April 07. Where did the time go?

I have re-read my last blog. I have thought about the blog many times but I don't seem to have found the time to keep up to date.

The rabbit issue has a short term resolution and a longer term solution. Short term I have put a rabbbit fence round my plot. The little blighters eating though the wind netting, coming into my plot in perferrence to the unguarded plots and digging holes and generally being a nuisance. I think the bird netting I have over my plot makes them feel safe. The longer term solution is that I have engaged some Rabbit hunters to come and ferret them out. So the fight is being taken to them. There are still plenty of Rabbits about but not on my plot.

Many things have conspired against me in the early part is this year. The weather has been wet so no digging. I foolishly allowed someone else to organise sourcing and delivery of horse maure. Needless to say thet let me down so I am short of feed for the plot. Work has been very busy and my Dad has had a big operation and is in hospital 100 miles away from were I live. There are still jobs to do on the house but I getting through them. Easter weekend [a four day holiday in the UK] was spent laying a patio at home and laying two patios at the allotment. They all look smart but it is not the same as planting spuds.

The best crops over the winter have been Parsnips, Leeks and this spring, Sprouting Brocolli. I am trying; a smaller Parsnips this year as wells as a the big over winterers, a smaller Leek, Jolent, as well as Muselborough and Spriouting Brocolli again. I am going to plant Garlic and Japanese onions this autumn and get the crops going for the winter.

As it stands now I have a job to prepare the ground for the second sowing of spuds, charlottes for this planting. The first planting was Ulster Prince and in the time in between get all the other seedlings off planted out.

I am parniod that I am going to forget to plant something. Last year I forgot the brussel sprouts and had to buy some for Christmas dinner. Sweet Corn and French Beans are on the "do not forget" list. The weather is warm enough now so I should do it any day now. The Gherkins need potting on but his year I am going harvest them as Concicorns rather leaving them to be Gherkins. I have a note pinned on the Greenhouse to remind me about the next lot of brassicas.

Back to work.

Jobs for 07

The lottie came into full production on 06 as the last portion was double dug and planted. The over wintering onions where planted a week ago in the boxes in the green house. They are up already. A bit late but they should be ready in the summer before the Sturon and Red Barons in the autumn.

I have to clean, sterilise and fumigate the greenhouse ready for Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Peppers as well as all the seed trays of vegetables. I have to sort out another shelf and a staging and tackle the accumulation of pots and trays under the staging from last year. I am under strict instruction from "she who must be obeyed" that I am not to evict any Frogs, Toads or Newts. So I get a feeling the cleaning will have to wait until the Spring proper.

I have promised myself that I will get the continuity going so that I can have something growing and cropping through the winter. Onions, Sprouts, Cabbage, Kale, Broccoli and Swedes are all candidates as well as getting such things as Broad Beans. Beans tend to over wintered for a head start in the spring . I also need to address storage. I have the space in the shed but the method is the issue. I think I need to read some books from Victoria times on storage. The jams, chutneys and pickles I made went down well so More the same next year. The Sloe gin was and is still fantastic. I might do Damson gin as well.

My seed order from Kings Seeds arrived on Friday afternoon. I had to go away for the weekend. When I got back on Sunday evening I had a pleasant hour with a glass of Sole gin reviewing my seed order and my existing seed packets. I have an idea of what to plant and where everything is going. It will be a question of whether the weather and Rabbits will allow.

First blog of 07

Nearly two months have gone by since I last blogged. When I sat down to blog thought and had nothing to record. However quite a few things have occurred since November.

Christmas was most notable this year for having the whole holiday off from work. Ten straight days. Fortunately or unfortunate depending on whether I am feeling grumpy we had people run each day. That put paid to doing anything on the lottie. However it did not stop making the excuse of going a walk and dragging along the wined and dined relatives over the sticky fields to view the lottie. The walk is only one and a half miles across the field, over the stiles, ford a stream and clamber a fence before I could sit on the bench and have a nip from the hip flask.

Carrots have been my Nemesis again this year. Most everything else has gone well. I sent a lot of time on the house this year so the plot is not what it could be but I still did a creditable job. 07 should be better. I have less big jobs this which leave this to fettle the lottie. I did manage to get the green manure in so that is making a quarter of the plot look very neat.

