Sunny Saturday

Today has been a lovely day - sunshine all day.  Mr Milly came to the lottie with me today, due to the terrible weather he hasn't been to the plot for a while and I think he was quite pleased!  I have had a bit of doubting Thomas moment in the last couple of days - and felt that I had lost my way a little,  so Mr Millly's company, reassurance and a bit of guidance was really needed!

We did make the most of the sunshine and spent most of the day at the plot - tonight we both have beetroot red faces, it must have been hotter than we realised!

We made a start with the grass and with my new grass strimmer/brush cutter I cut all the borders and edges of the overgrown grass - immediately that made the plots looks much tidier.   Then we set about the brassica cage.  I had decided earlier in the week that I didn't like the one I had put up - too tall, too untidy, too unstable,  just too not right for me!  Yesterday I had deconstructed it giving us a clear run at it today.   Last year I had picked up some hosepipe from Freecycle,  at the time I didn't really know what what I was going to do with it, but convinced both of us that we would eventually find a use for it.   Today the use was found,  and we have made 3 brassica cages, 2 short ones for cabbages, kale, and lettuces and one taller one for sprouts and broccolli.   We used bamboo canes connected with short pieces of hosepipe,  debris netting to cover them and all neatly pegged down.   I was on a roll then and used the off cut pieces of cane and more hosepipe over the strawberry bed ready for their protection netting to be placed.

New brassica cages

Strawberry bed ready for netting

The next job was the potatoes - again they had appeared above the soil, Mr Milly made a start and was able to cover one line of the tatties,  and of course he covered them differently to me.   A bit of tuition and a lot of supervision followed and the rest of the tatties were covered in the same way.   I think one more earthing up only will be possible as the earthings are now quite tall and we are running out of soil.   Hopefully we won't be seeing any more frost now and one more earthing up should be Ok to protect the potatoes and give us a good crop.

Across the middle of the plots - all the potatoes nicely earthed up.

Talking about crops - we had a little harvest today;-

Spinach from the front of the plot,  a few rhubarb sticks,  four lovely leeks and a couple of spring greens.  The trug was quite full and considering it is not quite the middle of May a pretty good harvest we thought!

Tidy plots.  The Bunting seems to have multiplied!

A few more jobs are planned for tomorrow,  the weather forecast is good so hopefully all the planned jobs can be completed and we are nearly ready for mass planting!!

April Showers

I know we needed the rain,  I don't know about you - but I am getting a little fed up of it now!   Typically I have 2 weeks off work and it looks like it will be raining virtually every one of those days.

I have managed sometime at the Lottie this week, dodged the showers sometimes,  been caught in down pours often and sat in the shed with a mug of coffee during some thunder storms - which was a tad scary!  Mr Milly is fed up now with all the muddy washing this week as I seem to have brought home a good part of the Lottie clinging to my clothes everyday!

Anyway - I had a plan of what I wanted to achieve and have worked hard this week,   by Friday though the new Plot 96 was looking a complete bomb site and I had to keep reminding myself that it is often this way to achieve the end result.

This week I have taken down the tatty pallet compost bins, cleared a corner of the plot, removing brambles along the way,  laid weed membrane and wood chips,  constructed a new compost bin with the best of the pallets and then dug all of the partially composted material from the old bins and moved it into the new bin.   Finally a cage to protect the peas has been made and what a difference this has made to Plot 96 - which is now looking heaps better!

Plot 96 In February 2012

Tatty compost bins 

New tidy Compost area

Plot 96 in April 2012

Pea Cage with little pea plants starting to appear

On Saturday I had a Lottie free day and we travelled to Kent to spend the day with My Girl.  It was lovely to see her and apart from her recently broken rib (as I have said often,  she is the most accident prone creature!)  she is looking healthy, well and happy - which is all you can wish for really.

We went into Canterbury for a little retail therapy and our lovely daughter cost me a fortune!  We did have fun though.  We haven't been into Canterbury before and what a lovely town it is,  next time we visit we are going to do the Cathedral tour.  I was a little shocked at the price of tickets for the Cathedral - £9.50 for an adult,  I hope it is worth that amount of money!

Cathedral Gate

A glimpse of the Cathedral

Mr Milly and My Girl

Look at that - our 2 favourite shops right next to each other!  How handy :)

 My Girl and Me

I hope you had a good weekend and haven't been washed away!
Alison x

A lottie update

I realise there hasn't been a lottie update for a while - mainly as this time of the year things are still looking quite bleak and a little uninteresting.   As always there is still much to be done,  all of the main planting areas for this year are now ready for the growing season and now my thoughts are turning to tidying up and sorting out the new Plot 96.

