Friday 28 September 2012

Thursday 27th September 2012 - Last of the potatoes...

Yes - that's it for the spuds this year, all the potatoes are dug up and everyone took a bag home with them to be cooked, and the remainder was donated to the Rathbone 'Come Dine With Me' project...



Look! Spuds!















We also did some weeding (as usual) around the lettace and sweetcorn, which is almost ready to harvest now...

We picked some of the green tomatoes from the plants that were not looking healthy anymore and set them in the greenhouse shed with an apple to help turn them red...

We also found when we had arrived that our shelter from the rain was demolished by the recent weather and set about clearing the fallen gazebo...

We also made a handrail next to the step at the back of the allotment to make it safer for those who have mobility problems to get up to the shed and decking areas...
Sawing the handrail to size...
Finished handrail... 
And finally, before we left, we raked the old potato patch and sowed some 'green manure' (http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=373) to occupy the space for the winter - ours is a rye grass mix.
This manure will help to break up the soil and then be 'dug in' to the soil to help put back organic matter (compost) and nutrients like nitrogen - very important for plants to grow, so important for the soil to contain...
Old potato bed, now sowed with green manure for the winter...
And thats it for this week! See you next week.....

Thursday 27 September 2012

August and September - in mostly pictures!

Ok - Various people, staff and members, have been here, there, and around and not around - so things have been moving along with the site, and photos taken, but not time to put it all up on the blog - so here is a condensed version of the last couple of months...

Important events! The community building grand opening BBQ at Rosendale Allotments which members and staff attended from Rathbone... clearing the site of plastic waste... digging the ground ready for strawberry planting and over-wintering garlic and onions... leek planting... award winning scarecrows from Rathbone (see photo's below) - 1st Prize at the Rosendale Allotment competition (and Rathbones salad, again designed by Sandra - 1st prize!) the scarecrow Elfrida (named after the educationist Elfrida Rathbone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfrida_Rathbone) who the Rathbone Society are named after, also won 2nd prize at the Lambeth Country Show 2012! Go Elfrida!

Separating the roots of baby leeks...

Trimming baby leeks...
Taking the excess growths off tomato plants
Planting baby leeks in the soil - straight into holes, not filled with soil but just water
Finding weeds...
Community building opening BBQ at Rosendale Allotments

Elizabeth/ Elfrida - Rathbone's Award winning scarecrow with designer Sandra  in blue

Cutting the Ivy back...

More weeding! The sweetcorn this time gets a weeding

Stripping the ivy leaves for the compost bin

Moving our path back to comply with regulations at the allotments
Digging up the spuds...

Some of our potatoes!

Our new plot number - and designer Sandra again on the right!
A busy time, it's time to get harvesting our allotment again, and hopefully weekly blogs will follow...

Thanks for reading! Rathbone Gardening Project