Just when you have everything organised!

So just when you think you've got everything organised something comes along and turns all of your plans upside down.

After Mary and I had spent a very happy couple of hours trolling through different sorts of seeds and making our selections and getting our allotment almost ready for Spring planting I went and got a new job............in Bahrain!

Now Mary will be the sole guardian of the veg patch for the next year. Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to be back in work if for no other reasons than my health and for the sense of self respect it brings. The major downside is that I will be leaving Mary and Lyta behind and will be missing out on a year on the allotment with all of the highs and lows that that brings. 

My plan is to now extend our growing area from Nigel the Garden and Dugless the Allotment to whatever I can do in Bahrain (name to follow). I'm planning on growing some tomatoes, tomatillos and peppers; might as well make the most of the heat and sunshine!

Mary and I spent some time last weekend planting broad beans, 84 in total, to spend the winter under cloches in well dug and manured soil. Hopefully we will have a better harvest than we did this year after we lost our entire crop to blackfly.

My (possibly) final act on the allotment was this morning. I spent an hour extending one area of our plot to make next years potato patch.

Leeks had been planted in it previously and a few remain to be taken up. I cleared the weeds out, turned it over and then dug in some straw.

All that Mary has to do before Winter sets in (with Lyta's help) is spread some manure on the empty beds and then sheet them over for a long slumber ready for the spring and the soil warming up.

I'll let you all know what the growing in Bahrain is like.

Happy Planting

 

Getting Ready For Winter!

Well it's been a while, but since I have some time on my hands at the minute I thought I would update the blog with what's been happening on the allotment recently.

We managed to harvest most of everything we planted and were rewarded with some pretty good crops. We still have parsnips, beetroot and kale that we are picking as we need them. Everything else has been taken up and stored, ready to see us through the winter. The only major disaster we had this year was our broad beans. They got absolutely smothered in blackfly and we lost the lot.

We've already started planting for the New Year. We have brassicas coming along and the brussels are already showing little sprouts.

Hopefully they'll be at a decent size come Christmas. I have to admit they're not my favourite vegetable but it wouldn't be Christmas without them. Plus we'll have the satisfaction of knowing that all the veg we'll be eating has been grown by us; move over Tom and Barbara - Phil and Mary are here! We've also got our alliums in the ground (red & white onions, shallots and garlic) and they are coming along brilliantly. The only other things to plant before winter sets in are the broad beans (hopefully we'll do better than this year). I've dug the bed over and left it to settle. It's covered it in well rotted-straw so I can dig it in on Friday and then get the beans in and covered with cloches and leave them for the winter.

I had a good couple of hours sorting out our last compost heap this morning. The guy we inherited our plot from took excellent care of the soil, keeping it well fertilised and manured so that it's lovely and rich. However, he wasn't one for tidying! In and around his "compost heap" and plot there were iron bars, asphalt sheeting, bits of old wood, rocks, plastic bags, glass bottles and assorted detritus!

After a couple of hours of picking, digging, pulling and stomping I managed to fill six rubble sacks with garbage ready for taking to the dump. We do have a great clear platform to start another compost heap if we need it!

One of the other exciting things Mary and I did this week was order our seeds ready for next year. We found a new site that has great heritage and heirloom seeds at fantastic prices.

We've ordered a pretty good cross section of seeds, but of course being us there are a few curios that we decided to get - black tomatoes, golden beetroot, purple tomatillos and my absolute favourite...........BLUE sweetcorn!

Well, that's it for now. I'll let you know how things turn out.

Happy gardening!