Catch Up from last 5 months

the last few months here have not been the greatest. Two close family members have been diagnosed with the dreaded C - I cant even write it in full. So this has taken up a lot of our time, we have done our best with the plot but not as much tome as usual so we havent blogged as much as we would of liked!!

My auntie M is so dear to me - This is her garden in North London this summer I spent a lot of time here sitting with her on her bench in the sun.............its a great garden - flowers all around the edge - with veggies in the middle. Its her pride and joy and Uncle J's too.

Preparing for Wimbledon

These are strawberry seeds - we are planting them in a teracotta pot ready to eat with Wimbledon on the lawn.............Yeah right!! we may be a bit late - However we have some other plants as backup - we grew strawberries our 1st and 2nd year no problem - they take no work at all - as long as theres sun! Lasy year though we only had a handful as the summer of 08 was our wettest in our records - So lets see what happens with these seeds - I will also try some in the greenhouse - Thats what allotmenting is all about!! Give it a go and see what happens

The Grape Vine

Here are two pics of the grape vine - the first is the actual bunch of grapes that have just started taking shape - the vine is about 3 years old - it was a fathers day gift for Trevor. We had one bunch last year but hopefully more this year - In the winter it just turned into a twig - its incredible how something that looked so dead can come back to life and burst into life and actually produce fruit - I just find that incredible.

Catching Up - Ben, Digging and a Picnic

Weve only been to the plot 3 times in the last 2 weeks - we've been on a fishing weekend away - and camping - and I have had exams so it was study, study, study for the last two weeks - Exams are now over so back to business!!

This is our picnic from last week - we like to have a spot of lunch on the plot - and we do it in style - under the tablecloth is a table give to us by Pat, our Irish neighbour who has been a great source of information and who we now call a friend.

The cougettes here are enourmous - they were under recycled water cooler bottles that trevor brought home from work - we planted more than this and the ones not under cloches are teeny weeny compared to these! Just shows you how temprature plays such an important part in the growth of these veggies.

This is Ben - Ben lives in the house across the alley and visits most days - Hes such a friendly little moggie - he likes nothing better than a cuddle and a sleep on the big chair in the shed - Funny thing is Ben doesnt seem to visit anyone else on the plot - just us - and we used to live in the house he now lives in - Maybe we smell similiar is all I can think of??

This square was dug a couple of weeks ago ready for crops to come out of the greenhouse - havent exactly decides what yet - Maybe the broad beans and runner beans.

Easter Egg Hunt

Trevors birthday 12th April and as Lucy and Harvey are here and Auntie likes a bit of chocolate too - I had organised a Easter Egg Hunt on the plot 20 or so eggs were hidden throughout the 2 plots for Charlie Harvester and Luby to find. Lovely to see Charlie on plot he dosent come at all now - being 15 its so uncool - So really great to see him over

Lucy comes for Easter & Trevors Birthday

This beautiful young lady is Lucy shes the youngest child of our very dear friends Scott and Bev - we've been frinds with them since we met - in 1987 - 22 years ago - we used to hang out with them and just generally do stuff together before any of us were married or had even thought about kids.

They still live in Broadstairs Kent but they popped up over Easter weekend as Easter Sunday was Trevors birthday. 21 again!! Hes got the key of the shed!! :-)

Trevor and the Rotorvator - Feb 09

Here are some pics of the way the plot was rotovated back in Feb o9 - we were quite against it for a while as its very frowned upon in allotment circles - under the breath its seen as lazy and apart from that if you chop one weed into 6 pieces aparently you get 6 more weeds - since this was done it is now covered with a carpet of fresh green weeds but they are very easily removed when we need to use that end of the plot - I also wanted to preserve Trevors back and mine - and it saved time which is our most precious commodity on the plot when you work full time - so Id rather be doing something else other than hours and hours of digging - this is actually the first year ( fingers crossed ) that we will be able to use all our land - we've always had some areas covered with cardboard or carpet trying to supress the weeds. So thats why we cheated a bit!

Secrets from Inside The Little Red Shed....

As well as gardeners we are active campers - we have been since our sonewas about 3 years old, so 12 years - Much longer than we've been plotters - we have a folding trailer tent called a Dandy.

http://www.rivadandysales.co.uk/index.cgi?action=page&pageno=3

The link here shows you what Im talking about - we have a very old Dandy - its well over 20 years old - Id love one of the ones from the website - navy and white but ours is orange and cream - they built them so well it will probably out last us! We've had many years of fun from it and been all over UK but never taken it across the water - still to do that.

The reason for telling you all that is because this picture shows you our kitchen station here in our shed - it is the old one from the Dandy - when we up graded our cooker we put the old one in the shed - works a treat 2 rings and a grill - we can easily have breakfast, lunch and dinner on the plot and we do - we've even taken potatoes straight from the ground along with lettuce tomatoes onions and sweetcorn and cooked and eaten it within 30 mins - Amazing!!!

