Making more beds / flowers / cat

Went up to the plot yesterday to get some more raised beds in, as well as finishing off the half-bed for peas. For the half bed we put in some tree stakes at either end, and made a long wigwam (more strictly is probably an A-frame) for peas to grow up - this is anchored at either end to the tree stakes to make it more wind-resistant than previous efforts...

This should be strong enough to grow almost anything up! The apex is made from a pair of 8' canes spliced together with strong garden wire, and the uprights are 4' canes at 1' intervals. We also put in some more full-sized raised beds - one for a neighbour who's borrowing a bit of our plot for a few beds:

We also had some flowers come - tulips planted in one of the beds for cutting (since cut) -

So it's not all vegetables! Finally we have an allotment cat (or a pair of cats, but they are rarely seen at the same time - and they are strictly probably kittens anyway) - good fun but do get under your feet!

Finishing Fences / Plant Support

Put some posts in a week ago, but plants need something to actually grow up so put some 2mm wire along today - nothing very interesting but decided to anchor the wire with a metpost to allow tensioning all wires at the same time:

The four wires total around 40m - looped through eyes on each of the posts:

and

Interesting fact: the apparent leaning is an optical effect because of how my camera was orientated...

Anyway, should have plenty of room for fruit bushes now!

Bed Making (reprise)

2019 raised bed season has started - been digging over the ground for the next three beds. Exciting stuff! Wet, heavy cold clay soil with bind weed roots / grass / buttercups etc. mixed in. Nice thing about the raised bed concept is not having to do this again. Anyhow - started with:

Some digging later first bed was better:

Some more digging later about half way through #2 bed:

This was the sort of stuff I was removing:

And while I was there had some "help" - a neighbourhood cat literally getting under my feet:

Construction at Allotment

Started 2019 season work - putting a fence along the west side of the plot to support raspberries and a loganberry I was given for my birthday, using an allotment-neighbours post knocker:

The posts are from ~ a year back! Plan is to put these along the full west side of the plot where the prevailing wind comes from, and string up some strong wire to tie in fruit canes (the raspberries got a little unruly last year). Also started laying out the next 6 raised beds for installation.

Couple weeks back also put in a demi-bed between the strawberries and black currant bushes -

The idea of this one is to put some teepees for sweet pees (now there's a way to use up e's in Scrabble) - it's half width so 0.75 x 3m in size, should be good for four teepees?

Blueberries

Last year our blueberry bush died. We bought it over 10+ years ago from Thompson & Morgan when they had an offer of "free" blueberry plants if you pay for the postage & packing. When it arrived it was a twig in a 1-litre pot but we nurtured it and over the years it got potted on and eventually ended up in a pot about the size of a half-barrel. Photo from June 2015:

It produced a large amount of fruit despite the fact it was the only plant we had. A couple of  years before the plant died I decided to take three cuttings. Only one has taken and is currently residing in a 5-litre pot. The cutting grew quite a lot last summer and is covered in buds so I am hoping that it might fruit this year. If memory serves the variety is called "Chandler".
A few weeks ago I did a quick search on-line and Thompson and Morgan were offering 2 "Duke" blueberries in 9 cm pots for the price of the postage and packing (£4.99) so we put in an order. We also found blueberries in Tesco for £2 each called "Patriot" so we bought two of those too:

All have been potted on and given a feed. I have no idea whether we will get any fruit this year but surely next year ???!

"Chandler" is the largest residing in the black pot.

Sowing seeds

First up is this little lot sown on Saturday 26th Jan:

Lots of alliums (shallots, spring onions and leeks) plus some herbs (coriander and basil). Today (6th Feb) I can report that the leeks and shallots are just beginning to germinate.

Last weekend (Sunday 2nd Feb) we sowed the sweet peppers and chilli seeds. This year we have 15 different types so I sowed 3 seeds of each type per 3 inch pot:

Spring onions

This year we have grown 3 different types of spring onion: "White Lisbon", "Ishikura" and "Apache". White Lisbon is similar to the white spring onions that you buy in the Supermarkets:

We find that the tops tend to die back if they are left in the ground too long and need to be harvested as soon as they are ready. In contrast, "Ishikura", a type of bunching onion, does not produce a bulb, the stem just gets thicker over time. Last Autumn we left some small plants in the ground over winter and they were perfectly fine for harvesting the following spring. Our favourite type this year was "Apache":

This type has a very short red stem before turning green where the leaves join. The onion is milder and sweeter than the other two varieties that we grew. If you leave them in the ground they bulb up producing a rather attractive red onion which is also very tasty:

At the beginning of July we sowed some more Apache seed in a small pot:

These were potted on at the weekend and hopefully will be ready for harvest in the autumn.