Eeyore's Great Allotment Thread

We got some leeks in today and some wood chopped up ready for bonfire night.
It's also good to see apples and pears growing too.
 
Coming on nicely:D
 
Alastair said:
Coming on nicely:D
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Aye. Bit by bit :)
Next big thing is to remove all the glass rubble and rotten wood from the dump and get it ready for a greenhouse... Then work out if it's one big one or two smaller greenhouses.

Oh and a small smoke house
 
eeyore said:
Oh and a small smoke house
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I have a large gym locker style thing sitting at the back of the patio acquired for just this purpose.. need to cut in the flue and it should be ready for hot-smoking, and with an external fire box for cold-smoking too once I figure out how to connect them.. :D
 
Fish, cheese, ribs, bacon and other dead animal parts... :)
Oh and chillis :)
 
oh my, that's exciting! I'd never considered that that could be a diy job, I've got a couple of old garden incinerators kicking around, maybe I could join in the fun. (although most spare wood goes into the woodburner for heating the house!)
 
I forgot the garlic! We get through tons of the stuff
 
I also want a proper go a beef jerky
I have done it in a dehydrator but want to try it properly
 
I like the idea of growing non-conventional crops on the allotment, and the vineyard is already getting quite a few appreciative comments from the old boys. One of those random wanders across the web has suggested another novel crop that will suit the vineyard plot, Crocus sativus or saffron. I fancy giving this a go in August when the corms become available (Suttons Seeds).
 
We've planned in the saffron spot :) (Well saffron and other multi year crops)
Its not really a novel crop when you look at its history, we used to grow loads in the uk.

Have you tried horse raddish? We did try a couple of years ago but to be honnest we for got about it
 
I have really enjoyed reading this thread and following your progress, thanks for sharing :)
 
We've got horseradish growing wild down the side of the track to the allotment site, I lifted a few roots and tried them in a couple of really deep pots but whilst I had good leaf growth the roots didn't really swell. I wouldn't want to put them into the ground having read about how invasive they can be!

60 saffron corms ordered for August delivery ;) A 1m square bed should do that many for 3 or 4 years before lifting and re-setting the hopefully multiplied up corms into a larger bed. My plan is to make the sides of the bed raised by 4"-6" to ensure it's got really good drainage and fill with a rich compost mixed through with sharp sand.

I'd like to get two blueberries out of pots on the patio and into the ground at the allotment, but being on the site of an old brick dump the soil is slightly alkaline with the mortar residue. I'm not sure how big a hole I'll need to dig and back-fill with ericacious compost. I'm guessing a couple of bags per plant plus a generous dose of Sequestrene forked into the base of the hole.
 
I need to order my saffron, Mrs eeyore want them in a more "natural" setting like a woodland. I want a dedicated bed as they are just like any other crop or I give them a test in a "living wall" Will see who wins later on in the year...
 
Definitely a small dedicated bed for me - wouldn't want to mix them up with anything, and the sources seem to be fairly specific about them benefiting from a reasonably rich but free draining soil.
 
Not really, raised bed deeper than the corms need to be planted. Say an 8" deep raised bed filled with a mix of compost, muck and sharp sand. If the drainage on the plot is very bad, go 2" higher and put a couple of inches of loose hardcore in the base.
 
We've recently got a small allotment after being oin the waiting list for three years. Thankfully thecondition was resasonable - just some suface weeds.

We're enjoying the work, planted some seedlings in a few rows as a starter, Got hold of an old shed (very important to have my man cave there!) and started putting up some netting to stop the birds. Next I want to get a tunnel of some nature but not sure what's best to get. Any ideas? We're looking at som enew ones 3x2m for about £60 on ebay.
 
eeyore said:
I also want a proper go a beef jerky
I have done it in a dehydrator but want to try it properly
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I make my own Biltong and can dig out my recipe if you want. I made my own drier from a couple of computer fans and a cheap Ikea box. My mouth's wartering now, I'll have to go buy meat later in the week and get another batch on the go.
 
drounding said:
I make my own Biltong and can dig out my recipe if you want. I made my own drier from a couple of computer fans and a cheap Ikea box. My mouth's wartering now, I'll have to go buy meat later in the week and get another batch on the go.
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:)
The recipe would be ace.
 
drounding said:
I make my own Biltong and can dig out my recipe if you want. I made my own drier from a couple of computer fans and a cheap Ikea box. My mouth's wartering now, I'll have to go buy meat later in the week and get another batch on the go.
Click to expand...

Details of the drier box would be nice too!
 
Thanks Duncan..

The legendary Apa box, it keeps cropping up as useful in so many places. It's funny about Ikea, they've produced so many really useful storage box designs but they never keep them in production. I have a few of a crate-like style and they're fantastic (forget the name). But Ikea stopped making them and I'd gladly get a dozen more. Really sturdy and built with thick enough ply to add casters to one and then stack another two on top.
 
My potatoes have been slow to get going this year, I was a little late in planting them but they seem to be taking an age to get up to speed..



The first row from the left starts out with Lady Christl then Shetland Black are the taller ones that start partway down the row. The second row is all Lady Christl. Then it's the main crop varieties off the right of shot - Sarpa Mira and Setanta, both new varieties to me with a degree of blight resistance.

