As an urban allotmenter, with the dream of one day running my own smallholding, follow my successes, trials and tribulations on the allotment as I strive to become self sufficient. I hope you enjoy.
I said there was something magical going on today...
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...as I collected my potato sacks to head up and lift my potatoes, one stray leftover had turned into a Christmas Bauble!
I've had 9 months (almost) since I took over my new garden and I thought it was time to look at a before and after picture. The first image is once we took down the large trees. Unfortunately, I haven't got any of before we started any work which is a shame. The second is this morning in the glorious sunshine looking magnificent. We're currently self sufficient in cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, spring onions, broad beans, herbs and, of course, eggs. Garlic will be harvested in a couple of weeks and I've already pulled up the last of the spinach that was sown last year - it bolted but went to the chickens so not a waste. Currently in the ground are onions, peas, French beans, soya beans, parsnip, carrot, beetroot, lettuce, sweet corn, tomatoes, courgette, several squashes, cucumber, and an array of brassicas. I'm growing potatoes in bags and hope to do the same with my sweet potatoes. Ive never grown sweet potatoes so its a first for me. In the greenh...
So I'm appreciating the scale of the task in hand now! I decided that the old tool shed had to go... the bottom slats and the base had gone rotten all the way round to the point that the outside was coming through to the inside! Once the roof was off, it literally crumpled. With half an hour before the dump closed I managed to get half of the old shed away. The rest is propped up ready to go next weekend. I started putting up the new shed yesterday and got as far as levelling the base and putting the 4 sides up. This evening after work I've managed to get the door and roof on. Hopefully the felt will go on later this week. Now, I'd initially thought that I might be able to do something with the old shed and turn it into my new chicken coop over the winter, but alas it's not going to happen. I'll need to go back to the drawing board with that plan for the spring. The local DIY store managed to only deliver part of my hard landscaping order so a...
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...
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