Happy as a pig in sh*t!

Well, manure to precise!

It's a sad day when, at age 32 you get all excited about a truck load of sh*t being delivered, but I'm sorry to say that was me on Sunday morning!

Via the wonder that is freecycle I managed to obtain a load of horse manure absolutely free of charge courtesey of a lovely lady called Sue and her partner, who delivered the muck in the back of their horse box - here's how it arrived:




There were around 40 bags (my sore hands will testify) which I then had to barrow up to the other end of the plot. After emptying all the bags I ended up with a right old pile!



That's what it looked like about halfway through - I was surprised how much there actually was. Sue said that she used to deliver it to some dude near her and he used to dig it in straight away - but I think I'll let it rot down a bit over the winter and maybe use some of it in the spring.

Isn't it lovely?

Anyway other than that, there isn't much to tell.

I bought a little bird roost to attach to my now pruned apple tree:



It's a bit blurry, but it was getting dark and my phone doesn't like the dark!

Also bought a little hanging bird feeder (I plan to make a bird table in the new year - using the old trunks of the conifers that we cut down last year).



That's about it for the plot. I'm looking forward to a more productive 2008 and have just purchased a heated propagator to help get things started.

Have a great New Year - see you in 2008!

If I had a pallet - or six.

It's been on the cards now for months - I obtained a number of pallets from work (cheers Spence!) and they've been sat waiting to do something useful for ages, so this weekend I pulled my finger out and got to making a compost bin of the most rustic variety.

I had some fence posts left ovr from when Dad and I made the fence earlier in the year, so I simply laid out the pallets and hammered in four fence posts to keep them from falling over. They're not tied or nailed together, jus all propped against each other with the posts keeping them upright.

Before and after:



I also had a bit of a go at doing a little apple tree pruning. At first I was a bit tentative, but cut quite a bit off after all.

The tree: The bits:



The JCB tracks aren't mine, I promise - Stuart next door had a massive load of horse muck dumped on his plot - I think he asked for it personally.

It's only a quick post today, but before I go have a look at my latest cauliflower (you know you want to) - I'd say it's my best yet, but then I would.



The plate on the right (that's real steam too by the way!) is what it looked like after Lady ayWayne had turned it into a Cauliflower Bhaji for dinner one night - t'was yummeh, thank you please!

The winter cometh!

With a day off work on my hands yesterday I thought it was about time I did a bit of serious preparation on the plot, so I set about digging myself a few beds (turning over existing, and creating new).

Not that it's easy to tell from the photo (the sun was quite low at this point), but here's how I left things...

There's space for about another four or five beds - once I've cleared the strawberries that is.

For now though I thought about making myself a "cage" for all the leaves that have been falling on my lawn at home. Leaving them to rot down for use as a leaf mulch, or soil conditioner next year

Firstly, here's how the leaves looked on the lawn at home.

...and in their new home.

Don't they look happy? (I've since doubled the amount in there by having another leaf sweep this afternoon).

There's plenty more where they came from mind, here's the oak tree at the bottom of the garden.

Not much else happening on the plot at this time of year. Everthing is damp cold and blummin 'orrible. Although with the sun out yesterday I did end up in my t-shirt with steam coming off me.

Well, nothing much happening unless of course you happen to wander over to where my brassicas (look it up on wikipedia if you don't know) are!!!!

My first ever cauliflower!! Ent she purdy?

Before, and after harvest.

The cabbages I planted it would seem are spring cabbages - they are conical in shape (those that have survived being eaten by something - one presumes slugs!!) Once the outer leaves have been removed there's not a lot of them to be honest, so I'm doubtful that I'll grow them again next year. That's part of the fun of all this I think - finding out what you like, what grows and what doesn't. Every day is a school day.

Here's how the cabbages looked yesterday anyway. Again, before and after.

The sprouts it would seem are maybe not in firm enough ground - as soon as they seem of about the right size, they have "blown". Several weeks of them left yet, so hopefully some will be ok at least...

Remaining plans for this year:

• Build proper compost heap/s
• Edge beds with scrap metal from work
• Prune the apple tree
• Create little "meadow" at the front of the plot
• Think of something to do with old compost area

That should keep me going through the winter months I reckon!

Tata for now.

Yes, I'm still here

Now that the majority of the pre-Christmas DIY jobs are out of the way, I can get back to my plot, and of course this blog.....

