Penellype's Allotment

[Penellype]

No gardening time yesterday.

Today I wanted to give the hotbed area one last dig before putting the edges back. It was a cold, dark and dreary morning and my enthusiasm level was near zero. I was going to harvest a beetroot and a lettuce for lunch but decided to stay at home and eat soup from the freezer instead.

The weather hadn't improved much by the afternoon, although it was marginally less cold. I told myself severely that I would regret it if I didn't go, and went and got the job done in about half an hour. The hotbed edges are now back in place ready for filling with horse muck.

Having done that I harvested a parsnip (not too huge this time) and a leek, picked up a few dead brassica leaves in the tunnel and went home.

[Penellype]

Congratulations on your first anniversary , not to mention the huge effort and amount of work you have done. !!!

Absolutely looking splendid...!!
Total Reformation from when I first saw it.
Have a successful 2019
Gp

Thanks geepee, I couldn't have done it without your help. No doubt I will be needing your DIY skills again shortly!

[geepee]

Thank you for your appreciation ,my input has been a tiny amount compared to yours !!!

I'm pleased to be of help and am,as always available at your command Ma'am.
Gp

[Penellype]

Saturday, as always, was hectic and also rather dull and cold and I didn't get to the allotment at all.

Today turned into a gorgeous sunny day. I'm always amazed how much more energy I have when it is sunny. Yesterday I mucked out 2 horses and tidied my friend's greenhouse a bit and was tired. Today I mucked out the same 2 horses and dug out and re-sited the bean pole in my friend's garden in the morning and had plenty of energy left for the allotment in the afternoon.

The first job was to re-site the temporary path that was between the hotbed and the roadside bed. This had been in the wrong place because of the strawberry plants which were growing next to the hotbed and pea bed, but these have now been dug up. I moved the bits of plastic track across and dug the area where they had been to remove any horsetail roots I could find. This leaves the roadside bed rather wider than the other beds (5-6ft), which originally came about partly because of the strawberries, which I wanted to salvage a crop from, and partly because of the rhubarb, which needed the width. The intention this year is to grow 2 rows of peas in the end near the tunnel and possibly remove the rhubarb - a decision on this is needed soon. I may put it near the shed at the bottom of the plot, where the black dalek used to be, but that will have to wait until after the hedge has been removed.

By the time I'd dug the path I was hot and had taken my coat off. I decided to tidy out the shed, as I will need some of the bubble wrap that is at the back, plus the cover for the hotbed fairly soon. My snow shovel was also at the back and I thought it prudent to swap it with the leaf rake, which I have finished with for now. Even doing this, in the shade, I was far too hot and was soon down to a shirt!

One of the things I was looking for was a 2ft x 4ft plastic cloche which I wanted to put up in the tunnel for seedlings etc. I found and assembled it, so now I can start thinking about sowing some more lettuces to replace the rather unhappy winter ones. I may also move the spinach in there if the weather gets cold.

That done, it was time to go home and make final decisions about which buckets of compost I am taking to the allotment to top up the beds for cauliflowers and parsnips. This will free up the buckets at home for potatoes, most of which get fresh compost straight from the hotbin.

[Penellype]

One day I will learn not to believe the forecast when it says its going to be dry! It rained in the morning and drizzled for much of the afternoon, and I decided that housework was a better option than gardening. I did get to the plot to collect the buckets of horsetail roots which I took to the tip, and I harvested a lettuce and some beetroot while I was there.

Hopefully the weather will be more inviting tomorrow.

[Penellype]

Much better day today, sunny and not too cold out of the wind.

I wanted to get the white currant bush pruned at home while the lawn wasn't too soggy to walk on, so I did that first. I then went down to the plot and walked round picking up all the plastic that had blown into the hedges in the wind.

A job that has been niggling at me is sorting out the buckets of compost. This was originally in the black dalek at the plot and is quite rough and full of bits of plastic and tea bags, stones etc. It grew potatoes last year and needed removing from the buckets which will be needed for more potatoes fairly soon. I didn't want it freezing solid in the buckets. I've been mulling over what to do with it and I'd had an idea.

