Saturday 5th May 2007

When I got up to the plot this morning Tim was already there like a big goody-two-shoes. However, he was going to be a baddy-shiny-shoes a little later because he was deserting me for a wedding of all things. At least when I was off last week it was for strategic poultry purposes... and I didn't get drunk... and make a fool of myself, like Tim inevitably will.
                                             
 

Tim was planting up the artichokes that he had grown in the greenhouse. Some of the articokes hadn't grown in situ on the plot, so he was just filling the gaps. I went to the onion and carrot patch and started weeding in between the plants. It's always surprising to see extra growth in the ground when you think you've been completely thorough, extracting every weed from the ground. Shows how much we know! These weed seeds must have some kind of clever disguise, like Inspector Clouseau with a pair of glasses and large eyebrows perhaps.
                                             
 
                                             
 

We had a look around the plot and the maincrop potatoes were all looking rather fantastic. We were really pleased with the lines of spuds we had planted because you could see the difference in varieties with their individually coloured foliage. It looked really neat and tidy just like the Lost Gardens of Heligan. The plums were all coming out in force and our broad beans were beginning to swell up.

We had our helper, Anthony Cornish return for the second week, despite last week working him into the ground. Nigel also had a helper in the way of Katya. She had been wanting to get an allotment of her own but there is currently a waiting list for plots, so Nigel said that she could share his plot. What a kind man! Talking of kind people, Steve, from our neighbouring plot, had arranged to get 2 tons of well-rotted horse manure and asked us whether we wanted a share. We said “Absolutely.” The only problem was that the manure had to be dumped onto a parking space and then shifted to our plots using the magic of wheelbarrows. No sopner had the muck arrived than Tim “had” to leave to get ready for the wedding. How very convenient!! I was left with Anthony to shift the muck onto the second plot.
                       
 
                                             
It took around an hour and a half as Anthony talked to some other people offering his services in between barrow loads. The muck built up and up until the manure was completely cleared from the parking bay. Anthony and I then got on with preparing the area for the shed. A concrete base already existed on the second plot (somewhere) but it had been covered in carpet and there was a fair bit of junk in the way of broken glass panes and wooden frames around the area. We spent a while clearing it all and also removing some of the bramble roots, weeds and nettles surrounding the base. We then took the shed pieces out of the cardboard box and soon saw the error in buying a flat-packed shed from Argos.
                                             
 
     
  The instruction manual was the size of an Argos catalogue itself and each piece of the shed had a number. I felt a bit flummoxed by it all, especially when it asked you to fit two pieces together that just didn't look like they should go together. We soon worked each bit out but as soon as you had completed the instructions on one page the next page had similarly complicated instructions along the lines of:

Affix base rail B to front rail A with brace section 45H using self-tapping screws.

I wish I'd bought a wooden shed.

Anthony and I didn't manage to finish the shed today. It was too much to expect from me on such a hot sunny day. I think my brain may have melted. The hours had slipped away quite happily but I had hoped to have finished building the shed and also banking up the early spuds. It was 4:45pm and I still needed to water the plot because it was looking rather parched. I left at 5:25pm feeling extremely achy and fairly disappointed that I hadn't managed to finish building the shed.
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             

Saturday 12th May 2007

It was very wet and windy so I went to the plot prepared with my waterproofs. When I arrived it had just started to rain and the wind was whipping across our little patch. I unloaded the car and had a wander round to see what was going on.

Today was a work party day and we had a massive tree to chop up and clear off the last plot on our site that was going to be let. Currently we have 25 people on a waiting list for plots so it is important to clear every available one to let. I had borrowed a chainsaw from a good friend of mine (Tim in work who has a farm), and Doug, one of the other committee members, had brought his along as well. There were four of us who got on with the job in hand, boy was it hot and heavy work.

  
                                             
 
                                             
Luke was not up the plot today. He had got wind of the work party and chickened out (only joking). He had a friend of his staying for the weekend and his car was not working (a likely story) so I was on my own. After two and a half hours on the work party the plot was finished and can now be let, now it was time to start on ours. I started by earthing up some of our spuds and finished digging the last 6 foot bed on our first plot. I then started the weeding (there are millions of them) down by the garlic as it has not been touched since the garlic bulbs were planted at the end of last year. The greenhouse then got a good watering and some of our beans needed a little attention.
                                             
 
                                             
The cabbages were growing like crazy. When we had planted them outside in they were looking really sorry for themselves but they had all come back to life. The broad beans and Little Gem lettuces had grown really well so I thought I'd take a sample. Seeing as Luke wasn't around, how would he ever know that I'd taken some veg without him? Hee hee hee. Devious!