Holy shmo! I can't believe I haven't posted since way back in September! Bare with me, this could go on for some time.

Either the T.V over the past month or so has been really good, or I've been completely rubbish at keeping this little page of mine updated. As there is a greater chance of the latter - we'll go with that.

Ok, quick recap on what has been happening over the past month or so....

Everything is dead.

Ok, that's not strictly true, but when I visited the plot after a period of abandonment that's what first crossed my mind. Closer inspection revealed that in fact I wasn't far from the truth. If I've learned one thing in this, my first year it's that seasons do mean more than just the clocks going forward and back once a year. Things actually happen.

Working my way round I'll start with the cabbages. They're doing well, still under the netting with a few signs of slug damage I'm quite encouraged by how they're coming on, the same can be said of the cauliflowers. When doing a little light maintenance recently (hoeing to the well informed) I noticed that a couple actually have the "flower" (the white bit you eat), one of which is close to being ready for consumption! Imagine my joy!!

Brussel sprouts are all doing really well, despite what seems like an infestation of what I have recently discovered to be white fly. I was removing some dead foliage from the plants when I was surrounded by clouds of the little blighters!! Several remedies have been suggested to me, including the trusty washing up liquid/water solution - which was liberally applied last weekend, so we'll see what happens. Anyway, I plucked a few sprouts off the most abundantly adorned plant took them home and unfortunately realised that they were in fact too "loose" - I fear I left them on the plant too long. Oh well, plenty more where they came from...

Peas have now been completely lifted, the canes removed and stored and the earth dug over with plenty of compost added. A number of other beds have also had the same treatment - some new, some had been used previously. The runner beans have finally given up the game, and the recent frosts, although mild, were enough to finish them off. I hunted for the fattest pods I could find in the hope that they would still hold some mature seeds that I could harvest for use next year - there were a few, so fingers crossed I'll have my first succession (?). The same can be said of the French beans, but I am too late to rescue any swollen pods as the plants have started to turn to mush already, never mind.

The onions that I grew from seed (Bedfordshire Champions) didn't quite make it - and through no fault of their own. I simply didn't get them in the ground early enough. I am not growing from seed next year, and am going to stick to growing from sets - far easier, and more productive it would appear.

Courgettes finally packed up and buggered off for the winter - I don't think they'll be back. The butternut squashes never really amounted to much. That said, we had one of the little baby ones in a risotto for dinner tonight and it tasted really good, and there wasn't much wastage due to the lack of the large seed area on the fruit yu get on larger squashes. Lady HayWayne even commented that the texture was far creamier than the shop bought ones. Hopefully next years crops will be a little more succesful. I'm going to grow them on trelisses (?) next year.

Carrots seem to be doing ok, but I guess as is with all root vegetables, they don't really let on how well things are going due to the fact that the bit you're interested in is buried underground! I hear baby carrots are in this year - so we might have a fashionable Christmas dinner.

After about 3 hours digging at the weekend, my back started to grumble, so I looked around for something else to occupy my time. Weeds! The large area that used to be my strawberries, but latterly succumbed to bindweed, and various other pain-in-the-butt-weeds was next on my hitlist. I pulled up all of the weeds - which had mostly died and dried out, and using my relativelynewly acquired incinerator, burnt the lot. Most satisfying, and now I have a load of potash fertiliser to use...

I managed to create a couple of my very own "biomes" (those that have been to The Eden Project will know) from old bed frames and a load of plastic sheeting and bubblewrap. No idea what I'm going to do with them yet, but it killed a bit of time.

So, what next?

Over the winter months, whilst the plants (and weeds hopefully) are having a nap, I plan to make a series of compost heaps in the hope that next year I can speed up the composting process and start using my own home grown. I am also going to make use of all the leaves that fall on my lawn courtesy of the oak tree at the bottom of the garden, by making a kind of cage to hold them in and allow them to rot down into a leaf mulch.

Next year's just round the corner, and if this year has been anything to go by, I'm going to be a busy boy next year!

You may have noted a lack of photographic evidence on this posting, and that's due in part to the lack of me taking the photos in the first place, but also because I don't think there's much room left in this pos

Time to play catch up!

Well it's been a busy few weeks, and unfortunately I don't mean on the plot. The past couple of weekends we've had visitors to entertain - and whilst the thought did cross my mind to hand them each a spade or a hoe, and make use of free labour - I thought better of it for the health of my marriage, and decided to place a drink in the hand of each of our guests before I changed my mind!

