Busy!

I haven't posted for ages - busy busy!

I have done a fair bit up the allotment though - or at least for the time that I have available, I feel like I've done a fair bit :-) I am sure that Mr. Perfect Allotment next door doesn't think so though! I haven't got any up to date pictures, but I'll try to be good and post some soon.

So a quick update:

• I put my tomato plants into the ground a little too late. They were tiny, but they grew well. I like the bush variety, as I didn't have to do any other work to look after them. I hoed a few times, and that was that. There were lots of tomatoes on them, which was good. Unfortunately, our summer was again wet and non sunny, so they stayed green. I left them on the plants too long, and they were going rotten on the plant. The once that weren't rotten I brought inside, but they didn't ripen. I ate 1 tomato! It was tasty though! I have not given up on tomatoes though - next year has got to be sunny!
• I planted potatoes as a weed suppressant - that didn't work! The potatoes didn't grow, and the weeds were just as hard to dig up!
• My pumpkins went in the ground too late and got slug munched again. Not sure if I'll try pumpkins again - it would be nice to carve up a home-grown pumpkin on Halloween though.....
• Sweetcorn is growing well - a good few cobs there. Not sure when to harvest them - must do some research!
• Leeks are growing - they don't seem very big to me. Hopefully they have time to grow yet.
• Strawberry plants are settling in well. Had some tasty strawberries off them! Next year there should be lots of strawberries!
• The 2 blackcurrant bushes provided me with a cupful of blackcurrants this year - better than the handful from last year, but still not many! I made some syrup out of them, which I was going to use to make gin with, but my big gal suggested having it with porridge, which we duly did - mmmmm!!!
• There are 2 blackcurrant cuttings left after various tramplings etc. They seem fairly healthy, and it's interesting watching them grow. Think that I should try some more for next year.
• After all that prickling, the gooseberry bushes decided not to produce this year - grrrr. Maybe they didn't like all that cutting.
• The raspberry cuttings that I was kindly given last year are looking healthy, but no raspberries this year. Hopefully they should be alright next year.
• The onions & garlic did OK, although I was kindof hoping for bigger bulbs from both. Not to worry, at least they grew and I got something for this year!
• The rhubarb I planted unsurprisingly died. A fellow allotmenteer though dug up one of her plants and gave it to me, which was very good of her. That is growing and looking OK - hopefully there will be some rhubarb in the spring! She has a large row of rhubarb, all very healthy, and she gave me a ruck of rhubarb for eating too. It was very tasty!

So lots went on, and there is lots still to do. I'll hopefully post again soon get on with more digging over winter!

Spike Me No More......

.....or at least not until it's time to pick the gooseberries!

Yep, I've pruned them. That's another job off the list. It was a glorious day on Wednesday morning - really sunny. So I thought to myself that I would enjoy the sun and get the job done. I drop the lil'gal off at playgroup, trot down to the allotment, get out the car, and the sun goes away. Predictable really, but never mind.

Here's a pic of my pruned bush (oh er missus!):

Pruning those Spiky Things

Got up to the allotment today and did a bit of pruning. Only 20 mins worth, but 2 of the gooseberry bushes are done. Goddamn they are spiky! I'm supposed to aim for an egg-cup shape so that it is easier to pick the gooseberries. Well, I've tried, but I'm not sure how successful I've been. Anyway, I have lots of new scratch marks over my hands for my efforts, and the mother of all bushes yet to be pruned.....

Picture coming!

3rd Stint

So today I feel like I have actually made progress with the goosberry bushes - yay!


The picture isn't very clear as it was getting dark, but you can actually see the bushes. So now all I have to do is to prune them, and dig over all the rest of the allotment.

Oh well, at least I get to plant something soon!

2nd Stint!

Today I spent about an hour on my second stint at the gooseberry bushes of doom! Here's my progress:


I have to post progress, otherwise I'll just lose heart at how little progress I seem to be making! Can you see the difference? (See how I talk as though someone is listening?!)

I also pruned the grapevine and blackcurrant bushes. The blackcurrant bushes only needed dead wood taking off, and there wasn't very much of that. Here's a picture of the grapevine, just for the record:

I need to weed around it sometime. Yet more digging. I hope the pruning is done OK. It's not quite how I thought it would be. Oh well, we'll see.

So it's gonna take a while.....

I thought to myself, let's get all those weeds out from the gooseberry bushes. It won't take too long, and then I'll have better access to them for pruning. Hey, it can only take one 'stint'. Won't it?

Well, no. It won't. It's going to take quite a few stints. I started today, and in just over an hour, this is how much I got done:



Not a lot.

Oh well, at least it's a start. Can you see the bushes? There's even the blackcurrant bushes in the foreground. Gotta keep going!

Gooseberries

The one good thing about my overgrown patch of jungle is that it came with 4 mature gooseberry bushes. While gooseberries are not instantly something I think of eating, I'm not going to turn them down!

I left them to their own devices this year, and picked a huge amount of berries off them in July. I stewed the berries down, with a load of sugar, and froze them in 400ml batches. Note for next year - freeze in smaller batches! The kids didn't like the tartness of them, which is what I thought was best about them. Delicious! So freeze in smaller batches so I can eat them when the fancy takes.

The bushes have grass and weeds growing through them, so one of my tasks that I need to do is to weed around them, and to prune them. I may also take some cuttings to propagate them. So the gooseberries were a success! At least I got something from this year!