Saturday 1st March 2014 - Changes

Evening all,

I thought I'd update everyone on what I have done today at the allotment.

What a beautiful day it was too. I actually got sun burnt inside the poly tunnel, and found it hard to tolerate the heat. And it was only about 7 degrees outside!!

Also, I have bitten the bullet, and have decided that I had to change to layout inside the tunnel to get the best possible amount of growing space.

Originally I had two pieces of furniture at both ends of the tunnel, which I used to store tools, etc...but now I have moved them in the the middle of the tunnel back to back, to provide more growing space in the beds, and give me a workstation for potting up, in the middle of the tunnel.

 It may look a little crowded from the picture, but I do have adequate space to walk around.

The carrots that I sowed about 3 weeks ago are all coming up nicely, and we should have crop as early as May.

I do wish I'd used some better compost now though, as this stuff is pretty lumpy, and could cause the roots to fork.

The broad beans are doing really, have started to flower, and the fragrance inside the tunnel is beautiful.

There's still no signs of the potatoes, but with the heat in the tunnel at the moment, they should have come out of their dormant state, and there must be something going on under the soil. Time will tell. I've added another layer of insulation to them, by putting polythene over the top, to aid them further. I'm still determined to get a crop in May!

I also tidied, and washed all tools, and pots ready for the new growing season. I cannot believe it's March already, and it's so exciting to think that the growing season starts in earnest this month, and we will start to have crops to eat in the next 6-8 weeks, and then all the way through to winter.

Thanks for reading, and please follow me on YouTube.
 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFmpg8u18HOZ085wfnyjd4A

Making Paper Pots

Evening All,

I thought I'd do a quick piece on making paper pots for growing parsnips. They are also great for growing pretty much anything, but they work particularly well for parsnips, as they are one of the few vegetables that cannot successfully be transplanted.

The reason is, if you try transplanting a root vegetable like a carrot or a parsnip. The process of moving them, is likely to, and more often than not, will, actually damage the root, and cause it to fork. Forked parsnips, are almost inedible, because they are almost rock hard and extremely chewy, making them unusable.

So, I grow them in fully biodegradable paper pots, or toilet rolls. Last year, I used newspaper, but this year, I am trying toilet rolls.

Basically, all I do, is get a used toilet roll.

 
At one end, make 4 slits about 1 inch long, evening spaced apart, all the way round.

Then fold the four pieces in to cover the bottom of the pot. This doesn't have to be perfect, or folded extremely tightly. So it should now look something like this.

Now the easy part. Find a tray, that will fit about 20 in snugly, and place them side by side.

Once you have all 20 in the tray, add compost to them, and place 1 seed in the top of each one.

Thanks for reading, and please follow me on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFmpg8u18HOZ085wfnyjd4A

Mark's Sussex Allotment

It's beginning to look a lot like spring...

Everywhere you go........

Blue skies, daffodils everywhere, i've even seen a couple of trees in blossom.

I dont think nature, plants, or trees have any idea what month it is.....

Crazy to think it is March in a few days, and we havent really even had a frost. 

Anyway, enough musings from me......

Sunday 23rd February 2014

Evening All,

I spent a couple of hours at the allotment this morning. I'd recently bought a grow bag from a local Garden Centre for about £2, and thought I'd make some potting compost out of it with a riddle/sieve.

After spending about 15 minutes riddling the bag, I was left with this at the bottom of each batch.

 

 I thought there would be a lot more left at the bottom, but out of a 20-30 litre bag of compost, I only ended up with about a tenth of the bag being rubbish. 

More importantly, this is what I was left with as the final result.

It's light crumbly, and perfect for potting compost for small seeds, seedlings and potting on etc... 

If you wanted to use this for parsnips/carrots you could, but it might be worth adding a little bit of sand to the mix.

I also added a little bit of Blood, Fish & Bone, and it's organic, and slow releasing.

I used one whole box (I got three boxes worth out of one growbag) of potting compost for sowing Beetroot, Viola's, Begonia's & Asters in modular trays. 

As they are in the poly tunnel, I have protected the flower seeds with a mini propagator to keep the temperatures up. 

I've left the Beetroot to fend for itself.

I was going to add the odds and sods that were leftover from the compost (the twiggy bits) and put them on the compost heap, or dig in somewhere, but instead, I threw the whole lot in to a piece of guttering, and sowed a load of early Sugar-Snap Pea's to see if they would tolerate it.

It's only a trial, but I thought I'd give it a go, and I'll let you know how I get on.

(I don't know why some of these photo's keep coming out upside down!!)

The reason I sow my peas this way, is because they hate being moved. So if you sow them in a piece of guttering, you can dig a shallow trench, and just slide the whole thing in, and the peas will not know that they have been moved, and will continue growing without any setbacks.

Anyway, that's all from me today, thanks for reading, and don't forget to follow me on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFmpg8u18HOZ085wfnyjd4A

Mark's Sussex Allotment

Saturday 22nd February 2014

Evening All,

So, I spent two hours at the allotment this morning and spent some time turning over my two compost bins on my second plot today, they look pretty good. I added some manure to the pile as an activator, so it should be ready by April.

I finally have signs of growth from the carrots I sowed about two weeks ago. You can just about make out a seedling in the middle of the photo is you look hard enough. I think the picture is upside down too. :)

The Rhubarb is progressing nicely, seems to have ignored the horrendous weather we've had of late, and seem to be carrying on business as usual. These should fly along with some decent weather, and I should get a decent pick in the spring.

The Broad Beans that I transplanted last weekend have taken really well, some of them have put on an inch or two in growth, and are almost ready to flower.

The chard that I cut back last week has recovered brilliantly, is looking lush, green with lots of new healthy growth.

I had a look at the overwintering onions that I planted back in November 2013, and they are good, they havent done much, but they have all taken, and they look healthy.

I also planted another Swift Potato in the polytunnel in a 10 litre pot for an early crop. The others I sowed (You can see on YouTube) are yet to show, but the soil is cracking around the potatoes, and I hope that is an indication of something is happening underneath.

That's all from me today. Take Care and Thanks for Reading, Mark.

About Me & The New Season

Hi All,

My name is Mark Allen, and I have an allotment in Littlehampton in West Sussex.

I am a 31 year old married man with a beatiful wife, son, and another little one due in May 2014.

I've decided to do an online gardening blog, and a YouTube blog as I have been a huge fan of other on YouTube for quite a while.

I will update it as frequently as I can, and it should be a minimum of once a week.

I have been a huge fan of other allotment bloggers on YouTube for many years, and it feels right to start my own.

Many Thanks Mark