Bank Holiday Monday: 27.08.12

Bank Holiday - great weather for getting out in the garden/ allotment and having a BBQ? No, not today. Great weather for measuring up, pricing up wood for making things, & sitting inside updating the blog!!

So, what have we been doing in the allotment over the last few weeks?

12.08.12:

Since the last pictures of the peas, beans & broccoli/ cabbages that we brought over from the back garden - most of these aren't doing so well - possibly the birds or slugs have got them, or it could just be that ripping them up & re-planting somewhere else isn't the best thing to do...
In the picture above, you can also just see the gooseberry and raspberry bushes we transplanted from the side area on the left - hoping that Jane hasn't done the same with these, and they survive enough to give us fruit next year!!!!
The trailer was also really useful - given that it would probably have taken 15 years to incinerate the rubbish and weeds dug out so far! - throwing stuff in there was so much quicker!!!

End 12th August - Sean had done a fantastic job with the ground where we're planning to put the compost bin: thousands of metres of nettle roots... all in the trailer...

19.08.12:

Yeah for Gordon and his rotivator attachment!!
After digging the 6 beds by hand, we decided to take one of our neighbours up on his offer of rotivating a big area of the allotment still left - he couldn't get to the other bit due to the big trailer being in the way.
So, next bit if the experiment - hand-dug or rotivated - which will produce most weeds?

However, it did make us think again about the direction we're going to plant in...

Didn't get much more done that weekend... Jane had been planting in the garden & hurt her knee - gardening injuries led to the pub...

25.08.12:
Back on track this weekend:

Sean likes his strimmer. We forgot to take photos last time Sean strimmed. On Saturday he decided that the weeds in next-doors allotment were getting too high and starting to seed... so needed to go...

Another present from our neighbour, Winter caulis - Sean decides to plant in the other direction - not strictly in a straight line, but given that nothing else is yet straight...

Sean looks so proud!!...

26.08.12:
Just yesterday... at the beginning of the day we decided to tackle the gooseberry bushes & couch grass. Even though the poison & strimmer had made a big dent in the area, there was nothing else to work than old-fashioned digging...

By the end of the day, & several bags of weeds/ roots later...

Starting to look good.... next project is the area on the right of the picture below...

However, back to the information at the top... it's Bank Holiday Monday... Why did we think we might get more work done? It's raining, cold & windy...

But we've started pricing up wood to make support structures for the fruit bushes...

Not strictly allotment news...

Just thought I'd add a post about why we haven't done very much since the last post.  It's been a few hectic weeks until last weekend, which was the first chance we had in some time to actualy get down to our garden.

The reason why we've been so busy is our preperation for the Gateshead flower show.  It's something we do every year, initially just so we could get cheap entry to the show to buy cheap plants and so on, then the competitive spirit took over.  Took well over and we became flower show competitors proper, getting all anxious to see if we'd won anything and everything.  Problem was we won something that first year and thats what got us hooked.

This year we both entered phgotgraphs, metalwork, paintings oil for Sean and watercolour for Jane.  sean entered beer, Jam and believe it or not a sweetpea arrangement.

Winning at flower arranging at least it's first from three rather than second and the only entry

Proof positive that I make a canny bevvy - first prize and best in comepetion

My 1st prize metalwork entry Jane got 2nd place.

My 3rd prize metalwork entry

Meeting the Mayor of Gateshead to receive my award

Look a video with an image of my beer and me name n evrything

Pleased as punch or what, my certificate and Diamond 'silver salver' for my best in show beer.

to see Jane's entries go to Janey's thoughts

Now its back to gardening and making food.

We now have plants in the ground!

At last we have things,  green planty things in the gound in our allotment, and not just weeds either.  Sean built three sturdy frames from Bamboo and string, this now has bean and pea seedlings at their feet.  Jane also planted out either brussel sprouts or caulis - we definately know they are a brassica of some sort - pictures to follow - perhaps someone out there can identify the plants from the leaves - we can't. Whatever we'll eat whatever they produce.  Finally from our greenhouse, to save  what was left from slug/snail oblivion we planted out our courgettes, one seedling already had a flower on it, they desperately needed planting out.

One of our friendly and helpful  neighbours kindly provided us with some spring cabbage seedlings so they went into the ground as well.

The other thing we did was build our galvanised metal garden bin type  incinerator, with the intention of burning our 20 bags of weeds, roots and dug up potatoes.  Well we managed to get through one bag in 6 hours of burning, not exactly efficient, we may have to get the council to come around and take the rest away.  Something else to arrange this week.

How it started today

Getting the pea n bean frames built

Getting the fire started

only singed most of the hairs off

from my arm - maybe less petrol next time

probably the safest place to watch Sean 'tend' the fire

Now its raining, so its coats on and

get building

Jane being arty with the 

camera, but peas n beans all planted out

So there it is all planted out, still  two spare beds

so will be planting out more next weekend and making more beds