I needed some more seed compost for the greenhouse so I decided to go down to the garden centre after Tai Chi.  (I have been told that I should go in for Tai Chi union competition in June but I don’t know if I will have time to train that hard.)  However, I got down the garden centre and looked first at the plastic greenhouse trays.  I am getting fed up of the 3″ pots falling through the laths of the staging.  Bought 2 big ones and the horticultural gravel to go in them.  Bought 3 big bags of peat free compost (Buy 2 get one free).  Looked at the seed and finally bought the sweet peas.  Got some red onion seed, and some sectioned trays. 

Came home and planted the sweet peas - at long last.

Put in a tray of red onions, another tray of tagetes - will I have enough?  I sorted out the new trays and put horticultural gravel in them.  Put all the pots and trays back on them which takes longer than you think.  So the greenhouse is tidy and ready for the tomatoes, aubergine and peppers.  I will also put a cucumber in or two but I will still have ridge cucumbers on the allotment.  The tomatoes are coming well.  I have quite a few Gardener’s Delight.  I might start the aubergine off early this year because I got about one last year from some very good plants.  I can grow big bushy plants but it is no good unless they fruit.

Decided to spray everything with the asprin.  Now I don’t know whether this will make the least bit of difference but while I was messing in the greenhouse, the garlic did start to give off a powerful pong.  I don’t know whether this had anything to do with the asprin but maybe it is part of garlic’s defence mechanism and I have just triggered it into action. 

I really think that to be effective you will need to spray young plants and the ones in the greenhouse, before they are hardened off would seem to be the best targets.  Well that is my theory anyway.

I didn’t want to spend any more time in the greenhouse so I went in to do my OU assignment.�

I pricked out the lettuce, tagetes and the tomatoes.  Put a pinch of mychorrhizal fungi in each of the dibber holes but I don’t know whether this will help them. 

I realised that Nemaslug has a use by date - its a good thing to read the instructions isn’t it.  Well I did refrigerate it getting that part of the instructions but I didn’t realise about the use by date.  So, I decided to go down to the allotment and water in the Nemaslug.  No problem there.  I thought that as the winter onions were growing so well, I would spray them with asprin.  One thing I didn’t think about was the solubility of asprin.  Maybe I should have got soluble ones.  Still I broke a tablet up and swished it around in the sprayer in hot water before taking it down to the allotment.  It had a while to either dissolve a little or settle out. 

I got down to the allotment and did the jobs.  Watered in the Nemaslug and sprayed the onions, broccolli, winter cauliflower and the soft fruit with asprin.    If it does them any harm the allotment will be devastated this   spring.  Still, I do like to experiment.  I think that it will not have any effect at all.  It is one thing spraying but another to expect chemicals to penetrate into the cells of plants. 

I fed the broccoli, cauliflowers and the soft fruit with comfrey again.  The allotment taps are still turned off so I  am running out of water in the butts.   I looked at the pile of prunings on the comfrey patch and decided that I did not want to look at them any more.  I went down with my sparkling new stainless steel spade and dug a big hole.  It was about 4′ deep and I was digging in the clay subsoil.  I cut the old plum tree in half and pushed both parts into the hole.  I didn’t think that it would go in but it did.  Put the branches of the leylandi I had cut off in there as well. Prunings went in next and to cap it off someone had left some turfs on the allotment.  So I put some of them in too.  It is amazing how much you can get into a really big hole.  Then I filled in the hole and raked over the bed.  Looks a treat now.  I thought that I would get some turfs to put in the bean and pea trenches so I went down and got three wheelbarrow loads. Stacked them grass down on the allotment.  They will be fine there until I put the trenches in.   Looked at my watch and amazed to find that I had spent four hours down the allotment.  My excuse is that I talked to Beryl about how Eric was getting on and then when I was getting the turfs I went and asked Phil about his shed.  His is about 6′ by 4′.  I will get one smaller than that though. 

Several little nutters decided to walk through the allotments which I was not going to challenge until they started to throw stones at one of the sheds.  I walked down towards them and they moved off.  Another allotmenteer had walked down and I said that I would lock the gate.   I would like to say that these types of youths are in a minority but I don’t think they are.  They were still giving me a lot of abuse after I had locked the gate.  Then they started to climb over the fence of the next house.  I expect my greenhouse will be smashed up tomorrow but as I am going to take it down anyway I don’t really care.