I had a very good Sunday before Christmas where was able to spend the daylight hours at the lottie. The weather was "dreek" as the Scot would say. Cold, wet and windy with showers for good measure. Even so I was warm and busy. I have taken down the courgette bed and knocked up a raised bed about 8 x 6 foot and a foot deep in its place. I put drains in the bottom and half filled it with manure. This going to be my Asparagus bed! The weed heap has been covered up for a month or so which allowed it all to dry out. I got a good fire going and burned off 80% of the pile. I put up some feeders and fat balls for the birds. Then on whim I thought I would have a look at the neighbours plot at the top of the site.

I am the Secretary of the society and a few weeks ago I was discussing with my neighbour the puddling and water logging problem on his plot. We talked about solutions and left it at that. Mt idle hands decided that a trench at the side of his plot would act as a temporary drain. I got stuck in and after several stops for a lean on the spade and mattock. I found I had a trench about thirty feet long from six inches at one end to a foot deep at the other. I then deepened a gully which let the water run off from the pond that had developed on the his plot. His plot is not dry by any means but the standing water has disappeared.

I came back to my plot and laid the remaining flags on my "Patio". All the plots have a strip about ten feet wide adjacent to the path that is so poor even the week will not grow. I use this bit for raised beds and compost bins. The remaining are I have flagged so it is easy to work on. One day I might be able to get a chair out and have a sit down! Whilst I was on a roll I pulled out my compost bin, turned the contents over and as I re-stacked it threw shovel fulls of the cooled ash from the bonfire into the mix. With it all back in the bins the lid was rearranged and secured against the gale that must be due.

I collect all my rabbit snares. I learned how to set snares in the back end of last year. we are starting the have a problem with rabbits helping themselves to our larder. My response has to snare them. I can not send the time waiting to shot them. Snaring, although not everyones cup of tea, is starting to deal with them. It is a small start. I know we will never get rid of them but at least they can be reduced and as will their impact. I check the snares every evening. The fox has sussed out the trapping as well. I am not concerned about the foxes. They will help keep the rabbits in check. Where the fox has beaten me to the kill I bury the remains. I was think about leaving the remains for the buzzards and other carrion birds. I thought I might do this to see the birds through the winter and bury them in the summer to reduce the flies.

Another month's gone by!

It's dark by 4pm so Lottie activity is confined to the weekend but so is everything else. I have managed to get down for a couple of hours each weekend. The weather is not really cold yet although we had a cold snap which stopped everything except the Sprouting Broccoli which is really coming on.

The frost on 02.11.06 put an end to the Borlottie Beans which I harvested and the out sized Gherkins which just went in the green bin. I took my wicker basket for the Borlotties but it was not big enough. The vines seemed to be light on pods but once I started picking they were every where. I podded the beans at the Lottie to save me coming back with the empty shells for the compost bin. I had about 20lbs of beans. That's a lot of beans salad of minestrone soup. The green bin I mentioned earlier is the bin that the council collects which should contain compostable materials. The council run a huge composting scheme. Anything from the Lottie that I can guarantee to compost goes to the council. I do not seem to be able to get my compo bin hot enough to kill seeds. So my compo bin only ever has greens and egg cartons

I have started cleaning up the plots. Pea twigs, fleece, posts short and tall for the fleece, bean poles have all been removed cleaned and stored for next year. I cut to length timber panels to make lids for the compo bins. It is as much to do with making look tidy as having a roof on the bins. I made a start on the winter digging. The rain we had during the week had added enough moisture to the ground to make digging so easy. The weeds were really quite small as the Sweet Corn, Pea, Beans and Gherkin crops smothered the weeds only giving them a chance to get going in the last month or so. As soon as a have clear a decent area I am going to plant out my Spring cabbages. My parents are visiting next weekend so I won't get any time for digging. Perhaps the week after? I might be able to get my Dad to give me a hand with the bins lids. He likes to be involved and to have a look round the Lottie.

Preservation

What do you do with all your produce from the lottie? Some produce such as potato, onion and garlic store very well but other things such as tomatoes or corn on the cob do not store at all. One thing you can do preserve the produce ina different form. I like to make pickles, chutney and jams.

