next years but I wasn't to sure whether you can save F1 beans or not??

So after pulling carpet and plastic sheeting around the allotments, I was finally able to sit down in the sun and have a very nice sandwich and Chelsea bun :)

While in the middle of sowing my onion sets I discovered a lot of ants, there is a nest somewhere. It must of been a brilliant home for the little insects under plastic sheeting. Are they dangerous to the onion sets and veggie in general?

Well I sowed 160 onions, two rows of broad beans (they say broad beans support themselves, is this true?) and two rows of peas, I constructed a support for the peas that will hopefully climb on, I used whatever I could find on the plot, I found 3 sturdy posts, and a length of plastic green fence thingy that was very popular in gardens when I was a kid. Anything I can use which is free is brilliant.

My red onion sets, hopefully with correct spacings!

My pea support made with recycled materials! Popular fencing from the 90s

I couldn't believe how early it is getting dark already, by 7 o'clock it was dark, so I guess my visits to the allotment will get fewer and fewer with the on coming months. What do allotmenters do in these coming months? Many things can't be started in pots till after xmas, so what is there to do? Prepare the ground before the frosts come, buy new canes etc or just sit in the warm till March!

Tidy rows?

So on my next visit to the plot I shall be de-weeding all the ground, and digging over the soil for the winter, I'm trying to get my hands on some well rotted muck, if I can't get hold of some I will just have to use chicken pellets when ever I sow something!

This Friday night there is an awards evening for the allotments, So i'm looking forward to that, it is my wife's and my first allotment gathering. So it be good to see and speak to other plot holders other than my neighbours.

Well I hope I haven't just waffled on about nothing and I hope to see you all again!

Happy allotmenting

If only we could eat weeds!

Just spent the day at the plot, when I got there I was surprised at how the weeds have grown! If only we could eat weeds (and enjoy them). So of course I did everything I could before I tried to tackle the weeds. So I thought I would try and dig up the horse radish, what a job! I couldn't believe how far down I had to dig just to get a bit of the root up. The horse radish was in the ground before I took up the plot. I thought I'd leave it in to grow as I know my family likes the stuff. Wish I didn't now haha. I got some dug up, a carrier bag full but I know there is root left in the ground as it kept snapping off. So I will have to give it another go to try and get as much up as possible.

Horse radish, goes a lot further down

What a brilliant week we are having in weather, this is the first day I have got to enjoy the sun without being at work. An Indian summer? Maybe till Sunday. Might of got a bit of a tan today but I did get tired a lot quicker than I normally do, so of course I had to have breaks, nothing better having a sit down with a coffee looking over the plot with only the sound of the trees blowing... heaven.

 My lunch!

So it was back to work with trying to dig up as much of the horse radish as possible, then trying to de-weed the plot. I was very cautious with pulling up weeds near the runner beans, I couldn't see the base of the plant so I had to go very slowly or else pulling up a whole plant. As I said I am a novice, but I have learnt a hell of a lot in the last 5 months. Next year I shall be erecting a teepee structure for the runner beans and putting down card board to try and surpress the weeds. Thats the plan anyway. I have noticed now that my runner beans are losing steam and starting not to produce many runner beans and only one plant is producing any flowers so I may of missed a few beans when harvesting so they have gone into seed.

The weeds surrounding the runner beans (don't worry these have been pulled up)

I think the reason why I am getting so many weeds is because I have a lot of ground that is not growing anything except bloody weeds, so i'm thinking about buying some seeds for a green manure, I have been reading up on it in the last few days.

At the moment I am waiting for my over-winter onion sets to be delivered, as soon as they are I am going to plant my broad beans, peas and my white and red onions, I have planned on where these are going for the winter.

I got a job done which I have been meaning to do for a while, I have pruned my soft fruit bushes, I hope I haven't pruned them too much, it looked like that they haven't been pruned in years and have gone a bit wild! So hopefully I should still get some fruit next year, I am on the look out for some cow muck so I can use some for the soft fruit, I don't think they have been given any food for a while.

