Categories
Plot #59

Re-Vamping the Soft Fruit Section on Plot 59

We’ve been talking about reorganising the soft fruit on our main plot for a couple of growing seasons now. This year we’ve rolled up our sleeves and made a start. Raspberries First up: our raspberry patch has been a reasonably productive one for three or four years, but we’ve decided it’s time for a change. […]

Categories
Plot #59

Plot #59 Update: June 2018

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 […]

Categories
Advice Plot #59

Autumn-Pruning our Soft-Fruit Bushes

With the weather holding dry and fair last week, I took the opportunity to spend some time down at Plot #59 and make a start on of the more essential winter maintenance jobs: pruning our soft-fruit bushes. Soft-fruit crops are among the most useful you can grow on an allotment. They’re perennial, so once they’re […]

Categories
Monthly Updates Plot #59

Plot #59 Update: September 2016

September turned out to be a really good month, weather-wise, so I ought to have been down at Plot #59 for most of it, working my backside off to finish a few infrastructure projects, clearing the last few patches of stubborn weeds, sowing a few winter crops and prepping for next year’s growing season. Instead, […]

Categories
Harvest Monday Plot #59

Harvest Monday for September 5th 2016

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 […]

Categories
Monthly Updates Plot #59

Plot #59 Update: August 2016

Ah, the long lazy days of high Summer! (What’s that? Summer? Has it arrived yet? Are we due one? Answers on a postcard to the usual address…) Definitely long, but not so lazy if you’re an allotment holder, with early crops finishing and going over that need clearing away, and later crops just starting to […]

Categories
Monthly Updates Plot #59

Plot #59 Update: June 2016

June was a quieter month than you might think, down on Plot #59, thanks to a combination of wet weather and exam revision. Nevertheless, Jo and I forged ahead as best we could and kept things moving on several fronts. Projects / Maintenance The ground was too wet for most of the month to allow […]

Categories
Harvest Monday Plot #59

Harvest Monday for July 4th 2016

Summer is here! Although you wouldn’t know it to look at the weather records of late. But the crops are starting to come in down on Plot #59 and we’re beginning to enjoy a wider range of the fruits of our labour. Here’s a quick photo-montage of the foodstuffs that we’ve been able to harvest […]

Categories
Plot #59

Signs of Life in the Plot #59 Fruit Section

I swung by Plot #59 this afternoon on the way back from a volunteering session for Incredible Edibles Prestwich, raking over the new raised beds in the polytunnels, to get the third of my second early potato trenches dug while the weather was good enough for digging. Strolling up the middle of the plot, I […]

Categories
Plot #59

Our Allotment Year in Review: 2015/16 Edition

January is the traditional time to post a year-in-review piece, but for me, the start of the sowing and growing season – with the last of the previous year’s over-wintered veg crops being harvested or cleared away and the first of this year’s plants being sown and planted out – seems a good time to […]