This is our location on the plot - We have this as a whole plot - and 171 we have as the half, we got it in our 2nd year as it was opposite ours and Pat who has been on the allotments for over 10 years isnt getting any younger and had 2 plots - he decided to give one up - the 2nd half does apparently have an owner but in the last 2 years Ive never seen them.

to chit or not ??

Seed potatoes are never chitted by us they just get a kiss before they go in the ground and then they are earted up when they start popping their little heads through the soil.

The onions here went if a couple of weeks ago - around the begining of April - a wee bit early but we were itching to plant something! They are now 3-4 inches high and seem very healthy.

Garlic -thats grown so quick - ready for planting on the small plot. weve grown garlic before and its so easy and cost effective.

This is a plumb line made with string and bamboo - a great way to plant in a straight line. Makes the plot seem a lot tidier too.

Trevor puts the potatoes to bed - kiss kiss nun nite

Sylvie and Trevor

Hey look at this a picture of us! 2 Sundays ago planting our spuds - the first earlies - they will be ready end of July - we really love it when the evenings are very long and we can have meals on the plot - dig up the spuds eat them within 5 mins with salad from the plot - excellent.

This is the bottom end of the 1/2 plot - Sylvies plot - rare to see Trevor digging here! ( shhsh!! )

Each and every spud was kissed before being put to bed - Good luck to them all

Check out my wellies x x ( Berkshire show I get new pair each time :-)

Luck - from Newbury

This horse shoe

we picked up a couple of years ago from the Berkshire County Show - our favourite day of the year. My nan used to have lucky horse shoes everywhere - the story is you have to keep it up this way to keep the luck in - If you turn it upside down all the luck falls out. The little red shed needs its horse shoe - its ying and yang!

2 Green Sheds and my posh watering can

Whats Begining to Grow

Raspberries - they just pop up every year

Garlic - ready for planting

Lettuce Seeds - in the green house

Sunflower of Peanuts - for the feathered friends

Wild Daffodils - Gardeners world did a piece on wild daffs last week - we arent sure if these are wild or not - but they popped up in front of our compost bin - they look nice but they are in the wrong place I keep treading on them!!
Wow wee - perfect - ready for planting!!

If only it all looked like this!!

Bet you cant guess what this is???

The recycled bench

Finally its fixed!!!! This bench was outside a house on the street we used to live on - its been on the plot for about 14months in two pieces - Trevor kept promising to fix it but needed special long wood screws - then one evening about 2 weeks ago, we planned to meet on the plot after work - and voila there it was all ready sitting on the hardstanding directly outside the little red shed. However the question then is - Do you need a bench on an allotment? - Yes we do - we drink a lot of tea on our plot - in fact so does everyone - we do tend to have a wee community that collects for tea at our plot especially on a Sunday afternoon.

the little red shed gets a makeover

The little red shed was painted by Trevor - it looks amazing! We have a total of 4 sheds on the plot - 2 small, really small - on the 1/2 plot - (they are green not red.) and we inherited one on the road end when we took on the plot but we dont use that one at all - its full of spiders!!!

We gave in and cultivated!

We had ummed and ahhed about cultivating the big plot - but then a few days off with No 1 son over half term and we decided that it was a good idea! We booked it to be delivered on a bright sunny morning and Trevor got the job of running it over the weeds and semi dry soil. Once you got down a bit it was wet soggy and really difficult to manage. Trev took about 4 hours to do it and he needed plenty of tea!! Cultivating is frowned upon in the allotment world as each little weed is cut into many many little pieces - just so they can divide and multiply. We will need to keep it like this now!!

First Post from the shed

Well here it is our first blog about our allotment -

THE LITTLE RED SHED

- we are a couple in West London who have a plot that we love to bits - its our 4th year or season if your a real plotter!

We first got involved as the allotment was directly behind our house and a neighbour kept disappearing for hours on end and then would come in through the back gate after dark - we found out she had an allotment and it was less that a minute walk from our new back gate. After she showed us her plot that was it we put our name on the list - the very long list!

3 years later after regularly emailing the allotment manager to make sure we were still on the list - a call came through to meet up with her and view the vacant plots, we took plot 170 for several reasons - it was a full plot - thats 100 meters in new money - 10 rods is the correct allotment terminology. So that was in the November 05 - we spent all those winter weekends removing brambles and learning what weeds were, we covered up bits we couldnt dig and began planning the most amazing plot that had ever lived - the list included a pergula a pond, a seating area, and most importantly somewhere to put the veggies. I even still plan to have a hammock!!

That seems such a long time ago now - we've grown lots of things - tried a lot of things that didnt work - its all trial and error - but we've had a great time tying - to us its a hobby we share together with loads and loads of benefits;

• 100% organic veggies


• excercise for free


• friends and neighbours


• to be able to nerture and see things grow from weeny seed to a fruit or veg


• a chance to be creative and artistic in how to design the blank canvas each spring


• somewere to have complete peace and quiet - no phones - no team - no teeth!

So we've ( the royal wee mainly me Mrs S ) planned to do a blog so we can share our ups and downs of 09 with the world - its not to get anything but recorded memories but if a few people read it then all the better - Im not that technically minded by my teenage son assures me its easy to blog - we'll see.