Bed By Bed...

Today was a glorious day so after taking george out to the park we went down to the lottie, george has his own little bed he can dig in, so off he went.But what a suprise when I arrived, the Greenhouse almost fully glazed...Rich didn't say anything about that...

It's looking good, quite a few panes missing but that was due to how we transported them... Oh my camera is working today so lots of pictures!

So a quick check of the plants...Starting with cabbages...

They have launched in the last couple of weeks..

French bean bed looking grand..
This has been a really successful bed, shame it is converting to a fruit bed, but hey we'll get blackcurrants, redcurrants, white currants, gooseberries all in here, oh and Raspberry canes at the back.. Anyhow back to the beans..
The beans look great, Amanda has harvested quite a few and they are really nice...I'll collect some probably tomorrow.

Where next on the plot... Ahh the leeks, these guys are doing really well, a couple look like they might have problems but on the whole doing ok..

So I dug out bed H today, last week it was a flaming pit of fire and ash...Today it is transformed into a bed H.
Took two hours of hard graft, remember each bed is 1.5x4m long.. Good and bad news...Good news the old bramble bush roots aren't too bad, some are deep, bad news, lot of them..GOing to be hard graft, but the soil is perfect again...That pile in the middle is bed G our nature bed, at the moment it is a pile of remains from the beds we have dug out.

So now looking from the back to the front of the lottie we look like this..

Thats Rach and George, the green covered plots are the Brassica beds...
Looking from front to back we see this..


Where the brambles is like a waste land, I'll move quickly to turn those into beds otherwise it looks very scruffy, cannot be helped of course but we want to be good allotment neihgbours...That is the old greenhouse in the background, pity it didn't have a roof, we'll talk to Bob and see if he knows anyone who wants to scrap it.

Finally, here is how the vision is looking with the leak shack and the Greenhouse..


Alloment 13 is getting there slowly but surely, we have the blank canvas, we have the spades and forks to paint the picture, all we need now is time.....Tomorrow bed I, Hopefully, next to the greenhouse.

Good night all!

This Weekend

First time in weeks it has not been raining and we had a couple of good days of sunshine. Unfortunatley not many pictures today, battery ran out on the camera.

We went up for a couple of hours on Sunday, Lotties around us looking good, harvest time, there is maize, beans, courgettes squashes everything around the place, our plot on the other hand is producing some nice Dwarf French Beans, Salad leaves and we are experimenting with Radishes, we have some golden burpees and some icicles in. The leeks are looking good, but sorry folks no pictures.

But what we did do was to burn out the last of the brambles, rachel dropped in a couple of firelighters and seconds later this happened:

We worried at one point that the fire would hit the trees, but it died back quickly. Within minutes it was reduced to just a smouldering pile of ash. A bit later Richard and amanda arrived and rich watered and weeded, amanda helped rach with the bonfire. I chopped out the final amount of the brambles and let the girls burn them.

When all said and done it now looks like this:

She's clear...Of brambles, still got a fair few nettles to go, but for the first time in years, you can see from corner to corner..In the distance there is rachel and george just watching the final smoke.

So in the next couple of months, the following will happen:

Sept: Onions
Oct: Garlic
Oct: Raspberries & Gooseberries
Oct: Blackcurrents/red currents.

Ongoing; Dig out the beds to the layout designed back in July/August, it still looks good..

More soon!

Dave

Hard Work Day..

Today I have been able to do a fair bit of work on the Lottie for the first time in about 3-4 weeks, and boy did I attack it, and have the scars to show.

Cleaned out the culvert again today, was a bit clogged up due to the rain and winds we have been having blowing in branches and leaves, but it is still relatively low compared to what it was when we took on 13, so that is a good sign. Tried to burn some of the old brambles and leaves but they where too wet so it went out quickly (even with firelighters). So that aside i decided to tackle the brambles. I started in the middle and three hours later we can view the majority of lottie from the leak shack..

Here it is looking out to the right towards the culvert, ie nearly the full length of the plot.

Looking from the front of the lottie we can see the work rich has been doing on the plot with the brassica beds (more later)



Looking from the culvert to the leak shack you can see the amount I cleared today, just a few small bits left now (probably about 2-3 hours work max), of course we haven't dug the roots out yet thats the hard bit..


On the left is a small patch, the big patch is to the right also the mountain of bits that need burning..

Now on with the rest of it, the dwarf beans are growing well and some have been harvested I think and taste great..


