Gardening: because murder is wrong!

Happy New Year, everyone! I had a totally wonderful Christmas present from my lovely husband which is just so me! Here it is in pride of place on the allotment shed:

Whilst at the allotment today, we pruned the roses and added them to the compost heap, and I did do a quick hoe round though there weren’t many weeds. The sprout beds are looking okay:

And the daffodils are on their way for the upcoming spring now:

And we have a nice harvest of sprouts for the weekend:

So, I have decided that I won’t be carrying on with the allotment blog next year as I’ve written this for a good few years now, and I think it’s time for a break. We still have our allotment of course! It’s just the blog that is closing for now. I will continue to add the photos over at my Facebook page, as I usually do, however. So thank you very much to everyone who’s been reading about my time as the Allotment Wife(!) and here’s a last view of our allotment for you:

May I wish you all a very happy 2024 and indeed all the years ahead. Keep gardening!

Anne Brooke

Christmas Sprouts

Just a quick trip to the allotment today to do some weeding of the beds and to collect sprouts. Here is the allotment looking rather bleak, which is natural for the time of year of course.

The daffodil shoots are coming along nicely:

As indeed is one of the rhubarbs in the older rhubarb bed:

Here is a partial picture of the sprout bed:

And here are the sprouts we have liberated for our Christmas lunch!

Have a lovely Christmas, everyone!

Anne Brooke

Signs of spring and a sprout harvest

Definitely signs of spring at the allotment today with the daffodil shoots coming through:

And there is even an early rhubarb leaf in the first rhubarb bed:

Today we did some weeding across the allotment.

And we took a small harvest of sprouts from the older sprout bed for lunch:

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone!

Anne Brooke

Allotment views and signs of spring

Not much happening at the allotment at the moment though we did do weeding across the plot and also caught up with the composting. I thought you might like to see some views of the allotment in autumn so here they are:

The fruit cage is also looking quite nice:

And the blueberry looks particularly stunning in its autumn colours:

The Brussels sprouts are also coming along and so nearly ready for a first harvest now:

The first Brussels sprout bed is certainly looking good on the whole:

Though the one we planted up later has a fair amount of catching up to do!

And in stunningly good news, we have the first of our daffodil shoots now! So wonderful to see these early signs of the spring to come:

In non-allotment news, I’m pleased to say I have a new 5 star review of my latest novel, An Unexpected Haunting, which you can read here:

An Unexpected Haunting at Goodreads

I rather like being described as “unusual, unconventional, alternative and singular” – that’s certainly made my day!

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books at Amazon UK
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Dahlias Galore

It’s definitely a win for the dahlias today as you can see from this picture of our perennial bed, though the roses are also still in abundance. It’s interesting that the pink dahlias last so much longer in the vase than the yellow ones, and also interesting that I have obviously chosen the same kind of colour palate for both dahlias and roses – pink and yellow!

One of our lettuces has definitely died this week, LOL! Though the other two are just about surviving:

Our two unexpected pea plants continue to grow so I have now tied both these up with string.

But the winning vegetable of the week continues to be our French climbing beans – another good harvest today though not as much as last week:

Whilst there, we took the protection off both our Brussels sprouts beds in order to give them a thorough weeding – the weeds everywhere have been a nightmare this year! And K also strimmed along the edge of the plot too, to make it look neater.

Here is this week’s harvest, which consists of dahlias, roses, alstroemeria, one freesia, sweet peas, a few gerberas, plus soft fruit, one beetroot, one lettuce and French climbing beans.

And here are the vases at home:

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

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Beans and Beetroot

The French climbing beans are still doing brilliantly with more flowers on there as well, so a good harvest though not quite as enormous as last week:

The lettuces are hanging on in there though getting a little past their best now. Still, there’s enough lettuce from one of these to keep us going for a week:

And we have our first decent sized crop of beetroot which is great news! The type we grow isn’t the usual red one as I don’t like the stains, so this one is stain-free – sorry I can’t remember the name but they’re readily available if you want beetroot without the mess!

The perennial bed is looking good too, with more roses and dahlias, and even some of our new alstroemerias in bloom (just peeking out at the left of the picture).

We put a lot of weed-killer down on the paths between beds this week as it’s all been getting rather out of hand, so we’re hoping that next week it will look a lot clearer. So, here is the harvest, which consists of alstroemerias, dahlias, roses, gerberas, sweet peas, one lettuce, one beetroot, a lot of shallots (which keep for months in the garage), soft fruit and French climbing beans.