Just reading through my previous posts I'm amazed at how long it is since I've last posted let alone done any meaningful work on the plot.

I've been harvesting runner beans now for a few weeks, and they show no signs of letting up - flowers are still appearing and I'm giving away a fair number, but all to good homes I'm sure. The same can also be said of courgettes - some of which have ended up the size of small children!

The peas I think have had it. They have pretty much all succumbed to mildew. The old plants managed to produce a decent drop before being struck, but the second lot didn't really get going before they were covered in the white powder. I attempted a spray solution of milk/water, but I think I may have been too late...

In other news, my onions received a little bit of praise from our award winning plotholder. He was wondering around the allotment taking photos for a slide presentation (do people still do that!?) somewhere locally, and he asked if he could take a photo of my onions. Well, who was I to deny my onions' moment of glory!?

This is the exact same onions taken about a week later, during their "drying out" phase (which it turns out, is nothing to do with The Priory?!) - so when you see them on the cover of.....

...ok, so I'm running away with myself, but I was proud as punch!

The Dwarf, or French beans are romping away nicely now and I'm harvesting them pretty much every week. For such small plants I'm amazed at how much they produce - and like the runner beans they are still flowering, so who knows how long they'll keep it up.

Cabbages and cauliflowers (seen on the left of the below photograph) are coming along nicely. I've left them netted over, but they still have a few holes which I suspect are evidence of yet more slugs. Generally I'm quite pleased at how they're doing and am hopeful to have them ready in time for Christmas. Likewise with the sprouts (on the right) - although I spotted a few caterpillers on them only yesterday when I ventured down to the plot. Needless to say, the offending caterpillers were quickly "dispatched"!

The straw cowboy hat in the foreground is a little more difficult to explain...

I recently even managed to get the lady wife to venture down to the plot with me on the promise of some sugarsnap peas. Here's a rare photo of my glamorous assistant...

I did eventually manage to get the carrots planted, though how well they'll do I've no idea. I hear baby carrots are in this year....

Dad recently bought over a load of edging slabs for me, and until recently they just sat in a pile. Then like a bolt out of the blue I thought "I know, I'll use them to edge a bed!" Genius!

Here's the resulting bed:

Yeah, I though much the same - it's missing something, like a headstone and a pot of flowers or something!?!

Anyway, I sowed (?) some Corn Salad - or Lambs Lettuce to see how I get on.

Maybe lillies would be better...

Ooh, I nearly forgot! I spotted some half decent looking butternut squashes that I'd almost given up on - what do you think?

It's quite obvious that the season is now coming to an end, and reading the books I have, and the advise I've received it seems that the fun really starts now - getting the ground ready for next year!

Looking back at what I started with in February - I'm quite excited for next year!

Here's how things looked in February 2007:

Hopefully thing will look a little different in February next year...

After the rain

I ventured to the plot on Friday just to see how things were after a brief break in the constant deluge that we seemed to have had for the last few weeks.

Generally, things look ok. The weeds have gone mad, and the ground has become really soft - so I'm hoping to finally get the carrots in the ground and maybe make a start getting the rest of the plot in shape ready for next year (I know, talking about next year already, but I think we can write off the rest of this year...).

Here's how the plot looks from the gate.

You can even see the shadow of my Brokeback hat! - keeps the sun off my neck!

Anyway, I checked the onions and they seem to be close to being ready to pull up. The leaves are starting to "fall over", so I guess I'll soon be pulling them up and drying them out ready for storage. Here's how they look collectively...

..and a how they compare to my hands (?), not bad eh? (onions that is, not my manicure!)

I also checked on how the butternut squashes were doing and they seem to be romping away nicely - even if they are starting to sprawl accross the paths. I was given a tip by someone to put them onto some old tiles to keep them off the ground, so I placed some old roofing tiles that Dad gave me underneath the trail of squashes. Some have already been eaten by something - I've no idea what.

The cabbages and cauliflowers seem to have settled in - albeit with a little munching from some creature, slug or caterpiller. They are at least starting to show signs that they are growing.

Sprouts seem to have settled in nicely too - although some of them seem to be a little on the p*ss, so I've propped them up with the bamboo canes, and crossed my fingers they sort themselves out in due course!

