Luke Is Digging

Spring

Luke Kelly — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 09:08:00 +0000

Yup, it's time for the annual round of commentators on the radio asking whether an early spring is evidence for global warming. Our daffodils are poking up, the roses are putting out shoots and the box shrub has all kinds of new leaves. Which is pretty exciting really. The garden chez Digger and Not Digger was a tangled weedy mess when we moved in. Most of the weed were dead it has to be admitted, but that was because the previous tenant's idea of gardening was to regularly obliterate everything with weedkiller.

In October we attacked it, and now we've replaced the dead weeds with clear soil. The hope is that with spring all the, current tiny, plants we put in will transform it into a sea of horticultural beauty. Or something like that. The not very impressive pictures by this text show our very own attempt at a premature spring. The roses are particularly exciting, I didn't put them in for a few weeks after they arrived so I was slightly concerned that they'd have difficulty getting going this year. But no, they're actually very keen to go. Within a few months we might have healthy Gertrude Jekyll roses beautifying our garden.

So time for a quick tour of the garden to be. First is the top of the patio, where, if we have a summer this year, we shall be eating many al fresco meals. There are 3 roses (Gertrude Jekyll) at the base of the long wall and a hydrangea ('Endless Summer', hydrangea macrophylla). In the corner we may line a half-barrel and put in a lily and solar powered bubbler, we'll see how much spare cash there is a couple of months!

Looking down the garden there are couple of lavender varieties on the corner (one French, one Hidcott) and a plant with a large red seed head whose names I've temporarily forgotten - I'll update this later! The fur tree is hideous, and blocks of lots of light to the end of the garden. It's far too large for the garden and if I was allowed I'd have chopped it down already. The rickity branches in the air are an experimental trelise which has surprisingly survived the winter so far. There's a Virginia ivy on it, some bulbs near the base and a load of periwinkles (Vinca Minor) on the narrow bed.

Finally, at the end of the garden, there's a herb bed to be on the right. On the bank at the bottom there's a whole variety of spring bulbs, so those will hopefully transform it into a sea of foliage and flowers soon. The tub contains a twisted hazel (Corylus avel. Contorta) which is probably the highlight of the garden. It doesn't look much now, especially not in a small photo, but it is lovely to look at and will hopefully be with us for years.

It's not the most impressive garden, but hopefully this summer it'll be a pleasant backdrop to warm evenings on the patio. Bring it on!

We're Back!

Luke Kelly — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:23:00 +0000

After an unexpectedly lengthy winter hibernation Luke Is Digging is back. Whilst it's felt quiet in the last few months, the sum total of events is quite large. Most importantly, the plot has grown. The 2 men who had the half-plot next to mine retired from crouch graph fighting and so it was offered to me. Being a foolish youth without a highly developed (enough) sense of fear at large patches of weed I leapt at it, and now have lots more room for vegetables.

There's also been a fruit explosion here. Stealing lovely jam from Grandparents isn't a complete preserve strategy, and I love English soft fruit, so I've been putting all in kinds of things. There are a few rhubarb plants - although I'm told they shouldn't be harvested in their first year. Maybe just one stalk. 2 black currant bushes are planted and 2 gooseberry bushes are ordered. There are some strawberries that I found amongst the chickweed of my extension that need to find a suitable home. Best of all though are the 24 (!?) raspberry canes now in 3 enticing rows. On reflection maybe 12 would have been more suitable, but raspberry jam is my favourite so I'm sure I'll cope. At worst I'm sure I can find people who'll take raspberry jam in exchange for other fruit/veg delights.

The autumn onions have grown, if sporadically. I should really have netted them until their roots could hold them firm against clouds of curious birds. I'm not really sure what to do with them now. There are about half as many as there should be, so it's using a lot of space for only a moderate amount of onion. At the risk of confusion I may plant the next batch of onions in the holes the birds have made, and trust that I can tell the difference. I have no idea if transplanting onions is possible or sensible. The garlic though is incredibly vigorous. Even the few that the birds moved have, with replanting, stormed ahead. They are now in proud dense rows. I'm looking forward greatly to braiding them.

Apologies for the lack of pictures, I'm at work at the moment and so don't have access to any shots of the extended plot. I'll be back soon though with a picture of this year's vastly overambitious allotment plan, and a list of the varieties I shall be trying. My tiny garden at home has started to show signs of life - a big improvement on the weed bed it was when we moved in - so some photographs of the flowering bulbs there might also be in order.

Bottle Shelves

Luke Kelly — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:05:00 +0000

Not strictly gardening, but as it's (partly) recyled, and I've neglected you recently, I thought I'd share a recent woodworking project with you.

