Allotment 13/7/10

When we were at the garden centre on Sunday picking out some plants for Significant Other’s bit of the allotment (yes I know it sounds like giving a child a small amount of the garden to look after but I do have a lot of space and the flowers do look lovely), which you can read about here, we noticed that they had converted the field next to the car park into allotment plots. Now that is a genius idea I thought, allotments next to a garden centre, think of the income. And of course they had. It’s a great idea, have plots there next to the shop, were else are they going to buy stuff?

 So we went round looking at all the lovely, over priced plants (I got a grape vine out of the deal) until we came to the till and there was a leaflet advertising the plots. I’ll have one of those I thought, it’s such a great idea that I’ll blog amount it. Well that was the plan until I saw the prices that they are charging for renting the plots.

 My allotment plot costs about £12 per year. This is a very basic plot, we have no on site water or anything, but never the less, only £12 per year. I don’t know how much other councils charge, I would imagine more then mine, but not too much. Yes, these plots come ready prepared but I would think that only means that they have rotivated the soil, nothing more. And what would you imagine that they charge for this? Actually that is a silly game so I will tell you, £5 per week or £20 per month or £240 per year. Now that is a lot of money.

 If you want one with a shed, a green house and water butt? Well that will set you back £10 per week or £40 per week or a staggering £480 per year. OMG! Not really cost effective I think you will agree.

 I know that they have to make a profit and that councils don’t have enough proper allotment plot available but never the less this smacks of a rip off, profiteering if you will.

Allotment, It's Not Just Me There.

We've put some new raised bed at the allotment and one of them has been planted up by my Significant Other, you can read about here on here blog Knit Knot Norris, that is all.

Allotment 26/6/10

I’m making a sad face because I have had a crop failure, one that I usually do pretty well at as well which makes it doubly annoying.

 Garlic is usually so easy to grow, last years were great for instance, but this year nothing has happened. I don’t know what it is, whether it was the very cold winter or the cloves that I planted which were saved for last year, but something went wrong leaving me with no crop, thank goodness for Waitrose.

 It hasn’t been all bad though. The old faithfuls keep plugging away and this week Significant Other took her life in her hands and offered to do the forearm shredding task of gooseberry picking. Apart from a little light sunburn and arms that look like she has a serious self harm problem it all went really rather well and a very large amount of fruit was bought home.

 We have also had a good crop of rhubarb so we have been making jams and chutneys.

 Significant Other has made 5 jars of Gooseberry Chutney and I have made Rhubarb (with a hint of Ginger) Jam (also 5 jars) and Gooseberry and Elderflower Preserve (7 jars).

 The recipes for most of things that I make often, including the Elderflower Cordial and this Gooseberry and Elderflower Preserve recipe, can be found in the utterly fantastic “Food for Free” by Richard Mabey.  It is one of the two books that I use most, as you can see from the picture of my copy; the other is “Dough” by Richard Bertinet which is a fantastic book about bread making.

 “Food for Free” is a guide to edible plants basically but it also contains recipes and useful hits and tips. Really it is great.

Allotment 21/6/10 (Guerrilla Gardening)

I’m not sure if this should go on the Allotment blog or my general one so I’ve put it both, I’m not sire what I’ll do in the future.

 So I've been doing a little more Guerrilla Gardening. There is some bare soil near my house and so I had put plants in it.

 On the Guerrilla Gardening website there is a section on how to create seed bombs but I didn't want to do that. The small area is “looked after” by someone who is a supposed professional but can't tell the difference between weeds and plants and has already removed other things that I have planted there that were in flower. This then would need some stealth and cunning. And then I had a thought, plug plants.

 I still have some trays left from some Lobelia that I had bought and would be perfect for my little plan. There was a packet or two of wild flower seeds hanging about, under the sink I think, so a little compost in the tray and a sprinkling of seed on top. Now water in and leave for a few weeks, with some regular water obviously, and then you will have little pods of wild flowers that you can plant quickly and with minimum fuss.