Evernote is a brilliant tool for keeping track of what I've done and planted on the plot :D
 
No a huge amount done this weekend. we got a fruit cage made up. Friday we started clearing the ground for the greenhouse but i had a rather painful accident. I was scraping up the ground and crud when a piece of glass flicked up and hit my knuckle on my hand. Not a huge cut only 4mm but dead on the center. Lots of blood flowing ensued... nothing a plaster and a bit of duct tape could not sort :)

Only just getting full moment back now.
 
I'm a new kid on the block as it were in the allotment, so learning as best we can.
We had a busy weekend. Finished off the netting on the 'anti-bird' cage. Put up the bean and pea supports. Dug and planted the gem squash and couregtte. Dug and planted a late row (hoperfully not too late) of potatoes (Desiree). Orderd a small ploytunnel for some tomoatoes and to get established to cultivate for next season. Contemplating putting some herbs in as well.
 
We get a very good crop of broken glass as well, usually a couple of bucketfuls every year - and that's without the heap of glass I've inherited with the new plot (fortunately the worst of it is mostly confined to one area).

Both my fruit cages are from Two Wests (www.twowests.co.uk), I use the "build your own" option with the 19mm aluminium tube and fittings (note, you can also order all their stuff via Amazon as well - get a few spare fittings at the start). I don't use their netting though - I bought a 2mx50m roll of scaffold debris netting on eBay for £30 which is better value and I use cable ties to secure it to the framework. Making a cage this way isn't cheap but it's long lasting, the smooth polls don't snag the netting and the netting itself is very heavy duty. For most fruits it also provides a bit of shade on an exposed site - currants, etc. don't really like too much direct sun anyway.

One added benefit I noted was that my fruit cages make great windbreaks - I've got two quite exposed plots - and crops in the lee of them do far better than those in exposed beds. The slight disadvantage is the wind resistance of the nets. I didn't quite have the net tightly tensioned enough and in the strong wind one of the cages made a bid for freedom. One connector bore the brunt of it (make sure you have spares) but it should go back together no problem. Fortunately it was the new bed and those bushed don't have much fruit to attract the blackbirds anyway.


The scaffold debris netting I bought from covers-to-go - www.ebay.co.uk/usr/covers-to-go/

The weed control fabric (heavy duty woven) you can see in my vineyard photos was from groundmasterls - www.ebay.co.uk/usr/groundmasterls/
 
Oh.. and if you're in the market for either the weed fabric or the netting, remember it's eBay 20% discount day today ;)
 
@Alastair those fruit cages look really impressive! And aren't really that expensive considering how long they'd last.

Has anyone got any advice on weeding an onion bed (8' x 4')? I spent ages at the weekend pulling out all the weeds from between the rows of onions and couldn't help thinking that there must be an easier way! Should I be using a hoe? Draw hoe or dutch hoe? I've got a dutch hoe but in all honestly I've no idea how to use it properly!
 
It depends how far apart you plant your onions. They don't like root disturbance - a dry morning, a sharp hoe and go gently just scraping the tops of the weeds from the soil. I was too late to get my onions in this year (there's a day length relationship to their growth, after a certain point there are just not enough weeks left before midsummer), but usually hand-weeding the onion bed is one of my less enjoyable jobs on the plot. The closer to weed-free you can get the bed before planting the better. It's not often said these days, but the old books will tell you that a dry day is far better for the hoe than a wet day or a day when rain is forecast for later. Rain just washes the weed roots back into contact with the soil before they can dry out on the surface.

How to use a dutch hoe -
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZfjgQWi4c4

How to hoe -
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbV9BvkZosM

Weeding onions - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Dz_T9PBJM


And whilst on the subject of vidoes, Gardener's World is pretty poor for the average gardener it's much better to follow Beechgrove Garden (even if you're not in Scotland) either online, on iPlayer or by tuning into the BBC SCotland broadcasts on Sky - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02t9vtm



I think my two cages worked out just shy of £70 each, and they're both 13'x6' and 6' high (less the 6" pushed into the ground). But they should last for many years.

Pricing up a potential cage for the vineyard is looking pricier though - it would need to be about 25'x25' and at least 6'6 high, and at that size needs to be of sturdier stuff. I'll probably just drape nets over the rows - but that's next years problem and right now I need a rifle rather than nets. There's a muntjac swims the river onto the site and it's taken a liking for just one of my three Perlette vines. But I'm worried that if I protect just that row I'll push it onto either the Mueller-Thurgau or the Pinot Noir.
 
A bit of a crappie day here... So here is a picture of a fruit cage
 
More clearing today thanks to an empty skip. We also have for now reached the end of the planting for now. So we can get some stuff fixed over the next few weeks.
 
Another late update. We have harvested some spuds, chalottes and peas. There are lots of raspberries too from the wild growing bushes.
I've had fun with a new cordless strimmer getting rid of all the long grass :)
 
Another update. We've been getting tones of yellow courgettes, green beans, and runner beans from our plot. We've pulled most our spud plants and have to say Albert bartlet rooster potatoes make good chips... Our sunflowers are out and taller then the shed :)
The apple trees look like we will have a good cider crop too :)
 
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