Nattering with Cecil

Caught up with fellow allotmenteer Cecil for a natter. Thanks for the tomatoes. Cecil has created a little haven on his plot. Wooden shed, storage shed and homemade plastic covered area to link the two are most charming.

Wandering round the plot he has created raised beds with ingenious frames over the top to allow fleece, net or cloches to go over for protection.

Sharing ideas, successes and failures, apparently peas were awful as well.

Left feeling better and with a few new ideas brewing on what to do with my waste land. If only I had as much time as Cecil, but will keep on plodding on.

Looking good

A couple of views across the allotment. Basically the first section of beds are now sorted so will be maintaining, well once flower seeds have been sown.

Attention now to the grand plan for next year, will ponder and update soon.

More flower space

Ok so have decided to go overboard on cut flowers for next year, this bed had peas and beans in but they did very badly so only the borage remains. With a. It more effort I think this will also be a good filler for next year and should attract lots of beneficial insects.the remaining area I will devote to additional flowers amongst the Vegas planned.

Started to dig over, one half is pretty nice, the remaining bit is a little claggy so will have to out something a little more robust, definitely no direct seed sowing in this section. Remaining half to be dug, was too tired having forgotten a chair for a rest and my coffee flask.

The flowers are coming

This bed has never had anything planted in it and pretty sure I haven't ever managed to clear it so I was not hoping to find such nice soil.

Weeds cleared,see beofore and after shots. Much debate on whether to dig over but as I want to get some annual flowers in here I have opted for a rake over to get a nice crumbly top and leave the rest to the worms.

So, clearance and raking (blimey that was hard work) and now need to decide what annuals to plant and whether to havea trial seed sowing up at lotty rather than transplant from home.

Orchard

The weed clearance is still holding out, so moved some of the black covering from raspberry bed to around the trees. Still need to put some more down but really need to get those pins to hold it in place.

Another job for the list.

More raspberries

Despite all the rain Thursday I was still surprised how wet it was. Took the opportunity to grab a few more raspberry runners just in case the others haven't worked. Managed to get a few food ones so fingers crossed they will be fine.

Raspberry bed is now full and looking good. Roll on next summer.

Windy miller...

Much as I loved Camberwick Green as a kid the wind is causing me untold problems on the lotty.

The shed has now been dismantled and laid flat with slabs on top, thanks to hub for doing this. Apparently it may be reincarnated as a tool trunk instead.

So lesson learnt, it is so much windier on the lotty than you can imagine and unless you have industrial strength products a shed is no good on my exposed plot.

That said the rest of the allotment is not looking too bad and I have new plans formulating for next year. Watch this space.

Raspberry bed

So with the shed stood up after a hand from a fellow allotmenteer I could turn my attention to what I had planned to do.

Corner of the plot has some raspberries that seem to have wandered from various other places. I have been planning to dig up and transplant for ages but it has been so dry it wasn't possible. So with spade in hand managed to extract about 10 runners and transplant to my raspberry bed.

I can call it that now as the section is now full of raspberry plants, fingers crossed they had enough root when I transplanted but as per my usual rule, they have two chances and hopefully they should be ok.

May try a few more next time as I have a little bit of space left.

Rabbit toilet?

Seems the rabbits like a warm place to do a poo, they love my weed covering and have made themselves a little cosy toilet. How sweet!

Not again

So the shed has gone for a wander again. Seems like the solution to secure the base has worked but the wind has now ripped it off the base and turned it over a couple of times onto my neighbours newly planted strawberry bed, oops sorry!

Ok running out of ideas now and seems to be taking up my precious planting time trying to sort it out. Think it will need to be taken down and rethought, will call in reinforcements later.

I'm back

Ok nothing to report over last couple of weeks due to holidays but made the trip to check on lotty this evening.

Pleased to report all looking well, photos to follow. Not much time in the evenings now before it gets dark so need to be organised and plan what I am going to do in advance.

Tonight, cleared the remainder of the orchard, tidied the paths and lopped some tall weeds off in the raspberry area until dusk fell and I couldn't see what I was doing.

Definitely need to buy some more of the weed suppressant pegs that I tried, they are doing a good job and I don't want to waste time clearing weeds throughout next year.

Ah well, a new plan is forming, watch this space....