From jungle to full cultivation

here is a video to summarise our progress on LottiePlotFour over the last 2 seasons.
Hope this inspires any new allotment holders :)

Lots of snow in the run up the Xmas

Over the last week and a half we have had alot of snow. At the moment there is approximately 6 inches of snow at the allotment, although it is starting to thaw. We still managed to find a few parsnips for Xmas lunch so all is not lost!

Pumpkin carving 2009

We carved our giant pumpkin today. Ant managed to cut the insides out with a carving knife, but had to use a saw to cut the top off.



Here you can see the pumpkin is quite hollow, but has many seeds



The seeds are very large and we are planning to save these to grow next year. We planted these seeds on a plot where there are no other pumpkins or squash growing near. They also set fruit before the other plants on the site so we are hoping they will come true and produce an even larger pumpkin.




We decided on a simple scary face design. but I may get more adventurous with the smaller pumpkins!

Harvested a giant pumpkin

Managed to roll this one into a barrow and then walk the mile home with it.

Chilli Harvest 2009

Today we harvested our chillies. These have all been grown in a greenhouse in the garden, rather than on LottiePlotFour.

We grew a range of varieties.

The 'Ring 'o' Fire' was very successful as always and produced a reliable crop. 'Peach Habanero' were much slower to mature and I have harvested many of the fruits green. Perhaps these need more sun that Manchester can offer, but time will tell on their heat levels. 'Black Pearl' was a very pretty plant. We only grew 1 plant and it was productive harvesting over 30 fruits. These fruits are dark purple in colour, but do ripen to red. They are also very hot! We grew 'Pepperdew' which are the same variety as that well known mild chillies you can buy in a sweet syrup at the supermarket. These were large plants, but didn't seem to produce that many chillies per plant. Again, perhaps they need a hotter climate. We do have enough to make one jar though so once they are ripe I will set to try and preserve our own. 'F1 Joe's Long' were a very heavy cropper, but they are very mild. They do live up to their name though as most were approaching 20cm long. 'Praire Fire' was, once again, a reliable favourite. These little bushy plants produce hundreds of very small, but extremely hot chillies. They ripen through yellow, orange and red and are very decorative. 'Pepper Pepper' the 'penis-shaped' chilli was entertaining as always. They have a real kick and are a good talking point.

The final variety we attempted are the world famous 'Bhut Jolokia'. These are the chillies listed as the hottest variety in the 'Gunniess Book of Records'. These chillies are rated to have a heat of over a million scoville units. For comparison; tabasco red pepper sauce rates at 2,500-5,000. Again these needed a longer season, but we have got a few ripe fruits.

I have brought in 2 praire fire and 2 Bhut Jolokia plants and will attempt to overwinter these for an earlier start next year.


Praire Fire



Pepperdew



F1 Joe's Long



Ring 'o' Fire



Peter Pepper



Peach Habanero



Black Pearl



Bhut Jolokia (still on plant)



The full Harvest

A video update at the beginning of October

We have been cropping like mad, but most things are now coming to an end. During September we started clearing an area of the plot in preparation for planting overwintering onions and garlic. These are going in where this years spuds were planted and we have decided to add some 10x4ft beds for this purpose.

Some crops are at their best during autumn including our autumn raspberries. We also have lots of chinese greens for stir fry.

With the frosts fast approaching we decided to harvest the squash, but have left in the 2 large Atlantic giant pumpkins (on our other plot). These are too big to move and we will hollow these out at the end of the month and decorate them for halloween.

This weekend was the allotment AGM. We were awarded a prize for achieving the overall highest points and first place in the home produce section of our annual show, which took place in August.

In addition, LottiePlotFour was awarded a shield for the 'most improved plot'.

A video update in August

Garlic Braids 2009

After giving the garlic a few weeks to dry out I have braided it for storage. This year we are also planning to keep the bigger bulbs to replant next year.

June 2009 update

Following the first garlic harvest, we have now removed all the japanese onions, shallots and a further 2 beds of garlic. This year the Solent Wight garlic has been a bit of a let down as the bulbs are rather small. The japanese onions have produced an impressive crop with some real whoppers amoungst the harvest. With the first bed of onions we made a large batch of onion and balsamic vinegar chutney. The second bed are drying in the greenhouse.



In addition, the greenhouse and garden are coming along nicely.

Chillies



Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Sweet Peppers



More Chillies!



Various flower borders









Koi Pond

First garlic lifted

Today we lifted the first bed of garlic. These are a variety called 'purple wight'. They crop early, but are not noted to have the best storing capacity. Saying this, ours stored fine up to March last year! The total is about 80 bulbs. There is the odd small one, but the majority are a reasonable size so we are pleased. The plants did develop a little rust, but this was just over the last week and it doesn't seem to have affected the crop.



Here you can see that we leave the soil on the plants.



We give the plants a good shake, but don't wash them. They will be left to dry in the greenhouse. After a couple of weeks the bulbs are not so easily damaged and the mud comes off by removing the most outer layer around the bulbs. We can then braid them for storage.

The first early potatoes (arran pilot) were also dug out today. After reading about replanting early spud plants, if they still have pea sized tubers on, we have decided to give this a go. The theory is that you can get a second crop. Once we had removed the edible-sized potatoes we re-planted the plant and watered in well. Time will tell if we have success with this method.

First Spuds Lifted

This year we planted 3 seed potatoes in a potato barrel in the greenhouse on the 4th April. This was an attempt to get an earlier crop. Today we harvested to see if our experiment had worked. The potato barrel contained 1kg of new potatoes. Not a huge crop. Last year we had double the weight from the same barrel. Many variables different here though - different variety (arran pilot versus red duke of york), probably much less water (obviously there is no rain in the greenhouse!)and I used 3 seed potatoes rather than 5. Worth it for the earlier crop though in my opinion. These were harvested 3 weeks earlier than last years efforts. We have another potato barrel that should be ready in a few weeks. The first of the allotment grown spuds should be ready starting mid-june and from then they should be coming thick and thin.

May Bank Holiday Update

A mixture of warm sunshine and heavy rain has created the ideal conditions for fast and healthy growth at Lottie Plot Four. Over the last few days we have started to plant out bedding plants and annual veg plants that we have been growing from seed in the greenhouse. Yesterday we planted out 40 sweetcorn plants in a block. Sweetcorn must be planted in this pattern to allow for pollentation by wind. The potatoes are doing well and the first earlies are just starting to flower. Hopefully this is a sign that it will not be long before we are eating tasty new potatoes.

During April we have been working on the construction of our pergola. The plants are making good progress. Today I planted some bolloti and butter (spagna bianco) beans that I started in the greenhouse. It is very early for these to be out on the plot. We have planted these out under a square glass cloche. These beans need a long growing season and, if we are lucky, they will survive and produce a tasty crop.

The greenhouse is well ultilized in preparation for summer

We are using our greenhouse to grow vegetable and flower plants for both LottiePlotFour and our home garden. The night-time temperature is not yet consistenly above 5 degrees so the non-hardy plants are being pampered overnight in our lounge, but many seedlings are on the go.

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