First there were some strawberry runners in small pots which have now rooted, and I potted 4 of them up into a MFB. That makes 6 MFBs of 4 plants each of the variety that was in the soil at the allotment. Being new runners, these should now be horsetail-free. I was left with 5 buckets of compost, half a bucket of soil/subsoil that came out when I was putting the edging board along the raspberry bed, and 2 empty buckets.

At home I have several black troughs, 2ft x 1ft and about 9 inches deep. These seem ideal for growing strawberries and after lunch I took 2 of them to the plot along with 16 potted runners from my favourite strawberry variety, Marshmello. I filled the troughs to within a couple of inches of the top with some of the compost from the buckets, but decided not to put any more in as it contains a lot of soil and is quite heavy (I want to be able to lift the troughs onto shelves) and also contains a lot of weed seeds. The idea is therefore to top the troughs up with a spare grow bag that I have at home, which should be lighter than the soil based compost and should act as a mulch. I plan to finish this job tomorrow.

There were still 3 buckets of compost left, and my plan for the rest of this was to add it to the parsnip bed, which should help dilute the filling (which is mostly rotted horse muck). I decided to sieve it first to remove any large chunks in the hope this will stop the parsnips forking. I therefore spent the rest of the afternoon sieving the compost and spreading it on the parsnip bed, where it formed a layer just under an inch thick. I mixed this in with the remains of the hotbed that I'd put in earlier. I'm now left with 6 empty buckets, one bucket half full of poor soil (which I need to decide what to do with) and 1/2 a bucket of chunky bits from the compost, which needs sorting into plastic rubbish, compostable bits, stones, lumps of soil and the odd small potato.

I feel like I have made some good progress today and got a really useful job done. That compost has been bothering me for a while and it was only last night that I thought of sieving it and adding it to the parsnip bed.

[Penellype]

Yesterday was showery and cold. I made 2 trips to the plot, the first in the morning in the car, to deliver a growbag and 3 buckets of compost which went onto the cauliflower bed. I then went back in the afternoon to plant up the strawberries in their troughs. By the time I'd done this I was frozen, so I harvested a head of PSB (which was thankfully aphid-free) and went home.

No gardening time today.

[Penellype]

Not a great deal of time yesterday due to appointments and work, but I managed a trip to the plot over lunchtime. I dug over the pea bed again (still some fairly large pieces of horsetail root), then repotted the blackcurrant bush using some of the leftover grow bag from the strawberries. The original plan was to plant this in the ground, but I haven't any horsetail-free space for it and I also want to see what the new fence looks like when the council get round to cutting the hedge down. Realistically its going to be a year at least before I plant the bush, so I thought it would appreciate some fresh compost.

That done, I tidied up the brassicas in the tunnel, which were again shedding dead leaves. The brokali has been disappointing here - the central heads of all 3 plants have gone black and slimy. I cut them off and threw them away, and hopefully the sideshoots will be ok, but I am starting to think that the calabrese and brokali do better in buckets at home, although this year aphids have been a big issue in both locations.

[Penellype]

The main job this weekend was to get the hotbed started. This is a little early, but the forecasters have been warning of the potential for a cold spell at the end of January into February, possibly lasting some time. This is by no means a certainty and may never happen, but I really, really didn't fancy the prospect of doing this job in the snow, and I only really get the chance at a weekend, so I went for it.

On Saturday morning I ferried 18 trug loads of muck from the stables to the allotment and put it into the hotbed in layers, treading each layer down as I did so. By the time I'd done this (and mucked out my horses in the process) I was exhausted and had run out of time. I covered the bed with a piece of weed suppressant to keep the smell and any heat in and went home. I'd half a plan to finish the job in the afternoon, but in typical York fashion, despite an all-dry forecast it rained quite hard most of the afternoon.

