March 2008
Snow, hale, rain, wind!!!! These seem to have been the flavours of the month recently, unfortunately this does not make for ideal allotmenting or vegetable gardening weather, for us or any perspective seedlings or crops.
In fact this inclement period can even make for casualties, one such has been suffered on our plot during March, nameley our poor old monolith. In the months preceeding it had aready suffered at the hands of the weather, resulting in torn coverings and general shabbyness. Unfortunately this was outstripped on a recent visit when it was discovered thoroughly battered, broken and uprooted from its base. At this stage we are unsure if it will be salvageable and so may have to re-think our approach to our tomato and chille crops this year.
This did not deter us for long however and in general March has proved to be a very productive and sucessful month. We completed our final soil preparations before the growing season really kicks off in the form of rotorvating the ground, adding Manure, Lime or leafmould accoding to our rotation plan and marked out our seed beds ready for use.
One plant doing very well on our plot at the moment and providing a welcome green splash in contrast to the dark brown of our loam and the soil all about is our Garlic, which are happily poking thier heads out of the ground at the moment and making promises of sucessful and aromatic days to come.
We also erected the frame for our long awaited fruit cage, we did not have time unfortunately to add all the netting due to some unforseen breakages during the assembly process. But, all in all the size and look seems very promising and we look forward to getting the netting in place very soon so it can start protecting our crops from any hungry winged scavangers.
We are also deligted to announce the arrival of some newcomers to our plot, nameley the fruit trees we have just planted. Jonagold & Elstar apples along with a Victoria Plum will be welcome additions to our crops and although it may be some years before a good yeild is produced, we will be watching for fruits with eager anticipation. We are being cautious with regards to protection for our newest members however, which includes a tree guard and a circling of chicken wire as we have seen quite severe damage to the bases of neighbouring sapling trees.
Other members of our fruit menagerie are also looking well, the Gooseberries after thier pruning and staking are greening up niceley, along with the currants of several varieties and the raspberries are positiveley rampant producing new canes all over the place in the fruit patch. This bodes well for our 2008 Lottieblogs Fruit Challenge!
There are also still other crops who require our attention and protection at this time of year, after relocating our overwintering cabbages into a new position it was decided to offer them some substantial defence in case of attack from the ever present pest posed by the local pigeon population. This took the form of a handsome and sturdy chicken wire cage. TRY AND GET THROUGH THAT SUCKERS!!!!!
Our newly planted Broad Bean Seedlings also required some assistance in this form to help prevent damage from nibbling four legged residents. These were planted directly into the ground still in thier biodegradable pots (which seem to have promoted a more even growth of the seedlings than last year and we feel we can highly reccommend) and trained up canes, they were then surrounded by chickenwire secured to the ground by stakes.
Another addition to our plot is potatoes of several varieties which we hope to glean a good yeild from this year. However there are still plenty of harvests to be had in these early months, including parsnips, swede, purple sprouting broccoli and leeks. We also think youll agree that our plot seems pretty much ready for the season ahead and now its all ship shape, we cant wait to get into full swing.
See you in April Lottiebloggers!!!!!!