2012 Allotment Diary -Me: 2.75 hours He: Zero

Happy,  happy, happy day - or morning I should say.  The weather was finally kind enough to let me spend some time up my allotment to do some work, rather than just going up there to take waste for the compost bins between rain and snow showers!

We had a chap come to prune our neighbour's overhanging trees in the winter (with permission, but she didn't even offer to pay towards it!)

The tree surgeon's partner has a small plot just inside the allotment site and there is often a pile of wood chips with a 'Help  yourself' notice - but I have never managed to get some before everyone else has helped themselves!

So I asked if he could dump/tip the equivalent of a dozen barrow loads onto the concrete outside my shed, leaving room for me to open the door.

I had a call a couple of weeks ago to say that he had left some - and today was the first time I could get up there.

I was in for a bit of a shock!

 It is quite difficult to show you the scale of this massive pile!

 

Apparently it was a big truck load according to his wife, but as she rightly said, I can always put a 'Help yourself' notice on it if I don't use it all up!  

The above photo was after I had shifted 10 barrow loads!

 

It was a really dark dull day today - which is perfect for me - but I had to brighten all the photos.

Mr Lottie went into town so I diligently worked and worked and worked until he came up to find me, almost three hours later!

 

I have moved 26 wheel barrows full, each held 16 heaped shovels full.

 

I wouldn't normally count them. but it was the only thing that kept me going as it was exhausting!

 It is at least three inches deep.  Underneath is membrane but over the years it was starting to break up a here and there and the dreaded Dock weed seedlings started to appear, and were difficult to dig up.

 

I need to do a bit of weeding on the right hand side - just winter weeds before I put some on there, and I might move the rubber path along the middle, as I have so much shredded wood so I can cover right across.

I arrived home thoroughly exhausted having worked myself to almost a standstill - but I felt so elated to be outside, up my windy allotment, without a soul about, and doing some physical work - you just can't beat it!

I am sitting resting now after a long  hot shower, and salmon shanties for lunch, and smelling now of Coco Chanel.   And if I don't ache too much tomorrow and it isn't raining, I'll be back there shifting some more! 

(Mr Lottie fancies a  bonfire!)

All snowed in!

Hello  everyone

I've been a bit quiet over the past few months - I won't bore  you with the reasons!

 

I changed the banties bedding as we were forecast sleet, and it was a tad bit cold so it's nice for them to have deep Hemcore bedding in their run.

 

The weather forecast was right for a change!

 

We've had over six inches of snow - and we are snowed in!

 

Mr Lottie had to get his wellies on and get the newspaper for next door too, he's so used to driving to the Post Office to pick them up - ah shame!  I did offer as I'd love to be the first to walk up the lane and do a John Cleese institute of silly walks in the virgin snow!!

 

My little chooks are hard to see in Peckingham Palace - but they are there and snuggly!

 

It feels like Christmas

Mr Lottie's footprints were the only ones from this end of the lane - the village looks quite Dickensian and very pretty.

What a cheek!

I was just finishing posting on my blog when my husband shouted 'Oi' - something had landed with a thunk on top of the roof where he was sitting and giving him the beady eye!

 

Can you see who is tapping on the window?

It's none other than........

 

Zola Buddy Bantam - her namesake was a runner who always ran barefoot.

She obviously thought that it was time her and the others got fed.

The clocks have gone back - so the bantams queue up outside the door at 3.45pm now - which in their body clock is their usual feeding time of 4.45pm

Gozzie - who is a black Rosecomb bantam has the habit of sitting on the windowsill and tapping on the window to tell us that they want feeding.  She also does it when we are eating too!

 

This is a new trick for Zola!   I'll have to clip her wings again.

I called her down when I went out...

 

And she flew right across the lawn, almost to where their run is - in an attempt to get to the food first!

Cheeky thing.

Well it's still dry so ...................................

 

This area needed sorting out - it's the right time of year to sow grass seed.

 

So, with Mr Lottie's help we moved the table and chairs

and lifted up the very heavy slabs and moved them down the other end of the garden

 

The weeds had to come out 

 

There were quite a few

 

We are sowing grass seed right up to the raised beds - which I am filling with all the spent compost from the pots which were in the lean-to

 

We moved the bench and table too which was in the way

 

The last of my 'winter' lettuces - I had the small one today for my lunch - with a roasted Salmon Shantie, half a white cabbage finely sliced and mixed with seeds and dried fruit and a spoonful of mayonnaise and vinegar and some pepper  (delish) and the last of my home grown tomatoes havested yesterday when the lean to got cleared out.

 Hmm - what shall I do next - maybe a visit to the allotment for a bit of weeding and a winter tidy up

It's freezing cold, it's sunny - so what can I do?

 

There is only one thing for it - I just had to go out into the garden

 

And do a much needed tidy up of the lean-to 

 

All spring and summer it turns into potting shed, then a 'greenhouse', and sometimes used for broody chickens  - hence the 'sin bin' cage!

