Saturday 2nd June 2007

Suey and I went up today to take the shed apart. I had had a very long week at work with a shoot that seemed to go on forever, so I wasn't really feeling up for a day's digging on the plot, unfortunately. Tim was going to go on a work party that he'd arranged because of his involvement with the allotment committee. Sam helped me out with the shed and undrilling all of those screws that Anthony and I had put in.

Argos had agreed to give us a replacement shed as I had argued that it wasn't weatherproof and therefore unfit for the task of “garden shed”. I'd rather have a refund but it has been a few months so I guess I should be grateful that we have a replacement at all. We aren't going to use it, however, as it's fairly useless on a windy plot like ours. When I thought we were getting a “steel shed” I thought we were getting something sturdy instead of the Bacofoil thin sheets of metal we received. I think we might go back to our original plan to build a shed out of pallets.

The shed took a lot less time to take apart than it did to put together, as thing always do. Tim and I dug up the over-wintering onions because their leaves had started to die back. They had literally bent right over, which looked as though they had been bent over by hand. We had a pretty good crop seeing as the weather has been so weird. We put them all out on the ground so that they could dry out a little in the sun. This patch of ground was going to be used for tomatoes once it was dug.
                       
 
                       
 
                                             
Tim went to his work party while Suey and I took a look around the plot. The Kelsae onions were growing really well, considering we grew them from seed rather than sets. The sweetcorn were growing extremely well too, considering we messed around with their root systems. The mulch we had put around them seemed to be suppressing the weeds well, although only time will tell whether it will stand in as good stead as the weed suppressing material.
                                             
 
                                             
 

The runner beans seem to have been infested with blackfly. How absolutely disgusting! We peeled some off with our fingers but it felt like that scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where the heroin had to put her hand in a hole full of bugs. Yuck!

Suey and I went to the top of the plot and decided to dig up an Arran Pilot plant as we quite fancied some fresh new potatoes for our evening meal. We dug one up and got loads of little spuds from it. It still amazes me that you can just go up to your plot, dig up a plant and find lots of tubers underneath it. It's just incredible to think that we are getting something so fresh, something that hasn't been stored for a year, unlike supermarket potatoes, and something that will store well for us without chitting two weeks later.

Suey and I went home and Tim returned with a vengeance and dug some horse manure and sand into the patch of ground we'd pulled the onions from. He planted sixteen tomato plants into that area and also did some weeding but I wasn't there to see it so did it really happen?
                       
 
                                             
Saturday 9th June 2007

During the week, Tim and I had done some weeding, as observed by these beautifully weeded parsnips and beetroot. Our vegetables had also been busy growing with our watering and the full sun we had been enjoying all week. We seem to be getting some cute little courgettes and pea pods are forming. There are the tiniest of dots to show that the peas are forming inside the pods. Tim plants some celeriac plants into the earth and covered them over with netting to stop them pesky pigeons. They seem to be enjoying some of our veg so the more we can cover up the better. Even our grapevine seems to have come alive with the tantalising prospect of grapes beginning to form.

  
                                             
 
                                             
 
                                             
Remember the Tomarillo plants that were put in flammable containers? They grew through the winter and managed to get frostbite in the greenhouse and we had to cut the blackened leaves off. It was huge like a jungle plant and it's recently been coming back to life with leaves growing and even flowers, which means that they should start to bear fruit soon. Another plant that is looking very good is the raspberry, which have gone mad. We have loads of raspberry canes growing and the fruits are growing big and strong. Last year they were the size of strawberries and we hope that they will repeat that success.

With every success, however, there is failure and it would seem that our garlic has decided to give up on us. The foliage on some of the varieties are beginning to get “rust”. This usually means that it's time to dig them up. However, they look a bit crap when we have dug them up. They are pretty small but they at least they do smell like garlic. We haven't noticed any vampires hanging around, anyway.

  
                       
 
                                             
  Saturday 16th June 2007

The weather forecast was for a downpour of rain, so of course it was beautifully sunny. Tim was out on a plot inspection with Roger Williams and it took him three whole hours! He's going to serve marching orders on people's plots that aren't up to scratch. Tim has loads of power now and he wields it like a madman with an agenda to make Colchester Avenue allotments the best in the world. I turned up and gave the blackfly a good squirt with soapy water. This seems to get rid of them but there were also ladybirds out in force so there's always a natural way of controlling pests.

