first meal

Here is the first mouthful from the allotment! The cabbage still has a bit of space for growing but if I don't start picking now we will be eating cabbages all summer.

tomato

Today I put the plants in their place! It was another monsoon moment down the allotment. The guys on the next field playing rugby looked less weathered than me. Now we need some sun!

bugs

Here are some of my broad bean plant residents. Number 1 is the black fly. I think this is gonna be an infestation! I have read that some soap spayed on helps but I am sceptical. There are ants crawling up and down the stems as well and I have heard that these guys defend the black fly so they count as enemy too.

The 2nd shot is an out of focus bean weavil. Darn camera! We have known each other for a while now and I have been tolerating the hungry blighters.

Not sure what photo 3 is. Nice or nasty? If anyone knows then please tell me.

On the positive side. There are some broad beans appearing where flowers used to be. Not many mind but after the battle they have had since being planted in the autumn, I am grateful for any success.

Slug solution

Ok listen up everyone! I may be new to this but I have cracked the slug problem. I knew the slugs were eating the broad beans and I felt at one point that anything the weavils didnt get then the slugs would. What's the point I thought. I want to be organic and kind etc.... so I didn't want to use slug pellets. I tried garlic granuals as a barrier. At 9 quid a pot it was expensive and rather disappointing in that it had no effect whatsoever. Anyway, one night I had to walk the dog late so I wandered down the allotment out of curiosity to see what happens when I sleep. I counted 43 slugs on the broad beans alone! I was amazed!! Where the heck had they come from? I picked every last one off. Galvanised by slug rage I went down the next night and I found 20. The next night there was 10. Now if I go down I find 2 or 3. I have had to widen the search to all areas of the allotment and the surrounding path just to get more than 5.

This has to be the best slug defence. I am so pleased with myself that I am even kind to the slimey enemy. Any slugs I find get spared and relocated to the conservation area between my house and the allotment thus keeping the eco system happy.

In the mean time the beans are growing like mad. I was actually seeing the plants getting smaller before I started slug hunting and now they are thriving.

My first produce

This might look silly but I have found the first edible thing to come out of the allotment. It's a radish. It may be one small radish for a vegetable but it's a giant leap for vegetable kind. Of course it's small....don't knock it!

Rain at last! All systems go

Rain at last and the garden says thank you.

Spring view

Here is the allotment. The photo was taken yesterday.

monster cabbages

And here are some monster cabbages. Prize winners me thinks! The pros down the allotment are well impressed!

Parsnip are erractic?

Parsnip are supposed to be "erratic germinators" whatever that might mean. These parsnips haven't taken long to show. 3 weeks maybe. I put a row of radish in between as markers. I then dug a hole and filled it with compost and planted 3 parsips in the middle of each. They all seem to have come up. As a kid I hated parsnip but I acually like it now. Maybe all parents need to do to get their kids eating veg, is to get them planting.

Progress

Sorry for not writing for a while. I have been back at work and working like a mad thing for a while but Bank holiday weekend is here and it's back to the veggies! Here are the spuds. I can't earth them up because the ground is really hard. Not sure I will ever be able to as it seems the rain has stopped for 2007!

chili time!

That'll teach me to work too hard down the
allotment! I got sick over the holidays and I think it was my body
telling me to ease off with the digging in the heat! The girlfriend
thinks I am soft but I was ill man! Anyway, her family have also been
over from Germany. We took them to Kew which was nice. I was particularly impressed by the display of chili plants in the Lilly house. I am now endeavouring to recreate a chili display in the loft bedroom! Here are my starting seeds.

I am now limiting the amount of time I spend digging up roots and old bits of carpet. A bit everyday seems more realistic than a whole bed every time I go down there. Also, how are my seedlings supposed to germinate when the ground is dry as a bone? Should I be watering everything from potatoes to parsips? Hmmm ...I kinda think a bit of water from the watering can makes zip loads of difference anyway.

hard work

Great news! The allotment boss came over yesterday and told me what a miraculous job I was doing. She then asked me if I wanted to take on the next door plot too. I said no. This plot is killing me as it is. My back is now grumbling and even the dog thinks I have gone mad. It is good to get a pat on the back though. Yesterday I turned a patch of earth that looked like this.....

into this......
Two patches of mud on a blog.....hmmm. I am only sharing this with you because I think the amount of work an allotment requires cannot be underestimated. The patch of mud is 6ft by 6ft and took most of the afternoon! I didn't realise digging would be this hard.

