Hobbit Allotment!

[horticultural_hobbit]

Morning, Feral,

The paper is approximately 2-3 sheets thick in places. Then there is dead yellowing weeds on top to weight it down; with all of it having been rained on. I probably will need to reapply at some stage whilst keeping on top of it with a hoe. I have lined some of the beds with cardboard; they were already sat on newspaper anyway.

Am thinking about sowing some broadies, perhaps the saved bulbs of garlic. Collecting builders bags. Have two now. Can fill 'em up with leaf mold and grass clippings. Then perhaps in the spring summer put some compost on top, having turned down the sides a bit. Also filling the raised beds with leaves and grass clippings to, to the same end.

Must remember to leave a square block if I want to sow sweetcorn.

[horticultural_hobbit]

Quick update

Planted 100 radar sets, 25 yellow moon shallots, four bulbs of provence wight garlic plus two bulbs saved from a crop, that I have no idea what they are.

Have far far far too many floo'ers. Gave away some hyacinths and narcissus bulbs. I know, you can never have too many. have various plugs that really need planting. So must shoe horn that in as a matter of urgency. Grandad Mike kindly babysitting them.

Still expecting more onions, garlic and shallots. Not sure where I'm going to out them. Plot is going to a field of alliuems. Didn't get 'round to sowing beans yet. if Alys fowler-the otherside of the district-has got some growing, might have to get a wriggle on.

I'm not making any concrete plans whatsoever. With roses and grapes due later in the year, I'm going to carry on playing.

[snohare]

No need to wriggle too uncomfortably yet, young 'obbit, this is the time of year that microclimates can make all the difference - a simple rise in elevation, or slightly different aspect of slope, can radically change how frosty a plant finds things. So maybe Alys is working in a different environment to you...even though you are both would-have-beans.
Good to hear you are spreading the bulb-ous cheer, no-one can accuse you of being narcissustic !
I have a similar dilemma with my alliums. I have leeks, onions, garlic, and soon hopefully shallots; but where they went before this year they suffered from white neck rot, which makes me powerfully disinclined to grow 'em there again. Only problem is, that's about the only clear ground I have at present...and if the ground has white neck rot in it, anywhere on the plot will give them problems. That's the peril of growing on ground that has been an allotment. I have decided to compromise:
I have built a raised bed, I'm putting in lots of moss, leaves and grass and other moisture retaining materiels, and then I am going to cover that with sieved topsoil that has been sitting in piles waiting for the ground elder to die (two years and counting, time to fork and shake methinks). Of course if the spring is hot enough then they will all stop growing anyway - what is it, 75 degrees alliums stop at - but I can live in hope that shading with Enviromesh and cool, moist soil round the roots will do the trick.
If you want to make any concrete plans, I suggest a nice wee pond with the cement, then a layer of gravel and a raised bed on top, akin to Veggiechicken's Trampoline Hugelkultur/Alice Springs Bed. Droughtproofing is not a bad road to go down these days in your neck of the wood; seems laughable to those suffering the aftereffects of earlier floods, I know, but the one goes with t'other.

[horticultural_hobbit]

Another quick update

Am thinking that my eyes are bigger than my brains,

Planted so far:

Garlic:
Provence wight
Bella Italanio (gave spares to Aunty tish)
Sprint
Purple Wight
Some home saved stuff that may have been last years purple or bella.

Shallots:
Yellow moon

Still expecting red, golden gourmet. Have that Esh-something one in Dad's shed. It got stuck in the Brittany Ferry Dispute apparently.

Onions:
Radar planted, gave some Aunty Tish
Waiting for some red electric and shakespeare

Aquadulce Claudia and suttons dwarf broadies

Have put in various tulips and daffodils. Still have loads in dad's shed. But i'm not sure if I can hang onto them and then for how long.

The raised beds are still empty. Will start to fill with leaves. Four builders bags are nearly full all ready of leaves.

Ma's latest soapbox chastisement is that I should plant more indian stuff, namely her coriander, spinach and fenugreek. I will. Next year.

Aunty Tish has kindly given me 99p shop redcurrant, on the proviso that we compete over which one does better. Hers or mine. She had proper rifle through my seed tins today!

I love my Aunty Tish. My second mama really. Babysat us three(plus pops) over the traumatic summer (post op and full of anaesthetic, ma told her to look after her children, she still is).

She gets really excited telling me about her plot.

[snohare]

Hmmm... plotting together, eh ? I can just see things beginning to snowball at the Hobbitallotment...
Walked more than a mile last week, via an Orthopaedic appointment about an operation to my arthritic big toe, to the local Dobbies to buy some Enviromesh. Imagine my joy when I discovered that they did not sell it, nor anything even remotely similar.
But the good news is that I got some Shensyu onions dead cheap. Some day I may even find somewhere to put them. I too am an alliumoholic...

