Alan's Allotment

I received my email 'to do' list via Gardeners World and thought it opportune to see how well I was doing myself, and look back over the month to assess my progress.  January Jobs Winter prune apple and pear trees to remove any dead, damaged, congested and diseased branches  - Yep...done. All six apple trees have been 'tamed' and are ready to burst into bud once the weather warms up.  Sort out your seeds, throwing away empty or out-of-date packets and noting down any to buy for the coming season - Well I'm a sucker for old seed packets and I know I have a few beyond their dates!  Plan this year's crop rotation to ensure you grow each type of crop in a different bed to previous years  - Done. I have divided up my new beds into 4 and hope that I'll have enough space. The jury is still out as to whether or not I'm going to do potatoes this year. You can’t beat home grown, but space is now limited so I may have to go without.  Prune goo...

After much deliberation I've decided on my chicken run. In reality, the biggest factor was cost, but once my budget was set, I was looking for quality, floor space and the ability to stand up inside to clean it out. This one has approximately 36sqft of floorspace and comes in at about 5ft tall. I will have to stoop, but it allows me in easily to tend the birds. I'm aiming for three to start with, but know these things have a habit of growing in number. Whilst I was doing my research, I had a number of locations in the garden in mind. Now I've chosen the coop, I have to site the thing. And that's easier said than done. So I've build it in sections and carried it out to the garden, placing it in various points around the garden. It looks like I'm going to have to move the fruit bushes as it looks best right where I put them in. Not a problem, I just need to wait for the ground to thaw as it's been frozen solid for the past two weeks. I'm going to...

Winter is definitely upon us and the heavy frosts we've had this week mean work in the garden is slowing.  I've turned my attention to the 'structural' job of tree pruning. We have 7 apple trees in need of a 'short back and sides', a plum tree which needs turning back into a plum tree, a small lop sided cherry and a large/massive ornamental purple tree (possibly plum/cherry decedent). Knowing not to touch the stone fruits at this time of year I set to the biggest of the trees first. Here's the before pic: Given that it blocks a lot of sunlight from the garden (it's on the south side), the advice of 'prune no more than 20%' had to be discarded.  I needed to tame this beast and would use all the shredded limbs to form the walkways between my veg beds. Larger limbs would form my log pile at the back of the garden to encourage even more wildlife. This turned out to be a longer job than anticipated. Working well into the dar...