Moving

We haven't done much work at the new allotment during December, the weather has either been very frosty or very wet. But everything is reasonably tidy, the beds are topped up with manure and the sprouts, leeks, broccoli and cabbage are growing well.

What we have done is clear our old plot which we are giving up at the end of this month. A few weeks ago Helen and I went down and lifted the blackcurrants, raspberries, gooseberries and rhubarb.  They are now replanted in the fruit beds at the new allotment. We've cleared away all the rubbish and pulled up the remaining cabbages. I also lightly forked over each raised bed so they are now tidy and weed free ready for the new tenants. It felt a bit like moving house.

When we first got offered our new plot--a proper allotment, I felt a bit sad to be leaving the raised beds plot. But as we started work on the new allotment I saw how much better it would be with sheds, a growhouse and more space. A space with a fence around and a gate we could lock. A space which wasn't encroached upon by other peoples' weeds, this was a major problem on the other plot which was a communal area.

So I'm happy that we've moved to another plot, but I do hope the new tenants look after our old one.

Happy Christmas

This time of year is so busy and I have done so much but not blogged a lot. I get so busy and everything has to be perfect for Christmas. Well it's now Christmas Eve and I have done all my jobs, baked loads, decorated the house, and that is it. Later on tonight I will be going to the midnight service at church. Then tomorrow and for a few days  it's family time.

I hope you all have a lovely time this Christmas, thank you for reading my blog  and for the lovely comments.

May the peace of Jesus be with you this Christmas time.

Away from the hustle and bustle

I wanted a break from all the madness of Christmas, the shopping, the Christmas songs, fighting your way through the crowds. So we went to RHS Harlow Carr. I wanted to see winter interest in the gardens, autumn and winter foliage. I wanted to see what they can still manage to grow in the kitchen garden at this time of year. But I still wanted a bit of Christmas without the crowds.

We had a lovely walk around, it was really peaceful, not many people, and there was still plenty of interest in the garden with colour from foliage and seedheads.

We also found some lovely rustic Christmas displays in the summerhouse and greenhouse.  The shop was a pleasure to walk around, listening to lovely classical Christmas music and  there were twinkly lights too.

Things I've been doing

I haven't blogged for a while. That's because I've been having some problems with  my blog. I think, it's sorted. I hope it's sorted. Anyway  I'm back and wondering where to start. I'll keep it short for now and just tell you briefly what I've been doing.

I've been doing Christmas things, like making decorations with the grandchildren and going to the school nativity. We visited our far away grandchildren, played with them and looked after them whilst their parents had a night out.

I've bought a Christmas tree, foraged for greenery and made a few wreaths, written Christmas cards and wrapped presents. I've also made chutney and bottled up blackberry gin.

I'm looking forward this week to putting up the Christmas tree and decorating the house, making mince pies, and lots of other Christmas things.

Dreaming of salad

This 52 week salad challenge must be getting to me because the other night I was dreaming of lettuce. Not just any lettuce but red salad bowl lettuce.But I had been eating it earlier in the day and was feeling pleased that it was still doing well in the garden after all summer and I am still picking the leaves.

Looking back in my garden journal I found that I sowed the seeds on 21st April. Over the summer I have just picked the leaves, but recently because I thought they may not last much longer once the frosts start, I started to cut the tops which are a much brighter red colour and have started to thicken and become more lettuce shaped. These have been lovely in salads.

I am also now picking the winter salad leaves planted in the cold frame which are a curly leaf mix.  The watercress and mustard are also still doing well.

Indoors I have sown seeds for baby leaves. There is a winter salad mix, some 'gourmet micro greens', rocket, beetroot and lemon basil. These are all at the just germinating stage, but I am also growing peashoots and have been cutting these for a few weeks.

The weather has turned very cold here now and sometimes the idea of going outside to the top of the garden to pick some salad is not very appealing, so it will be good to have some indoor stuff to use.

Jam

I made jam last week, for the first time ever-- rhubarb and ginger. So I'm feeling quite pleased that I have achieved something I've been wanting to do for ages.  I'd like to say that I've learnt a new skill, but I don't think I'm very proficient in the art of jam making yet. I  got quite stressed about it. I know some of you will be thinking 'what's the problem? Making jam is easy'. You can probably rustle up a few jars of jam in less than an hour. I haven't got to that stage yet.