 Under the cover of darkness, well the middle of a Sunday afternoon anyway, I went over to my little plot around the tree and to the bare earth patch that I wanted to bother and within 15 minutes my work was done and my little plugs of wild flowers were watered in. Give it another couple of weeks and they will be flowering and giving a little joy to all who see them, well that's what I rather egotistical hope.

 Oh and for the person who regularly returns this area to bare earth I have made these little signs,

Allotment 4/6/10

I come before you to report a rare success today. I have been a little failure heavy recently but some things are going alright.

 I have finally managed to get some carrots seeds to germinate. I know that this is usually very easy for most people but I seem to have a problem with them and I don’t know why. Anyway this is my 3^rd lot of seeds and some of them have germinated, this makes me very happy. Look at their tiny little green leaves,

And then there are the chillies on my window sill,

How lovely is that?

The elderflower is finally out here so there is only one sensible thing to do, until my gooseberries are ripe and I can make gooseberry and elderflower preserve that is, and that is make cordial. It is the loveliest thing in the world and it is really easy,

Take 1kg of sugar and pour over 750ml of boiling water and dissolve the sugar, then add 10 heads of elderflower, they look like this, if you don’t know,

Add 5grams of citric acid and a sliced lemon, you can grate a bit of rind in if you like, give it a stir and leave it for 24 hours. Then strain it and put it on sterilised bottles. It can last for 6 months in the fridge but won’t because it’s lovely. You can also put it in plastic bottles and freeze it until you need it but remember to leave room in the bottle for expansion.

Allotment 19/5/10

Beans are quite easy to grow. We all know this. You take a dried husk of a thing, put it in some compost and then about 2 weeks later up it comes, raring to grow.


This has always been my experience of them anyway up until this year. This year I have had no end of problem with mine and it is mostly my fault.

I am what could be described as an inpatient gardener. When March turns up I like to get pretty much everything going. Tougher seeds are planted at the allotment, parsnips and early carrots, and seed trays are planted up and placed on window sills. This is a fine plan as long as the weather agrees to it.

My first set of beans where planted into pots and put on my dining room window sill and came on very quickly, so quickly in fact that they were ready to plant out at the beginning of April and when they were far too big for the house they went in on the 19th. Unfortunately the weather disagreed that it was time and it got really cold again and they died. A small tear was shed.

I was not to be defeated though and a second load of beans were planted up (dwarf French, runner beans and climbing beans for those who are interested) and again placed in the dining room. The climbing beans were up first, the others took their time.

Up early one morning I couldn’t find one of our kittens and I assumed that she was having some sort of outside based fun until I went into the dining room. We had, accidently, shut her in there over night.

She shot out when I opened the door and headed straight for the litter tray as she had been sat there with her tiny kitteny legs crossed all night. Well that wasn’t all she had been doing. Spread across the dinning room carpet was the content of 2 of the pots containing my beans, bugger. For some reason she had left the ones that had sprouted alone.

So I scrapped the compost back into the pots assuming that the beans would be there and I could just pat the soil down and carry on. Oh no, my cat had eat the beans. All of them. Sigh.

So now I am on my 3rd attempt at growing beans for 2/3s of them, the climbing beans were planted out yesterday now the nights are warmer. Let’s hope they will be ok, I’m getting a bit bored of them.

Allotment 3/5/10

A continuous update on how my seeds are doing would (has) become a little dull so I will stop that, probably. I will try to bring you plant related stuff though as well as allotment updates and news.

 Today, being a Bank Holiday, there were only a couple of things that we could legally do so this morning we did some DIY and then we got stuck in a traffic jam and got rained on. Ah a blissful May Day bank holiday.

 The reason for the Traffic Jam sitting was so that we could get to Wimborne to see, via the National Gardens Scheme, Deans Court Gardens. This a very pleasant looking house, not open today, and 13 ache garden.

Now, whilst all this foresty stuff and semi-wildness is lovely there was a better reason to go there. They have a lovely kitchen garden surrounded by an 18^th Century serpentine wall. To say that I am jealous of all that space is an understatement.

The weather improved and sun came out as we wondered around this truly beautiful place. Bee hives, 8 or 9 compost bins and carrots growing in those huge basket things that you can see (it to avoid carrot fly I believe). A top afternoon out all round.