Where there's muck there's ..........

You know the old saying; 'Where there's muck there's brass' or 'There's gold in them there hills'.  Well in my case where there's muck there's me putting it into bags for the allotment!

We have several farms in the vicinity of our house so every trip to the allotment now means stopping by a huge pile of well rotted horse manure and bagging up as much as we can fit into the car.

Mr R won't help me bag up the manure and is ready to laugh should there suddenly be a landslide and I get buried underneath!

Today we bagged up 6 bags ready to transport to the plot and most of these went into the new bed that we dug up today.

In order to cut down the amount of grass we have to dig through we have a couple of pieces of carpet and we rotate them around.  The piece that we moved today yielded a lovely patch which we dug up without too much trouble.  Tomorrow I will be putting in some tomatoes, peppers and chillis.

Apparently my courgettes are looking better than those on plots around mine. I think it is the tyres that keep the roots warmer and moister and being higher than ground level offers some protection from the elements.  Most garages or tyre centres will be only too glad to give you old tyres.

I finally got the water butt up there too so we are really starting to feel right at home!

Today's pickings included some radishes, mint for the Jersey Royal potatoes and the first pieces of Rainbow Chard.

There is still so much to do but no rush and with a bit of warmer weather I will be spending more time up there.

Radishes the size of your arm!

We weren't able to get up to the allotment over the weekend so we popped up after work tonight.

I was afraid the slugs may have decimated my crop but was there and surprise surprise the bean seeds that I planted 10 days ago were poking through and so were the potatoes.

But the biggest surprise was the radishes! The row we picked a few small ones from when Boy G was visiting were HUGE!  I picked most of them and will finish off the row on the weekend.  Good job I have a couple of rows already planted behind this one!

Can I pick these Nanny?

My daughter and two grandsons visited us last weekend to celebrate my birthday. We really know how to have fun, I introduced them to my new allotment.

Boy G (nearly 4 yrs old) was very busy helping grandad water things, collecting stones but he really got excited when he saw the radishes.  Can I pick these Nanny?  Just one or two I said. Well he kept on picking and having such fun I couldn't stop him.

 

 

It was OK to pick the radishes - they went well with our pic-nic later that afternoon.

 

Baby G (almost 10 months old) was having fun in the sun too!

The best bit of the afternoon came when Boy G crashed out and slept straight through till the next morning! Oh the wonders of fresh air!

WooHoo we've planted!!

Finally the weather seemed to be getting better and warmer and we began to plant the vegetable plants we had been growing in father-in-law's greenhouse. 

Bank Holiday weekend we finished adding organic matter to the main bed and planted the rainbow chard, some beetroot seedlings and filled the tyre towers with green courgettes in two and yellow courgettes in the third. I love growing courgettes in tyre towers, keeping the plants moister than on the ground and as they grow down the tower they don't tend to rot on the ground before you can pick them.

I have slightly overplanted the tyres but I expect there will be natural thinning out by the slugs!

 

 

We also planted the dwarf French beans both green and yellow. In the USA when I was growing up we just called them green and yellow stringbeans.

 

I put in the long row of plants that I had started off and then another row of seeds as a backup. There is also a row of rainbow chard which should, if it doesn't get eaten, do very well and last for ages.

 

The herbs I planted a couple of months ago are doing really well and the radishes are coming along nicely. I keep adding a short row of radishes every couple of weeks.

The red gooseberry bush that Thompson & Morgan sent me is growing at a steady pace and I am sure won't be long before it rivals the green gooseberrries we inherited with the site!

However as I write this it has rained for three days and I am praying that the slugs haven't eaten everything I planted before I get a chance to get up there with the slug pellets!!

There is still a lot of area to work on but we have loads of time.

A Little Bit Here - A Little Bit There

We spent a couple of hours up at the allotment today.  We are working on two seperate rectangular beds, getting them absolutely ready to sow/plant out in a week or two's time. 

My plan is to get dwarf french beans (both green and yellow), courgettes, peppers and chilli peppers as well as rainbow chard planted out first.  Once these have all been planted (some have been started in the greenhouse and some will be planted straight out) I will be a happy bunny.

Then we will start another couple of rectangular beds. All the digging over and sorting out will begin again. But it will all be worth it.

As my allotment hasn't had anything done to it in 3-4 years there is a lot to do but once we have turned all the soil over and got rid of the grass we will cover over with plastic or carpet to make sure it doesn't present the same problem next spring! I don't want to go through all that digging again!

Don't let Mr R tell you I work him too hard! Here he is enjoying a coffee break after the first hour!

Ready, steady sow!!

I went over to my father-in-law's house to spend some time in his greenhouse. Lovely to have loads of space to work and be out of the elements.

The seeds were mainly from Thompson & Morgan and a few from Lidl. I planted most of my seeds that couldn't be sown straight outside, including red peppers, banana peppers, hot chilli, parsley, dwarf green and dwarf yellow French beans.

 

If you ever wondered what I do with all the containers from the Total Greek Yoghurt I think you will see from the photos how I re-use them!

I don't need to plant tomatoes because FIL grows enough for all of us!!

Nice too that I can go home and know they will be watered and looked after by FIL.

It's a start so watch this space......!

Thompson & Morgan Sow the Seeds!

I have been lucky enough to be sent a selection of seeds from Thompson & Morgan the seed specialist.  They sent me all the main things that I want to grow on the allotment this year.

I am planning on starting small this year and expanding next year.  So for starters this year I am looking to plant red peppers, red banana peppers, chilli, dwarf green and dwarf yellow french beans, beetroot, courgette, herbs such as corriander, basil and parsley, radish and a few other things.

My potting table in the back garden

The new trug ready to be put to good use.

 They also sent me a red gooseberry bush to start my fruit collection!  So much work to do but we shall keep working and hopefully we will be enjoying the fruits of our labour from mid-summer onward!!