Roses and beans.

The broad beans that I sowed into some of my newspaper pots have developed really well. The above picture is about a fortnight old so they are now well established little plants and probably ready to go into the plot just as soon as I can get there! When they do go into the ground the entire pot will be planted and the newspaper will just rot away leaving the plant to romp away without any transplant shock. I went mad the other day and spent £2 on a new rose from Woolworths, I love allotments that have a mixture of ornamental and veg and places like Wilkos or woolies are great for these sorts of bargains, I'm going to take regular pics of this rose throughout the year to show how it does and see if cheap roses like this do any good. I have a large bed at the front of the plot which already has one rose in it (from a cutting I did last year) and a Globe artichoke which I love for it's architectural leaves. so I threw 'Woolie rose' in there (with lots of manure and TLC!)
You can also see in the above pic the autumn sown broad beans in the 2nd bed back. They're doing well despite a couple of casualties either from slugs or pigeons. Once I get up to the plot with my bean plants from home I'll fill in the gaps.

Behind that bed is the remains of my leeks, these were a smaller crop than I wanted but due to me not potting on the seedlings earlier than I should have, I'm thinking of starting them in a seed bed at home this year rather than seed trays and then moving them up to the plot once they're tall enough.

We haven't manage a trip up to the plot for a few weeks now, a combination of appalling weather and us spending time decorating at home. D's parents are coming to us for Easter and we stupidly told them that we would have a nicely decorated bedroom for them to stay in so we've been slogging our guts out to try and finish it. One of the joys of living in a house built in the 1800's is wonky walls and crumbling plaster, so normal decorating takes twice as long to do. I mustn't grumble really, this will be our third year in this house and we've been very lazy in our restoration approach, gardening just seems to get in the way!!

Anyway, Easter is the BIG weekend for working at the allotment, last year was amazing weather at Easter but then this year it falls much earlier, so fingers crossed for a bit of sun. We plan to do lots there anyway and the first potatoes have GOT to be put in on Good Friday (it's gardening law!!)

One Year old!!!

Yes it's true, this blog is officially one year old today!!! I've amazed myself that I have updated it on a reasonably regular basis, I'm normally the sort of person that starts something with great gusto and then the initial buzz and enthusiasm fades away, we've also just had our first anniversary at the allotment.

Last visit up to the plot was a couple of weeks ago when we spent the day shovelling horse shit!!! I finally managed to get D to come to the biggest pile of shit you've ever seen at the local riding stables and help me fill bags. The heat generated from the heap was incredible and even when we'd driven it back to the plot in bags it still steamed when spread across the beds!

We spread muck on all the empty beds and then filled up the muck bin that I built at the front of the plot with the rest to rot down for later on and next year.

The biggest shit heap in the world!! (...and I don't mean the car, although it is knackered!)

Steaming beds!

It feels sad that most things have now finished for this year, I can't complain really as we've had a fantastic year considering the unbelievable weather (Gloucester was just a tad wet!) and also considering that we converted the overgrown plot that we found into this ...

The pic shows the front part of the plot. The front left bed has Japanese / overwintering onions in it with the tail end of some spinach and gladioloi.

The right hand bed with the canes is the broad bean bed with the beans I sowed about 3 weeks ago, the b. beans I sowed in spring were not really a good crop and loads of people have told me to sow in November for an earlier crop in spring which will also hopefully avoid the blackfly problem. Will and Sue (plot neighbours) did theirs like that and had an amazing crop this spring.

The 2 nearest beds show one covered in muck and the tiny leeks that we planted out quite late, I'm hoping they'll come to something at some point but I'm not holding my breath! I've learnt loads about the timing and planning of crop growing this year, hopefully as we have already got beds dug and a proper plot working now I'll be able to stay on top of things.

D has been continuing with clearing plot no. 2 which has been mown several times and beds marked out, the next pic shows the first bed de-turfed and now it has been dug properly and manured.

I feel even more excited about next spring than I did this time last year, we've now got one plot working reasonably well and plot no.2 well on the way plus some experience under our belt.

The influx of new people on the site is great with several of the old overgrown plots already being well tended and promising looking plots developed. In a way it was nice when it was just a few of us as it felt like our own secret garden and the overgrown plots kind of gave it hidden feel, of course at the time I moaned like mad at not having a full and well tended site, no pleasing some people hey!

One year down, loads more to come ....