I just think that it is sad.  �

All the seed planted has germinated.  I did the old trick of putting them next to the tank in the airing cupboard. 

We have lettuce, tomatoes and tagetes (which is a posh way of saying marigold) all on the go.  I will prick them all out into trays and pots during next weekend.  I will also be adding mychorrhizal fungi to each of the containers. 

I have decided that I will be spraying with soluble asprin when the plants in the greenhouse are big enough to be planted out in the allotment.  This, I hope, will give them added protection against slugs, snails, pigeons and any other pest that may want to munch my veg. 

May well start off my leeks, cabbage, cauliflower, broccolli and brussels at the weekend.  It depends on whether the weather be wet or whether the weather be fine… I always find I can weather the weather.

I cannot believe that 8000 people would want to read the diary of an old codger doing his allotment.  Maybe its one person that is very keen to know what I am doing.  Or maybe its me looking at my allotment blog 8000 times.  I’m sure I spend just as much time looking at my allotment.�

Went down to the allotment  fairly early.  Blooming cold.  Raked the horse muck about to tart up the middle area.  Now the muck is covering all that area right up to the gooseberries.   I had nothing else to do except tidy up the greenhouse.  It is continuing to fall apart.  Looked at the tap again to make sure it was on tightly. 

The weather forecast is for a very sharp frost (-5 in the Midlands) so I went home and took the chitting potatoes out of the green house and put them in the spare room.  I told you it was too early to put the potatoes out to chit.  Maybe I should have put them in the spare room in the first place.  Still they are safe and sound now.

As I am a glutton for punishment, I went down to dad’s and dug over 1 1/2 of his plots in his garden.  He still has leeks, parsnips, beetroot and purple sprouting left.  He has a lot of mares tail and it is a devil of a job taking it all out.  It slows the digging down or I would have finished both plots. 

Garlic and onions are growing well in the greenhouse.  I don’t think the frost will harm them very much.  Put them in plastic bags though for a little extra protection.

I have not planted the sweet pea seeds.

Went up very early today and dug over the middle area.  There are still broccolli and winter cauliflowers in here so I mulched them with the horse manure.  I dragged the pile of horse muck over the dug area but it was not enough. 

Drove down to Tony’s to get some more horse muck and he insisted that I took a ride on his horse and trap.  The trap is 4″ the gate was 6″ ;I was a little anxious.  Brilliant experience though.   I could get quite interested in driving horses but could never afford to do anything but have an interest. 

Filled up the trailer with some good muck and went back to the allotment to unload.  Wheelbarrowed it up to the allotment so I could put it on the area that I wanted to cover and heaped it up.  It is amazing how the time goes.  It was half past one and I hadn’t done very much. 

I had to go to the meeting to see what was going to happen about idiots putting subsoil on my allotment.   The meeting certainly was good and a lot of things were sorted out.  They will be coming to the allotment to have a site meeting… Whatever that might mean.  Still they did say that they were going to do something about it. 

The trouble is, I only have half term in which to sort the allotment out.  Then it is back to weekends. So, I decided to sort the mess out by raking up all the topsoil and stone and putting it in the tubs.  I took out all the strawberries, replaced the gooseberry and straightened the slabs.  I have dug over the whole of the allotment now and it looks a treat.   When the council come down they will say what is the problem?

I will have to say that it is a good job it was half term because otherwise I would not have been able to put in over 4 hours of remedial work that I should not have had to do. 

Still, I have the photographs. 

And why can’t I upload photographs again???  I have to delete some of them before I can put others up.  I might just put them on flicker and the weblink on here but it makes for very boring blog sites.

At the meeting they said a very interesting thing.  The water table in the West Midlands is rising because industry is no longer taking as much water out of the ground as it used to.  In the 1980s and 1990s we were worried about the amount of water that industry was taking out of the soil.  Rivers dried up and cracked mud was the only thing that could be seen.  Now we are being hit by two things.  More rain due to global warming and rising of the water table because of the decline in industry.  Maybe we are in for a lot more flooding.

