Fruit trees

The three fruit trees which we ordered from Sutton's arrived last Wednesday so it was important to get them planted as soon as possible. A couple of days 'storage' in the conservatory occasionally dipped in a trug of water made sure they remained hydrated and I finally got the three areas dug and prepared yesterday after Linda had come down with me to make sure they were going to be planted in the correct positions.

We now have an almond tree (Sweet Mandaline), plum tree (Victoria) and apple tree (Lord Lambourne) though to be honest, apart from the almond tree they do look more like twigs! Still, they come well-regarded and are at least 18 months old, feathered trees.

Time will tell but if they can get established this year I'm hoping we'll have blossom and fruit to look forward to in 2012.

More seed planting

Made a start on planting flower seeds today with 2 varieties of Sweet Peas: Giant Waved Mixed and Cupani. I think they were bought at last year's Gardeners' World. They'll be started off in the house.

I planted more Broad Bean seeds this morning - this time Express (supposedly one of the earliest varieties, 30 pods per plant and an excellent freezing variety) in pots in the greenhouse to speed up germination, after which I'll put them in the allotment.

Quick update

In the last couple of days I've transplanted the Flavor garlic which I had got started in the greenhouse in small pots. They had shooted really well and didn't suffer any setback at all when they were planted in the allotment.

The broad beans in pots in the greenhouse look good, and with the extra space left by the garlic I decided to plant more broad bean The Sutton seeds to help with the succession in due course!

Also in the greenhouse now are some red onion sets in pots to try and get a head start for the allotment and produce rooted sets to make it harder for the birds to uproot them once they're at the allotment.

Some nasturtium seeds in a seed tray complete this week's work in the greenhouse and in the next few days I'll get down to the allotment for some final digging and turning over of the soil and then select some ground that I'll cover in soil-warming sheeting in preparation for the first of the potatoes in mid to late March.

Greenhouse activities

After a little more snow yesterday Spring seemed as far away as ever. However, a change to some sunshine today and the arrival of 4 types of seed potato and some spring garlic (Flavor) soon changed things.

I'll spread the potatoes out in boxes in the conservatory or garage so they can start to chit.

The garlic is already in pots in the greenhouse now, along with some early sown broad beans (The Sutton), so we'll see if this head start under protection will give us some extra early crops.

A few seasonal photos - December 2010

Here are a few photos showing the allotment during the recent period of snow and frost - plus a demonstration of how (inelegantly) to crawl in and out of the fruit cage! I need to change the size of the entrance for next Spring, methinks.

The sprouts were delicious - two meals from one 'stalk' and more to come, along with the parsnips once the ground defrosts!

All quiet at the allotment

As the snow falls it's a pretty good time to stay indoors. As expected, I did manage to get 2 trailer loads of manure - one from Bhylls Lane, the other from Stafford Road. Despite all the time and effort the end result always looks rather disappointing so fortunately much of the allotment was manured last year and doesn't all need re-doing.

We'll concentrate on the area of the fruit cage and the upper sections this Autumn and I'll try to get more manure during the Spring as well.

I planted around 30 cloves of over-wintering garlic so hopefully they'll have got established a bit before this cold spell. They are supposed to be very hardy anyway so there shouldn't be any problems.

Still in the ground are sprouts, parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes and chard so we'll still have some fresh produce up until Christmas, if not beyond.

A whole lot of manure going on!

Stuart (my son) was quite sensibly away in Wakefield having a good time when I had chosen to hire a trailer to get a couple of loads of manure for the allotment. The company were great and reckoned a loan from noon on Saturday until 9am on Monday was just a day (can't complain about that!) and were also very friendly and welcoming too - so all was set for a Saturday afternoon manure snatch (from a place on Stafford Road that I passed every day of my life when I worked at Rodbaston) and from the place at the end of Bhylls Lane on Sunday afternoon (which I discovered last year and thought might have disposed of everything by now). Photographic evidence will surely follow.