Next Stop The Great Outdoors

Onions, shallots and garlic. All should have been planted out to overwinter on the allotment but I never quite got round to it... Still they look happy where they are and now occupy the back garden to get a taste of some real weather. Hopefully they'll be making the acquaintance of Mother Earth later this week. I need the space for seedlings that have to be potted on.

The Engine Room

Having an allotment with soil that is far from breaking down to a fine tilth, as described in all good gardening books, I start most crops in modules. These 2 fine mini greenhouses are the engine room of my growing aspirations. Everything gets started in here, or overwintered, and then they are moved out to the back garden where they harden off or until I get round to planting them out.

They're only about 5' tall, with four shelves each, but they hold a surprising amount of seed trays and pots. The first one I bought about 3 years ago is now starting to break down. The plastic covering has an inner mesh work and the small plastic squares are starting to fall out. I've now developed a transitional stage where seeds are germinated in the perfect one, 'exposed' to some of the elements in the older one before moving to the back garden. Simple but effective and it seems to work.

How Not To Chit Potatos

Receive the seed potatos in December by post, in a box. Place box somewhere safe and frost free in the garage. Forget about potatos. 3 months later remember about potatos. Forget safe and frost free location of box. Turn garage upside down to find box. Find box and open it. Place netted and 'chitted' spuds into mini greenhouse as it's now too late in the day to plant them.

True Food On The Doorstep

The bottom pic is the current state of my main bed in the front garden and the top one is of the bed in front of our bay window. Many years ago it used to look quite good but now is just a mess. The planting has been swamped by weeds and self-seeding bullies and the soil is a mass of roots.

I have started cleaning it up and intend to keep a few structural plants but most will be planted with 'edible' crops. Against my neighbours new fence I've planted hedge of Cherry Plums and roses. Currently just some sticks in the ground, but in the years to come the basic ingredients for jellies and liqueurs.

The bay window bed will be mainly herbs and flowers. The seeds are sown, we now wait for the first signs of growth.

The Here And Now

These pics was taken this morning showing the bare bones of my plot in all it's glory. To the right of the bottom pic we have the 'Salad Bar', 3 baths filled with compost which normaly hold vegetables for the creation of wonderful salads. Currently the third bath contains a redcurrant and gooseberry that were given to me and have overwintered there while I dig out a bed for them. This bath is soon to be conveted into a sand pit so my daughter won't get bored after 10 minutes and want to go home. When she's too old for it I'll empty it on my sticky London Clay soil in the forlorn hope that it will do some good. Just behind that are the galvanised water tanks with slabs over the top which currently serve as my dining table and chair.

Comfrey and horseradish front my plot because these beds often get run over as drivers reverse onto them. The arch of rusty metal is meant to be a barrier but it doesn't seem to work!

As I clear an area I tend to create a bed, edging it with some bricks or wood from my pile of 'to-be-recycled' items left by the plot's former owner. Paths are normally slabs overlaid onto landscaping fabric. Bed size is arbitrary, giving a rather haphazard layout. I think the polite design word currently used for my plot is 'eclectic'.

I'm currently still cropping leeks and chard and that's about it. The rhubarb is coming through and the overwintered brassicas are now putting on a growth spurt. Next week, all being well, I'll start planting out my onions and garlic which I started last year in pots. Also my early spuds will get to make contact with mother earth in the very near future too.

The very top pic shows that I've still a lot of digging to do. The top end of the plot is basically 2 or 3 layers of carpet that has bindweed and grass growing through it. Back-breaking to get off but the soil underneath is very easy to work with little deep-rooted perenial weeds to dig out.

As there is a lot of bindweed and a bit of mare's tail on the site I won't use a rotovator for a few years until I get most of it out. I prefer use a fork and some grunt work and get out the roots in one long strand, rather than pick up hundreds of little chopped-up pieces of root. I saw a neighbour make that mistake..........

Allotmenting - The Early Years

19th November 2006 was the date I became the proud owner of Plot 144. The sun was shining, the site was green and my 2 young kids were exploring a tangle of overgrown shrubbery, weeds and grasses while trying not to become entangled on thorns, prickles or lumps of old metal.

Plots were at a premium when I took this over and beggars couldn't be choosers. Nowadays you have to join a long waiting list to get even half a plot, so I guess I was lucky. 100 feet x 30 feet of prime growing land, cunningly concealed beneath 5 years worth of neglect, rubbish and 'weeds'.

2007 was a year of learning. The main fact learnt being that despite cutting it all level and starting to create piles of concrete, piles of metal and piles of other assorted junk the weeds grew back very, very quickly. Grass, brambles and bindweed being the main culprits. A few areas were cleared, about 20 feet square in total and crops grown, but that was it. Dreams of clearing the site and digging it all over in the first season were just that, dreams. Maybe if I'd been retired then I could have spent more time there, but the reality was starting a new business and having a young family. That said the stuff we did grow was great!

2008 saw me have the measure of the site. I knew what to expect, how much time I had available and that I was in it for the long haul. By the end of the year I had dug up most of the offending metal, wire and bricks, swapped one of my 4 inherited baths for a wheelbarrow, dumped loads of rubbish, cultivated about 40% of the plot and grown some great stuff. Spuds, onions, garlic, courgettes, squashes, beans, cucumbers (normal and exploding), chard, turnips etc etc etc. A composting system was put in place and I used a lot of the stuff found on the site to build beds, pathways and an al-fresco dining area for one.

The idea of clearing the site in 1 year was totally unrealistic bearing in mind that I average only 4-6 hours per week down there. 4 years is the new target. I intend to not worry about laying the plot out to any specific design until I've dug it over and cleared it completely. I've also decided to use as much of the 'rubbish' found on the site and give it a second chance. When I do complete the initial dig in about 2010 I will then put in place the 'master plan'. In the meantime it looks untidy but the soil is good, I'm doing everything organically and I'm hoping to extend the cropping season to a good 10 months of the year.

Letting The Side Down

We live in a neat suburban town where everything that is good and bad about Essex can be found. Our bungalow is in a respectable street with moderately wealthy neighbours, either working or retired.
Properties in our area are neatly painted with smart cars in the drive and smart gardens to the front and back.
Unfortunately the free time I imagined I would have by not working in London is much less than I dreamed of. Some things have 'let slip' and the worst of these is our front garden. Unkempt, unloved and overgrown it's a favourite resting site for a whole range of native flora and fauna. Unfortunately it's also a bit of an eyesore. Never normally worried about what others think of me even I'm a little ashamed of it's state.
Last month I decided to make a start on cutting it back and digging it over, just to tidy it up.
Unfortunately other things got in the way and it's not really progressed very far...
Like a business you need a vision and a plan to get you there. Cutting back and digging, although a challenge, didn't really give me an end goal. But whilst digging out more roots I decided I'd have an edible front garden. A cross between a potager and a cottage garden. A posher version of my allotment.
This blog will be about the ongoing trials and tribulations of growing stuff on my lottie and creating a front garden that is practical but pretty - and won't upset the neighbours as it currently does!