The brassica beds look really cool, hopefully they will be productive, I put some more slug pellets on today, seems the slugs got them really quickly when we first planted them..
And they are doing well....The army of cabbages and Cauli's..

Another view from the front (I green manured the herb bed today, that means I put some beneficial plants, grasses and the like into the bed so when we hoe it back in later on it fixes the the nutrients into the soil).
Also the leek beds are standing to attention and growing really really well..
They are the size of pencils at the moment...Rich looks like he'll have a good crop.

Finally, I must hijack the blog for a moment.... Here is a parsnip I took from my experimental beds at home, only took 9 months to grow it from seed in January, transplanted in March and nurtured for months..

Let this be the first of many things we grow and lets hope we get better in the Lottie!!

Long time ago...

Hi Readers,

All is going well on 13, things are coming together nicely and the plot is becoming productive..

Sorry I have not updated this for a month, was in America beginning of September, came back ill for a week, then off to egypt on holiday for two weeks, hence the delay. These pictures are from two weeks ago I will try and update soon.

But about two weeks ago Richard had done a lot of work, firstly he had erected the greenhouse


The plot is now coming together as per our plan, leak shack on the right, herb bed in front and greenhouse to the left.. We still have a tonne of clearing work todo thats next on my to do list is attack the brambles more now we have harvested them well.


As you can see a couple of beds have been covered in straw to keep the moisture in.

On the food side the radishes are growing nicely..


The salad leaves where looking really healthy, richard assures me they taste really nice..


And the beans are growing nicely...

Since these pictures we have planted a load of cabbage, cauliflower and other brassicas, and they are doing nicely, next time I'll have pictures...

Hack,Slash,Mash,Bash

Hello again readers!

For this weeks installment... Been a long week at work again this week, limited time down lottie, so rich has been busy. Went down tonight and hoe'd the beds,sycthed the nettles (Which where growing back again) and cut back the brambles..

First thing I did was to hoe the beds, the leeks are looking fabulous (As is richards raising of the bed)..
These leeks are strong, as is the smell wafting from the bed, kind of a strange garlicy onion smell, no danger of vampires here people!. Below is the view of the bed being raised Richard has done a great job here..

What else...Well the beans are definitley growing now and launched a few more inches in a week...Amazing what a bit of rain and some sunshine does!

As you can see they are brave enough to stand up on their own without any netting!.

I hacked out some more brambles tonight, just to clear a bit more the greenhouse area, in the process I picked some fantastic berries..

The cleared area looks a bit like this now...

So we are getting there...That mound on the left is cut out brambles...Some an inch thick and 10feet long..What a job..

At the epicentre of the clearing we are looking like this, remember this is six feet high..
It is manic in there...

I won't be around much next week in Boston (US) with work so next update will be sunday... Lets see what a difference the week makes..

It's Been a Long time

Hi readers,

Sorry about the delay in posting its been a manic two weeks for me work wise and life wise, rich has pretty much had the lottie to himself...So lets enter the blog tardis..

August 1st 2008.
Rich had been a busy man..Lottie is now looking like a lottie..
Large section of the beds are complete, this is bed b-f and G & K are done pretty much, rich put some silt on bed C there from the culvert, it looks like good stuff..

In addition to this he has also been hacking brambles and when he came over one night he looked like he had been in the bramble wars.. But he has done a good job..
Lets not underestimate what he has done here..Those brambles are six foot high, like a true adventurer in the 1800's he has hacked deep (12ft at least) into the jungle and came out with some beautiful treasure..Aka blackberries...Also there is gold in them dar hills ladies and gents, it looks like a greenhouse frame!! Darn it didn't we buy one the other week?

Onto the plants, boy are they reaching for the sky..First the beans..

Salad leaves are looking good also....




Radishes are on the left there so they are looking fab also..


Until next time...

That was the week that was...

Well this week has seen some good activity on the lottie. Rich has been busy on the plot digging away...It is looking more like an allotment and less like wasteland..

Beds A,B,C, E are now finished. Bed D & K has been broken in and just need finishing.. View from the shed looks like this:

So you can see it is getting there... Talking about getting there lets look at the fruit bed, it is growing really well with Dwarf French beans..



So you can see we have a lot of beans growing, even if we don't get a big harvest out at least they are conditioning the soil for us.. Looking at one close up

So hopefully we will get some decent beans out :)