One thing that the environmental health officer said at the meeting with the council is that there could be contamination on the allotments due to fires.  Some of the chemicals and materials we burn may be putting nasty chemicals into the soil.   I would suggest that you think very carefully before you burn anything on the allotment.  My policy, for a number of years now, has been to bury everything but what cannot be buried take to the local tip.   Don’t bring things from home to burn on the allotment.  If you hear me coughing in the background its me slowly dying in your smoke.

I finally got to Tony’s and got a load of horse muck and took it to the allotment.   It would be a lot better if we could get up to the allotments.  Bill said why didn’t I take the muck round to the other gate because that way I could get right alongside my allotment.  But with the piles of stone on the car park, I could not get through that way and I really did not want to reverse all the way back to the gate. 

I don’t mind barrowing it up to the allotment because then you can tip it out exactly where you want it. 

Bill reminded me again about the meeting with the council tomorrow.  He really wants me to be there to give him moral support. 

I mended the tap today.  I put a new one on.  The old one was well and truely Knackered.  Phil said that he would leave me 20 slabs on Fred’s allotment and I have been deciding what to do with them.  The allotment greenhouse is really past its sell by date.  I could take it down and put the slabs there for a shed.  I really need to raise the shed above the level of the ground because of the water on the allotment.  I only need a little shed so I could put two or three layers of slabs on top of each other and then put the shed on top of this.  We shall see…

Finally, I dug over the last bit of the new potato patch.  I will put horse muck over the top of this and then dig it into the trenches when I plant the potatoes.  

Onions are germinating with some vigour and the garlic is sprouting well.  All is looking well at the moment.  I will end up with nothing to do - except plant sweet peas.�

I couldn’t get muck .  Really, it was a good job because I spent all day, and a beautiful one too, doing other jobs.   I have replaced all the strawberries that were covered in subsoil and stone with some runners.  Now I have about 6, 14 ft strawberry rows.  I planted them with mychorrhizal fungi and I will compare these with the ones that have had none.  

I then turned my attention to the new potato plot.  I took out the leeks and was pleasantly surprised to find that they were quite good.  No leek fly in them.   I forked over the areas of soil that were still exposed and then covered  with horse muck.  I didn’t bother to dig in the horse muck.  When I plant the potatoes some will inevitably fall into the trench and the rest can stay on the top of the soil as a mulch. 

Then I noticed that the 2′6″ slabs holding up the soil were leaning, probably because of the new land drain.  So I took out 6 of them and made sure they were standing up properly.  Sounds easy but I can assure you it was not.  Now it looks as perfect as I can make it.   

I planted the tagettes, Gardener’s Delight tomatoes and the Iceberg.  They are sitting on a warm windowsill. 

Fran says that she bought me some Sweet Peas seeds for Christmas but I didn’t get them and I am wondering where they are now.   I know I had them because I opened them inadvertently before Christmas.   They need to be planted now if I am to get good blooms off them.Â

Well, I finished planting the new raspberries (Glen Prosen)  which fruits from mid July to mid August with bright red fruits.   Straightened the frame for holding them up.  Just as I had finished one of the allotment holders came over and gave me about ten Autumn Bliss raspberries which is reported to fruit from September to the frosts.

I think that when I take out my old canes at the back end of this year, I will plant all the Bliss along that row.  I have got most of them heeled in near the greenhouse.  

The blackberry is Adrienne, which is thornless and fruits from late July to August.  The new gooseberry is Invicta.  Fruit ripens about late July and can be both dessert and cooking… I planted all of them with mycorrhizal spores so I will sit back and see if they seem to make any difference.   

Watered them all in with comfrey liquid.  I decided to do the purple sprouting and the winter cauliflowers as well.  I may mulch these with horse muck tomorrow.   I will have a look to see if any more purple sprouting is coming as well.  

Finished off the strawberry bed and planted the new strawberries with mycorrhizal spores too.  This is Cambridge and I bought plants at least 15 years ago and they are still going strong.  I am a little worried that they have a virus now though, so I will see if they do well this year and get some more next year if they do not crop.  