 

Out went all the tomato plants, Japanese cucumber plants, and peppers

 

It's October - so that means it's pumpkin time

 

So I cleaned, swept, tidied, and stored the pumpkins in the sunshine.

Well that took all morning and some - it's nice to get it done

Messing about in the garden

I have been doing quite a lot of work in the garden - pruning, cutting back, transplanting - the list is endless

 

I have been shaping some laurel and a box tree into lollipops, and doing lots of weeding

 

My lollipop Bay tree - it was huge before but looks much neater now - I pruned those sticky out bits off at the back.  I think I might take up hairdressing as a new hobby!

 

We lost  yet more conifers to the disease so two more came out - we couldn't afford to get the rest cut down.  The sunshine was very bright today, but we have stained the fence which is now dark brown but doesn't look it in the photos - and ditto the raised beds - I stained those dark brown to match.  I have put some rotting turf clods in them - they make great soil, and will cover that with well rotted compost, and next spring/summer these will be planted up with veggies - probably climbing beans, its a perfect place for them - well sheltered and sunny.

 

Here are some more I stained - I have run out of wood stain now!  Just as well as I get a bit carried away!

This afternoon the lawn had dried out after the heavy overnight dew, so  grabbed the opportunity to mow the lawns.  I was shattered as I had been working out there for a number of hours, but really wanted to get at least one for cut in before the weather changes  - and pick up the leaves in the process!

On the right is Kath's garden, with the brilliant yellow chrysanthemums still flowering their hearts out.  The flower bed wraps itself around my garden room and I can see her garden from the conservatory too.   I am going to widen it another foot or so now that the building work has finished and the lawn has recovered.

 

I have been very brutal with the cutting back of the Woodland garden on the right - but it'll be worth it next year.  More of my 'lollipop' trees against the fence - they'll look good in a year or two.  They were big bushy shrubs before.  Inbetween them I have transplanted some gooseberry bushes from up the allotment, and some perennial plants from the front flower beds.

 

It's nice to see the lawn without the layer of leaves - but it'll only be a matter of days before it'scovered again.  Where I put the chickens on the lawn for a week or so whilst we were away a couple of times, the grass has grown really lush and you can actually see where they have fertilised it!

 

 I have done a lot of weeding and transplanting and created a nice neat path

 

....to make access to the 'business' corner of the garden easier.

It we can afford it, the birch tree is getting the chop - it's taller than a house and we are a bit worried it might fall into our neighbour's garden if we get any bad storms in the winter.

 

This woodland garden does look rather bare - I confess I was over zealous with the saw and shears - but I am transplanting lots of perennials so it should be full of summer flowers next year - until the shrubs grow rampant again.

 

The last of the winter lettuces

 

They look almost too good to eat - like lovely florettes - but eat them I shall

 

Earlier in the week I cleaned out the chickens - and the next morning it looked like this.

Can you see all the feathers - they are all moulting

 

The lawn was covered in them too - hence my mowing it today

 

For lunch I cooked brown rice with fresh salmon fillets in a tomato pesto sauce.

 

The chooks always get the bits of rice left in the saucepan and literally fly in from wherever they are in the garden when Mr Lottie bangs it like a gong - then there is a real kerfuffle to see who can eat the most in the fastest time.

Last week we officially gave up the bottom end of our allotment - about 50ft.   

 

We weeded the beds (the one in the foreground included)

We have dug up half a dozen gooseberry bushes - but left the biggest and best one, and have left a bed of fruit bushes for the new holders.

I got a  phone message to tell me that there was no rush and they didn't have a waiting list - and that it would be advertised in the church magazine.  

Well we did rush, and it's finished - job done.

Now there is just a tidy up our top end to do, manure to spread, and then 'put it to bed' for the winter

Allotment Diary 2011 Me: 82 hrs He: 73 hrs

 

These photos are a bit late being posted - I took them on the 7th October when we went up the allotment and I havested most - if not all of the last of the produce.

 

After cutting up all the above I ended up with a few large bowls

 

Ready for a cook up

 

I added six tins of chopped tomatoes (my own grown ones were too delicious eating them fresh to use up on this mammoth cooking session.   I used one stocking full of onions - about 8 and four jars of roasted red peppers - and garlic and anything that came to hand

 

Oh and all the potatoes that had been speared when dug up - all mixed varieties

 

And I created 14lbs - yes 14 pounds of scrumptious Ratatouille.  All now frozen in meal sized bags ready for winter.  I use them for veggies with meals, I turn then into soups, add them to stews, eat them with fish, chicken, red meat, pasta, rice - and each mix is always different.  Yummy.

Here are a few photos of how 'Kath's Garden' is looking.  I created it around two sides of my garden room a few months ago, so it's in it's infancy but has been very pretty up to now.

 

The weather has turned cold and we have had a light frost, bu the chrysanthemun bushes are just glowing.

I have three of these

 

The other perrennials are clumping up nicely, and I'll be widening the beds and planting bulbs and crocus for the spring