July 2013! A summery summary :)

Hi - welcome to the busy July Garden update - some key happenings...

• Our first BBQ!
• Harvesting the potatoes!
• Entering the Lambeth Country Show scarecrow competition...
• Watering & weeding galore!
• Strawberries & courgettes & garlic to eat!
• Tomato and pumpkin planting!

BBQ!!!

Potato harvesting! Our Wilja earlies were ready to come out...

Entering the Lambeth Country Show scarecrow competition... our 'Bob Marley' scarecrow came in 3rd :) Well done Bob!!

(Thanks to dulwichonview - http://dulwichonview.org.uk/2013/07/26/lambeth-country-show-in-pictures/)

Watering & weeding galore! Lots of dry hot days, lots of watering to keep up with...

Soooooooo many weeds....

Strawberries & courgettes & garlic to eat! We BBQ'd our first courgette, and gave others to the 'Come Dine With Us' project... @ http://rathbonecomedinewithus.blogspot.co.uk/

Garlic and courgette for 'Come dine with us'

Tomato and pumpkin planting! We planted out all our tomatoes and found some pumpkins to plant which are already doing very well!

See you next month...

Thursday 20th June 2013 - weeding! creating! watering!

Happy solstice to you!

The group were up on the allotment today even though it threatened rain and was muggy warm for the whole day, we fought off our fears and stayed it out...

Before the weeding....

....after the weeding!

We found some insects... like this spider

Earthed up the potatoes...

... and liberally watered... on arrival and departure...

 We have constructed a raised bed from the 'heap' that was at the top of the allotment, photos next week...

Leeks - young plants to fully grown and seeding to the pan!

These leeks were given to the garden group by a very good friend of one the members in August 2012, and planted the same month. They were left to grow over winter, and harvested today to be used for the Rathbone 'Come Dine With Us' project which some of the Gardening Project members also attend...

Here's the process in photo form :)

Young leek plants...

...planted in holes on the allotment...

Growing to full size > and begin seeding...

...dug up...

... washed, chopped up and cooked for the plate :)

April 2013 - Ground preparation, manure delivery, herb and potato planting... and we are 1 year old!!

 A busy April, lots to do; and the project is now 1 year old!!

Our one year old pizza lunch in the Rosendale Allotments Community Building

The main jobs were;

Prepare the ground for planting, digging over to let air and water in and to break up the soil where it had become compacted.

The eternal enemy... couch grass!

This job at times was hard work - mostly due to a majority of the site being clay, which hardens in the sun and becomes compacted and slippery in the rain, but seeing the result after the dig and a good rake was worth the effort...

We also had a manure delivery! So we spread that on the dug ground in order for the worms to drag it down and to dig it in in a few weeks...

We also built some shelves for some newly planted seeds;

Shelves in use with plants!

We also planted our potato crop...

Preparing the trenches for the potato planting...

Placing the potatoes in eyes up...

First two potato rows go into the soil...

And lastly, planting some herbs to enhance our herb garden, we purchased some sage to go with a rescued thyme plant abandoned last year by the former plot holders...

The sage plant, roots watered ready for planting...

It's in! Sage is planted with the other herbs...

Rescued thyme plant, going to ground...

Herb garden as of April 2013

Now the warmer weather comes our way, lots to do in May...

March 2013 - Updates from the allotment!

Potato chitting - to get the potatoes off to a strong early start, chitting them - allowing the shoots to develop before planting, see here for more info: http://www.rhs.org.uk/Children/For-families/Grow-it!/Chit-early-potatoes : we retrieved some large cardboard egg boxes from the cafe we visit to put the potatoes in;

Potato chitting: eyes up!

Seed sorting and recognition - we worked on how to recognise the difference between various seeds such as larger seeds, like pumpkin, and smaller ones, like carrot. Some were very similar, so we worked on seeds which were noticeably different in sizes.

Looking for the difference in the seeds...

... and noting the differences

Re-using pallets - the allotment had a delivery of pallets, of which we secured 6 for building projects. We currently have no outdoor table, or shelves on which to grow our seeds in trays - so we decided to start to build these out of the pallet wood;

1. Separating the pallet into single pieces of wood

2. Taking out the unwanted nails

... more nails being taken out of the wood

3. Sawing the wood to size

4. Measuring the pieces of wood

5. Adding supports to keep the table strong

6. Finishing by adding the work surface from more pallet wood with the nails taken out!

Our soil - and clay! - We spent half a day having a look at the soil types we have on our allotment; we found at the top of the plot we had a heavy clay, down to more of a good quality loam towards the middle and base of the plot;

Digging the hole to see the soil

Discovering the clay type of soil through rolling between our fingers - the clay type stuck together

One person on the allotment made a clay oven from the clay on his allotment!

More in April!