I had to plan this event well in advance, because the fruit was in the freezer and it also had to be left to soak in the sugar and ginger for at least 2 hours. So the fruit was taken out of the freezer the night before, then in the morning all the ingredients were put in a bowl and left. We went out for the day, so I cooked the jam later in the evening.

The recipe was quite easy, but being a novice I read it at least half a dozen times to make sure I knew what I was doing. Then there were the things the recipe didn't tell me. Like how to sterilise the jars and how to seal them properly.  So I had to look elsewhere for that information. There was plenty of useful information  on the Internet on how to make jam, but there was so much that I got worried about doing the wrong thing and ending up with mouldy jam. And trying to remember all the useful tips was difficult.

It all got very messy with jam all over the worktop. I now know that I need to buy a jam funnel.  In the end it worked and I now have several jars of rhubarb and ginger jam which taste pretty good, although I should have cut the rhubarb up into smaller pieces. I think it will get eaten before it has chance to go mouldy.

The recipe is from the  BBC Good Food site. If you're interested here it is:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1091639/rhubarb-and-ginger-jam

Winter tubs

I love it when just as you think things have finished in the garden you can do something else to keep things going. Like potting up containers with winter colour.  That's what I did at the weekend.

I bought some pots of red mini cyclamen, some small hardy ferns, a stipa sirocco grass which has shades of copper and pink in autumn and winter and some gaultheria which is a small plant with dark glossy leaves and  red berries. These are all sold in garden centres at this time of year for autumn/winter container planting.

I made up one container in the front garden near the door.

 

Another smaller pot for near the back door

 

I added two of the gaultheria to this trough which has been going through the summer with violas, now gone over. The ivy in the pots was there for the summer displays and is still going strong. I removed the top layer of compost in the pots and topped up with fresh.

 These should all keep looking good beyond Christmas.

The view through my window

The autumn colour in the garden is amazing at the moment. I keep thinking it won't last much longer but it just keeps going on and on. The view from our dining room window is lovely. There is a blaze of colour from the cotoneaster horizontalis which is almost the same colour as the red brick of the wall it is growing against. Below that the astilbe foliage is now turning from yellow to a pale golden brown, contrasting well with its dark seedheads. This border and the one on the other side of the window are know as the 'shady borders'. they are in deep shade most of the time and astilbe, hostas, ferns, euphorbias seem to grow well here.

Looking further down the garden the oak tree, is still hanging on to its golden leaves, and below that is a weigela now turned a bright yellow.

The 'yellow border' where I grow yellow/orange/red coloured plants looks more yellow now than it ever does during the summer.

Down the left hand side of the garden the 'pink border'  has pink/purples and dark red flowers during the summer with a contrast of golden grass. It has now taken on a more golden theme from the astilbes, grasses and hardy geraniums and has some lovely maroon colour from the evergreen heucheras.

In other areas of the garden the hardy geraniums have dark red tints.

The deutzia has also taken on red tones.

What  autumn colour do you have in your garden now?

Enjoying November

I love autumn. I love the colours, the misty mornings, the smell of woodsmoke. I love collecting berries for flower arrangements or rose hips to dry for Christmas decorations. I love lots of things about autumn. September still has hints of summer, October starts to get more cosy and the colours start to change, the mornings are cooler, mists hover over the fields, cobwebs cling to hedges and gateposts, then we move in to November.  November is frosty and we start to think of winter. But it is a month to be enjoyed. The colours are still wonderful and frosty mornings reveal another kind of beauty to the garden.

As I walk the grandchildren to school in the mornings I like to point out to them the 'autumn things' around, like the colours of the trees.  We collect leaves to press and use to make pictures. So I was a bit saddened this week to see one of the houses near by to have a Santa and sleigh in coloured lights fixed to their house wall and a snowman flag flying on the flag post.  I can't deny that Christmas isn't far away and I don't mind going shopping and seeing Christmas things on display.  I like to prepare for Christmas in November, like baking the cake, making mincemeat and other lovely things.  But I think to decorate your house for Christmas in early November is a bit over the top.

So I will for now enjoy the colours 

 

the misty mornings

the cobwebs

berries

I will make things for Christmas

But I will  enjoy the cosiness of autumn, and I will leave the decorations until well into December.

