First daffodils!

Fabulous news from the allotment – the first daffodils are finally in bloom properly, hurrah!

So thrilled about this that I can’t even speak, LOL! I have to admit that I wimped out today from actually going out as it’s snowing (yikes!) so I sent my lovely husband instead (what a mean wife I am!…), who brought them back for me, plus a couple of sprouts plants.

So that’s one full bed of sprouts finished, and another seven or so plants in the other sprout bed to go. They’re doing really well.

But look at those daffodils!!

Have a fabulous weekend and keep warm!

Anne Brooke Books

 

Nearly Daffodil Time

The daffodils are nearly out on the allotment, hurrah! I might well pop in again this Thursday to see how they’re doing – it will be great once we can start having fresh flowers in the house. Plus other, later daffodils are also beginning to come up so that’s good too.

Whilst there, K dug up the potato bed and I trimmed all the way round the allotment so it all looks a bit neater now, which is good news. I also hoed the beds and soft fruit area, which is much easier now the autumn raspberries are cut down, LOL!

K also shaped one of our older blackcurrant bushes to give it a bit of air and encourage growth:

We’ll do the other older one next week. Here are the spare canes, which we won’t plant as we don’t have much space at the moment:

So our harvest today is the usual sprouts and potatoes, but they’re always welcome!

And here are the sprout leaves, which we’ll use as compost:

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Anne Brooke

The Great Raspberry Cull

We finished off pruning the rest of the autumn raspberry canes which we started on a couple of weeks ago today – it’s hard work but extremely satisfying when it’s all done!

Weeding it will certainly be a lot easier now anyway. So we’ve taken back loads of canes for the garden waste at home, and there are still more at the allotment to bring back later.

As you may remember, I was hoping to get at least one of our early daffodils in bloom in January, but sadly (sob!), this is not to be … but I’m hoping these ones will be in flower early Feb:

The sweet williams seeds we planted last year are coming along slowly, which is positive:

I’m hoping for good things from them!

Just a few sprouts and the last of the potatoes to harvest this week, but we feel proud we’ve managed to make them last so far.

Have a great Sunday evening!

Anne Brooke Books

Raspberry Riot

Did a quick hoe-round at the allotment today, though the snow yesterday and the day before appears to have beaten the weeds down, hurrah! There is exciting news about the daffodils as they’re now starting to form actual flower buds, well gosh:

The rhubarb is also looking very pretty, and we’re hoping it might gain some friends at some point!

Our main job of today though has been starting to cut down the autumn raspberry canes to the ground. They’re really easy to cut with secateurs though they’re so long that you have to be a bit careful that you don’t take your eye out when you’re disposing of them! Also heavy duty gloves are vital … We’ve done just under half the bed so will carry on next week. It’ll certainly make it a lot easier to weed. The canes we cut down today will be added to our garden waste bin at home – thank goodness we remembered to bring one of our green bags.

A very small harvest today – just sprouts! – and there haven’t been so many of these as we harvested last year. Though, to be fair, we didn’t plant as many either!

Have a great weekend!

Anne Brooke

 

Rhubarb and tidying

Just time to do a quick tidy  and hoe round of the allotment this morning – first time on the allotment in 2017, hurrah! We unexpectedly have an early sign of rhubarb but it’s a tad small to harvest as yet …

On the other hand, the leeks have done nothing exciting for weeks so we may well just have to harvest and eat them as they are at some point – we were hoping for something larger(!), but they seem to be in hibernation for the moment:

However, the daffodils shoots look hopeful and it would be great to have at least one bloom in January – we’ll have to wait and see …

While K dug up the potatoes, I tidied up one of our ‘mix & match’ beds which hasn’t worked out so well, and there are just the sweet williams left in there now. We’ll have to start planning what to grow around them!

And here is today’s harvest of potatoes and sprouts – yum!

Happy New Year, and have a great weekend, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books

Ring out the old, ring in the new!

The last allotment post for 2016 and indeed the last day of 2016 – what a rollercoaster year it’s been, LOL.

On the allotment front, we’re pleased to see that the January daffodils are well on their way:

And the later (Feb) daffodils are also starting to sprout, hurrah!

