Nearly Christmas - hoe hoe hoe..!

Spent the afternoon digging, de-weeding and removing big stones from the area underneath and to the side of the second raised bed. We'd got a new Chillington Hoe to try out, which seemed to do a good job of removing the top grass layer. The soil was actually quite easy to dig, despite lots of rain recently, probably because there were a lot fewer big stones in this area, and fewer big bramble roots. But still plenty of bindweed and couch grass roots to pick out from the forkfulls of dug earth.


The end of daylight forced us to finish, so next time we still have to complete the wooden bed structure, dig in the compost, and lay the first of the proper paths. And hopefully plant the autumn onions! But with Christmas approaching and other commitments creeping in, getting the time to do it is going to be difficult! We're both away next weekend doing the Christmas shopping, and the weekend after I'm working Saturday and Sunday. The early dark evenings rule out weeknights, so it we might not be back for about 3 weeks!

Garlic, Wooden Stakes.. just missed Halloween

It was a beautiful autumnal day - slightly chilly and a frosty start, but bright and very sunny. A lovely day to be on the allotment, though a bit muddy for digging.

First of all we gave the raised bed a good mix with the fork (revealing even more worms, which made it look like they'd multiplied even more overnight!). The large half of the bed was measured up with lines of string and 7 rows of garlic were planted. Sadly the most interesting - the elephant garlic (from Marshalls) - with it's even-bigger-than-usual monster-sized cloves - had started to go bad for some reason, so we only planted 2 of them (I'll have to order some more quickly). Apart from that, we planted a row each of the following types: Germidour (from Wyevale GC), Oswego White (Dobies), German Red (Dobies), Purple Wight (Dobies), Solent Wight (Dobies), and unnamed cloves from the Really Garlicky Company. All planted in staggered rows, 6 inches apart. If they all grow, we certainly won't go short of the stuff!


The smaller 'permanent' half of the bed has been planted with 3 rhubarb plants, which have been sitting around in pots since I bought them earlier in the year, so I hope they'll be ok - Victoria (Whitehall GC), Timperley Early (Whitehall GC) and Canadian Red (Wilkinsons).

So now the first raised bed is completely planted up, and apart from the occasional bit of weeding, it can be left alone till next summer.


We then started on the second raised bed, by digging out where the corner posts and back edge will go. We didn't get much further because of the time (same reasons as yesterday) but hopefully we can carry on next weekend. It looks like we'll have to dig over the ground where the third bed will go, so that we can use it to keep the soil while we dig out the second bed and add more compost. Hopefully we'll have time to build the path properly between the first and second beds, too.

If we can get both halves of the second bed done, it'll hold over-wintering onions in the large part, and possibly horseradish in the smaller, permanent part.

Nearly a Month off

After a few weeks of bad weather, having colds, and being busy elsewhere, we finally returned to the allotment after an unplanned break. Things have been dying off all over the allotment, now that winter is approaching, and sadly that included our runner bean wigwam. We never did get a meal out of it - there were only a few beans on the plants, and they wouldn't have been nice to eat if we'd taken them home at this stage. Still, we've learned not to grow them in that dark, damp part of the plot again. It was nice to see the growth rate of weeds has really slowed down, with nothing sprouting on the new bed at all since we built it. However, there were distinct footprints all over the bed surface, along with a 'little gift' (lovely!) - so we suspect the foxes have been sniffing around again.

The main task of the weekend is to get the new double raised bed finished and planted up. We arrived with 7 bags of our own home-produced compost, which was absolutely stuffed with strange red worms (hopefully a good thing!). We dug out about 2 thirds of the soil already in the wooden bed, added a layer of our compost, sprinkled a good helping of wood ash all over, then topped it up with soil.

We'd arrived during the afternoon, which only gave us a short amount of time before it got dark (and we had to be back early because of the dogs - it's bonfire night weekend and they really don't like the fireworks) so we weren't able to do much more today. But we're now all ready to plant the bed, which I'm looking forward to doing.