This year I made a couple of jars of pickled onions from the smaller shallots. Then some Picallili from the Cauliflower, Gherkins, Tomato and Onion together with spices. Onion marmalade and green tomato chuntney, no to list there ingredients. I Have some red cabbage going at the lottie which is due for pickling when it is ready. I made jam from 4 jars of Blackberry, 7/8 jars of Damson and 4/5 of Yellow Plum. I pickled some Gherkins but I do not hold out much hope that they will be nice although I learned something about pickling when do them. I still have a lots of apples so apple sauce is on the cards as is Mint sauce. I just have to find a good recipe.

Beans and Peas can be eaten raw but when you have a glut you have to either freeze them or turn them into something else. Some crops can be left in the ground until needed and benefit from that treament. Leeks, Swedes, Parsnip, Carrot and Brocolli fit into this category. Just lift them and cook 'em. But generally, where we can, we pick and eat what is in season which is the new way of eating if you listen to the TV health gurus.

The main things is that all the raw materials are essentially free. I get the food from either the lottie, the hedge row or peoples fruit trees [by permission]. The containers come from jars and bottles saved from going in the dust bin.

Drink for free...mmmmmmm!

From a few to many non wine drinks in the Railway Inn in May to racking off the Rhubarb in September. It's been a hoot. You can make wine out of anything. I got a bunch of Demi-johns [DJ] in the spring, washed and sterilized them. First I made a DJ of Rhubard, then two of nettle. Two of Dandelion and then there was a pause. As the year turned the fruit came on stream. Two DJs of yellow plum, one of damson, two of apple. And just for good measure a DJ of Sloe Gin.

My buddy Steve got a hankering for Cider. We fossicked about and got access to a small orchard. After two short outing we had something approaching 800lbs of various types of apples. We hired a muncher and a press, chopped the apples into pulp with the muncher and pressed the juice from the pulp. What a glorious appley smell. Both a ladies of the house helped as well lured into the garage with the promise of shop bought, ready to drink wine. The apples yielded 28 imperial gallons of juice. Some we set aside to ferment naturally, scrumpy. I tried 5 gallons with Champagne yeast which is called Normandy style cider and the rest was bottled to drink as juice. As is the way with mother nature neither the scrumpy or Normandy seem to be doing anything but the juice in the fridge is bubbling away!!

The Rhubarb has been racked twice and is now in bottles. The Nettle and Dandelion has been racked off twice, next stop bottling. The Apple, Plum and Damson is still merrily bubbling away. The Sloe Gin is quietly turning a deep purple. Roll on Christmas.

I totaled the drink available to me for next year at 12 DJ if wine and 10 gallons of cider. All it cost was a bit of application and 25lbs of sugar. Broad Bean wine next year. It supposed to taste like sherry!

Winter digging

Winter digging is an important part of the yearly cycle for me. There is a school of thought that says that the ground should not be undisturbed to let the bacteria and invertebrates do their job. I believe that digging once a year is essential for a number of reasons; to relieve impaction of the soil, aerates the soil, gets organic matter into the lower levels of the soil. I think the soil dwellers do not mind the disturbance given that hey short lived creatures. The birds, such as Robins get a chance to hoover up the slugs eggs and other tasty morsels. I think this helps see them through the winter making them available the following year to hoover up the caterpillars, green and black fly. My soil is quite fine so when we have a down pour some of it is carried away. I dig trenches around my beds. This does two things:
1. It catches the run off thereby intercepting the run off soil which in the spring in throw back on to the bed.
2. The trench makes the bed into huge raised beds which because it is drier heats up more quickly in the weak sun of spring time.

I have divided my plot into four main cultivation beds. I rotate the beds on a four year cycle. I put manure on the bed that is to contain potatoes. Having dug the bed over I just drop the manure on top a left nature do the rest until planting time. I dig trenches where the peas are to go and fill them with manure. However I only do this a couple of weeks before planting. Pumpkins go in the same area as peas so usually dig a slight hole and drop in half a barrow of manure and/or compost and plant a pumpkin. These greedy plants use the manure. What residual goodness from the manure carries over into the next year where beds will contain either brassicas or roots. These plants do not require a very fertile soil.

The rotation is to try to prevent or at least reduce the whole sale spread of potato blight which is very bad on the site. Club root in brassicas is also reduced by rotation however this is not something I suffer from. My soil seems to be to good for all sorts of brassicas.