Seeds ordered!

A milestone day today. Just 'checked out' at Fothergills and I'm £40 lighter.

Seeds and sets have been ordered for tomotoes, raspberries, peppers, lettuces, salad leaves, peas, spinach, potatoes, courgettes, carrots, red/white onions and spring onions! Delivery is 7-10 days so between then and now I need to make sure I have my plan of action sorted, including enough planting trays and compost. I'll also need to get up to the allotment which has been neglected for nearly 2 months. Raised beds are still to be constructed, and general tidying still to be done. The 'dugover' 1/3 of the plot did get finished, so after the raised beds and manuring there should be 2.5m by 5.5m of plot to use!

Bought today:

Start (the week) as you mean to go on...

I spent £4 in Wilkinsons today. And my what bargains. String, secuteurs, 2 pairs of gloves and plastic stick things. Got to the plot about 2 ish and got 2 or so hours in digging. The plan is to cover 2/3 with black plastic until spring and the other 1/3, dig over now, then slop some roundup on in spring to kill the weeds off. This does mean nothings going to go in immediately, but it will be better in the long term.

The brambles also got a bit of a clearing and wrapped/trained up the fence at the end of the plot, the soils not great there but will hopefully be good enough for the soft fruit bushes! It looks a lot better now, and hopefully they'll have space to bear fruit come October. Jamtasics.


Hopefully will get the 'active' 1/3 finished and dug by end of tomorrow, then I suppose we can start on the pallate compost bin, water butt, and greenhouse potentially! Lovely!

Its here!

Well after getting up at 7 this morning we traipsed down to highbury to select the plot. There was a varied demographic of people there and pleasantly enough, som younguns like ourselves. We have selected a lightly sloping, reasonably 'high ground' plot, with a fence, a sycamore tree and some brambles already present. The grand plan, which will be devised for next week hopefully, is to have 4-6 raised beds eventually. The fellers we spoke said this was a good idea and it'll be excellent to finally get started!

Rough geographic location to west jesmond shown below.


And now a shot of grace standing in the middle of our bit. Its only a quarter plot - but 10x8m is way big enough to be getting on with!



This shows the newly cleared plots in foreground, and the established plots away into the distance.

its coming!!

Saturday!

It arrives!

The shiny new allotment!

Updates to follow!

farmers market

I couldn't help myself today at the farmers market. As well as purchasing some rather nice organic northumbrian beef mince, and a similar standard of pancetta, I spied the veg and herbs plant lady, and quickly relieved her of some lemon mint, lime mint, and a thyme plant. Heres the 'mints pot' - lemon mint for nice additions to gin and tonics ( on the Lady's recommendation), lime mint for extra limey mojitos, and the little seedlings are the garden mint for everything else, Ive grown from the tiny seeds.

The thyme has been planted out to the marley tile area, with the ivy - it should be hard enough to hold its own. Theres also been some shallot-rammage in this area, to see if they come up.

In other news, the peter pan roses are coming out to bask in the sun, very nice they are indeed, and the clarion lettuces have indeed bulbed up and will soon be ready for picking in their entirety - how exciting!

plant update II

Some the plants really needed to be planted out after the gardening centre trip on Sunday, but I made the fantasic cock-up of forgetting to get the compost out the car when I got back to the flat. Therefore I had an emergency dash to morrissons after work today to get something to put the still potted plants in. Which we have now done. The first one is a Cordyline Australis 'Tobray Dazzler' that is a real Bobby Dazzler. He has long floppy hair and will grow up to 6ft by 5ft in 10 years!

This is, quite clearly, a Lavender plants - but not just that, it is 'Fragrant Memories' - how true! The bumble bees have already been at this one and it particularly likes its colour coordinated pot. This will also get canny big, mebbes a 1m or so!

Last but not least is a big fat 'Lady Thumb' Fuchsia. Its giving some much needed volume to the garden, as the problem with having such a big yard, is its sort of bare appearance. Woe is me eh? This has the potential to grow massive, and I hope so. Bon Nuit.

plant update

How nice it is to splurge 25 quid on plants for the reinvigorated yard. The front door is also very welcoming now, as the tidied low box now has things planted in it. Specifically three 'Upright Firecracker' Fuchsias and two Cineraria Silver Dust plants. We will soon have best entrance on the street.

We're a little low on compost at the minute so haven't managed to pot everything up yet. But i've added to two Lobelia Waterfall plants to the rose pot. White sparkle and azure mist! Here they are in their new home. The large rose woody stem is actually dead but there are actually new shoots growing off its base, growing very fast too! Also the dead part is forming a good frame for other plants to climb up.

The 'peter pan' rose has an awful lot of buds on too, so hopefully with some sun, (7day forecast currently saying sun, sun, rain, rain, thunder, sun, rain) - and they'll show their cheeky young faces and beam into the yard. I've also filled the pot of the fern type plant with gravel that was lying around and it looks a lot better.


So the yard is a bit of a mess again with all the plants we've bought, but it a lot more organised mess than it was when we first arrived - compare it with last week! Theres a few plants you can see in this photo i haven't covered, but they will be introduced when a) i don't have to go and seize the little sun we've got and hang the washing out, and b) have planted them up properly.

herb update

Well, in the much-followed race between ripped and cut rosemary there cannot be only one winner it seems. Maybe the ripped has fared a litttle better but both I have judged to be success enough to move them to an outdoor pot. They've had 5 weeks to establish some decent roots, which I did catch a glimpse of as I transplanted, so this is excellent. Hopefully the bush will be enough to start taking cuttings, or at least picking leaves from, quite soon.

