The Missing Allotmenteer

Still no allotment for me, this time due to the fact I have a rather nasty cold, sigh. Never mind, I think I’m on the mend now. In the meantime, K popped to the allotment to give it a general tidy up and see what harvest was available. He managed a few autumn raspberries, plus two very small courgettes, but the harvest season is definitely on the way out now, sob! As a result, he took out the courgette and (unproductive) marrow plants for this year – though we hope to get another courgette plant for next season – though not the marrow as it didn’t do anything.

Whilst there, K chatted to a fellow allotmenteer who was wanting to borrow a spade for a quick job – sadly ours broke a couple of weeks ago and we’ve not replaced it yet, so we couldn’t be of any help. However, the lovely allotmenteer said he might have a spare spade or two at home and he would bring one along next time to save us buying another one – what a lovely man! We are very grateful indeed.

Finally, the flowers are coming to their natural end too, but K did manage to pick chrysanthemums, dahlias, cosmos and coreopsis, and here they are in their vases:

Happy weekend, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books

Saving Celosia Seeds

New Paperback: A Year in the Allotment (A Beginner’s Guide to Losing the Plot)

A Year in the Allotment (A Beginner’s Guide to Losing the Plot) is now available as a paperback at Amazon.

What about having an allotment? So my husband asked me one day when I was innocently opening the wine and planning our weekend. The shock of the question made me blink and of course I laughed away the very idea: too much effort; not enough time; and besides we don’t know anything about allotments. All well and good then, and I thought that was that, but strangely enough the idea kept niggling away and resurfacing on various occasions. Then a mere couple of months later, my objections were somehow swept aside by his enthusiasm and we found ourselves the proud and very nervous owners of an allotment. With not a clue what to do with it. This is the story of our first year as allotment beginners and how we survived it. And even came to love it.

It is also available as a Kindle, if that’s your preference.

Happy Allotmenteering!

Anne Brooke Books

Guide to Planting Daffodils

Allotment by Proxy

At the moment, I have problems with my left arm so I’m not supposed to do any gardening – at least not heavy gardening, so I haven’t visited the allotment this week at all. However, K has spent some time there today and moved some of the old raspberries and currants so they’re closer together. He has also planted the Autumn Raspberry canes (Polka) he bought yesterday. These are red rather than gold, so we may have more trouble with the birds next year – although we notice other people have unnnetted red autumn raspberries and the birds aren’t causing too many problems.

Anyway, he has harvested one of the Brussels sprouts as the leaves were being chewed to oblivion, so though they’re not large, I’m aiming to have these for Sunday lunch tomorrow. Here they are with some of the Autumn raspberries (Autumn Gold).

He also harvested some dahlias, chrysanthemums and cosmos so I have put these in vases for the house. The chrysanthemums from last week are still going strong too, so that’s grand.

Have a great weekend!

Anne Brooke Books

Saving Zinnia Seeds

Sunshine and Bitter Days

Planting Lots of Tulips, because why not?

A broken spade and daffodils galore

Have had a painful arm this week (frozen/impacted shoulder), so today was the first chance I’ve had to get to the allotment – thank goodness for anti-inflammatory pills! We wanted to plant our new collection of 100 assorted daffodil bulbs, plus the ones left over from last year, for cut flowers in the spring. K started to dig out the potato bed and then this happened!

Oh dear me. And it was a relatively new spade too! However, at least he still had the fork to use, but honestly those potatoes must be tougher than we thought …

Anyway, we’ve planted all the daffodil bulbs and put netting or branches across them to protect them from the squirrels. Here are therefore some very exciting pictures of bare earth where the daffodils are hiding …

Not much to look at now, but come next spring they will be a glorious ocean of yellow – we hope. Anyway, I have found a way to do a decent hoe whilst only using one arm, mostly, so have tidied up the allotment as best possible. In the meantime, K rediscovered our Autumn Raspberry – All Gold – which we bought earlier this year and promptly forgot about, so he staked it up so it looks a bit less messy.

We believe the main crop of Autumn Raspberries are Autumn Gold, which is why the leaves are slightly different.

The flowers continue to bloom too, which is great. Here are dahlias, cosmos, chrysanthemums and a late sunflower:

And here they are as part of our harvest, which also includes potatoes, one courgette, and Autumn Gold raspberries:

Once at home, the flowers look amazing:

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Anne Brooke Books

Beginner’s Guide to a Gorgeous Spring Garden