After inheriting some lovely handtools and desiring some nice wooden furniture our house, I decided that the obvious solution was to make some myself. A while back She Who Does Not Dig had seen some shelves made of recycled bottles so as she was away for a few weeks recently I thought I’d make them for her. The design I saw had no joints at all, just held together by bottles and turnbuckles, so in an effort to make it more educational for myself I added in back supports held on by lap joints. As I hadn’t picked up a saw for anything much since high school this wasn’t as straighforward as it could have been!

After much effort – the last joint took a tenth of the time of the first but it’s going to be a lot of projects before I can chisel out a joint quickly and accurately – this is what I produced. It’s not much, but not too bad for a first effort I’d like to think. Absolutely loved the process of making it, so am currently plotting my next attempt.

Visitors

Luke Kelly — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 15:42:00 +0000

Firstly, apologies for the dearth of posts in the last month, partly it's been madly busy here but mostly I've just been negligent! The plot is progressing happily though, last weekend I put up a compost heap made from salvaged wood and the beans just keep coming. I understand what gardening books mean by 'glut' now!

Most excitingly though, today my Grandma visited my humble little plot, and didn't even tell me it was too weedy! Very proud.

I Made Veg!

Luke Kelly — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 22:17:00 +0000

The allotment worked. It made food! It's very exciting. Potatoes leaves were starting to look very unhappy, and a couple had flowered, so I chopped the tops off and couldn't resist digging a row. To my slight surprise, there in bottom of the trench were perfectly formed potatoes. So I ate them. She Who Does Not Dig is away at the moment, but shall be subjected to a very excited me pointing at potatoes with a massive grin when she returns.

The plots also on the verge of producing beans. A solitary bean was ready for eating a few days ago, and I gobbled it up, so I suspect that lots will be ready now. I had planned to go today and drop off the overflowing compost bin and harvest beans but I got very distracted by another project of mine, of which more in a future post...

But for now: yay for veg!

Birthday!

Luke Kelly — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 11:56:00 +0000

She Who Does Not Dig earnt several months worth of brownie points by making me an absolutely amazing birthday cake, decorated with all kinds of allotment related icing and marzipan figures. There are advantages to her being a primary school teacher's daughter!

Aren't they great. :-)

Between The Rain

Luke Kelly — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 19:58:00 +0000

In a brief interlude between deluges I managed to get a small amount of hoeing and photography in. Whether it's the rain or the slug, the carrots She Who Does Not Dig planted a few weeks show no sign of life. All there was in their rows was a small dock plant and various types of new grass. Hmmm. Whilst the rain seems to being carrots no favours, the weeds seem to be coping, they're as happy as ever. This isn't helped by both my neighbors largely abandoning their plots in the face of the 'summer' weather.

My plot is the strip of ever-so-slightly-fewer-weeds in the middle. Huge numbers of the plots are looking somewhat sorry for themselves, understandably the weather is proving rather dispiriting for many people. I need to sort out my paths, they're just growing faster than I trample them down by walking around, so I need to either cover them with something (more of the thousands of stones in my soil?) or else start to regularly cut it. Ugh.

There is positive life though, whilst many things are looking dubious the potatoes are just about to flower and now they've finally got going the sweetcorn is really going for it.

The best of the bunch though are the beans, they're covered in stunning red flowers. I hope you'll forgive me for including a couple of larger photos, they really are beautiful at the moment.

Squirrel

Luke Kelly — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 12:55:00 +0000

In the absence of much gardening to blog about I thought I'd post a picture of the young squirrel whose stealing from our bird feeder.

She Who Does Not Dig has named him Samson, and so Samson it is. We could try to drive him away to leave the seeds for the birds, but they seem utterly uninterested in them. Maybe the thousands of slugs that are out and about in this wet weather mean they're turning their noses up at our sunflower seeds. We did see a pair of bluetits feeding at it one day, but they were much more excited by the slugs on the fence than the seeds, so it looks like it's just Samson we're feeding until winter comes around.

Wet

Luke Kelly — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 08:20:00 +0000

As just about every other allotment blogger has said, it's been a rubbish few weeks with little gardening, little growing and lots of grumbling at the weather. Stop raining!

The plot appears to be surviving my neglect for the last couple of weeks - foot is now back to a normal size thankfully - and some things have even grown. The beans have shot up after I retied them a couple of weeks ago, should be laden with beans by the end of the summer.