On Sunday I continued the job with another 8 trugs of horse muck and topped it up with 4 40 litre bags of fresh compost from the garden centre. It was blowing a gale and I didn't fancy wrestling with the plastic cover, so the weed matting went back on top.

This morning I went down and put up the frame and plastic tunnel to complete the setup. The cover had a few small holes in it which I patched with greenhouse repair tape. I don't think these covers will last very long (this one is only a year old), which is a shame as they are exactly the right size for the beds. Hopefully it will do this year at least.

Having got things to my liking and weighed down the edges of the cover with bricks and chunks of stone, I found my compost thermometer and stuck it in. The air temperature was reading about 8C, but the needle shot up as I pushed it into the hotbed and it settled at around 30C. I need to wait until it drops a bit before I sow any seeds I think!

[Penellype]

I went back yesterday afternoon and dug over the tunnel end of the road end bed, which will be growing peas this year. Encouragingly little horsetail came up this time, although there was an unpleasant quantity of cat poo. I found some pieces of metal and plastic mesh and put these over the bits that the weed matting didn't cover in the hope of deterring the cat(s). I then spent a good half hour clearing up bits of plastic and dead leaves that had blown in over the weekend and removed a few weed seedlings along the way. Harvested one of the leeks for tea - as with the last one, when I cut this open it was starting to bolt, so I think the rest of these need eating soon.

Today I dug the rest of the road end bed (apart from where the rhubarb is). There was a bit more horsetail in this part as it hasn't been dug as many times. I then took the stakes out from under the parsnip net so that it drops back down over the hoops - the parsnip foliage has died down and there is no longer any need for the taller net and I could see it sagging badly and pulling the seam apart if we get a lot of wet snow. It will be much better with a rounded top than how it was before. (I took the net off the carrot cage at home this morning for the same reason). While I was doing this I harvested a couple of the smaller parsnips. I also harvested another of the leeks for tea.

The temperature in the hotbed is now between 35 and 40C. Definitely far too hot for spinach and lettuce at the moment.

[Snoop Puss]

^Shame the air temperature is so low, as you'd be getting a good head start on some early toms otherwise.

Hope you have a good 2019.

[Penellype]

Thanks Snoop Puss - yes the heat is really only at the surface, so if it gets frosty the upper part will soon get cold. The bed will soon cool down - last year it settled at around 15C. Once it falls below 20C I will be sowing spinach, beetroot and lettuce in there.

[Penellype]

While it rained this morning the plan was to put together the shelving that arrived yesterday afternoon. These are aluminium shelves which will hopefully be a bit stronger than the plastic jointed ones I am using at the moment, one of which nearly collapsed after rain filled up a water tray under the lettuces. Unfortunately when I unpacked them some of the bits were too short - there are 2 widths, 10 and 15 inches, and the tops were 15 as ordered, but the connecting rods were 10 inches. I phoned and they will send the correct bits, but it meant I have to wait to put them up. Not a big deal.

I did nip down to the plot when the rain stopped to harvest some lettuce and baby spinach leaves for lunch. The winter lettuces are in a poor shape really, some of the green ones were suffering from botrytis and I removed these, while the red ones just look miserable. I moved their shelf to the side of the tunnel and covered them with a plastic cloche, leaving a ventilation flap open so that they have some air. There is not much more I can do for them, so they will have to like it or lump it.

With colder weather looming, after lunch I took some tennis balls down to the plot and put one in each of the water bins. I also took some fleece down and covered the parsnips with it in the hope that the extra protection might stop the soil freezing solid. If it does, with no sun getting to them, the parsnips could be frozen in for some time.

That done, I dug a few dandelions out of the grass paths round the edge of the plot, something I have been meaning to do for a while.

I toyed with the idea of taking the top net off the tunnel. Its a fiddly job, the net protects the plants inside from birds and gives a little frost protection, and the only reason for taking it off is snow. We are forecast "wintery showers" which probably means sleet, but we do sometimes get snow showers off the North Sea in York. Its a difficult call, and I decided to leave it up for now. I may regret this if we get heavy snow showers tomorrow as I will not be able to get to the plot at all, due to meetings all day. I also decided not to insulate the water bins with bubble wrap yet. We are forecast 0 or -1 for the next few nights, which should not be cold enough to split the dustbins. I will have to get the bubble wrap out if it gets very cold, but its a time consuming and fiddly job making sure it doesn't slip or come adrift in the wind, and I decided against.

