Spent a couple of hours down the allotment.

Planted a row of Swiss Chard (Silver chard 2) next to the row of beetroot I did on Tuesday.

Chard are related to beetroot and have very similar seeds, so I soaked the seeds for about an hour before I planted them.  With large seeds (ie. those that you can actually handle as opposed to the ones that ( Read more... )

I went down the allotment just before noon and ended up losing track of time and staying until it was nearly 3pm.

Weeded out some of the bigger weeds around the broad beans and picked some for tea.  Weeded the big stuff around the onions and garlic.  The onions suffered badly in all the rain, but some have survived. I'll dig them out soon.

Weeded ( Read more... )

In answer to a couple of questions:

Urine is a fabulous free fertiliser.  It contains nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus in the ideal ratio for plants (in commercial fertilizers, you'll commonly see this referred to as the NPK ratio).  It also contains a good collection of trace elements.

Logical really - it contains all the elements necessary to ( Read more... )

The sun's been shining today, without being too hot, so I've been busy outdoors.

Spent a couple of hours this morning working on the front garden.  Mowed the lawn, weeded the bed by the house and transplanted a small euphorbia that was being swamped by large bleeding heart plant.  The bleeding heart has flowered fantastically this year (the flowers ( Read more... )

I should have said perpetual spinach yesterday instead of New Zealand Spinach.  The two are different (I couldn't find the seed packet)  I need to get some seeds....

It has a long cropping period.

When we took over our allotment, it was the only plant there (the previous plot holder had left it in really good condition, covered up beds with black ( Read more... )

 Cleared out some more of my email backlog - I'm making good progress on it at the moment.

Went down the allotment for a couple of hours.  Spread more manure (it's the best time of year to do this job, just before things start into growth).  Started weeding and thinning the New Zealand Spinach - it's a plant that is totally unrelated to spinach, but ( Read more... )

Yesterday Richard and I went to the local stables and dug lots of manure from their pile.  We'll probably go and dig some more next weekend.  I'm always amazed by the ability of horses to produce the stuff faster than gardeners grab it.

Manure is a fantastic soil conditioner.  It's a good fertiliser, but if you use it for several years, you get this ( Read more... )

We're making good progress on the rockery.

Richard's been lifting more of the stones for me.  (they tend to sink an inch or two every decade).  He's done all of the ones at the front now and most of the middle ones.  The ones at the back will be the hardest as they're stacked more like a wall there - there's a lot of soil washed down over the years ( Read more... )

I haven't posted about the allotment in a very long time.  That's mostly because the tennis elbow meant that I was unable to do weeding, so Richard had to do most of the work this year.

Now, thankfully, I think (fingers crossed) that the tennis elbow has pretty much run its course.  The arms still ache, but that's because I'm using muscles that I'd ( Read more... )

There's a lovely row of bright orange squashes and longer, thinner, butternut squashes lining our windowsills.  They're a splash of bright colour in the lounge, and being on the windowsill allows them to ripen.  Ripening is good, as it hardens the rind and ensures they will keep for several months and we'll be eating some of them in the winter ( Read more... )