Allotment Updates

Just a quick update, so you guys don't think I have abandoned gardening all together.
.
Last week Sunday I made it to the allotment, and worked on preparing the are air marked for my bush winter squashes I plan on growing there.

I was greeted literally as I walked into the gate by this beauty, I think it is an 'Adonis Blue'

And this calendula is beginning to bloom, Maureen do you recognize it?

.

First the few weeds and signs of nettle and bindweed growth from missed roots needed to be got rid off.
.

Once that was done, I manured the area.

.

I then proceeded to cover the are with some cardboard I brought with me, this should do a couple of things. 1. keep the weeds down and 2. help to keep the area from drying out. The chicken wire is only temporary to deter the foxes in the are from digging the cardboard up.
.

I also saw this little critter, always a good sign in the fight against slugs.

.
On Monday evening I returned to the plot to plant out the young winter squash plants, there should have also been sixteen popcorn plants in the center but like so many of my seeds this year the germination rate was so low it would have been useless to plant them out, so the center will be empty leaving the squash plants more space to spread.
.

In this area I have planted

• 2 butternut squash plants, variety 'Hunter' which is a bush variety.
• 1 winter squash, variety: 'Celebration' I grew this one last year and found that it was a bush variety. the fruit was quite nice to eat as well. So I am giving it another go this year.
• 1 winter squash, variety: Cornellia Delicata (spelling might be off, need to check my seed packet). I grew this one last year but it was the only one to not fruit as the plants became stunted with mildew (it was in a very crowed spot and so air circulation was really bad) I am hoping this year as it is a more favourable place that it will do better and produce.

I have also started foraging for wild free foods but I'll leave that for another post.

Hope you all are doing fine, I'm sure all your food growing is going great guns, catch you all laters,

PS I recently updated Me But A Little Bit More In Depth and you are more than invited to pop along for a visit.

Yep I Am Still Here

So here I am sheepishly returning to the blog world after my unannounced and I should say unplanned hiatus.

I won't go too much into detail but will say life has been very crazy for us here in Maidstone and well something had to give.

My gardening exploits this year have been challenging and that is stating mildly, for the first time ever I feel a bit like a failure in the garden and this is taking into account I have been growing things for as long as I can remember my life. It actually feels like someone has lopped off my green thumbs with a pair of secateurs and buried them deep in the compost bin.

Everything I attempt to grow seems to want to die or not grow at all and so after weeks of bitter disappointment I have conceded defeat and decided to simply look on the bright side of life... The flower garden is looking absolutely great with minimum care, the wildlife seems to relish my practically empty vege plot and are enjoying the overwintered now flowering vege plants of last year (which weren't removed as there was nothing new to put into the beds), some self sown vege plants will give me some small harvests and my gardening friends in the area have passed on a few of their extra plants to me so I'll at least have a few homegrown tomatoes this year.

I also would like to explain my apparent lack of visits to all the gardening blogs I follow but like I said Life has been very hectic and my addiction to the PC can border on chronic at times so I had to go completely cold turkey to ensure I got jobs done and deadlines met. Things are finally feeling a little less crazy around here and I look forward to catching up with all of you on your blogs (though I am sure reading them might cause me to spiral again to a low point when I see what you all have been achieving in comparison to what I haven't).

To help not make the updated post reading too long I will break them up into three smaller postings, which are under this post: The Allotment Updates, The Garden Updates and The Floral & Mini Beast Gallery.

.

I'll be updating my other blog as well which will also help to give you an insight into whats been keeping me so busy.

Allotment Updates

Early in May I was still managing to get to the plot....

.

06 - May - 2010

.

Hubby was on annual leave so I got him to come with me and the girls to the plot, his job was to clear the last rubbish strewn area and to also clear that area of the nettle.

.

I on the other hand got stuck into earthing up the potatoes, which was just as well as we were then hit (if you guys remember) with a late frost which knocked a few unprepared gardeners spuds back a bit.

When I was done with the spuds I got on with weeding and watering the beetroot and carrot seedlings.