Last week when I had the leave to go to a wedding Luke and Anthony started to build our shed, they did a fantastic job and went away happy bunnies. The very next day mother nature decided she did not like it and proceeded to blow it off the concrete base and ripe to bits and she did a really good job as well. The shed is now all broken up and in bits at the bottom of our plot so we have to re-think the shed situation.
                                             
  Saturday 19th May 2007

It's been a funny couple of months in terms of weather. April was extremely hot and then May was extremely wet. What on Earth is going on? At least we haven't had to water the plot this month, which was the case last year when it had been so hot and dry.

After spending so much time sowing, propagating, planting and weeding, it's nice to finally reap the rewards of your labour. This month we are starting to see a shift from give to take, if you will. We had a good look around the plot and saw the cabbages growing into great big leafed plants, the courgette plants that Tim had planted out growing well, the beetroot seedlings having all germinated, carrots and onions all doing extremely well and the potatoes have just gone mad. There is a huge amount of growth on the early potatoes and the main crop potatoes are doing well too. Considering the ground had been so poor, filled with more junk than an average e-mail inbox and with enough clay to fire a few hundred pots, the growth was looking phenomenal. I asked Tim and Sam to stand up straight for a photo to show how large the potato foliage was. Of course, this isn't entirely true...
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
We managed to harvest some broad beans today, which was very exciting. It seemed like only a couple of weeks ago that we planted some of them in plastic tubes to protect them from frost and to also give them some support as they grew. We got quite a few and we were really pleased with our crop.

With everything going well, there are bound to be thing that go a little wrong. We had planted some over-wintering onions and the recent weird weather seems to have fooled them into bolting in order to spread their seed. With flower heads popping up on these and Japanese onions, we lopped their tops off in an attempt to keep the plants energy going into the bulbs rather than into the production of seeds. We'll have to see if this has worked at a later stage.

We also did a spot of well-needed weeding around the fruit patch. The raspberries in particular had been overcrowded by grass, nettles, brambles and other assorted weeds. You can see the difference we made!
                                             
 
                                             
 
                                             
  Our major addition to the plot today was putting the sweetcorn out. We had planted them in pots and since planting them they had become a little pot-bound. Seeing as they don't really like to have their roots disturbed, I was concerned when we had to tear the roots from the plant pot. We planted them all up and covered the earth around them with some bark chippings. The weeds have been coming out in force in several of our other beds so with the success of weed supressant material we thought we'd try some bark chippings to hopefully stop weed growth and keep moisture in the ground rather than evaporating.

Last but not least, Tim and Anthony Cornish put up a wigwam. This wasn't for beans, however. This was an experiment for butternut squash. This particular squash, we noted, spread out quite considerably last year and with the little tendrils that emerged from the runners and grabbed hold of other squash plants, we thought that it might climb well. There was only one way to find out! We planted the butternut plants around the canes and tried to give them a helping hand by tying them to the canes for support. It's all very exciting again, with vegetables growing all over the place and it's all our doing! We are still amazed at what we do every Saturday.
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
 
                                             
Wednesday 23rd May 2007

During the week, Tim comes up quite regularly to water the greenhouse. With the frequent sun and rain he hasn't really needed to water the plot much. I came up this week to do help out with the watering of the plot and also to help with another little project which I'm sure Tim will be telling us about in th next few weeks.

Seeing as the potato plants were looking so healthy, Suey and I decided to dig up some plants and see what had grown. We were really surprised with what had grown; not only for the size and number of the potatoes but because one of the varieties of potato I had dug up hadn't been planted (or so I had thought).

We had dug up one Arran Pilot plant and one Red Duke of York plant only to find out that we had somehow acquired some Edzell Blue potatoes along the line. We went home and cooked them straight away and the flavour of freshly pulled potatoes was absolutely fabulous. The skins of the Arran Pilot potatoes just fell off to the touch. Delicious!