November jobs

As the growing  slows down in the garden, there's still plenty of work to be done. One job which I love to do at this time of year is to clean out the shed. (Yes really!)   That's what I did at the weekend when it was too damp to do much else in the garden or allotment.

I moved out all the big tools, like the mower, shredder and hedge trimmer and gave the floor a good sweep.  I tidied and swept the dust from the shelves and the workbench.  Everything got shuffled around and reorganised. There are always a lot of cobwebs and big spiders, that's the scary bit, but I managed to evict one or two.  I know they will return though.  I'm always a bit wary of what I might find under the workbench. I once found some gardening gloves and knee pads which had been chewed at by mice. Finally I cleaned the floor and bench with Jeyes Fluid. It now smells really clean and looks much tidier

Another job I did was to sweep up the fallen leaves. There are lots and I quite enjoy the clearing up.  It's a job which continues throughout the winter.   They are all over the drive and paths and this is the main area for clearing as they can get very slippy.  I don't worry too much about them collecting on the borders, they can act as a mulch if I don't have time to clear them up. They are all put into the leaf mould bin to make lovely compost.


Other jobs I will be doing this month are:

In the garden

• Cut back in the flower borders as foliage gets untidy. I leave attractive seedheads for winter interest and wildlife
• Trim the lavender. I think I should have done this some time ago
• Lift and store the dahlias
• Bring pots of tender perennials into the front porch or cover with fleece to protect. I often forget to do this and then lose plants
• Sow winter salad leaves in the cold frame and micro leaves on the kitchen windowsill
• Half prune the roses so they don't get blown about too much by strong winds
• Clear up all the summer bedding containers and plant up with autumn and winter arrangements

At the allotment

• Move the fruit bushes from our old allotment to the new one (blackcurrants, gooseberries and raspberries)
• Spread manure on the raised beds to rot down over the winter
• Sweep up leaves and bag up.  (We haven't made a leaf mould bin yet, or even decided where we will put one)
• Harvest cabbages from the old allotment and tidy the beds ready for the new tenants 
• Plant daffodil bulbs in the wildlife area

I'll be amazed if I get all those jobs done!

Winter salad growing

As the weather has turned colder and growing slowed down, I have moved my salad growing into the cold frame. I sowed some Sarah Raven winter salad mix a week or two ago and am pleased to see they have germinated.  I also planted some  seedlings of a frilly leaf mix bought from the garden centre.

 In the garden beds the red salad bowl lettuce is still growing well and the mustard is enormous. I tend to pick the smaller leaves as they look more attractive in a salad, but I think the larger ones are more peppery.  These have kept growing all summer, I keep wondering how much longer they will all last. I'm sure the cold will get to them soon and they will just flop. There is still plenty of watercress and just one small lettuce which I think is a butterhead variety.  Indoors I have started growing pea shoots again.  I think it's time to check out the garden centre to what salad leaves I can grow through the winter.

Plans and projects at the allotment

We've now got the most important work done on our new allotment, which means we can have a bit of a breather and ease up on the heavy work until we start with next year's projects.

My husband has now finished building the raised beds in the main part of the plot. There are 12 of them. This may seem a lot but we share the plot with our daughter so we are feeding 2 families on the produce we grow.  We also wanted to have as much if not  more growing space as we had on our old allotment.

 There are two beds where we are growing brassicas--red cabbage, brussels sprouts, sprouting broccoli, cauliflower, kale, spring cabbage and swede. Another two beds are planted with leeks and garlic. Three beds are going to be for growing fruit bushes and rhubarb. Last weekend we topped up the remaining five empty beds with manure which will rot down over the winter.

 

Also at the weekend we went over to the old plot where we cleared away the pumpkins, squash and french beans which had all gone over. We dug up the rhubarb, brought it back to our new plot and planted it up in one of the new beds. We still have  blackcurrants, gooseberries and raspberries to move to the new plot. We have the old plot until the end of the year, so we have time yet to clear the beds completely and move the  fruit bushes.

Back at the new plot my husband has been putting some cladding on the lower end of the fence to keep the weeds out.  He is also digging a border along the front fence where we want to grow some climbers and shrubs to give us some screening as it is very open and exposed at the moment.  It's not an easy job though, as there are lots of big boulders, stones and bricks below the surface.  We are getting quite a collection of rubble. I'm sure it will all come in useful in other areas of the plot eventually, but it's hard work shifting it and trying to dig. The cladding for the fence came from the old cabin which we demolished a few weeks ago. It's come in very useful for all sorts of things and there's still lots of it. Even if we can't use it all there are plenty of other allotment neighbours who have got their eyes on it.