Cabbage watch

This might be a bit like over kill but I have gone to town with the cabbages! They found their way into the ground today. To give them a helping hand, I dug in a grow bag to improve the soil. My ground looks like a collection of brown clay like golf balls and one of the pros down the site suggested investing in extra soil. Next, I have surrounded them all with garlic organic slug barrier. It cost a bit so it had better work. After that, each cabbage was given its own little bit of carpet to sit on because I have read that this will stop flys laying eggs under them. Finally, I built a wire cage to fend off the rabbits.

The work took me all day and I realise that one can get a bit carried away.

side shoots

Okay, I really am new to all this. Here is a tomato question. What's a side shoot? What does it look like and what what will happen if I don't pinch them out? The first picture is, I think, where I missed the chance to do some pinching. The second picture is what I guess it should look like? What will happen next? Will I only get half tomatoes?

What's eating them!

Did I accidently plant ready eaten broad beans. Are these bite marks on the leaves? They have only been up a day or so and they are already nibbled. All of them are the same. Or should they look like this? I can just imagine a mouse lazing in the sun while I am at work waiting for his broad beans. As soon as he sees one ....chomp!

On a brighter note, here are my cabbages. Lovely!

This is a very sorry looking broad bean plant. To get such a specimen, take more hopeful looking broad bean and plant in the autumn so it can get eaten. Then put a bottle on top in spring and cook it during a warm spell until it flowers. Then leave specimen out for a nasty March frost. To get the final dazzling effect drop your cold frame on it during an allotment reshuffle. Do you think it will come again?

I need more space

No time to take photos today. I have lost an hour! Got up this morning and it had vanished. Now everything is just ruined. Didn't have time to do stuff for work tomorrow, the house didn't get cleaned and the spring onions didn't get planted. The potatoes did get planted...hooray! I achieved something! The other problem I have got is that I have a distinct lack of window sills. I may need to knock a wall down.

lovely veg

Here are my tomatoes. There are aubergines in the background. Lovely! Next to the tomatoes are a couple of chilli plants growing ever so slowly. It's been very cold this week. I'll be glad when it warms up and I might get down the allotment after work again.

Dog in trouble!

Top tip! When taking the dog down the allotment ( She is very good at breaking up the heavy soil), don't let her out of your sight as she is likely to roll around in the fish bone. Now the animal stinks and the bathroom is trashed.

new broadbeans on their way.

It's been baking in London this week. T-shirt weather! Now the first of the broadbeans are poking through the rock hard earth.

message in a bottle

Back from the dead here come the broadbeans again.

My place

Here is the allotment. I should really post a before and after shot but the before shot is still on a roll of film yet to be developed. Anyway, in the front you can see the remains of my broadbeans which have kept the mice going over the winter. I have put bottles on the survivers to get them going again. Next to that is my make shift cold frame which houses the cabbages. At the back you can see the bonefire which I am useless at burning. The other bare bits of earth are home to new broadbeans (hundreds of 'em this time!), onions and shallots. The rest of the place has been cleared of obvious weeds, dug and covered.

Beginnings

Here are some photos of the stuff growing in the spare room. From left Dads orchid, a spare tomato, and another of Dads orchids...dendrobium...or something like that. Then we have got various cabbages, tomatoes, aubergine and chilli peppers which have been potted on. I have been down the allotment today in a monsoon to try to cover the dug parts with material. This was to stop the weeds. Underneath the olds carpets I have various white weeds struggling up which should be easy to dig up so I am hoping the same will work on the rest of the place. I must take my camera down when its not raining. The place looks like a scene from the Somme. The only things growing are the mice which have feasted on my intrepid broad beans.

early cabbages

Dad (source of endless imformation regarding things which grow) says I am silly growing cabbages so early. However, memories of childhood remind me of a panic filled august when everything was ready for eating at the same time....usually when we went on holiday. So here goes, I am growing this early variety and intend to use plastic bottles as cloches at the end of march. They look very long and "leggy" to me but actually I don't have a clue. They are now 11 days old. I sowed some chili at the same time for pot growing on a windowsill but there is no evidence of life.

Blog transformed

I am resurrecting this blog to record my alltoment escapades. I am very new to this whole allotment thing but I love it! I have viewed a few other blogs on the net and they have inspired me to create my own. In particular, I love Mytinyplot and Mike's allotment diary. Both are great and show the dedication of allotment holders. I shall start off by posting my plan for the year. My girlfriend thinks I am crazy going to all this trouble but it helped me think about things more carefully and it was fun!

To be honest the plot isn't that bog but I intend to maximise the space and grow a small amount of things I like to eat. I am hopeful that the allotment boss in Barnet will see my endeavours and offer me one of the bigger plots so I am not growing things like strawberries or asparague or fruit trees as they will need a lot longer to get established.