Penellype's Allotment

[Penellype]

February (photos taken on 1st)



Noticeably more sunshine on the plot than there was in January.



The hotbed has now been sown with a row each of lettuce, spinach, red beetroot and yellow beetroot and the half on the left has been planted with onions. Some of the seeds are old and may not germinate, so I am going to sow more at home in modules, which can either go in the 2nd hotbed or be used to fill gaps in this one. The bubble wrap remains but has been lifted slightly off the surface of the compost, with the extra cover for protection.



The nearer bed still contains some compost from the old hotbeds. A 2nd hotbed in the next bed down was filled a few days ago and in a couple of weeks it will be planted with more lettuce and spinach and possibly beetroot and carrots when it has had a chance to cool a bit.



Nothing much has changed at this end of the plot.



The PSB under the white net is starting to show signs of producing shoots. This bed has been almost inaccessible due to flooding a lot of the time, although I have managed to harvest the odd parsnip in the drier spells.

[Penellype]

More photos



The rhubarb that I dug up which is waiting to go to the tip, is now growing, so I may leave it there for a bit longer and eat it first!



The romanesco plant that appears to be producing new sideshoots.




Hard to see, but the main flowerhead of the biggest PSB plant is now visible.



Spinach in the growhouse



Another view of the flooding around the raised beds, which is about half as deep as it was yesterday. More rain is forecast tonight and tomorrow.

[Penellype]

In the tunnel



The beetroot and leeks are still alive, but that's about all that can be said.



Strawberries have been trimmed and thinned out and a plank of wood added as a stepping stone so I can reach the ones near the edge of the tunnel.



The Oarsman leeks are doing best - they don't look too bad from outside but each one has 3 or 4 pupae in it. I am now certain that this is allium leaf miner, not leek moth, which do not pupate inside the leeks. About half of each leek is vaguely edible.



Another view of the strawberries.



Northern Lights leeks on the left are very thin and weak, Giant Winter in the middle seem worst affected by the damage, although they are valiantly trying to regrow. Whether anything will be edible remains to be seen.

[Penellype]

January photos

Surprisingly, quite a lot has changed in the past month.



A gorgeous sunny day, but at 10am there is only a sliver of sunlight on the plot. The PSB under the bit of net near the tunnel door is almost ready to eat.



The old hotbed has been dug out and the bed filled with horse manure, topped with some of the old rotted material from last year. The bubble wrap is encouraging the grass seeds to germinate so I can pull them out before planting onions, spinach and beetroot here. The frame has been moved across from the 2nd hotbed on the right, ready for a cover later. The next bed down where the growhouse was has been covered with weed matting. This will be given a layer of compost and used for cauliflowers in March. The flood waters have gone down a lot since yesterday, when the grass was flooded right up to the near edge of the new hotbed.




The contents of the 2 old hotbeds are now in this bed, covered with weed matting. Some of this will be used for potatoes and some will be spread on other beds. One of the romanesco plants has been left in the 2nd bed as it is showing signs of producing more shoots.



Not much change here. The kohl rabi in one of the buckets has now been eaten.



Parsnips appear to be surviving the flooding so far. I'm not sure that the PSB likes it though. The growhouse has been moved down a bed and now covers the spinach. The calabrese has been removed.

[Penellype]

More photos



The inedible calabrese and nibbled spinach.



Beetroot (extremely small) and leeks in the tunnel.



Strawberries in the tunnel.



The last of the original rhubarb has been dug out and some of it potted up into a bucket for forcing later. This is the only photo that shows how cold it actually was when these photos were taken, at about 1.30pm. The pieces of rhubarb, plastic path and mesh are an attempt to stop the cats using the disturbed soil as a litter tray. Now that I have removed the rhubarb I intend to grow beans here next year.



The IBC container now has a cover, which will hopefully stop the water going green and possibly protect it slightly from frost.

