During my absence here, we have been very very busy in the allotment. The weather has been cool and windy—perfect for hard graft....and graft we have done. I will begin with the bit of cleaning that we did by Nettie. Her work puff is becoming less and less. We asked if we could use a strip of her garden to make a courgette plantation for the Food Bank and she said yes. We agreed to keep it weed free and said that she could then take as many courgettes as she wanted...and as frequently. We reached an agreement. Poor Netty, it makes me feel so bad to see her become less and less able to work like she wants to. The courgette strip: Nettie’s garden soil is actually very poor, so where you see the wet areas with plastic tubes in then is where we have made holes and filled them with compost and cow manure pellets. We will plant our courgettes out when they are large enough. Back over to our lottie then. While the weather was a bit sunny and windy...I pruned the plum trees. This is our newest tree and you can see that it’s splayed habitus is working very well. We have harvested the spinach twice. We planted lettuce and leeks. The first foto shows the new little leeks in their furrow: The next one shows the measures that must be taken to protect the lettuce—slug traps. They are one liter plastic yoghurt buckets. I cut four holes in the side and and pour in some beer. It works well. It works well for the slugs; however, once my Bride looked in and called me over to look at the large slug that we had caught...as i was walking to her she let out a peep and said, “Oh how disgusting”! It was a dead baby vole. I cannot see how that beast got in the tiny hole that is the size of a slug. The lovely corn that we planted at home, I dropped and broke some of the stems. After planting we had some wind and a stretch of dryness and voles...they look terrible. The strawbs have bloomed, formed fruits and they are now blushing. That means time for straw. Here are the korona strawbs after watering. The second row (Dar Royale) followed a few days later. We have two further rows that have not yet bloomed (Malvina). Hopefully we can add the straw in a couple of weeks. We will need to throw a net over the first couple of rows pretty soon. We have begun cleaning the flower patches now. Here is one in the centre of the flower section. The work continues. Tomorrow I shall place a one-way board on the honey chambers 24 hours before removing the honey top chamber day-after-tomorrow. Tomorrow I have more clean-up to do. The seed heads of the wild garlic and blue bells must be removed. It’s good to be doing garden work again.
Your allotment's soil looks so much better than Netty's. I'm sure you'll bring it up to standard in time. You really ought to teach classes on garden space management. Your gardens are an inspiration. I think I'll go pull weeds now .
Am always so impressed with all you accomplish in your allotment. It is simply priceless as are you and your bride (what a generous neighbor )
Hey MART--Whatcha mean..."off"? if I was off, I was off gardening. chuckle. Thanks CAROLYN-- It is amazing, you are right...but it takes an awful lot of planning and re-thinking. We are already thinking about next years' rotation and plot assignments. HANK--Thanks a mil, mate. It is great to hear from you. JANE--I sure do appreciate your kind words. It makes me feel like I am accomplishing something. Ta KATE-- I can feel the accomplishment in my muscles. hahaha. Ahhh JEWELL-- You say such nice things. I appreciate it very much. Thank you.
SJ, love your lottie .... a lot! Ha Ha! Beautiful photos. There is something calming about an obviously well tended garden. Like all is right with the world. Question: what is 'splayed habitus'? As in: "This is our newest tree and you can see that it’s splayed habitus is working very well."
Cayu-- Thank you so much for those super-nice words. The Bride glowed with pride when I called her over to read them. "splayed habitus"---What I meant by that was...well you know what "habitus" means, right. Like a person can have a gracile habitus...or a tomato plant can have a bushy habitus. Habitus refers here to the "posture" of the tree, I guess you'd say, and the "splayed" refers to limbs that reach outwards after I amputated the central trunk of the tree. If you look back at the foto, you can see that the tree is about waist high and has five branches, looking a bit like a green starfish. I hope that this explanation is understandable to you.
Okay, I get it. You have pruned the tree so as to have many limbs closer to the ground for ease of fruit picking, maintenance, etc? Thx. Please tell your bride I prepared her meatball recipe last night & it was delicious! Interesting flavors. A very nice (& welcome!) change from the Italian spice mix
@Sjoerd I hope your keeping well?...sorry to hear about nettie but at least your using the land for good use and hopefully once established she'll be able to help herself Always a pleasure to see your discussions and what your up to and organization looks good plus getting achievements already for your glorious meals you do...keep we updated on the growth please
CAYU-- You are spot on about the pruning for easy harvesting. I read your comments about the food to the Bride...she was over the moon that you tried it and enjoyed the flavour. I know what you mean about flavours that are always done for the same dishes. We try to change things from time to time so as not to become too used to the cliché flavours. GAIL-- I am so happy that you enjoyed the posting. I am indeed keeping well. I shall absolutely keep you updated on the growth progress. Good to see you back. Hope you are feeling well.
Nice to hear your keeping well..nice to be back as I love it on here I still have issues going on that will never end but that's life and it carries on
Sounds like you are a tough cookie. I am unhappy that you are having these issues but am very happy to see you on here when you can be. BTW Gail--what else have you got going on outside besides the Salix?