I harvested one of the romanesco heads for tea, removed the finished plant along with some dead brassica leaves from the other plants in the tunnel, and went home.

[Penellype]

No gardening on Thursday.

Yesterday was rather cold - the forecast had been for 0 over night, but the local weather stations said -2.4 and -4.1. There was certainly a fair amount of ice around. I put together one of the new shelves and took it down to the allotment. The remaining lettuces fit onto this one so there is no hurry to build the other one just yet. Eventually I will probably use them for strawberries in the hope that keeping the plants further off the ground will deter strawberry beetle which was a pest last year.

At the moment all my water bins are full and so are the watering cans. I decided to put one of the cans onto the hotbed as I will be needing some water when I sow seeds, and it might as well be kept from freezing in there. Rather than insulate the bins while they were cold, I decided to let them warm up a bit and insulate them today. I also decided to leave the net on the tunnel until Monday, as the forecast for last night was rain and sleet. I picked some romanesco spears for tea and decided it was too cold to do anything else.

At about 8.30 last night I looked out of the window. The sleet that had been falling when I went to the stables had turned to heavy snow and the ground was white. It is always hard to see what is happening with snow at night so I just had to wait until morning.

This morning was a little "milder" at about 2 degrees. Most of the snow had disappeared, although the allotment was still fairly white with a dusting of snow. The tunnel didn't seem to have come to any harm. By the time I had finished mucking out I was quite warm enough to spend some time sorting out bubble wrap from the back of the shed, and I tied some round each of the water bins. The forecast is -1 tonight, which could on past experience mean anything down to about -5.

As the forecast was for cold becoming colder and possibly lasting well into February, I'd decided to dig up some of the leeks and plant them in a bucket of compost in my garage. I've been caught out with leeks before - they sit there looking at you and are completely impossible to extract from frozen ground, which can creep up on you before you expect it. Luckily the tunnel had given enough protection for the soil not to be frozen and I brought 5 decent leeks home with me along with some beetroot and lettuce and the remains of the 2nd romanesco plant. This has not done as well as the first one, the inside of the head being brown for some reason. Most of the florets were not badly damaged and were edible. there is one plant left, which has developed a bit later than the other 2 and looks fine at the moment.

Today's forecast (which is still completely uncertain beyond about Wednesday, and even impossible to know if the rain will turn to sleet or snow on Monday night) has backed off the cold somewhat. It still looks like being cold, but not the severe cold that seemed to be heading this way on yesterday's forecasts. I'm preparing for the worst case scenario as usual, but it is only one of the possibilities at the moment, despite what the papers would have you believe.

[Penellype]

Feeling a bit in limbo at the moment, so not a lot is getting done. The hedge is still there, and until it is removed I can't really finalize plans for where everything is going, because I don't know how much room I will have at that end of the plot. The best policy seems to leave everything where it is for now. It is also uncomfortably cold to be down there for very long. I therefore didn't visit the plot at all on Sunday and only walked down to check that everything was ok on Monday.

Yesterday I again walked down to check everything, noting that the hotbed temperature has dropped to 15C. This is expected - there is a brief burst of heat to start with and it then cools to about 10-15C where it stabilizes. I will probably sow some seeds at the end of this week (spinach, beetroot and lettuce), possibly on Friday if it isn't raining as it should be warmer then and I don't want to open the cover when it is freezing cold outside.

I harvested the kohl-rabi from the tunnel - this was from a March sowing last year and was badly damaged by slugs shortly after planting out. I left it alone and it survived and produced a very misshapen stem which was again getting attacked by slugs. There was enough edible stem to make a decent meal, surprisingly not tough and woody.