There is nothing more dispiriting  than seeing a mess on your allotment so I decided to scrape all the subsoil and stones off the allotment and put it into  tubs.  Good job I have big tubs.  The allotment looked much better but I still had to fork over the bottom plot to  ameliorate my irritation.   It looks quite good now. 

Alright, alright, I will put my potatoes in the greenhouse to chit.  I know that they will get frosted particularly when we have had three very heavy frosts this week but I will put them out anyway.  As the man says, how can you stop them from chitting?  They don’t have any shoots on them anyway so I would still rather leave them for the moment.  But the man in the forum says chit so I will chit. 

I am also going to plant some Gardener’s Delight tomatoes, some Tagetes patula and some Iceberg lettuce in the warm somewhere.   I might sow Sweet Peas. 

Tomorrow I get horse muck…

Sunday morning I always go to Tai Chi and get myself thoroughly tired.  Most people think that Tai Chi is very slow and relaxing.  Slow I would agree with, relaxing I would not agree with.  It is blooming hard work - for me any way.  Which means, to get back to the allotment I did not get down there until about 2 o’clock.  There were about two people on the allotments appart from me. 

I dug over the last of the area where the peas were and then used the cultivator and rake to smooth the soil.  Looks great now.  I wanted to extend my strawberry bed a lot so this is where they are going to go…

I have decided to replace my old raspberries, which were given me by someone on the allotments 24 years ago, with a known variety.  I have now gone and forgotten what variety I bought.    I got ten canes at about £1 a cane which is fairly good.   I also got a really good variety of thornless blackberry and a gooseberry which claims to be immune to American mildew. (Sphaerotheca mors-uvae)  We shall see.

 So, I started moving the strawberries and planting them in the new bed and suddenly a great multitude of people appeared on their allotments.  Most of the committee were there.  And, just by chance, a big load of free horse manure turned up and was off loaded on the gate car park.  Now isn’t that amazing. 

So I got a barrow load of muck because I scraped off all the subsoil and stones from around the dalek compost tub that the council contractor very kindly left on my allotment, and this left a bit of a depression.  Dug a hole, after taking out the rhubarb filled it with muck and put the rhubarb back in but raised up a lot more so they cannot cover them with subsoil easily again.  Next I put in the thornless blackberry.  I decided to use the mychorrizal fungi for the soft fruit bushes so they got a dose of those as well.  I mulched the blackberry with some of the muck as well. 

I took down the old frame I had for the beans and rebuilt it for the blackberry and the raspberries.  So I will have these at the bottom of the allotment.  I am going to use some old pea wire that I have to give me more wire to tie them in to. 

The garlic is showing and growing well and the onions have begun to germinate today.  I am going to plant some Gardener’s Delight, Tagetes patula and some iceberg lettuce seeds tomorrow.  Thank heaven for half term. 

 �

Just putting up some more photographs of the mess they made of my allotment. 

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You might not be able to see the difference between the blacker soil from my allotment that they used to fill their hole and the lighter soil of the trackway. As you can see they did not cure anything.  They just moved the spring into the center of the path away from the side where it used to be and created a quagmire for me to have to walk through to get to and work on my allotment. 

 

You can see here some of my topsoil with a root of sorrel lying on top for good measure filling their hole while above it you can see the white stone they used for the pathway.  I grew sorrel on my allotment last year.  I am not going to let this go.  I am complaining to the council and anyone else I can think of. 

Right I have written to Rob Marris MP. Now for the council.�

 I have no objection to them putting in a land drain on the pathway.  What I object to, is them dumping this mess on my allotment.  Am I over reacting or is it reasonable for me to think that the soil I have painstakingly cultivated over 25 years should be left unadulterated.  As you can see debris and subsoil scattered all over my allotment.  There is a half brick at the top left.  This soil was sieved last year for the parsnips and the carrots.

 Where they could not remove the subsoil because of the compost tub they just left it.

 

 You can see here where they removed topsoil to fill their trench with.  You must see how good that soil is.  Where the depression is there are no stones over 1/2 an inch in diameter - except where their rubbish has fallen in. 

The damage continued and they covered the gooseberries in subsoil as well. 

Yes there are gooseberry plants under there somewhere. 

This was also left on my allotment. 

They dumped a load of stone onto my horse manure as well.  I put the horse manure there.  I did not put the stones on top of it.