A quick apology is needed for the quality of the photos, last nights trip was meant to a 5 minute visit to drop off kitchen waste for the compost heap. Of course this didn't happen, the potatoes that hadn't been earthed up for a while looked so much less happy than those that had, so I was forced to stop and do some digging. The lack of planning meant I didn't bring my camera, and so all the photos are from She Who Does Not Dig's mobile. Worse than poor photos I managed to destroy my shoes. Instead of nice solid gardening shoes I was in a pair of flimsy things, which didn't enjoy the work one bit. The sole is now in 2 distinct pieces. Ooops.

Due to the many interruptions to my beautiful and ambitious plans for the plot I haven't been able to dig the last of the 4 patches destined for vegetable production, so I bit the bullet, bought some matting and covered it up before it turned into a weed seed factory.

I had been resisting doing so but now I have I'm pleased with the result, it's not as ugly as expected and the whole plot looks much more under control now. More veg patch, less wildness area. I'll return later in the week with a photo of the whole patch.

And once more, STOP RAINING!

Horse Fly

Luke Kelly — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:22:00 +0000

The allotment suffers from midges in the evening and, as I'm currently having to wear open footwear due to blisters caused by running a mountain marathon, I was prepared to be bitten. I was not though expecting a horse fly to attack my foot. I haven't swollen up massively, but as it's my foot even moderate swelling has somewhat crippled me, leaving me hobbling about with no footwear at all. Finishing the earthing up of my potatoes is going to have to wait until I get back from next week's holiday in Normandy.

Quick Update

Luke Kelly — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:13:00 +0000

I'm still alive and kicking, and despite my best efforts at causing its death by neglect, the allotment is progressing happily. Haven't been able to take any photos but I'll get some up soon. The potatoes are very numerous, and in need of earthing up. We're going to have to ask veg box people not to deliver any when it gets to Autumn or we'll be seriously snowed (potatoed?) under.

The general story is that everything I grew in pots (or bought in pots) before planting out are happy and everything I sowed directly has been munched by slugs. That'll teach me for my naivety, I thought I'd lose a couple of plants and that'd be it. But no, the slugs capacity for wholesale destruction was highly impressive. All the peas and rocket were munched to the ground.

The sweetcorn I'd planted out is looking good though, and with a bit of love, care and twine the runner beans are happy now. The squashes are growing, but slowly, I'm still waiting for a massive explosion of leaf growth from them which will save me from further hoeing.

There's lots more to tell but I'm going to try avoid writing an essay until I have some pictures to break up the words, so hopefully I'll be back with more tomorrow.

Sweetcorn and Loss

Luke Kelly — Fri, 25 May 2007 17:22:00 +0000

A rather sad post. In something of a freak accident part of my room has burnt down. Headed down to London to visit She Who Does Not Dig and sort out our moving house. I'm moving out of my current room and into a house with her next Friday and there are billion things to organise. To maximise light for my sweetcorn the curtains were draped over my armchair, which, crucially, meant they were touching my uplighter. It wasn't visibly on when I left, but its slider switch must have been on a tiny bit, because 36 hours after I left the house the curtains burst into flame. A housemate smelt it quite early, so the damage isn't total, the house is fine.

My stuff is not though. Mostly smoke and heat damage; but my sofa, speakers, armchair and other things have enough fire damage to make them skip material. Haven't assessed all the damage, but it's likely to be well over £1000, plus items of sentimental value which no insurance company can replace. Needless to say the sweetcorn that was enjoying the extra light is no longer with us. With this and moving house at the same time it's going to be quite a trying period.

On a more positive note, I went to the plot just before I left Birmingham and planted out half the sweetcorn, so hopefully they'll grow happily and show that life goes on.
No photos of them I'm afraid, I'll take some the next time I head to the plot.

This does mean my room is uninhabitable, and so I'm going to be all over the place until we move in to our new house, and so the plot and this blog might be neglected for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully though I'll find some time for it, some productive gardening is perfect for cheering me up.

More Digging

Luke Kelly — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:37:00 +0000

She Who Does Not Dig was away for the weekend, and my plans to go climbing fell through, so I had the entire weekend to spend on the plot. Plan was to plant a huge number of potatoes, in the hope that their leaves will stop most weeds returning. The photo below shows the potato rows. The strips in between will be very roughly turned over onto the potatoes when it's time to earth them up.

The digging was exhausting work - lots of nasty and unidentified weeds with very dense and deep roots. Handweeded it all first, then dug it thoroughly to remove as many roots as possible. The soil is full of stones, rounded ones about the size of a damson, so I took out lots of these and have been placing them along the beds. I'll eventually add some edging and the pebbles will form paths.

