Some pictures!

Firstly the 'old' allotment:

The terraced beds, looking up from the bottom of the plot. I like to think it actually looks slightly better in real life!


Signs of life! Is it a bit early for the rhubarb to sprouting like this?


It was a cold, but clear day, looking down across the site towards the valley below.


The 'new' allotment
Entrance to the new plot. Small stone wall at the front, with the rest of the plot surrounded by privet. Shed (well hidden) to the left and greenhouse in the distance.

The Fruit bed with apple tree in the foreground. Rest of the bed has a mixture of raspberries, gooseberries and currants. Like the rest of the plot it could do with a tidy!

View from the plot looking over towards Hillsborough and north Sheffield.

This year I will mostly be growing...

In no particular order, those ordered this year:

Real Seeds
French Bean (Cherokee Trail of Tears)
Summer Squash (Early Prolific Straightneck)
Miniature White Cucumber
Belleville leaf sorrel
Mizuna

Alan Romans (all potatoes)
King Edward
Maris Piper
Orla
Pink Fir Apple
Salad Blue

Organic Garden Catalogue
Purple Sprouting Early
Purple Sprouting Late
Calabrese (Waltham)
Red Cabbage (Marner Fruerot)
Cabbage (Cuor du Bue)
Savoy Cabbage (Vertus)
Snowball (Cauliflower)
Celery (Green Utah)
Courgette (Goldie)
Gherkin (Vert Petit de Paris)
Pumpkin (Tom Fox)
Butternut Squash (Sprinter)
Perpetual Spinach
Shallots (Longor)
Onions (Jet Set)

King's Seeds (via the NSALG scheme)
Beetroot (Bolthardy)
Carrot (Early Nantes)
Radish (Mixed)
Broad Beans (Masterpiece Green Longpod and Windsor Green)
Borlotta Lingua di Fuoco
Shallots (Golden Gourmet)
Onion (Red Baron)


Seeds from last year:
Chilli (Ring of Fire)
Pea (Hatif d'Annonay)
Tomato (Gardener's Delight, Aurora, Costoluto Fiorentino, Gigante Liscio, Dragotsenost)
Broad Bean (Witkiem)
Celeriac (Prinz)
Pea (Telephone)
Spring Onion (White Lisbon)
Carrot (Amsterdam Forcing)
Brussels (Seven Hills and Groninger)
Spinach (Matador)
Leek (Bandit and Pandora)
Parsley (Italian Giant)
French Bean (Canadian Wonder)
Wild Rocket
Pumpkin (Mars)
Carrot (Long Red Surrey)
Runner Bean (Desiree)
Butternut Squash (Waltham)
Sweetcorn (Kelvedon Glory)
Courgette (Albarellodi Sarzana)
Cucumber (Paris Pickling)
Chilli (Hungarian Hot Wax)
Sage
Coriander
Basil (Sweet Genovese)
Spring Onion (Ramrod)
American Land Cress
Dill
Rocket
Basil(Dark Opal)
Basil (Ararat Flamed)
Leek (Saint Victor)
Kale (Pentland Brig and Ascott Purple)
Red Veined Sorrel
Beetroot (Bulls Blood)
Red Stemmed Leaf Radish
Baby Leaf Lettuce (Romana Rossa)
BabyLeaf Lettuce (Red Cos)


I'm not sure I have enough...

On top of that I've order 4 bags of Rockdust to rejuvenate the soil.

Still no pictures
Went down at the weekend, chatted a lot, gave some Jerusalem Artichokes and Rhubarb to a neighbour, took some Jerusalem Artichokes home and put most of the remaining scaffolding boards in to mark out the beds/terracing (it being far too wet to do anything else). It was far too miserable to take any pictures, so I didn't but I did take my Dad to the new allotment to help identify some plants. Needless to say having seen the old allotment at its (almost) worse he was slightly more impressed. Between us (to be fair it was mainly Dad!) we identified lots of Rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, some black/white/red currants, couple of apple trees, some herbs, and quite a few flowers.

A plot too much?

Birthdays, Christmas and the weather have all conspired to keep me away from the plot recently meaning there has been little to report. However I abandoned the family to tend to the plot this weekend. My main aim was to dig over enough of the plot before the growing season starts to have the four large beds for the veg, and I'm pleased to say after a few hours of digging on Saturday this has been acheived. Unfortunately it has been my back that has paid for this exertion.

The 'miniature' Brussels are still hanging on in there and we did manage a small hand full of baby Brussels with Sunday lunch (and an even smaller handful for Christmas lunch) but I'm not sure how much longer my patience will hold out before digging them up. Given it's just them and the Jerusalem Artichokes that are productive at the moment, they're still in place for now... There's no sign of the garlic still, bit worried all the rain will have rotted them. The water running down the lane was coming on to the plot again making things quite sticky (yes I know I shouldn't dig it when it's like that, but needs must!), so I repaired the 'flood barrier' at the entrance in an attempt to keep the water flowing down the path. Some kind soul has seen I'm missing a nice gate and kindly left me something to use there - others may think it was just someone dumping some rubbish on my plot...

The next job is to put the scaffolding boards in place to mark out the beds/terracing. After that tidy up the paths so that they are level, dig some manure into the legume bed and we're all set for this year.

Well kinda. After waiting for three and a half years I was offered a plot on another site. This is much more accessible for Mrs D and the kids, not to mention it being flat, having a shed, greenhouse, pond, fruit trees and marked out beds! There are only about 30 plots on the site and they are like gold dust. Obviously I have to take it, but I can't let go of the original plot either after all the work I've put in (and also because it's not actually mine to give up - it's in the wife's name). So the only option is to move to the allotment and live in the shed ;>) Will have to put in some careful planning, well once I've managed to identify what we have on the new plot. So far we have rhubarb and, erm... Some unidentified trees and some lethal looking slate edged beds.

Hopefully some photos in the next update. But still to decide whether to add the new plot to this blog or give it one of its own!