In other good news, the 1250 mint seeds I sowed just over a month ago are finally nice and germinated. I've going to give them a while longer in then tray before moving them to something bigger, and outdoors. Theres about 20-30 growing, i can't complain at 1 in 70 making an effort!

the yard progress

Three of us just spent about 3 hours sorting the back yard sort a little. So many plants had been killed by weeds due to neglect from the previous tenants, it was a bit of a shame, but the yard will be flourishing again soon. We've swept, washed, re-laid out, pulled up weeds, pruned and bagged up and i think its looking very promising for the future. We certainly need to get a few voluminous plants to make the it not look quite so bleak, but its a right little suntrap out there and I'm sure it'll be beautiful very soon. Below charts the progress throughout the afternoon.

1732

1931

2026

whitefly!

Well! All action this evening. I discovered a plethora of cheeky whiteflies all over my pepper seedlings. After to snooping around on the allotment forum I have established that the plants are in too dry an atmosphere - the utility room with the door shut and window shut all day. I now will leave the window open and also spray the plants with water regularly.

Heres the plants before - you can clearly see the little buggers:


And after their sellotape treatment, here they are back on their windowsil. Also you may see here im 'testing' my rosemary cuttings to see if they're still alive by turning them round so they're pointing away from the light - if they swing back the other way, i'll know we're in business!

all quiet on the westernewcastle front

A distinct lack of updates indeed! I've moved house recently, to the location shown below and haven't really done much amatteurgardening. I did however make a large salad with the lovely leaves shown in the 10th June update for our house warming port and cheese evening ( a great success) Anyway, no developments on the allotment front, but its coming soon! I've brought the rosemary cuttings and some pepper plants to the new house to test the water for some more. I'll get some photos up this weekend.

the holy trinity

Well things on the allotment front are looking up. I'm down on two waiting lists, and i'm pretty much guranteed a plot by September! This is very exciting. I'm already thinking about what to grow, and also what the shed I'm going to build is going to look like. I'm thinking maybe a metallic Frank Gehry or white rendered Neo-Corbusian one, but that remains to be seen. Apparently Highbury North allotments (West Jesmond ) are clearing loads of new plots for September, and as i'm 14th on the list its as good as a done deal. Hurrah! The below picture shows the locaiton of Highbury as part of the Holy Trinity for next year; Home, St James' Park and the allotment. Bon nuit!

book bought

Its all quiet in the garden at the minute, lettuces ticking along, shallots flying, rocket okay but need to plant some more, rosemary not dead yet so heres hoping, chillies and peppers doing okay too etc etc. I did buy a new book yesterday though, its very informative and has a guide to nearly every vegetable you can grow in England. Its by Dr Hessayon and he/she knows their crack! More rockets going to get planted this weekend, asside from that i really need to get on the waiting list for allotment for next year!

thats mint that like!

It is indeed! Ive sown a whole load of mint seeds today, I didnt quite realise how little they are, they were almost invisible. Asside from my chillies, this is the crop im most excited about, as it means when i throw extravagant cocktail parties at my house i can make beautiful mojitos with my own fresh mint. Germination is apprently a bit 'erratic' so i hoyed the whole packet into two trays currently living on my windowsill where they will get plenty of sun (south facing).

circular planters

I planted out some lettuce into my circular pots earlier this week as the plants were too crowded in their little trays. This has freed up some greenhouse space and ive filled that with another tray of mixed lettuce, which i planted the first row of today. I'm going to do rows weekly, now ive seen how nice and easy to grow lettuce is. Maybe i'll have enough for a lot of the summer. Theres also a few bits of rocket in there too, aswell as some sage that my mothers been growing.

greenhouse progress

Wor Billy has been busy today inbetween the bouts of rain we've had. Foundations are now laid for the greenhouse. We've had to sling a big plastic sheet over it now, as its TOSSING down. Again.

rain stops play

The heavens opened earlier, which means anything i was going to do outide has been cancelled. Seems, not only for me though - this blackbird seems to have set up camp under the garden table until the storm passes! He will be late for his tea and be in trouble with Mrs Bird.

on your marks......get set.........go!

This evening I am pleased. I got one little job done this evening, before the mad thunderstorm we're about to get starts. It was to take some cuttings from our rosemary, and pot them up to see if i can get my own bush going. This site gave very good instructions on how to do this, and I've now got some potted up. Two are 'ripped' from the bush and two are cut. Hope they soon adjust to their new soil, as rosemary is a top herb, and I need it for my new house. Who will win? Place your bets now!

special treat

To celebrate the blog creation i have treated myself to my own, new, personal watering can. It cost £3.99 and is painted with red garden creatures. Most importantly, it has a working rose, which will prevent any watery mishaps that might flood and drown my seedlings, of which there has already been one incident of this year.

the locations

Here are the locations that things are currently being grown in. First is the shallot patch mentioned below - where i intend to put some lettuce too but have not yet done. Secondly is the circular planter area, most of this lot is my mothers but ive been allocated three or so of the pots. There is some rocket and lettuce here at the moment. Next is the greenhouse at the bottom of the garden, which gets plenty of sun all day - which will be useful for the peppers that live in there, along with some rocket and lettuce. Finally is a bit of a work in progress; a 6ft by 6ft greenhouse we're currently making. Dad is having fun pretending the garden is a gypsy encampment!