On the Allotment
After our burglary two weeks ago my replacement camera came on Monday. It is exactly the same make and model so no new learning to do but I have realised that leaving hundreds of photos on the camera memory leaves me open to irreplaceable loss. It is my intention to scatter pictures in various places as soon as possible, the computer at home, flickr and a selection on googleplus. The big loss for me was the sequence I had been taking at the allotment.
I have put up here some of the oldest allotment photos and some I took yesterday. They show some of the progress made over the past six months.
When we were offered an allotment about a year ago we went to the site and had a look. We had some difficulty finding it. When we did it was heavily overgrown with weeds and brambles. There is a picture of me wading through it. It did not seem suitable but the one next door was equally overgrown but with evidence of greater possibilities. We had some time to wait as the allotment office went through the process of finding the current tenant, sending him a notice to improve, failure to improve, warning of notice to quit and then final notice. The whole process took about five months. We final got on in November.
January to March involved slashing away the undergrowth on the top half of the site and having frequent fires. I have developed a new respect for slash and burn agriculture. It sounds easy until you try it yourself. I have a contact who can supply me with pallets. With these I repaired the roof of the building and walled off one end to make a shed.
March started planting. Many crops started as seeds in trays on windowsills. Others directly sown or planted in the ground. Now crops are starting to come in. New potatos, radishes. broad beans, peas, courgettes, shallotts and rhubarb have already cropped although not yet in large quantities. Beet, onions, tomatos, grapes, turnips and assorted brassicas are on the way.
I have attempted a three sisters planting. Sweetcorn, runner beans and squash. The idea is that the corn grows vertically and supplies a framework. The squash forms a ground cover and suppresses weed and the beans grow through the lot and fix nitrogen for the others.
All are growing well but the corn is not fast enough. If it were a race the beans are winning hands down.
The bottom half of the allotment is a blackthorn jungle (sloes). I am slowly hacking this back but black thorn fights back. I'll probably write more about the jungle later.
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I have put up here some of the oldest allotment photos and some I took yesterday. They show some of the progress made over the past six months.
When we were offered an allotment about a year ago we went to the site and had a look. We had some difficulty finding it. When we did it was heavily overgrown with weeds and brambles. There is a picture of me wading through it. It did not seem suitable but the one next door was equally overgrown but with evidence of greater possibilities. We had some time to wait as the allotment office went through the process of finding the current tenant, sending him a notice to improve, failure to improve, warning of notice to quit and then final notice. The whole process took about five months. We final got on in November.
January to March involved slashing away the undergrowth on the top half of the site and having frequent fires. I have developed a new respect for slash and burn agriculture. It sounds easy until you try it yourself. I have a contact who can supply me with pallets. With these I repaired the roof of the building and walled off one end to make a shed.
March started planting. Many crops started as seeds in trays on windowsills. Others directly sown or planted in the ground. Now crops are starting to come in. New potatos, radishes. broad beans, peas, courgettes, shallotts and rhubarb have already cropped although not yet in large quantities. Beet, onions, tomatos, grapes, turnips and assorted brassicas are on the way.
I have attempted a three sisters planting. Sweetcorn, runner beans and squash. The idea is that the corn grows vertically and supplies a framework. The squash forms a ground cover and suppresses weed and the beans grow through the lot and fix nitrogen for the others.
All are growing well but the corn is not fast enough. If it were a race the beans are winning hands down.
The bottom half of the allotment is a blackthorn jungle (sloes). I am slowly hacking this back but black thorn fights back. I'll probably write more about the jungle later.
Collapse this post