[Penellype]

December (photos taken on 30th November because I was unable to do them on 1st)



The runner beans blew down in the gales and have been removed. All the water bins and the IBC container are now full and the lids have been turned over. I took the net off the top of the tunnel this morning as snow is forecast for tonight.



Everything is looking rather empty, but at least it isn't flooded at the moment. The council have finally mended the fence (on the left) that was broken when next door's polytunnel blew onto it.



Some tidying up to do, but it is too cold at the moment. The romanesco under the green net has been harvested, although there are a few small shoots left on the last plant. I doubt very much that they will be edible after the frost, but you never know.



The turnips that were in one of the buckets under the green net are now finished but there is still a bit of kohl rabi.



The parsnips seem to have survived the flooding and I have just started harvesting them. As usual they are jammed together and very hard to dig out. I have tried growing them further apart but they just get bigger! The PSB next to the parsnips is starting to show signs of developing flower shoots. The calabrese in the bed behind is still there but has been a complete write-off due to aphids, whitefly and slugs. The slugs are also starting to eat the spinach.

[Penellype]

Thanks Andraste. Its mostly the paths, but rather a nuisance as it makes accessing the beds on that side rather difficult. There is nothing urgent to do apart from pulling a few weeds and picking up fallen broccoli leaves, so nothing too bad.

[Andraste]

*hugs* hope it improves for you soon. x

[Penellype]

2 days later:











Probably nearly 1/5 of the allotment is under water at ground level. This is why I made raised beds! It was actually worse yesterday, but I didn't have my camera with me.

[Penellype]

More photos



I am astonished that these runner beans are still growing.



Romanesco half harvested on the right. The plant on the left is supposed to be the same but is more like green sprouting broccoli.



No idea why my beetroot are so small.



Some clean new growth in the middles of the shredded leeks.



A very late hollyhock flowering in the hedge.

[Penellype]

More photos



The courgette plant that was in the compost bin finally succumbed to frost and it all looks very empty and autumnal now.



The barrow is doing a great job of collecting rain water and will be put away soon. The old raspberries are hanging in there and I will give them another year before deciding whether or not to pull them out. They won't like all this rain.



The IBC container is nearly full, with water above the 900 litre mark. I have bought it a cover which should stop it from going green, if I can manage to work it on between the tank and the shed.




Flooding around the raised bed in the bottom corner. The spinach is growing very slowly and has some slug damage. I'm hoping it will survive the winter and give me some early leaves.



Strawberries sheltering from the rain in the growhouse are still managing to slowly turn red.

[Penellype]

In the tunnel



The cucumber is suddenly looking very unhappy. Yesterday I harvested 4 small cucumbers a couple of inches long, but I very much doubt I will get any more although there are loads of tiny fruit. The beetroot is producing some new leaf but the roots don't seem to be getting any bigger. The beans at the far end are dropping leaves but still have a couple of small beans on them so I have left them for now.



The courgettes have been removed as they were dying. I'm trying an experiment as they were large plants, so I decided to chop up all the leaves and spread them on the soil then cover it with cardboard and see what happens.


The leeks appear to be slowly winning the battle with the leek moth.



I still haven't got round to trimming and thinning out the strawberries.



Tomato Oh Happy day sees to have survived the cold under the protection of the tunnel net. I will harvest the fruit soon, when I have somewhere to put them at home.

[Penellype]

November



Hard to see but the dead apple tree that was in the bucket has been cut down. The runner beans are hanging on and I have harvested a few small beans recently. More are growing slowly.



The tomatoes were showing signs of blight so I harvested all the green fruit and removed them. The compost in this hotbed has been covered with weed matting and will be spread on the other beds or used for next year's potatoes. The water trays show how much rain we had over night.



The French beans and melons have finished and have been removed. The romanesco in the bed behind is being harvested.



The brassicas in the front bed have been removed after suffering badly from grey cabbage aphid. Turnips in one of the potato buckets are being harvested and the kohl rabi is big enough to harvest soon. In the background are 2 of York's brand new electric buses.



PSB and parsnips are doing ok under the net. The calabrese in the bed behind is still full of aphids and is being ignored in favour of the romanesco.