I have whizzed the camera round the plots and there are definite signs of growth and the promise of things to come.

Rhubarb growing nicely - I have to be patient with these
though as they can't be picked in their first year :(

Gooseberry bush beginning to get its new leaves

Strawberry patch looking healthy and green

2 rows of peas planted and covered with fleece to stop the birds and mice digging up the seeds

Spring greens bulking up.  I have lost a few though!

The autumn planted Garlic and Onions seemed to have perked up and had a recent growth spurt

Looking around the site in general,  I don't seem to be doing too bad!  There are still many plots with nothing growing at all, and a few plots here and there that do seem to have been abandoned with no work having been done on them at all this year - in my little corner of the site 4 of the plots closest to me are now looking decided unloved - it would be good to have a few more people around now and again!

Lottie the Scarecrow

My two little nephews spent sometime at the lottie with us last weekend.  What glorious weather we have been having!  We had a lovely day,  me and Mr Milly,  My sister-in-law and her hubby and their two lovely little men.

Encouraged by Mr Milly the boys decided it was time for Lottie to come out of hibernation in the shed and be set up on the plot for the summer.   A bit of a combined planning and thinking and Lottie now has pride of place in the flower garden.  Lots of photos to follow taken by Mr Milly and the sort of photos I think are the best - natural, uncomplicated and with a little story!

The Littlest nephew choosing the best spot for Lottie

The Oldest Nephew is about to join in.........

One thoughtful,  one doing......

One still doing,  the other giving instruction.......

That's it ....  a helping hand required

A perfect joint effort and don't they look pleased with themselves!

The littlest one is definately very pleased with his efforts - and I am too!!

Thank you for your help boys x  Auntie Ali x x 

Spring is in the Air

Sometimes I feel that I send myself loopy with reading different ways to do things/plant things/sow things.   Try Googling 'Sewing leeks' and you will see what I mean.  To stop this loopy-iness I have now decided to read a few 'how-tos' and then do what feels right.  Fingers crossed my decisions are the right ones and then wait and see what happens.

Anyway spring is in the air - the days are becoming longer and mostly a little warmer,  daffodils are out and on the plot and few bits and pieces are coming to life.  The autumn planted raspberries are beginning to grow some new canes,   the rhubarb I thought I had lost is now poking its head about the soil and the newly planted garlics now have a couple of inches of green growth on them.

At home the list is;-

Potatoes chitting in the shed
Leeks sown in cat litter trays in the plastic greenhouse
Sweet peas in pots in the greenhouse with a few new ones on a windowsill indoors.
Sungold tomatoes seeds sown - indoors
Alpine strawberries sown and germinated  - indoors
Chillis sown - indoors
Peppers sown - indoors
Melon sown - Indoors
Aubergines Sown - indoors
Gardeners Delight Tomatoes sown - indoors

At the Lottie
Brussell Sprouts - Polytunnel
Cabbage - Polytunnel
Calabrese - Polytunnel
Carrots - Polytunnel and direct sowing
Radish - Polytunnel
Little Gem Lettace - Polytunnel
Red Onion sets - Planted
White Onion Sets - Planted
Garlic - Planted
Shallots - Planted

Well that is quite a list isn't it!  I still have loads of seeds to be sown, and although it is tempting to be starting things off,  I have already learnt the hard way that too early is just no good,  so I am going to wait as long as possible before starting things off.

Today it has been lovely bright, warm and sunny.  The Portuguese Housekeeper came with me to the Lottie,  we took a little feast as it is hungry work and energy food is definately needed!

We spent about and hour and a half doing the dreaded digging and for me today that was quite enough!  Then we decided to tackle the greenhouse frame - and what a saga that turned out to be!   We did manage to put the frame together and I have to say we were pretty pleased with ourselves that the 2 of us girlies managed to complete it on our own without any male assistance!

Monster roots

This is latest one dug up.     That is my full size adult spade next to the root - it took the best part of an hour to get it all out of the ground.

It is very very very very slow going digging out this bed, which I think may not have been dug for 20 years,  this root was more like a tree than a bramble.   Poor Mr Milly sits and watches me and I can feel his frustration across the plots.   It must be incredibly tedious watching someone dig and not being able to help.   He did say this week, when I was grumbling about how slow I am - that I am not slow,  but I am very meticulous.  And that is why Mr Milly is good to have at the plot with me  - for the encouragement - he did make me feel better and I felt like I was doing a slow but good job!

More digging....