And here are the vases at home:

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

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Anne Brooke Books at Amazon US

Lilies and climbing beans

I’m finally back on the allotment after three weekends away due to ill health, so I spent a lot of time beating down the weeds today, LOL! Still, after yesterday, at least we didn’t need to water. The lilies are looking amazing:

And the sweet peas are hanging on in there:

But just look at our perennial bed! It’s a riot of roses (second bloom of those this year), dahlias and gerberas:

However, the outright winner in terms of how much crop there is has to be awarded to the French climbing beans! There’s a veritable glut which we are freezing – see later pics!

Mind you, there are a lot of courgettes too – so we’ll make and freeze soup with them:

And we FINALLY have some growth from our peas – though we’re unsure whether we’ll actually get a crop from those now as it’s very late in the season:

And the lettuces are going crazy:

This week, there is just SO MUCH harvest that I have had to take two pictures of it! We have one lettuce, 5 huge courgettes, lilies galore, dahlias, roses, gerberas and sweet peas, plus a few mangetouts, those French climbing beans and some soft fruit (hidden by the beans!) Here they are:

And here are the gorgeous flowers at home:

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

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First lilies and first freesia

Good news on the allotment as the first lilies are in bloom!

I’m also pleased to say that we have one freesia now in bloom as well – tiny but perfectly formed and brilliantly scented:

In other flower news, the first dahlias are also out:

The alstroemerias are also doing well:

As are the sweet peas:

And just look at those gerberas – amazing!

The courgette also looks a lot happier though no fruits as yet:

And just look at the size of those lettuces!

Whilst there today, we gave everything a good water and weed as usual, and also collected some soft fruit. So here is our harvest of mangetouts, the first of the French climbing beans (hurrah!), one lettuce, assorted soft fruit, lilies, roses, one freesia, gerberas, alstroemerias and sweet peas:

And here are the vases at home. The scent is just lovely.

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

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Anne Brooke Books at Amazon US

Insects and roses

I popped up to the allotment during the week to water it – as, even though we had huge amounts of rainfall on Monday night/Tuesday morning, it’s still pretty dry out there. The good news is that our water butt filled up during the rainstorm so I could use that instead of having to go to the tap each time. Mind you, I’ve emptied it again now!…

Here is the weekday harvest which is basically roses and also some alstroemerias and carnations:

And here is the weekday harvest at home:

This week it’s been my birthday and Allotment Helen has kindly given me an insect hotel as a gift (thank you, Helen!) – this is now in pride of place outside the fruit cage as of today, and doesn’t it look grand:

Today, we’ve done weeding and more watering, and have also removed the final bed of tulip bulbs which I have brought home for planting out in the garden here in November. We’ll get fresh tulips for the allotment for next year.

I’m pleased to say the sweet peas continue to do well and smell wonderful too.

So here is today’s harvest of roses, carnations and sweet peas (plus the tulip bulbs ready to go home). We also have our first small fruit cage harvest which is great news:

And here is today’s floral harvest at home:

In non-allotment news, one of my crime novels (Maloney’s Law) has been showcased on the Crime out of The Closet Blog this week, which is celebrating National Crime Reading Month and also Pride Month throughout June – so that was a fabulous boost!

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books at Amazon UK
Anne Brooke Books at Amazon US

First rhubarb harvest

Not many pictures of the allotment today as my phone died, LOL! Never mind, we did get a lot done, including planting a couple of rows of gladioli and also putting the roof on the fruit cage.

Sadly it looks as if most of the gladioli saved from last year are not viable for this year, so once I’d planted the two rows, I have put the rest in the garden waste at home. I might think about getting a different sort of summer bulb instead of more gladioli for summer though – maybe freesias? I will have to see.

We also had a bit of darning to do on the fruit cage roof – using string and lots of ingenuity, I think we have managed it. We’ve also started putting down black weed suppressant fabric in the fruit cage to save all that weeding everywhere but that will take a few weeks, I think – as the space is quite large.

Anyway, here are pics of the lilies doing well and the one viable tulip we have this week:

The sweet peas we planted last week are still surviving which is good news!

But look at how amazing the rhubarb looks:

So, here is the harvest of one narcissus, one tulip and lots of lovely rhubarb which I plan to put into a crumble for tonight. Don’t forget, everyone – rhubarb leaves are incredibly poisonous so do NOT eat them!

Have a lovely bank holiday weekend – not long till the Coronation now!

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