Spring sunshine brings life...

Improved weather, although we did have hail and frosts yesterday, has allowed much progress on lottie plot four. Onions, garlic and early potatoes are in. This is along with a good variety of fruit. Despite the gales a few weeks ago, I managed to get the strawberries planted under weed fabric. These are in a raised bed. We are pleased to say that this is now the only weed fabric that is present on lottie plot four! Last year we covered over half the plot in heavy duty weed suppressant matting. We did manage to grow a good crop of pumpkins though this, but it was not a long term solution. This did allow us time to weed through this section strip by strip. The whole area was heavily infested with bindweed so this was a slow process and the main project for over winter. Today we reached the momentus occassion of removing and weeding the last strip of fabric. In addition; over the last few weeks we have prepared many of the raised beds. Some of these are covered with cardboard until planting, others have been filled with wigwams which will hold various climbing beans and peas. The main planting season is a while off as we are in the chilly north, but I have planted 2 short rows of beetroot in a raised bed. The 7ft high mountain of compost we inherited is now moved and we have levelled the area in preparation for laying a patio. The plan is that we have a pergola next to the shed for shelter during the summer months. We will also have a storage area all nicely slabbed for easy maintainance.

Lottie Plot Four February Update

A splash of colour pre-spring

While we are waiting for the growing season to start on lottieplotfour our Amaryllis is providing some well appreciated colour.



The variety is 'black pearl'



It won't be long before the allotment springs into life!

Almost half a plot sorted...

Today we levelled the area for 2 more raised beds, put them in, levelled the paths, got a few barrows of woodchips to cover the paths. Argued a bit, drank tea :p

Photo from shed end.

Next job will be to clear the pile next to the oil barrel and build three 3'x3' compost bins.

Time on plot: 6 hours
Barrows of woodchips: 8
Tea drunk: 1.5 litres
Biscuits eaten: not enough, tin ran out :D

A busy Valentines day

There isn't much going on at the allotment in winter. The onions and garlic are growing well and there are still some cabbages left.
It is pretty much the time to get ground prepared, dug over and weeded.

However, it was also time to construct a few more raised beds :)

The large one is 6'x6' and will be our strawberry patch. The small one is 3'x3' and will have rhubarb in it. The others are our standard 6'x3' beds and will be for various veg depending on time of year/crop rotation.

This is our raspberry frame, the raspberry canes are Autumn Bliss and as their name suggests they crop later in the year and are quite a heavy cropper :). Just behind the raspberry frame is our bramley apple tree. The end of the plot towards the shed is a bit too low, so over the course of the year is will be raised up slightly. Tomorrows job is to level the ground to get the foreground bed sorted.

We rolled back a strip of the weed suppressant fabric that last years pumpkins were growing through and found a load of bindweed roots, because it was covered, the roots have risen quite close to the surface and are quite big so should be easy to weed.
Looking quite pleased with myself here as it is Sparkly who will be weeding tomorrow.

and just a reminder, when we got the plot in September 2007 this was a photo from roughly where the basket is in the picture above looking towards where the shed is... Brambles, bindweed, the apple tree is hidden in there!

Lottie Plot Four at New Year