The buzz word for me at the moment continues to be 'dig',  to say I am fed up with digging would be an understatement.   Yesterday I dug the area which will be the base for the Greenhouse and then continued with the massive bed  which is between the 2 plots.   The digging wouldn't be too bad, but this area is so very weedy and rooty - I believe it is 20 years since this area has been properly turned over and don't I know it!  

It's not all hard work though - we make time for a cuppa now and again!  I wonder how many people make hot chocolate with marshmallows at their Lottie?!!

Anyway - that is enough about digging for now - today it has rained all day, non stop,  all the animals have had food and water topped up and changed - the chickens seems happy in the rain and charged around the garden looking for bugs for a little while.   Not too long unfortunately as I didn't want to spend too long in the garden with them today as I was getting soaked!   I did potter in the plastic Greenhouse in the garden and sowed a few more seeds - fingers crossed these do OK!

And that pretty much sums up the weekend....  digging and raining!

Aching Back

Not much to tell today - only a little completed at the Lottie today,  my back is still aching from yesterday so I decided to take it easy and just have a gently potter.

Mr Milly came with me today, his hand is still very painful and he really needs to be doing as little as possible with it,  however it was such a lovely warm and sunny day it would have been a shame for him to have spent the day indoors and I like his company.

The bean trench was filled with home made compost and covered over,  a little digging on the never ending bed at the side of the plot with another wheelbarrow load of roots pulled out.  A general tidy up around the plots then we set about a bit of construction work.    I'm quite handy with a saw now and some of the donated wood was put to good use,  a little help and lots of supervision from Mr Milly we made a little cold frame/polytunnel affair.   I will be able to get some early lettuce, radish and rocket under way and kick start a l tiny patch of the Lottie into production.

Our new creation

Tidy Plot 95.  Roll on March when the grass paths can be started.

A little reminder of the Plot from just 1 month ago.  It's been hard work!!

Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig

Guess what the word of the day is??  DIG...........

Yesterday I had help at the Lottie,  My brother-in-Law and the 2 boys came to help,  we spent the day digging.  The very last section of Plot 95 apart from about 3 feet has now been dug over.  In total it was about 4 hours of digging - 3 of us doing it - to finish this section.   4 Wheelbarrow loads of roots were taken away which is the reason it is so very very slow going and absolutely back breaking with bending down all the time to pick out roots.   Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you for all of your help!!

These were put to good use...

I was really lucky yesterday to be given a huge supply of wood - enough to make another pathway with plenty left over.   I'm not sure yet what I going to do with it all, but do have a few ideas rumbling around!   I also found out that a skip is coming to the site on Monday which is really useful at the moment as there is bits of rubbish and unwanteds on Plot 96 which I can pop in the skip rather that having to drive to the local refuse station - the boys helped with this and happily gathered up all the bits and pieces and took them to the skip site for me.

A couple of pictures from earlier this week, before the latest bed was dug - I forgot the camera yesterday!

An Eventful Weekend

Tonight I am going to chill in front of the TV and doing NOTHING!  I am really tired this evening and am looking forward to unwinding and relaxing before a busy week starts once again.

Saturday morning started with a bright and sunny morning,  rain was forecast for mid-day so I headed out early for the Lottie. it was a lovely bright and warm winter day  - the thermometer on the lovely new clock is working 11 degrees;-

 I had decided that I was going to concentrate on Plot 95 and really try and get as much as possible completed - it would be easy at this point to flit between the 2 plots doing a bit here and there, but I felt a purpose and a push on Plot 95 was the way to go.

The middle recently cleared bed had been 1/2 dug,  I spent a couple of hours digging this bed and levelling it out.  It sounds like a lot of time but it is slow progress.  Dig a bit,  sift out roots and weeks,  dig a bit more, sift out more roots and weeds and on it went.  Finally it was done,  I planted 3 bulbs of garlic and 24 shallots in a section of the newly dug bed and have temporarily covered them.   Hopefully the cover will be enough to stop the birds digging them out until they start to shoot.    I was chuffed to get this bed sorted - this is part of the bed which was been left since I took the plot over, so a real achievement to finally have it in some sort of shape.

A bit of tidying up and then a phone call came from My Boy - he and his friend Aaron were collecting the greenhouse frame for me and there was a problem - the frame was concreted down and they didn't think they would be able to remove it.    I collected a couple of drinks for them as requested and drove over to meet them.   I was delighted when I arrived to find this......

They had managed to remove the frame from its base and were in the middle of dismantling it!  Three young men, a big bag of tools and soon the partly dismantled Greenhouse was loaded into the the tipper truck and was on its way to the lottie.   I did enjoy watching them puzzling over the dismantling and loading into the truck - they all worked really well together and a massive slap in the face reminder of how grown up and clever my son is now and how ancient they made me feel!!

