More photos from April

Slowly working my way through a backlog of photos - here's some more from the work day in April - the asparagus bed construction, the ill-fated beans and the caveman-style bbq!

Sunday 6th April

It snowed. We had a great snowman, but trashed beans and peas.

The "Spring had us fooled" weekend

Saturday April 5th Plot work day and there was a full posse of workers – Kate, Thabit, Jon, Viv, Oskar, Megan, Ali, Gavin and Philippa. It was a lovely sunny day, with bit of a chilly breeze. Jobs done = Pruning brambles, mending the shed door, tending the bonfire, cooking the tatties, some diggin’ on plot 53, planting asparagus and making the “rabbit proof fence”. Also planted out some peas and beans which had started in the loft.

The keen week

During that first week of light evenings we dug the bed ready for asparagus, planted out red onions (taking out the peas which were planted before Christmas, but all nibbled). Planted first rows of lettuce, rocket and radish. It was all go......

Spring Forward - March 31st

The first school evening with light until after 7.30pm, so we had a celebratory dig. Getting the salad bed ready and finishing off the edging.

Behind the scenes

The new loft room at No 15 is the perfect potting shed - mid-february some Dahlia's, Broad Beans, French Beans, a few Gardeners Delight tomatoes and Peas were potted up and are sprouting rapidly. The tatties are chitting slowly - end of March looking like planting time for them. Onions - ready to plant anytime we like.

Bring in the heavies...

With Gavin and Philippa away this weekend it was necessary to bring in some extra muscle. Dave and Tim stepped up to the challenge admirably! The task of the day was to shift the mound of carpet-covered soil over to the other covered bed. Having been covered for so long both areas had lovely soil which was further enhanced by Thabs' scrupulous micro-weeding technique to ensure no root got through the tight screening process.


End result!


Rhubarb is starting to emerge


Action shot!


Barrow boy Timmy


Men at work


Allotment porn


Kate giving orders


Heavy lifting


Thabs getting stuck in


Dave tipping over the edge

New labels on the blog

Hi guys!
I've done a bit of tidying up on the blog with the labels - you'll see a list of categories on the right of the blog - as we do more posting this will us keep organized I think. So every time you make a new post, put a suitable label on it using the box at the bottom of the "create" page. If you click "show all" it will give you all the existing labels to choose from, or you can make a new one if it doesn't fit in any of the categories.

Saturday 16 February

Another cold, sunny day putting edges to beds, weeding and top-dressing with kitchen compost. Three plump mice were evicted from their nest in the compost heap in the process of digging out the black gold.














Gavin and Kate take Thabit's description of last year's spinach with a pinch of salt

One person to hit it and one person to watch ...

Chitting the seed potatoes

Here they are getting started in the shed at home - should have sprouted nicely from their eyes by the time we come to plant them. Headington folklore suggests that Good Friday is the auspicious date on which to sow your spuds.

Plot 53 - a blank canvas

The black plastic was laid on a communal work day in the autumn. What to do with it? Did someone say 'potatoes'??

Prune a tree on fifty-three

This year we're going to add plot 53 to our edible gardening empire ... down among the Posh Plots tended so lovingly by Di and Judy. The tree in the foreground used to live between the other two to the left of the picture - much too cramped. Now it's got a bit more space and all three have had a restoration pruning. We think they're two apples and one pear. Fingers crossed we get some fruit in the autumn.

Hello

Hi guys! This is our allotment blog!
Hopefully we can all come here to talk about the allotment, post photos, make plans etc... Here are a couple of pictures from the weekend to get us started...


The lovely allotment. So far there is garlic, peas and bins in the bed on the left. Last weekend we made the 2 raised beds and partly cleared the path on the right. This weekend we dug the 3rd bed at the back.


Thabs hard at work...


Our friendly neighbourhood robin