[Penellype]

Planning the layout.

Essentials need homes before I decide where to put anything else.

Beds:

I intend to use bed W1 (usually a hotbed) for climbing beans (French and runner). This means that the remainder of the raised beds are not shaded by the beans. Currently this bed contains the remains of this year's hotbed and has grown a melon and onions, both of which have finished. The top tier of the bed will need to be moved to W2 to make that bed 3 tiers high for a hotbed and I may move the 2^nd tier as well as I do not want to plant climbing beans into a raised bed – they are hard enough to reach when planted at ground level. I may plant some cauliflower in here before the beans, although this risks delaying planting the beans if the cauliflowers are late (they were not ready until nearly July this year despite being an early variety).

Hotbed 1 will need to move to bed W2 - spinach, lettuce and beetroot followed by melon and garden pearl tomatoes. This bed is currently occupied by romanesco, which will be finished fairly soon so there are no issues with making a hotbed here in January.


Bed W3 has been a potato bed for the last 4 or 5 years. Although I grow the potatoes in buckets and therefore rotate the compost, this bed looks a good candidate for brassicas next year starting with cauliflowers then following with romanesco or PSB.

Bed W4 has grown brassicas this year and has had terrible problems with cabbage aphid. The intention is to move the potatoes here.

Hotbed 2 will probably stay in bed E1 - onions, possibly more lettuce, followed by melon or tomatoes. This bed grew tomatoes this year and they did very well here.

Bed E2 currently has the growhouse and has grown tomatoes for 2 years. This year they did not do as well as the ones in the hotbed and it is time for a change. I could grow more cauliflowers here followed by PSB or calabrese and catch crops of turnips and/or kohl rabi.

Bed E3 then becomes the one with the growhouse, used for early strawberries and hardening off seedlings, then planted with tomatoes or possibly a melon instead of one of the hotbeds. This bed can get rather wet, which can't be helped. It is another that has grown brassicas and had issues with cabbage aphid. If I can manage it I may put the 2^nd tier from W1 onto here and make a 3^rd hotbed for the melon under the growhouse.

Bed E4 is currently occupied by parsnips and PSB and therefore will not be available until late spring. This could be used for courgettes.

Current Bean bed – this is narrower than the raised beds but in theory the growhouse would fit here. In practise I think it would be awkward because it is so rigid and quite high and I think it would be tricky to squeeze past it to the raspberries. This bed would fit a row of early peas, if I could trust the sparrows that live in the hedge not to destroy them.

Bed outside tunnel – leeks? This bed had perennial flowers in it when I got the allotment and has therefore probably not got onion white rot. I may be able to grow some of the winter leeks here. (When I first got the plot the tunnel and the area that is now raised beds were both scattered with rotting onions and shallots. At the time I thought they were probably rotting because it was January, but I now think they had white rot.)

I intend to use at least one of the compost bins for a courgette plant again.

Tunnel:

Aside from the strawberries, which take up about half of the east side, the cucumbers and peas need to go in the tunnel, both in the centre.

The other crops that I have not yet found room for are parsnips, Florence fennel and French beans.

I could also plant some carrots and some of the tomatoes in the tunnel as well as later crops of beetroot, lettuce and spinach, if I can control the slugs. Growing more tomatoes here would make some space at home for leeks.

Most/all of the calabrese and all of the kale (if I grow it) will have to be grown at home.

This plan is rather vague in places on purpose and remains flexible. Sometimes things do not work out as planned, for example if the cauliflowers are very late or I have problems with germination or something dies early as happened to one of this year's cucumbers. I may try to dig up the remaining old rhubarb plant, which is in a sunny position, is very big and is becoming very crowded. It did badly this year and I have rhubarb near the woodshed which is becoming established there now, but I may not be able to do this if the weather is too wet or the ground is frozen, so it remains a maybe. This would be a good place to put some of the beans.

[Snoop Puss]

Thanks, Penellype. Will definitely give them a go.