Some of the runner beans have slight slug damage, and a couple looked sorry for themselves, but a good soak cheered them up. Along with all the rows for potatoes I dug another bed and planted some early purple sprouting broccoli, which I love, and some squashes. They will also provide lots of ground cover and stop some of the weeds returning. Only 1 more of the 4 vegetable patches left to dig and then I can have a break from digging - it's hard work! I did have a portable radio with the cricket on in the background so it was enjoyable as well as tiring, and I was pleased with my work by the end of Sunday.

Progress

Luke Kelly — Tue, 15 May 2007 16:32:00 +0000

It's all action on Plot 138b. She Who Does Not Dig and I headed down to the plot on Monday afternoon and were blessed with pleasant weather. After a quick chat with the charming, if slightly eccentric, man whose plot is a couple along from mine, I measured and divided the plot. 4 veg and 1 fruit is the plan. Brought my camera so you can see the plot in its virgin state.

It's the non too impressive looking strip to the right of the blue rope. It's not out of control though, the soil looks well drained and with a bit of manure should be happy to churn out lots of veg for me. Digging and weeding the first bed seemed a reasonable aim for the first session so we set to it. It was bloody hard work, and took us 4 hours. She Who Does Not Dig was digging hard, and complaining about missing tea even harder. We got it done in the end though, just as the sun disappeared. Very satisfying to have got the whole bed done. Here's a picture of She Who Does Not Dig most definitely digging.

And here's a photo of the first bed after our efforts. The bed is fully weeded and dug, although we failed to make any impression on the thousands of small stones. They'll have to wait for another day. Would a sprung rake be any use in getting rid of all the stones sitting on the surface? It's depressing seeing so many on the surface, so it'd be nice to get rid of them to make the bed look prettier, and if I could do it with a rake then I wouldn't have to compact the soil.

This morning we were heading off to London for a few days so I made a quick trip to the allotment to put in the runner beans I'd bought at the weekend. Putting up the frames was very satisfying. They give the plot much more structure and make it look more like a garden. Having green veg in, promising food to come, was also satisfying. Planted the peas as well, it looks like this is the legume bed. Hopefully they'll survive the lack of compost and soon be heavy with lovely food.

Back home I transfered some oregano to a larger pot - I'd bought it at the weekend to add to my treasured herb collection. I also split the sweetcorn I'd bought at the weekend and put them in individual pots. I was reluctant to do so because everywhere says that they hate having their roots disturbed but with many plants in a small pot it was unavoidable, they weren't going to grow at all as they were and were going to have to be seperated at some stage. Away from the plot in London until Friday now, but I'll be back at the weekend to make an attempt at a second bed.

Rained Off

Luke Kelly — Sun, 13 May 2007 16:10:00 +0000

Ignoring the pattern of pleasant mornings and thoroughly miserable afternoons I stayed in bed far too long and by the time breakfast had been consumed the rain was pouring down. The walk from the car to the garden centre door, all 20 metres of it, was enough us leave me bedraggled and convinced of the impossibility of getting anything done outside today. Still, I have got my seeds for the rest of the summer. If anyone has any experience of these varieties let me know how you got on with them.

Squash: Golden Hubbard and Spooktacular F1
Carrot: Autumn King 2 and New Red Intermediate
Swede: Invitation and Angela
Pea: Onward and Kelvedon Wonder

I've also got some sweetcorn and runner bean seedlings, as well as some potatoes currently busy chitting. The potatoes are Kestral but as for the rest, I don't have the foggiest idea, I really should have asked at the farmer's market.

It feels like a lot for a plot started so late in the year, especially one that is currently a dockleaf factory. As long as the rain stops at some stage in the next month I should manage to get the weeds cleared and the seeds in ground. What happens after that is anyone's guess.

Here we go...

Luke Kelly — Sat, 12 May 2007 21:15:00 +0000

My first post for my new allotment. Appropriately named I suspect, because there's going to be a lot of digging before I get to the eating part.

I concluded that I'm not going to have a large garden in the near future. Doing a PhD in Birmingham and having a cottage in the countryside with a big garden aren't mutually compatible. My mum made the suggestion of an allotment, and She Who Does Not Dig (my girlfriend) came around to the idea after much teasing.

I phoned up the local allotment and asked to be put on a waiting list and 2 months later found myself viewing 2 plots. One had returned to something of a primeval state, although they were going to attack it with large machinery later that day. The other was smaller, only a half plot, but had potential for growing this year. Culinary greed and instant(ish) veg-satisfaction won out, and I signed on the dotted line for the small plot.

Tomorrow, dubious weather permitting, I'll get the scavenged rusty spade and fork out and begin the digging...