[horticultural_hobbit]

Have ruby chard envy. If I'd known that it makes nice pakoras, would have sown some.

[snohare]

I've got some silver lights chard that I couldn't get to germinate earlier this year...want some ? (A trouble chard is a trouble halved... )

[horticultural_hobbit]

Think I have some in the tins, that I need to play with. Colours look so pretty...

[snohare]

Ooh, tins - you are organised, Hoblette. I have packets scattered all over the place on flat surfaces, lurking on shelves and in gardening holdalls - the height of my efficiency is Tupperware.
But never mind the colours, it's the yum experience you should be thinking of ! (Says the man whose seeds will not germinate anyway, 'cos he left them out somewhere instead of putting them away... )
That gives me an idea for a rainy day. (This one, maybe. Was going to rake leaves, but my stomach says stay indoors.) Make a seedbox to go under the sideboard...I think there is room for one more box next to where I store the parsnips and carrots...

[horticultural_hobbit]

Put some red, blue and white spring flowering poundland bulbs into the clay. As well as the boskoop glory and Madeleine something grape vine. I think I may have broken the latter one when persuading it from it's pot. Red currant, in its sticky glory, was shoved in.

Am going to have to speak with the universe, request that reduced amounts of precipitation fall. At the moment, as it stands, water stands. Meaning that anything and everything is most likely going to rot.

Have lots of tulips to plant still. I do like my tulips. Not quite sure whether last years are going to come through again.

Now just waiting for roses to turn up. Need to find some green barrier fencing eventually for the vines, should they actually want to grow. I did put some MPC under them and the around them.

If the worst comes to the worst, I shall have a plot full of flowers.

[Feral007]

All sounding good. Will be a riot of colour as well as food soon.

[snohare]

Am going to have to speak with the universe, request that reduced amounts of precipitation fall

Be careful what you ask for Hobbit, you might get it ! I am half expecting one of those old-fashioned "iron frost" winters, where the ground was as hard as steel and the only way to dig graves was to light a bonfire above the spot first. The sunspots are going all to pot (ie vanishing) which is not a good sign, add on reduced summer temperatures putting us at a disadvantage heatwise from the beginning as we enter into winter, and then add El Nino and ENSO, and it may be a time of tribulations.
But the good news is I think, that bulbs are exactly the sort of thing that have been honed by millennia of climatic variations, to cope effectively with such extremes of temperature. Not so sure about the South African/subtropical ones, but we may hope.
I envy you your flowery flourishes. My allotment is downright ugly. I never have enough time or energy to spend there, never quite have enough materiels to tidy up edges and make it shipshape. I think you have started off on the right foot, adding in some decorative bits from the word go; if I had done that, perhaps mine would look a bit less...starkly utilitarian.

[horticultural_hobbit]

I think, Sno, Feral, I was lucky last autumn. There was relatively little rain, the rise of the tulips was entirely fluke. The dahlias have died; consumed by the clay I think. Have planted loads of tulips this year, having smiled at what came up last year.

I'm trying to make the best of the conditions. The clay is lovely, I know, but it has its pitfalls that I rue almost daily. Flowers help overcome the adversity. I will be gutted, should all the garlic, onions and shallots fail to come off. With the raised beds, hopefully that will work too. Ma and middle sister remind me regularly to make it all productive. The beds are getting filled with leaves at the moment, so I can then fill up further with MPC next year. I know that lead mold needs two years ish to break down, but hope that putting the MPC on top will help things actually come off.

There is stupid rent increase too. From the reduced price of �15-full price of a half plot is �30-to �50. Is a lot really. Unless I wish to move plots, clear it again and pay �15. Don't really fancy moving now anyway!

If I can get one vegetable next year, one courgette at the very least, I'll be happy.

[rustylady]

I think we're all hoping that next year will be better Hobbit. It could hardly be worse than this year.

[snohare]

You are of course perfectly correct that your soil is too heavy Hobbit. But have no fear ! I think I have seen the cause of your predicament, the removal of which will cure your woes...

I know that lead mold needs two years ish to break down

Of course, as you will find if you talk to your chemistry/physics colleagues at work, the worrying thing is what happens when it breaks down...transuranic elements, anyone... On the plus side, you should find your plant breeding programme goes with a bang.

Seriously though, leaf mould does not take two years to break down. I'd expect that to be more towards the worst-case scenario. Mixed with fine crumbly soil (do you have any ?) in a builder's bag, I find that mine takes something more like six months. So MPC will make a difference.
Personally, I am going to have a thick layer of leaves at the bottom of my new raised beds, to act as a moisture reservoir that the watering pipes feed into. I am not so worried about the nutrients, they will be a bonus when they come.