Friday 16 March 2012

Another day (or days) at the allotment ...

Well we're really on a roll here getting the allotment whipped into shape. With the lovely mild weather this week we have between us spent more time up on the allotment and are making good progress.

It has been handy having it dry too, but boy do we need some rain here! I cannot remember the last time we had a decent rainfall, the butts are running dry, a hosepipe ban commences here next month but the poor plants will need moisture. It is going to be a challenge, our mulching will most definitely have an important role to play.

So how about a quick photo tour of progress and new developments? Fancy joining me? Grab a cuppa and follow me ...
 Bed 1 part sown with various varieties of Kale seeds sown direct
 (others being raised in greenhouse at home)
 Bed 2 part planted with Garlic - was planted later this year
 Bed 4 planted with overwintered Spinach, beets and sorrel
Bed 5 - sown direct various lettuce and salad leaves and beetroots
(again others being raised at home)
 Panoramic of lower half of plot - beds 1-5 (main part of picture, 
bed 3 has some celeriac that need pulling)
Bed 6 over to the right is sown with Broad beans 
bed 7 is due to have the Oca planted soon
 Herb spiral weeded, need to weed around and plant up new herb plants

 Perennial Sorrel and onions in above triangle
 Perennial onions - Welsh onions, Minogues onions and wild garlic
 Sorrels moved here - need dividing
 3 raised beds reclaimed from weeds!
New area dug over, paths created
(moved on a little since this but no photo yet)
 One of the Kiwi plants re-homed from the garden
(another planted since but no photo yet)
 Progress of the pond wildlife, little swimming tadpoles now
 and a frog popped up too (not in the photo)
 Bottom half of plot as a panorama (herb spiral on the right edge)
Top half is hard to photograph similarly due to trees and other herbaceous plants around

 Hoping to be back up there on Sunday at some point, the Asparagus beds need a good weeding, more weeding and path reclaiming, mulching and sowing to be done. We also need to look at ways to harvest and retain more rain water.


Tomorrow is Guild day (yay!) so my mind returns to spinning, fibre et al. Tomorrow we have a talk from some guild members who went on a textile tour holiday to Bhutan - looking forward to hearing about the amazing journey and discoveries. The afternoon brings us a guest speaker, Jane Meredith on Brinkley Looms which I admit I knew nothing about until I looked it up, they look like a simple to use weaving loom.


There are still a couple of days to enter my giveaway too - post a comment in the giveaway blog post here to enter. I shall draw the winner on Sunday, Mothers day in the UK, ably assisted by my daughter who has been plotting and planning something for Sunday - apparently she has told Alex what she has planned all on her own! I look forward to spending the day with my lovely little family.

Have a lovely weekend, happy gardening or crafting if you have any planned and Happy Mothers Day for Sunday for all the mama's out there xxx

back soon ...

7 comments:

  1. Looking really good. Hope the hosepipe ban doesn't hit you too hard. Must be slightly worrying to have one so early in the season.

    Enjoy your guild day tomorrow. I've got guild tonight, my monthly two hours of "me" time!

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  2. Enjoy your guild evening too Claire, didn't realise your guild met in the evenings.

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  3. That's a strong worth ethic you have there!
    I was thinking about looking into an allotment as well as turning our garden in one large kitchen garden, but after seeing the work that goes into them I'm not sure I up to it!
    Lisa.

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  4. You have been busy...it looks wonderful. It certainly is worrying about the lack of rain in our part of the world. We have no water at our allotments ( apart from a water butt, which soon empties ). Last year it was so dry nothing grew much. Hope this year is better.x

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  5. Your allotment looks great. You are really doing a lot of work to it and it shows.

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  6. Phew! What an exciting time, the allotment is looking great!

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  7. You're really putting some work in on the allotment. We never got round to doing the winter dig so we've got it all to do now, we're getting there slowly but surely. Hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day.

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