26/27 December 2007 - These boots are made for digging

Planning well-advanced, we get down to the dirty business of implementation. N has new boots for the allotment, K has a new Double-Ender Thermos for tea and such. V exciting.

We are alone on the allotment, for the second day in a row, and we suspect that the other plotters are either less dedicated or more organised than us. The garlic has finally made its first appearance. Its sturdy shoots presage the phenomenal plants we anticipate (Elephant Garlic) some time in the summer.

Some Local Youths arrive on their choppers (bicycles), intending to wreak the havoc that only bored and undisciplined kids can do. This reminds me of an episode of vandalism in October (from which I think I shielded you, Gentle Reader) which involved the latch on our gate being broken (probably someone kicking at our swing gate) and a pumpkin (thankfully, not our Halloween highlight pumpkin) being stabbed by our old plot number spike.

I make a stand (sharp spade in hand) and courteously but firmly remind the little bastards that they are on private property. I realise that this will probably result in our shed being burnt down, but if One Man can't make a stand to protect public decency, then the whole country will go to the dogs.

If I sound old and grumpy, bored youth breaking things (or even littering) stands in great contrast to everything our allotment means to us: connection to the land, greater self-sufficiency, productivity over destruction, efficiency over waste. In effect, the allotment system (and its wartime origins in growing on public land for personal and communal survival) means that we have a contract with our local authority to make the most of our patch - which is the public's land - on loan to us. Being public land, it is to some degree vulnerable. These snotty, surly youth would benefit more from compulsory labour on public land than they do from junk food and Wiis. (Blimey - Ed.)

Anyway, we cobble together the remaining spare floorboards and form four walls for our fourth raised bed (note - change of plan from previous post - we have gone for one large rather than two small because of the wood situation). Mushroom compost is on order, chicken manure will be obtained (best you don't ask) - these will be added in a layer over the four beds, which will be covered and left for a couple of months. In that time, worms and such will arise from the soil, drag the good stuff down into lower levels, and by the time we unwrap (March, say), the soil will have been broken up and improved. The worms are, in so many ways, the true heroes of our tale.

Still about ten days left in our holiday, and still much to do. Weather = mild, cloudy, dry.

25 December 2007 - The final harvest?

Christmas morning comes, and we venture up for probably the final harvest of the year: our Brussel sprouts, who have been invited to join us for Christmas dinner.

Something has been at the sprouts. Because there appear to be scratches on the stalks, and they have only been eaten up to a certain height, we think it must be mice or rats or voles or something else on its hind legs. Later, we remember that on our last visit we removed the mini-fence and netting around the sprouts (in anticipation of laying the fifth bed) and conclude that it is probably birds.

Despite the attack, there are more than enough for dinner, and they are delicious when cooked with bacon cubes and chestnuts and marsalla. Well, most things would be.

They make a delicious part of our Christmas dinner, along with turkey from a local farm.

We also measure the plot, and its components, for planning purposes. Over the next few weeks, we anticipate finishing off (digging, walling, composting and covering) our beds in preparation for spring planting (spring, here, being a March/April/May affair).

Much discussion ensues about what to grow where, and where the compost centre should be, along with the fruit cage, the shed and what I think of as the lounge. Proper measurements ensure a rational, non-heated discussion. In parallel, we need to prioritise what crops and other enchantments will be grown and when.

Initial work is done on graph paper, which is useful but does not quite capture the undulating nature of our boundary fence and non-straight beds. Also, at slightly more than 106 square metres, some attempt must be made to take account of the curvature of the earth. A second attempt is made, therefore, along the lines of a Peters Projection. To say that this attempt clarifies our thinking would be charitable.

Also to be taken into account is crop rotation, or crop sequencing. Knowledge of those elements that certain crops add to and take from the soil during their growth allows beneficial planning of which the sequence in which different crops are planted, season-by-season. Also, it is suggested that if you keep the same crop in the same soil year after year, diseases and pests which prey on that crop tend to build up.

Plant experts group different crops into the categories of Root, Brassica and (terminology varies) Other. Generally, Roots follow Brassicas which follow Other. (There's also a category, which we have not yet named, of things that can go anywhere or things that stay where they are forever.) I suppose old-school farmers left the fourth year fallow. I'm not sure we have the patience or life-expectancy to allow for that. We have to factor in a seed-bed somewhere, despite the existence of a pre-dug bed from earlier this year (courtesy of AN). The part of the plot which has not been "bedded up" will be used for potatoes and flowers on one side, and the cage, parallel to the shed, on the other.