Our plans for next year are to sort out paths between the raised beds and to clear the top end of the plot behind the grow house. The area behind the grow house is like a secret garden and my daughter and I love to spend time there cutting back the brambles and nettles, each time revealing a bit more space.  We haven't decided yet what we will do with that area.  We may have a wildlife area and perhaps one or two fruit trees.

 

Autumn projects

As soon as autumn  arrives I start to think about  projects.  Crafty projects like knitting, sewing, and baking. They are all rather cosy, domesticated activities but I tend to think of autumn as a cosy season; a time to stay indoors when the weather is too bad to go out gardening.

I'm always full of ideas for Christmas presents or decorations to make, nature projects to do with the grandchildren and much more. Although I have to say that thinking about what I would like to do is often as far as I get. 

Well we're into October now and  I'm doing quite well so far. I'm already knitting myself a sweater, and have plans for other things to knit like sweaters for the grandchildren or wrist warmers for when I'm out gardening.  I've also got some blackberry, raspberry and rhubarb gins started for drinking at Christmas. I won't post the recipe on here, if you want to know how to make it click on the link above to read my last year's blog. The rhubarb gin is a new flavour this year, but it's made in the same way. I added lemon zest and ginger. Ginger goes really well with rhubarb.

I'm feeling quite pleased with my latest nature craft project too, it's an autumn wreath. I got the idea from an article in the Sept/Oct issue of Land Love magazine.   Some of the things in the article I didn't have so I adapted it to use other plant material which was readily available from the garden or nearby hedgerows.

I used a soaked oasis ring because I find the mossy or wire wreaths a bit fiddly to use and I was short of time. It's much easier to stick twigs into oasis than wire them onto a mossy ring.  I used hydrangea heads and astilbe seed heads from the garden, rose hips, hawthorn berries and ivy berries from the hedgerow down near the allotment. I also cut some small sprigs of oak from our tree in the garden to fill it out.  I was surprised how colourful the finished result was. It should keep for a few weeks, but I can probably replace anything which goes over from time to time before the oasis finally falls to pieces.

I wasn't sure where  to hang the wreath once I'd finished it, my Christmas wreaths are always hung on the front and back doors, but I wanted this one to go somewhere in the garden.  I thought about hanging it on one of the garden gates, but finally decided on the shed. The shed is one of my favourite places and I can also see the wreath from the house.

I'm used to making Christmas wreaths so the idea of doing an autumn one was quite appealing and a little bit different.  It's a lovely way to enjoy the fruits and colours of autumn.

Autumn tidy up

This week we've had some lovely fine weather and I've been able to get out and do some gardening.  Not allotment work but garden work for a change. The allotment has taken up a lot of my time recently and much as I love being there it's been lovely to get away from it and back to the garden.

I pottered around in the sunshine with the cat and the birds for company, and wrapped up in a thick sweater and scarf with a mug of coffee nearby I was in my element. Fortunately the cat hasn't found out how to catch birds yet!

I find gardening in the autumn really satisfying work. Sweeping up leaves, clearing away debris, weeding. I love the autumn tidying up process.  I cut back any messy plant material, but leave seed heads for the wildlife to feed on during the winter. The astilbe and crocosmia seed heads are quite attractive throughout the winter and look good not just in the garden but also in flower arrangements. I'm not too hasty in cutting back as some foliage takes on some lovely colour through October. The hostas are looking good at the moment as they turn a lovely golden yellow. Soon they will flop and look really messy and that's when I cut them back.

This week I've cleared the raised beds at the top of the garden of vegetables which have finished, leaving the salad stuff which is still growing. I'm now planning what to do in those beds next year. I might use them for any veg we won't have room for at the allotment, or I might grow flowers and have a cutting border.  I will still grow salad crops, it's so easy to just pop down the garden to pick a few leaves just before a meal.

The sweet peas haven't done very well this year, so I cleared them away cutting off the ones still remaining.  I put them  in a jug on the garden table meaning to bring them in the house when I'd finished gardening, but they got left there. They still looked good viewed from the house windows.