I did notice that I am getting a late crop of strawberries! This is the one fruit that never manages to get home, they are always eaten on site as a great snack! I'm tempted to try and use the runners for new plants but I have to have a little research on it before I do, any advice you guys can give me would be great. 

 Gorgeous

Truly the best when eaten within 5 secs!

 

I'm thinking of ways to improve the plot next year, I was thinking of building some raised beds, I have been on eBay to see how much it would cost me getting some second hand scaffolding boards, they are quite cheap but of course they are all pick up in person and no one near me, I drive a Mazda 2 so picking them up might be difficult, I will have to pop to a building merchant and see what they got and hopefully not pricey. I have all winter to try and get a bargain as I will be putting them in next year. 

Well I have a carrot cake in the oven to check so I shall be checking off and saying good bye to you all, if you want to follow me on Twitter @adventuresallot is my username. Thank you for reading.

 

My First Ever Blog!

Hi, I don't know where to really start... I haven't done anything like this before. I guess the best place to start is to say abit about me. My name is Stuart 25 years old and I have a half plot allotment in Leominster Herefordshire, I do it with my wife Lauren. We got the plot in late April 2012. We are totally new to growing our own. I grew up in Birmingham and no one in my family knew anything about growing there veg. So we were total newbies. When I put myself on the waiting list I got started with reading as much as I could! I have a whole shelf full of books on the topic. I read alot of blogs also so I thought to myself keeping a blog is a good way of keeping a diary on what we have done week to week (and sharing with everyone who is interested). I would really appriciate any advice any of you could give us.

The best place to start is at the beginning with what we acquired. It wasn't too bad, plenty of weeds but a few gems. We got four different types of soft fruit bushes, two crowns of Rhubarb (has given at least 30 sticks in spring) and most importantly a shed!

 One half of the plot when we first got it. (we did a bit of work already)

When we were taken to the plot for the first time... I liked the soft fruit bushes at the back and the shed of course!

After a bit of a dig and trying to get as many weeds out as possible we set down to start planting. I know many books says don't rush into planting. I wish I stuck by it but we planted some garlics, beetroots, carrots and a few spuds... in a very tight space and you guessed it, it got very crowded espically when the horse radish started to produce shoots! We didn't know the last person there planted it. Our garlic was pushed a side and we only managed to have a very small harvest of five!

Well after a week or so of digging and chatting to other plot holders we got one half of the plot dug over and tried to pick out as many weed roots as possible. The first thing we got was some brassicas. I didn't have any netting at this point so I think the birds had a little nibble or two. My wife Lauren loves runner beans, so at this point I started getting some plants started off in pots at home. I say we planted about 25 runner bean plants.  

Runner bean plant starting to climb! Leeks in background

We got and still getting a great crop from these runner bean plants. Our freezer is full of them. Lauren will be happy for the winter. As I said earlier I am totally new to growing my own but what fun I am having. I think it is funny how this summer has been awful and so many people at the allotment are saying what a bad year it is. All I know is that I am getting fresh produce each week, first it was rhubarb, soft fruits and now runner beans, I can't wait for next year when hopefully the weather improves and I will get an even better crops. 

Not only have I been growing runner beans, but I have just pulled up my onions to dry, and a couple of leeks, which Lauren's Uncle kindly donated to us in the spring. I have got two cougette plants, which I have taken about 10 so far. I have just ordered some over-winter onions, broad beans, peas and shallots, so hopefully I should get some good harvests in the spring.

 One of my first harvests

Well I don't want to write an essay for you guys or else you will get bored. I am going to update often hopefully, all depends if I have something to say I guess. Any feedback would be great. I shall be setting up a twitter page also if anyone wants to follow me... All I can say is see you guys later.

If you want to follow me on Twitter @adventuresallot