Anyway the adventure continued..   we arrived at the Lottie I rode in the tipper truck and it was a bit scary!!  The ground is very soft and muddy after the snow and rain recently - the truck didn't like it and slipped and slid all along the lane.   Finally we arrived,  it took me a few minutes to unclench my fingers from the grab rail and then  the greenhouse was unloaded and unceremoniously dumped on Plot 96 until next weekend.  The next challenge then arrived - the tipper truck was completely stuck in the mud and couldn't get out.   Me, with my  girlie mum head on, started to have a bit of a panic - the boys, didn't flap at all and just got on with it with me still panicking and standing around looking and feeling completely useless!!  The solution,  My Boy used his 4 wheel drive pick-up truck to tow the 2 wheel drive tipper truck all the way through the allotment site to the main gate - good job there was no-one else around!!  They all thought it was brilliant,  I was just glad it was sorted so easily and to be honest it was a bit of an adventure!!!

A distance blurry picture - can you see the greenhouse in bits!

Today has been different again - but fun!  My eldest nephew wanted to come to the Lottie with me,  I drove over to collect him and the youngest nephew decided to come too!  Off we set, parked up at the lottie gates and all carried bits and pieces to the plots.    I had stopped on the way and bought one of these;-

It is an exactly replica of my Joseph Bentley digging spade just in a smaller child friendly size.  The boys were delighted with it!!   It was put to good use - the eldest nephew dug out  the trench bed for the blueberries - virtually on his own!

Hard at work

Blueberry bed underway and perfect size digging spade. 

He is 9 and very clever and really enjoys manual activities - he got stuck in and took over!   The trench was soon dug, lined with pond liner which I then tried to puncture with a fork for drainage - the oldest nephew watched for a few minutes and then asked if I thought it would be easier to take the liner out of the trench to put the holes in - of course he was right, he is very good at telling me what to do and is always right too! The trench was lined with cardboard and the youngest nephew and I refilled it and planted the blueberries.  We all had time for hot chocolate and cakes!!  

Everyone gets a job!

Next the bean trench was dug - not by me!!  Another brilliant job by the eldest nephew,  the little one planted some more shallots and  next the cherry tree was planted on Plot 96,  I dug the hole,  we all had a go and hammering in the tree stake and the oldest nephew refilled the hole  a joint effort!   Just as we were having another hot chocolate the boys mum, my sister-in-law, arrived closely followed by their dad -  that is the most people working on the plot at one time ever!   Half of the soon-to-be potato bed was dug over and we started to clear the brambly bed between the 2 plots.    What a brilliant afternoon with so much getting done in a short space of time.    I expect there will be a few aching backs tonight though!    It was lovely having family with me today and I really appreciated the help and massive push the lottie has had.   In fact standing looking at it at the end of the afternoon Plot 95 is almost completely ready for the new growing season  and for the first time since I took it over there are no really major jobs to be done.   More pictures to follow as my camera ran out of battery before we did today!

A Busy Sunday

This was my day today;-

• Let the chickens out and topped up their food and water
• Tea and Toast for me and Mr Milly this morning
• Tidied the kitchen and put a load of washing on
• Put chicken in the slow cooker for dinner (not one of mine!)
• Popped to the local shops for a few bits and pieces
• Went to my friends and carried bricks from her garden and loaded into my car
• Went to the Lottie,  unloaded one lot of bricks from the car,  wheeled the bricks to the plot (too muddy to drive the car)
• Unloaded the 2nd lot of bricks and wheeled them to the plot
• Roughly laid out the base for the Greenhouse
• Hammered in the last post for the Bean Frame
• Attached and tied in the canes for the Bean Frame
• Came home,  made lunch for Mr Milly
• Made the bed
• Had a shower
• Cooked dinner and lemon cake for dessert
• Washed up and tidied the Kitchen
• Emptied all the Bins
• Made 2 Owl Hotties and a Chick-sicle
• Turned up a pair of Jeans
• Helped Mr Milly with a shower 
• Sat and watched the telly.....

Bean Frame - No climbing strings yet,  the frame is in place to start bean trench. 

Rough outline of the base of the greenhouse on Plot 96 and a spare pile of bricks. 

3 Owl Hotties - pop them in the Microwave for a bit of a warm cuddle.
The little one is a Chick-sicle,  keep him in the freezer  for when a bit of cold is needed - better than a bag of peas!

In summary,  some shopping, gardening, brick carrying, housework, cooking, nursing, and sewing.   What a day of complete extremes!


Did you have a good day?

Alison x