Bodging in effect

Thanks to the recent armada of storms (or should that be crowd, given that they are called "Katie" etc. now) we've suffered a little damage at the plot - went there earlier and played a game of hunt-the-compost-dalek. Found it, but it was about 50 feet from where it should be...

Anyhow made a "repair" to one of the fence posts in situ which was holding up the windbreak:

Hopefully will do the job, turns out to be a bit hard to do this when it's blowing a gale... also finally staked the apple tree:

That should help it to stay upright - tried to avoid putting the stake in anywhere near the roots... also had to reinstate the netting over the onions (top left in the picture above) as this was some distance from where it should have been...

Visited old plot

Went for a walk this morning and passed by the old allotment site - the one we had when this blog was started. Most of the plots were looking pretty good but it looks like the problems we had with our plot (particularly potent weeds, for example) have stopped it being a useful plot - it's now reverting to nature:

Yes, this was an allotment back in the day. There are some residual signs of this:

The old frame which we used to have as a raised bed. Finally:

Clearer view of the raised bed and the weeds which have now taken over... we did find our old raspberry canes in there so is definitely the right plot!

Stuff going in, and stuff coming out

Fantastic weather today, makes a nice change, almost felt like spring. Did some more digging to prepare ground for direct sowing of beetroot and red onions which are only a little past their "sow by" date (like, half a decade...)

Red baron are a pretty standard red onion variety. Seeds going in after excellent ground preparation:

The spuds are waaaaay behind - they have been chitting for a while now and only got teeny tiny little buds:

Should be interesting to see how they get on - think will wait a while longer before planting. Last thing are two harvest items - some of the last leeks in the photo above and some oriental salad from the windowsill:

We have made good use of the leeks this year, next year's crop are already up...

Apples & Onions

Father in law bought me an apple tree for my birthday so went to the allotment today to plant it (weather was fantastic too which helps!) It's a golden delicious:

We decided on the allotment as there are other apple trees there and so some hope of getting apples! Planted in the northwest corner of the plot to avoid too much shadowing. Standard "look, digging" photos:

 

Put a decent amount of manure into the hole to give the tree a decent start. It's bare rooted:

However looks pretty happy where it is now. Will need to stake it tomorrow (did not take any string today, d'oh!)

And here's a photo of yours truly somewhere in the process:

You can see the onions on the left of the photo - Helen and Emily were busy planting these while I was making holes. We've moved the cabbage cover over to cover the newly planted onions to keep the pigeons off:

Meanwhile along the onion theme sewed some spring onions in the raised bed which google tells me has been there exactly a year:

Not much to see... overall the plot is looking OK though there's obviously plenty of work to do:

You can see the last of the leeks here as well as the end of the broccoli. In the top picture you can also see where we plan to put some spuds in the next couple of weeks....

A plethora of seedlings

Good news. The cabbages, cauliflowers and tomatoes are growing away nicely so have been potted up. The cabbages and caulis have been moved from a sunny windowsill into a plastic greenhouse in the garden. I'm hoping that they will be okay as temperatures are only in single figures during the day and close to freezing at night! After a slow start the Chadwick tomatoes finally germinated. I have kept 5 plants:

These seeds were 3 years out of date! In the right of the above pic you can see the coriander. The Chadwick seedlings are already overtaking the Garden Pearl seedlings that germinated a good 10 days earlier. I have kept 8 of these:

To my delight the chillis sown 2.5 weeks ago in an unheated propagator are germinating. So far we have 9 Cherry Bombs and 2 Ring Of Fire:

The tray in the background is filled with oriental mustards. I have'nt decided whether to harvest these as cut-and-come-again or grown on as individual plants...
I also sowed a tray of Musselburgh leeks in the propagator and some mixed salad leaves in a tray in the plastic greenhouse...

Clay not just in the soil

Bit of a site update - making some headway on getting the plot ready for the 2016 season - much easier than this time last year as the density of perennial weed roots is far lower. Half way through the onion plot digging right now:

This was where we planted spuds last year and salad later on. Clear the effect of digging over and adding some manure here. Speaking of which we are working out way through the autumn delivery:

This represents really good value and a key for improving our heavy soil. There's some other housekeeping to do on the site, repairing the windbreak:

Not impressed with this breaking, will try to find some better timber to make the fence from over the next couple of weeks. Finally, while we know we have a lot of clay on the site this is taking the mick:

(yes this is a clay pigeon) - given that our plot is in the middle of town decided it is far more likely that this came in with the manure than coming direct from the catapult...