I had a quick look at the apple tree that I mentioned before and noticed that there are in fact a grand total of around 10 apples on the tree - two of which were within my reach so I plucked them off. To my untrained eye they look like Bramley's, but I'm no apple expert - if you think otherwise, please feel free to comment.

I also think that the tree itself could do with some t.l.c, so any apple tree expertise would be greatly appreciated - I think it need a bit of pruning personally, but as previously mentioned - I'm no expert!

Anyway, with the kind genourosity of my good neighbour Stuart here's my harvest for the day...

Two courgettes, a handful of runner beans and sugarsnap peas, two Bramley apples and a load of plums.

I gave Stuart a load of runner beans and in return he said for me to help myself to his plums (ooh-er missus). His trees are absolutely laden with ripe plums, and they are even starting to fall to the ground they are so ripe. I think I'm going to make some spiced plum "butter" that is in the current issue of Good Food that landed on my doorstep this morning. I'll let you know if I'm successful or not...

Back on track - ish!

After a week of convalescing (nurses orders), I have discovered two things. 1. Daytime television can rot your mind. 2. Weeds grow faster than you'd imagined possible.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised when I ventured back down to plot 35 for a good bit of old fashioned hard work.

I set off at 8:30 with a bootful of tools and goodies (only half of which I have so far learned how to use), and spent a good 4 hours weeding, planting, harvesting and generally "zenning out" man.

First on my list of to-do's was dig up one of the beds of potatoes to see how they'd faired after what I thought was an attack of blight. about half an hour later (and with a slightly stiff back), ladies and gentlemens, I give you - potatoes....



I found this cute little freak of a potato too - isn't that veird, look it has a nubbin!

Please don't ask me how many there are(I'm rubbish with weights), but it was a trug-load as you can see. I have another bed of the same variety (King Edwards) to dig over, but I need to save something else for another day!

Once these were removed I dug in a load of compost into the bed and planted 6 cauliflower plants and 12 cabbages - lord only knows if they'll survive, I had somewhat neglected them of late due to my foot swellage.

It was my most fruitful harvest yet - I think I may be starting to enjoy this damnit!

Here we have this weeks shopping:

Runner beans



Corgies



Some sneaky blackberries I spotted.



I grew impatient waiting for the onions to be ready so pulled a couple up to see what they're like - surprisingly, they're like onions...



I'd posted (I think), earlier about the fact that I have some form of apple tree on my plot, and that it had no blossom on it earlier this year. Imagine my surprise when I saw this on the tree...




Yes, I was underwhelmed too! There are about 20-30 apples on the whole entire tree, maybe enough for a crumble someday?

Had a little rummage around the butternut squash plants whilst I was there too - look what I sawed!



Here be my first ever tomato - I think it's a plum. I'll keep this photo in an album, along with a lock of it's first hair.



Well, the lady wife's cooking a roast, and the tatties I pulled up earlier smell lovely - that, and I'm afew glasses of red down, so I'm going to call it a day here, before I really start to ramble!

Bitten by the bug - in the truest sense!

A few days ago I visited the plot just to do a bit of tinkering. Wearing my flip-flops my feet were constantly tickled by plants and weeds as I walked around. Anyway, I was crouched down and was picking some peas when I felt a more persistent "tickle" looked down at my left foot and saw some kind of bug on it, at the same time I brushed the bug off without much thought. Then saw a little dot of blood and realised I'd been bitten.

Thought nothing of it and carried on life as usual, until yesterday when it got too painful and swollen that I resorted to seeing the nurse.

She told me I should have come sooner as the poison looked as if it was travelling up my leg (a red "line" halfway up my shin). She prescribed double-dose anti-biotics, along with antihistamine, no alcohol, plenty of rest and stay out of the sun.

I took a photo of my feet side by side:



...but it doesn't really show home much the left foot has swollen up, so I took a picture of each, flipped the one of the right foot round so you can see what difference there is. This is my right foot, and how my left pretty much looked before the bite:



..and this is the bitten foot:



All in all, it's pretty much scuppered my weekend plans - last night it was really painful (these pictures where taken this morning, and it's died down a bit already), but the drugs seem to be having the desired effect.

I've got to go back to the doctors on Tuesday (or sooner if it gets worse), so looks like I'll miss out on a good weekends work!

Blummin insects!

Moral of the story - wear wellies!