We’ve also taken the opportunity to replace our old and rubbish  (green & purple) secateurs with shiny new red ones that actually cut – which should make things a heck of a lot easier …

Whilst there, K dug out the potato bed (see harvest pic!) and I weeded the beds and fruit area, as well as the areas of pathway. This was made a far easier job by the lack of frost this morning, phew …

Here is today’s harvest, which consists of the last of the winter lettuce, potatoes and sprouts, together with a couple of gladioli bulbs we missed and which we’re bringing home for storage.

Have a fabulous new year, everyone!

Anne Brooke Books

Mole City and Gladioli Galore

Not much may be happening with what you can see at the allotment, but there’s plenty of mole activity, as you can see! There’s a mole Christmas party going on under the earth, I can tell you! What are the little chappies up to?!?

Still, there’s good new on the early daffodils as there are now more shoots showing, so that’s hopeful for the January flower:

And the first of the currant bushes is already in bud too, though K remembers it was early last year as well:

Our main job this week though was taking the gladioli bulbs so we can dry them out and reuse them next year (hurrah!). They’re really easy to get out – much easier than tulips or dahlias are, though it helps that the allotment soil is just so brilliant and much better than at home. What I didn’t realise before we started to dig them up was that they produce lots of tiny ‘babies’ next to the main bulb which is just so cute. The trouble is that they all fall off very easily so next year we might have a veritable forest of really tiny gladioli, LOL!

Here they are uprooted:

And here they are in the shed, where we hope they’ll dry off. There were too many for the box we had so I just stuffed them on top!

The Brussels sprouts are still doing their thing:

And the harvest is small (sprouts and lettuce) but perfectly formed!

Have a fabulous weekend!

Anne Brooke Books

The Winter Allotment

In today’s gorgeous light, I really do think the allotment looks stunning, if bleak:

However, even in the midst of this, the first signs of the spring to come are here already (hurrah!) and the January daffodils we planted in October are beginning to sprout:

Honestly, it’s such a sign of hope that I really got quite emotional about these! Anyway, not much else to do around the allotment – especially as the hard frost this morning means no hoeing though all the weeds are probably dead, LOL – so we got on with composting stuff from our garden. Here is the compost before it – um – composts:

And here is the totally amazingly rich finished compost which we – yes, you guessed it! – did earlier!

Meanwhile, the Brussels sprouts are growing apace:

And we have even had our first sprouts harvest, alongside the winter lettuce and leeks, well gosh!

I love sprouts so much and am ridiculously excited about this too. What a day!

Have a fabulous Sunday

Anne Brooke Books

The autumnal allotment

We seem to have more autumn leaves across the allotment this year than ever before – here they are on the soft fruit area!

All very beautiful and at least that saves mulching the fruit, LOL! Meanwhile the Brussels sprouts are doing okay. I didn’t bother putting any slug doom on them this week as they looked okay really.

The lettuce is still doing us proud – though I’ve taken out the remains of the red lettuce now, this green variety looks unstoppable.

However, the leeks seem to have hit some kind of glass ceiling and haven’t grown any bigger for ages, we don’t think. All very odd.

Anyway, I actually went round and did a spot of hoeing though there’s really not a lot to get rid of – apart from in the sprout cages, but I won’t bother weeding those until we actually get in to harvest the sprouts.

Talking of harvest, this week’s is lettuce and a couple of the (small but tasty) leeks:

AND – BIG drumroll at this point!!! – the yacon (Peruvian ground apple) which K has taken up now. It’s produced far more of a crop than last year (hurrah!) and also has some small tubers which we can use to grow plants for next year. So thrilled about this one, as you don’t even have to cook it and it tastes great. The longer you leave it (within reason) the sweeter it gets. A wildcard substitute for potato, yum!

Have a great Sunday!

Anne Brooke Books

Winding Down for Winter

Not much happening at the allotment this week, and there’s sadly no flowers to pick for home, so definitely the end of the season. It’s lovely to potter about though.

Still, we did manage to dig up all the gaura and compost it – it’s not good as a cut flower (too much stuff drops off and makes a mess) and we’ve got more than enough at home so there’s no need to replant it. However, I did dig up the crocosmias and replanted them at home – though they’re not a great cut flower, they do look beautiful in the garden.

However, the good news is that the Brussels sprouts are doing well and we’re looking forward to having those for Christmas:

And, of course, the lettuce is still going for the burn and there’s definitely enough to see us through this week!

So, here’s the harvest – which is basically the lettuce and the crocosmias, LOL:

Have a great Sunday!

Anne Brooke Books