Here is the proposed crop list for the next year, based on what we like eating, with varieties we have chosen from magazines to be ordered where known (nb. the varieties may well change according to availability):
Roots
Sweet potato (T65, Beauregard) (might be tricky)
Potatoes (Sarpo Mira, Axona - blight-free but probably all gone now)
Carrots (Siena F1)
Brassicas
Broccoli (Ironman F1)
Winter cabbage
Kale - after potatoes
Other
Onions (RIP overwintering onions)
Peas (Keleveden Wonder)
Leeks (Malabar)
Garlic (Elephant and Solent White)
Other other
Spring onions
Radishes
Lettuce/salad
Raspberries (Galanta) - in the cage
Butternut squash (Hawk F1)
Pumpkin - on the bank
Strawberries - in the cage.

There's a further concept: companion planting. This intends to maximise performance by planting particular things together - because they help or protect each other (for example, marigolds masking the carrot scent, which otherwise the Dreaded Carrot Fly can smell up to one mile away). In our case, this means we will try three crops together in one of the beds:
Courgettes/Zucchini (Optima F1)
French beans
Sweetcorn.

15/16 December - In the Bleak Midwinter

This weekend we have managed to spend quite a bit of time in the plot. This is because the weather was not wet and indeed quite sunny though very cold as the picture on the left shows (ice on puddle). We thought we should Go For It.

A very sad sight met our eyes when we first got to the plot. It looked as though something has eaten the vibrant growing tips of our over-wintering onions. It is particularly distressing as they were doing very well only a few days before and were grown from seed. We don't think it was rabbits, probably mice. The garlic planted a little while ago has yet to make an appearance, so we are wondering whether to call it a day on this bed, cover it with compost and start again in the spring. Bah humbug.

First task, the digging of the third bed. N did his usual magic with the long boards, three nailed together on each side and we slotted the frame into the neatly dug trench (marked out with poles and things). Now we can dispense with double-digging to condition our soil, we just pile it up and rake it a bit.

This soil has a real load of nasty stuff still in it, wire, plastic etc. Yeuch.

Then there was seasonal tidying up. Farewell to the amateur rabbit-proof fence round the bed with the sprouts (still going and very tasty) and celery. Farewell also the celery, which remained in my view an enigmatic crop whose potential was never fully realised nor (probably) understood. Intrestingly there were a couple of radishes still growing, set probably from the seed of bolted plants.

Then we had a long ponder about the Way Forward, or what people where I work call The Direction of Travel.

We decided that we had to begin to break down the heap of loamy soil (the former pumpkin bed) and relocate it after jettisoning obvious weeds etc to the new just-dug bed and indeed to populate other beds on the area where it is currently situated, as well as two new small beds. This is rather a curious conundrum. There is no point moving the soil somewhere just to move it back but it needs to be moved somewhat because the trench needs digging. That area (near the compost bin) is rather large, so that is why it is going to be two small beds.

The boundaries of the two mooted small beds will be such that we had to move our current plastic compost bin - and compost. We duly moved it temporarily to the other end of the plot near to the shed. The idea is to eventually put our pallet-compost-thingy there and to move the shed round.

N did a tidy up too of our various wood holdings. Unfortunately we do not have enough of the really long boards to make the new beds, so we will be trying Freecycle or some such to get some.

Anyway. We thought you'd like to see what the allotment looks like from the main entrance in the lane. This was taken at the end of our labours on Sunday. It is a view that never fails to cheer us up when we set off to the plot.

7/8 December - Two footnotes

Two footnotes - it has been very cold recently, and for the last couple of weekends, wet too, preventing us from getting to the plot.

Footnote 1 - yours truly heroically double-dug the new bed on her own on a day off from work. Jan, allotment neighbour, was amazed that I was going to do this and generously lent me her wheelbarrow, without which I would probably still be there, toiling in the mud like a small but stubborn insect.

Double-digging, for those of you lucky enough not to have done/heard of it, involves dividing the bed to be dug into sections, digging out the soil to a spade's depth from the first section and moving it to the other end of the bed, breaking up the resulting trench with a fork, putting a layer of kitchen compost on the top of the forked-up bed, and then - wait for it - taking off the top spade's depth soil from the NEXT section and putting that on top. In the end, you put the soil from the first trench into the last one. Although I felt unbelievably virtuous, my back duly gave me notice of a job too well done for at least 2 days afterwards. Then I met Mr G our allotment manager in Sainsburys who told me that double-digging was out of fashion now and I didn't have to be doing that despite what the books said and that the best thing to do for our unconditioned soil was to put some mushroom compost and chicken manure on and leave it. GRRR. Which is why we have orderd 10 bags of mushroom compost.

Footnote two - the day after this herculean feat we had visitors, N's brother Andrew and his son Australian Nephew (see blogs passim). It was too dark when they arrived to show Andrew the plot so he remains the only N-side relative to visit our new home not to have beheld the glories of the allotment. He seemed to cope pretty well with the disappointment of not having his picture on the blog - we suspect he may be a wanted man.