However, caterpillars have been feasting on our cabbages. This was quite evident with the amount of green caterpillar poo that Tim managed to scoop up on the end of his trowel (ooh-er). Yucktastic! We took a look around and sweetcorn seem to be forming already. It's only June and already we have a cob or two growing. It's fabulous! We also picked our first two courgettes.
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
 
                                             
  We weeded the carrot and onion patch, which made it look so much better. We can't help but feel impressed every time the weeds have been removed from a patch of ground. It certainly makes us feel that we should stop being so tight and get some more weed suppressant material. We planted out some Little Gem Lettuce plants that were looking dangerously close to going to seed but were salvageable. We then made the decision to dig all of the early potatoes up.
                                             
 
                                             
 

I took a trip home to pick up the Hessian sacks and Tim cut the foliage off the potatoes. By the time I got back we were ready to start digging up the spuds. Hooray! Potatoes are just amazing. We have been digging up a few potatoes as we went along but even we were quite shocked at just how many there were. We planted them quite close together because we hadn't been able to make as much room as we'd hoped on the second plot.

However, the crop seems to have been unaffected judging by the huge volume of spuds that were coming out of the ground. Seeing as they were early potatoes the size of the spuds was quite impressive. There were very few small potatoes and a lot of large potatoes. They had nobbly bits and weren't all of a uniform size. It makes you wonder what the supermarkets do with the “non-perfect” potatoes seeing as they are all so varied in size.

We dug the Arran Pilots and got two Hessian sackfuls each – and that doesn't include the ones we dug up over the past few weeks. We then got round to the Red Duke of Yorks and they were beautiful. The red colour was astounding. Even Nigel was impressed, so we were impressed that we'd impressed him. Impressive, eh?! With the Red Dukes we only planted 5lbs (2.5kgs) of spuds but got half a sackful each! Potatoes really are incredible. We measured the weight of the Arran Pilots and we found out that we had a hundredweight of them between us. I'm not sure I know what a hundredweight is but it sounds good!
                       
 
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
Saturday 23rd June 2007

The weather forecast was for rain... again. The weather was therefore bright and sunny ALL day. Bloody weather people! Tim had started early today at around 10am and I strolled up in my own time at around 12:30am because I'd stayed at home to wait for an egg to be laid by Buck Bucky. When I got there Tim had dug up all of the garlic, over-wintering onions and all of the broad beans. Yipers! It all looked so bare. I'm sure we could fill the gaps with a few little things here and there.

We even found that our peas had started to... pea. There were around 8 peas per pod, which was better than last year's 4 peas per pod. Suey helped out for half an hour, weeding the plot around the asparagus. Tim and I, meanwhile, put some more squashes and courgettes in the patch where the broad beans had been – we don't hang about when it comes to replacements!

  
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             

Suey left and Tim and I continued to weed the asparagus patch. My God it was full of thistles, nettles, brambles, dandelions and all the weeds in the rainbow. Needless to say, the patch looked so much better after it had been weeded. You wouldn't have known that it was an asparagus patch prior to us removing all the rubbishy plants. It really was overrun and probably one of the most neglected patches of our allotment. We hung our heads in shame that we had left it so long.

After raising our heads back up after our embarrassing weed faux pas, we went to the patch of ground where we had dug the early potatoes. We planted out some pumpkin plants that Nigel had given us, giving them a lot of room so that they could spread out with their gigantic fruits. We planted out more squash plants, giving them a little less room to maneuvre than the pumpkins. Below the squashes we planted out sprouts. Yuck! Sprouts are a necessary evil to ensure that the plot looks busy come the winter months. Imagine what out neighbours would say if they saw that all we had no vegetables in the winter and all we were growing was weeds. It simply isn't British!

We also put an old CD, attached by string, on a stick in a rather pathetic attempt to deter pigeons and other assorted pests. The wind blows the CD around the place which should hopefully scare the birds away from our tender plants. We're not convinced, though.

Talking of pests, there were caterpillars on the red cabbages and we squished a few. Cheeky little grubbers! The cauliflower plants were doing well, if a little small at the moment. We even found some mushrooms that we hadn't planted. We weren't sure whether they were edible, magic or poisonous, so we left them well alone.

  
                       
 
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
It's still exciting to see everything growing so well. We did some more weeding and Tim left at a sensible time. Because I'd come along late, however, I decided to stick around and plant up some tomato plants where the onions and garlic had just been. It always takes longer than you think. I added some manure and sand into the ground for drainage. I put some half-cut bottles into the ground so that the water would be directed right to the roots. I then tied the plants to canes for stability. Suey turned up and we cleaned out the greenhouse because it was looking a bit rank. The plot is looking really good and we're reaping the benefits of what we've put in.