Wednesday 30 November 2011

Self-gratification

This year for the first time I had a go at collecting seeds from the veg that gave me there best this year, I have never done it before but the process seemed quite straight forward. I let a few of each go to seed or in the case of my courgettes let one grow, and grow and grow! So much in fact it was over 60cm long, and as fat as a marrow!

Runner beans, Bolloti beans, Sunshine squash, Courgettes, Dwarf French beans, Climbing French beans The list is endless, and the whole process gave me a great deal of self-gratification, knowing now that next year the produce I have grown came from seeds that I dried myself and the best thing about it it’s all Free, and to me that’s the most important thing is sustainability and using what I can again, I will also have a go at selling my surplus seeds thus generating welcome income for my allotment.

I was also looking into seed swap schemes, but as of yet can’t find anything close to home, I may even try starting one up on my allotment I am sure there are other people whom have done the same.  If anyone has any advice on this I am open to ideas maybe you would like to swap???

 I would be happy to post some seeds out for something in return.



This is just a small selection of my seed collection mountin this year!

Wednesday 23 November 2011

I just thought I would Raise this.....

Today we put the finishing touches to our new Raised beds down on the plot, I am chuffed to bits with them, all in all we sent £32 on over 120m of timber, I managed to re-cycle about 10% from my garden at home, and got the rest from a local timber auction and a local business that was going to just throw it away!
all that needs doing now is painting and then digging the beds over, but that's for another day. the plot is not square one side is longer than the other and the top is also longer than the bottom which didn't help much when i was trying to make them square. there are 3 small raised beds in the middle that i need to move over a little as they are not even now as these were made in the summer before the main raised beds.

May to Septermber

so after some hard work the plot is taking shape, and my recycle and re-claim is working nicley, got a shed form a friend for nothing and just needed a little TLC and a coat of paint.4
i was loving the bolloti beans that i sowed from my neighbours seeds they gave me last year and what a crop it was becoming.


also the cabbages were looking good but found that i had to net as the bugs were loving them!
so to try to bing you up to speed were now in September and the christmas spuds are in and the crops have been great the leeks are lush and green and i have never tasted anything like them!

Tuesday 22 November 2011

March to May

In March this year I received the news............I had a plot! the wait was over. I had been waiting 18 months and the day of days had come. the local council were creating 60 new plots on an existing local plot and i was on the list. my wife and I couldn't wait to see, so that weekend we went to have a look!(yes i know its sad but we could resist!) what we found was a Field of grass

Yes yes its nothing to look at but to us it was the start of something we hoped would be a success.
The next few weeks went by at a snails pace but we made a start on getting a few essentials, such as spades folks and hoes etc.. but we wanted this adventure to be about using recycled or reclaimed materials as much as possible and only buying new when we had no other choice.
we found out that the local council would plough the plots for us so they would already be rotivated and ready to go.
this year saw us in East Anglia have one of the hottest and Driest springs in years, so when Easter came and we finally got the keys to the plot we had a BIG shock. the ground had been ploughed for about 3 weeks when we got there and the ground was Rock hard it's clay soil mainly and as we know  the sun and clay don't mix.  the plot size is 17 meters long by 12 meters wide just right we thought.

The first few days were Hellish Temperatures in the high 20's Celsius and because it was quite late into the planting for veg we had to get some potatoes into the ground and fast if we were to have a good crop this year. we were not sure what to go for this year as we just wanted to get something in the ground so we went for 3 variety's, King Edward, Sante and Maris piper all good potatoes.
we were at the plot now Known as plot 58 every day for the first week preparing the ground as it was pretty poor.
I managed to salvage 4 old pallets and soon whipped up a compost bin ready to receive the bounty of waste, to create compost.
and that's how the great Veg journey started..........................