Right, we’ll take it as read that it’s too damn hot and drier than a teetotaller’s liquor cabinet. Otherwise, things aren’t looking too bad down on Plot #59. As long as we can keep on top of the irrigation requirements, we ought to be able to keep everything alive long enough for the temperatures to […]
Well, what a couple of months we’ve had. After an incredibly mild January, February and March have pulled a double shift on winter weather duty, chucking pretty much the full repertoire of sleet, snow, hail and frost at us, quite frequently all at once. All of which has meant our January plans haven’t moved on […]
Jo and I have not long returned from an eight-day break down in beautiful Devon and Cornwall, touring gardens, sampling the regional cuisine (particularly the ice cream section of the menu) and quaffing a few of the local ales. I’ll be talking more about the rather wonderful gardens we visited – RHS Rosemoor, The Lost […]
The clocks have gone forward, buds are breaking open everywhere and, yes, the weeds are growing again – it must be Spring! With temperatures rising in March and the rain holding off for reasonable periods of time, Jo and I have been able to get down to Plot #59 and get stuck in to some […]
A year has rolled on by since I posted the first Year in Review piece here on Notes From the Allotment, and a lot has changed down on Plot #59. After three years of hard graft, we’ve finally reached the point where almost the entire plot has been transformed from a weed-choked, debris-strewn nightmare into […]
After a slow start to the year – February swung wildly between too cold and far too wet to be able to get much of anything useful done – it’s great to finally get some of the early sowing and growing jobs started. As you can see from the pic above, I’ve potted up a […]
The do say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I’ll briefly walk you through the above. From the top-left: a bag of apples and plums donated by a plot-neighbour; the last of this year’s maincrop ‘pink fir apple’ potatoes, with three giant black radishes on top; (in the box) autumn raspberries and Japanese […]
Summertime (down on Plot #59) and the harvests are mighty! Here’s what we’ve been picking for the last couple of weeks: Our four varieties of courgette are all producing like crazy, as you can see from the above. Not a few of those ended up in this year’s batch of courgette and tomato chutney, now […]
Phew! That’s the exams done and dusted. Until I start the next RHS Level Two course in September and sit the next set of exams in February 2017, that is. My pre-exam weekend was spent down the allotment, on the grounds that I’d already crammed about as much into my head as was going to […]
May was a manic month down on Plot #59, and no mistake. My plate is particularly full at the moment with revision for my RHS Level 2 exams in mid June, so please do excuse me if I whizz through this month’s update. Projects / Maintenance As well as sorting out an old compost bed […]