Rick And Jeannes Plot

Made the first sowings of the new season yesterday, After giving our small propigator a good clean and checking the electrical connection  we sowed some Ailsa Craig Onions and  we are trying some very early Tomatoes. With a little extra heat and some favourable weather we maybe lucky with these in the polyhouse. We also started off some Swet pea seeds  for cut flowers. Jeane just loves the smell of these and they will help attract bees to the allotment.

As the weather is a little rough at present we did not go to the plot yesterday instead we had a trip to a couple of our local garden centres and had a browse around. They have this year seeds in and are begining to get a stock of seed potatoes in too. Although we have all the seeds we require for the veg patch thanks to www.vegetableseeds.net we still are on the lookout for a pack of watermelon seeds. Jeanne want to grow some of the long oval type the type she was used to buying in Canada.

The winter has been very mild so far , we have had a frost or two but not hard enough to kill off all the half hardies.  The allotment is looking quite bare and the fingers are itching to get started on a new season but will have to wait as theres still plenty of time for winter to bite.

i found a sure sign of how mild winter has been so far on my patio the other morning

A perenial poppy in bud

Paid a brief visit to the allotment today amid the heavy rain. On opening up  our shed we found a christmas card that had  been posted through the top of the door, Thanks Will and Julie hope you have a great xmas.

Jeanne and I picked our xmas veg got some nice sprouts, parsnip and swedes along with the peas that we froze  we will have a good feast. Another week or two and we will be sowing our onion seeds to hopefuly get some good large onions for the show  next year.

High winds, really heavy rain and coldness does very little to encourage a person to venture onto the allotment. This is the weather to stay wrapped up at home with a hot drink and a copy of your favourite gardening magazines. They are a very good source of ideas and tips to try out next year. Also this is the time of the year when there are a lot of reviews written on this coming seasons new seed varieties. There are always lots of new strains, which have improved decease or pest resistance as well as improved yields. Personally I tend to stick to the old varieties (heirloom) and only trial one or maybe two new ones each year.  In my opinion a lot of the newer varieties have lost some of their quality of flavour.

The weather in this part of the country is still very mild for the time of the year, over the next couple of days I will be taking advantage of  the mildness and obtian some hardwood cuttings of Gooseberry and Black currant which with the mild weather will have a good chance of success. The cuttings are very easy to take .

Take your cuttings from healthy plants  and pick a ripe stem (one which is brown not green) Cut a stem about 10 inches long and  pull of all the leaves and plant in a slit trench  about 6 inch deep making sure at least a couple of buds are aboe the surface  fill in the trench and firm gently the water well even if it is wet weather. By next Aurum you should have some nice sturdy plants and have saved yourself a good few quid. Gooseberries are  done in the same manner except  you strip off  all the side shoots except the top three and remove  all buds below these with a sharp knife before planting

A prepared gooseberry cutting

Things are real quiet at the moment  all the vacant ground has been dug and we have finished the improvements to the plots. spent a couple of  hours the other day doing the final bits and peices and picked a few veggies. The radishes in the cold frame are still going strong and yielding a good crop

Went to the allotment today with the intention of spreading the wood ash from Tuesdays bonfire over one of the deepbeds ready for the Brassic in the spring  as it helps to prevent club root.  Well what a surprise! where the  bonfire was and the woodash should have been was a large dip and just a dusting of woodash some one had decided that it was up for grabs and removed every useful bit of it. I was stunned  in all the years I have had an allotment I never known anyone be so desperate as to steal the remains of a bonfire, yes had the odd produce go missing  and the odd cane or stake  even part of a load of manure but never the ramains of a bonfire.

A few of the plot holders decided to make the most of bonfire night and gather all the rubbish onto a vacant plot and have one big bonfire. There was ample of timber from around the site plus branches from pruned fruit trees and general waste such as dead bean plants. The centre was filled with cardboard and paper.

Well we all might be fairly able gardeners but it appeared not so good at lighting bonfires, after 1 gallon of Paraffin and several attempt later we finally managed to get it alight. Once lit it burnt well and kept us warm. We had an ample supply of home made soup, bread and apple pies and a few drinks and of course a few of the obligatory fireworks although we had a good show from others being let of else where. In all we had a very enjoyable evening, a chance to sit and chat and to get to know each other better plus there will be a nice pile of wood ash fr us to share out.   

On our recent trip to the Eden project we purchased a Camellia Sinensis. This variety is used for making of Chinese green and black tea. It plant can be grown in this country although it may need a little protection in hard frost. The plant can grow to 17m but is normally pruned as a bush and kept to around 1m in height. Like all camellias it likes an acid soil that’s free draining such as a good Ericaceous compost. Although we won’t get enough leaf from one plant to keep us in tea we might get enough to make one brew which should prove interesting

It has been a nice sunny afternoon here, which was spent  at the plot. We started work on altering the lay out of the new plot. We have removed one of the footpaths that ran  from the front to the back of the plot and started to layout  plots that run across the full width. Hopefully this will make them easier to attend to and water.Also as this area is on a fair slope it will help stop the soil being washed to the the lower end in bad weather when laying fallow during the winter months.