Ah! here is my hubby working on that area I have air marked for some bush variety of squashes (I just need to manure the are now).

Jobs all done for the day, a found window box was filled with some soil and some flower seeds were added. The black drum to the left was filled with all the nettle foliage and topped up with water to make some liquid fertiliser tea for the plants later on in the season.

Saw many mini beasts that day:

Lots of slowworms both adults (2) and babies (6)
.

A poor casualty.

.

Butterfly: Common Blue - Polyommatus icarus. During the month of may i saw many of these both at the plot and at home in the garden but they seem to have disappeared again (which generally means the adults are probably all dead and the young are all in their caterpillar/ egg stage).
.
17 - May - 2010

Carrots - Beetroots - Onions

Garlic - Reemerging Spuds

.

This was just a visit to check on the seedlings, water what needed to be watered and I also earthed up the spuds again which fared well with those late frosts.

.

Then life got in the way plus some wet weather days, and the plot didn't see me for 4 weeks!!!

.

13 - June - 2010

This is the scene that greeted me yesterday, I was expecting weeds but lordy, I wasn't expecting this!!!

So what is a girl to do but to whip out her kneeling pad and get down on her hands and knees and get to weeding, which thankfully due to all the recent wet weather (which caused the mass of new weed growth in the first place) came out remarkably easy.

.

On the left is what was cleared first and then I cleared the beetroot's bed next.

.

So after about 4 and a half hours things were looking much better. To the back on the right which looks terribly over grown is the spuds so that area is actually OK and the back to the left where hubby cleared last time he visited is barely overgrown with no signs of nettle regrowth to be seen so I'll manure that in the next week or so and cover with some heavy cardboard and plant out my squash plants (which by the way are my only seed sowing success for the year, well besides the allotment beetroots and carrots).

.

14 - June - 2010
.

This evening after dropping the big kid off to her guiding group, i took the time to visit the plot and get some more weeding done, worked on the carrot bed and half of the allium bed was also done (the garlic side), just need to complete the onion side.

.

Carrots - Garlic
.

Garden Updates

My poor vege garden is practically barren in the way of crops for this year. So to start the updates off (of which there a few) I'll review a crop from last year.

.

Winter Squash: Boston .

On the 16th of May on getting a squash to use in the kitchen, I found that this one was beginning to spoil.

Getting into this squash was so easy it was like cutting butter, it is by far the easiest squash to cut into out of all the other varieties I grew last year.

Sadly easy cutting was its best feature, inside I found a beautiful colour as well as a moist flesh (ok two more good features) but that is where the good features stop. The flesh was so bland, neither sweet or otherwise just bland. It did cook well, and held its shape when stewed or baked but I'm afraid it's blandness means I won't be growing it again.

.

One failure after the next....

photo on the left explains why my runner beans practically failed to germinate, photo on the right show a few die hards making it to the light, only to be mowed down by slugs after the very recent rainy weather of last week.

The mangetout peas are actually doing ok, one of my few successes.

.

Out of all the french beans I sowed four wigwams worth, only one wigwam had an one hundred % germination. But I am afraid these were also cut to the wick by the slugs last week. The photo on the right are the palsy germination of 18 seeds of dwarf french beans I sowed in the greenhouse for an early crop.
.

While I was counting my losses, I decided to look adversity in the face and sowed my squashes and courgettes 18/05/2010.

.

Taken last week my first globe artichoke, it has since been nipped off, as the plant is still quite small and I don't want to exhaust it.

Self sown plants will give me some cropping this year so I'll be leaving them well alone. (L to R) parley, chard, perpetual spinach.
.

Today in the Greenhouse...

.

Dwarf french beans coming along with a few self sown Tomato plants from the my compost heap .

.

On the left are my sown tomato seeds (very poor germination, will grow them on in the greenhouse this year and hope for a late crop). And on the right are donated tomato plants from gardening friends.
.

Hooray an almost 100% germination rate for all my squashes and courgettes, they'll be planted out soon.

Of things to come; frenchbean flower buds on the left and ripening wild strawberries on the right, the girls favourite.

.