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

End July...

The end of July... where did the month go??

Despite planning to do lots of work on the allotment this month, we've been faced with quite a bit of weather, finishing off entries for the Gateshead Flower Show, and having to do stuff for work....

But we're still progressing at a slow pace...

Sean's got a couple of new toys to play with... a petrol strimmer which has proved very useful... and a couple of things that we're yet to try out - an incinerator for the weeds, and a post-basher-in!

We've gathered more gooseberries so Sean's working on perfecting his jams, and we've been given onions, a lettuce and more fresh eggs from our kind and helpful neighbours...

Not many photos... just our growing number of bare patches... but each time we look there are more weeds!!!

Sean weeding & 4 bare patches...

Increased to 6 patches... just waiting for planting!

So, onwards and upwards... plans to plant green stuff over the next few weeks & clear more areas of weeds. We're also going to get rid of as much rubbish in the white bags as possible - composting (once we've found, bought and installed an appropriate compost bin) or burning as much as we can, and hoping the Council might collect the un-recyclable waste...

Day 3: 8th July

Second weekend... it's been really rainy... like really rainy!!!
Only time to do one day's work...

So as Sean started to 'treat' the weediest end of the plot, Jane continued to turn over the patch dug last weekend, and take out even more roots and weeds. Starting to dig the second patch turned out to be too much for weak digging muscles and a blunt spade...


To treat or not to treat? That is the question.

So we were faced with the perennial question faced by all new allotmenteers. Do we use poison to get rid of the weeds or do we spend months of backbreaking work to dig the little buggers out?

I'm afraid we wimped out and decided to treat with glysophate. We consulted books, Internet blogs, forums, people on the allotment and that bloke down the pub. The only thing we worked out for sure was that each person you ask will give you a different opinion, some will be blazé and assure you 'yeah just stick loads of poison on there, it'll be fine' to other people with their holier than thou opinions who believe that you shouldn't even weed, 'as like all plants have like a total right to life dude' to others who suggest a non poison dig for England, orbanic or broke, cover it with carpet etc attitude. We figured we don't have forever as we both work, digging is very very tiring and time consuming, plus we want to grow something this decade. We treated half the site and will dig half. Do an experiment, see which will be best for future weed suppression. We'll let you know how it goes.

Hard work and time for a sit down... made all the better by having a lovely flask of coffee!














Before long the sun came out...

And time to dig again... third patch...

But it is starting to look like we've buried the neighbours!!!!

Actually, we have met several of the neighbours today... mainly really helpful suggestions about how we can get rid of the weeds, and reminders that it's OK to take our time...
However, we suspect that maybe there's some doubt that we'll actually get the job done...
But at the end of the day we were offered the opportunity to pick several bushes of ripe gooseberries... although we ended up with lots of scratches and nettle prickles, we've now got a bagful of fruit ready for jamming... and all without planting anything yet!!!

So, the end of another week... slow progress, but progress made!

Day 2: 01.07.12

1st July.

July already??!! The difficulty in getting the plot this late in the year is that there's no time to clear the site of weeds and then get things planted at the right times.
We're so wanting to get the plot producing something other than the weeds!

Somewhere under the nettles, couch grass and that sticky stuff are fruit bushes... and under the part-strimmed weeds and nettles is some great soil.

At the beginning of the second day... fruit bushes to the left of the picture, and evidence of the great soil where the shed used to be...

Sean digging...

You can just about see Jane behind the bushes... cutting back the grasses and nettles.
In the background you can see the standard of allotments we are aspiring to...

End of day 2: Sean's little bare patch and Jane's trimmed bushes!!!!









Oh... so much more to do....

Day 1: 30.06.12

Hello and Welcome from Sean and Jane's Allotment.

This is our first post, in our first blog for our first allotment!

We intend to document our attempt to turn a 50'x20' plot of land into a productive fruit and veg provider. 

We intend to post about our trials and tribulations, as well as our successes of maintaining an allotment by two working people.

A little about us, we are both in our 40's, both work in the NHS.  We've been living in Kirk Merrington, a little village in County Durham, since about April 2009, or thereabouts, moving away from the city for a more healthy, quieter life.   I make beer, bake bread and enjoy cooking, Jane enjoys drinking beer, eating my bread and more importantly growing things for me to cook for her to eat! That should do for now.

We put our name down for an allotment about 12 months ago and one became available 4 weeks ago, 4 weeks of phone calls and  wrangling strimmers and we spent our first afternoon on the allotment today. We still haven't paid anything yet, signed any contract or documents, but I have the word of a committee man that everything should be fine so thats OK.

We'll post up some photos of the allotment in it's various states of overgrowth and current nudity just as soon as we've downloaded the pics from our cameras!

Here are the photos:

1: This picture was taken before we knew we would be offered the allotment:

2:  This shows how much the weeds had grown!!

3:  After initial strimming:

4: End of day one (30.06.12):