Muddy at the allotment

 

Last week we made a lot of progress at the allotment. During the week there was soil delivered for the plot holders. It was not the best topsoil but when it's free you can't complain and with a bit of manure and compost added it will be fine. So at the weekend we were barrowing soil to our plot for our raised beds. Fortunately the soil was delivered to the car park just outside our plot so we didn't have far to barrow to.

The weather has been really wet recently which has hampered our attempts to do any work. The clay soil becomes very slippy when wet and just sticks to our boots.

The growhouse is finished, it now has a sliding door. It even has guttering and water butts. With all the rain we have had recently the water butts are now full. We may not need to water our crops but at least we can clean our wellies!

We also have two new raised beds complete with soil.

The plot still looks like a building site but we are making progress

Harvest flowers

I've had a lot on my mind this week. It was all about saying I would do something and then wishing I'd never said I would. It was all about doing a display for our Harvest Festival at church.

When it's Harvest time at church the different organisations  are always asked to decorate a windowsill or area of the church. I was asked to do the porch. I spent all week thinking about colour schemes, looking around the flower shops to see what was available, looking around the garden to see what I could cut, looking through magazines to get ideas. I asked a friend to help me who was good at flower arranging.

I wanted to do something that represented autumn.. So I thought about autumn colours and autumn in the hedgerows. I collected berried branches for an autumn harvest. There was hypericum, rose hips and a shrub dripping with berries which I found at the allotments but I don't know what its name is. There were seed heads and hydrangea. We finished off with some pears and apples arranged amongst leaves to look like windfall apples and pears.

Salad chat update

My salad growing has not been good in the last few weeks.  The seeds I've sown have not germinated or I suspect have been eaten by slugs early on. We've had so much rain, that when I have been able to get out into the garden there have been so many other things to see to that the salad has got neglected.

There are  still salad leaves for picking--red salad bowl, watercress, mustard and rocket. The rocket and mustard have flowered and look very pretty! I can't remember when I last bought any lettuce.                

 I haven't done well with the sowing of new salad leaves. In fact things were so bad that when I went to the garden centre the other week I bought a tray of salad leaves to plant in the hope that they would be strong enough to resist the slugs.  Well I planted them and they are still there so there's hope yet. They might do bettter than my own sowings.

In the cold frame the cucumbers produced some tiny fruit, but some were chewed at by the slugs. And after the heavy rain this week the plants looked so bad that I decided to give up and throw them out.

The good news is that we have a growhouse now at the allotment and I'm wondering if we might be able to grow some salad in there during the colder months. Also at the allotment the fennel we planted last month is looking good. Some of the beetroot we planted earlier in the year didn't get thinned out so we harvested them as baby beets and they were lovely in a salad.  There is plenty more beetroot both at the allotment and in the garden cold frame.

 In the next few weeks I shall be sowing some winter salad leaves and start sowing seed for microgreens and pea shoots again for the cooler months.

For more information on growing salad crops and recipes to try check out the 52 Week Salad Challenge posts on  veg plotting's blog

Polytunnel or greenhouse?

 

The work on the allotment polytunnel is nearly finished. Last weekend R started covering the frame with the sheeting and he managed to do all but the door.  On Sunday morning he covered the roof and in the afternoon Helen and I couldn't wait to get started so we moved in to dig over the soil. We plan to have a flagged path in the middle with a border each side.  The soil is like the rest of the soil on the plot--heavy clay.  So we will have to incorporate plenty of organic matter to break the clay up before we can plant directly into the soil.

I brought some pots of chilli plants from home and put them in there standing on some wooden boards and Helen planted up some potatoes in bags of compost.  We've both tried before to grow potatoes a this time of year for cropping at Christmas, but without success.  We thought we would try them under cover this time and see if that works.

Working away in the growhouse we were full of ideas and plans for what we could grow in there.

Since then we have had two days of continuous heavy rain which has certainly tested out the drains which R has built recently. Unfortunately the rain was collecting on the growhouse roof in places so some adjustments had to be made.

So there it is, still things to be done, but very nearly complete. Most of it has been made from the frame of the old cabin. We've had to buy the polythene covering and a small amount of extra wood.

We're now trying to decide whether it's a polytunnel, greenhouse or growhouse. We originally set out to have a polytunnel, but it's not really a tunnel. It's probably more like a greenhouse. Polyhouse maybe?