We have moved at last

Hello All

Just a quickie, we have moved at last and are sorting out our furniture and stuff.

After a disaster with the furniture people delievering the wrong items and haveing some missing we are not best pleased, but better to sort out the problems now and get what we want than wait and bad service again.

Anyway if I cannot post again before Christmas, have a good one and hope to hear from some of you soon

Yours Mim

Hello Again lottie people

I hope you can see that all my hard work atweeding has still not paid off and we still have a lot of work to do.


















As you can see we have made a good start on sorting out the weeds at the front of the lottie and by the time you read this all of the lettuce stalks and sunflowers are down and so are the beans.


Here you can see the only 2 crops we have left on the lottie. 2 lots of winter and spring cabbages and the leeks are just behind me to the right.

Other allotments on the site have more veg and some stuff already planted for next year, we are having to wait a month or so before we can really make any headway as we are planning a house move. But when we move our new garden , which we will have to start from stratch is about the size of the lottie, so we may be looking at getting a smaller lottie closer to where we will be moving to.

So watch this space. We will not be giving up on lottieing as we really enjoy eating the friuts of our labour, just dont always enjoy the hard work.

Hope to hear from you all soon

Mim

Long time no veg

Hello All

I am now starting to dig my lottie over for next year and starting to plan where I think the new raised beds will go ready for next year.

I am digging up all the remains of any veg left over from the summer, keeping any onions or garlic and storing the potatos that are appearing from no where.

My veg has all but finished now except the leeks and spring cabbage.

I am in the process of moving house and hope to be able to keep the lottie going for at lest the next year and will try to get one closer to our new house if one is availbale about March, which is when the clsoer site to our new house lets them become available.

Anyway hope to hear from some of you soon

Yours Doidge

Hello again campers

Hello all

just a quick post

I have been on holiday this week to Jersey and have seen some lovely gardens and walked past peoples allotments and they are very well kept makes me very envious of what they are doing. We will see how much I can improve my allotment with the ideas I have picked up.

Yours badrill

Photos at last ...........

At last some photos have been pbtained from the Lottie and the Dad's camera. As you can see the sunflowers are doing well and so are the 2 wigwams of runner beans. I tried 2 methods for them this year. The wigwam and the normal frame I used last year. The wigwam has proved to be the better options for me this year.

The leeks have been transplanted to thier final growing position and will stay there now until they are dug up.

Again the sunflowers are doing very well as they are all self seeded from last year. Not as tall as last year but still dwarfing others on the site. If you look carefully you will find a bee on this one.

The other sort of flower doing very well this year is the Cauliflower. Last year they all bolted and peaked too early. This year they appear to being very well. They taste lovely aswell.



Anyway I hope to see or hear from some of you soon

Yours Doidge

Hello on this bank holiday weekend

Hello all you happy people.

Well today I picked my first corn and Cauliflower and large carrots. There are not many items left in my lottie at the moment so I am starting to plan the winter things. I am also trying a large pot for some late carrots and hope to keep off the carrot fly.

All my cauliflowers are doing well and so is my broccoli and the purple sprouting is not purple or sprouting very much yet, but we are not worried. I am hoping to get a green house as a combined birthday and Christmas pressie as they are only 1 week apart.

Thinking about Christmas already I hear you say. Yes and some of my pressies have already been brought. We are hoping to get them all before the end of September.

Hope to hear from some of you soon.

Doidge

Just A Quickie

Hello All

No photos today as I am very busy trying to buy a new house and keep the allotment going. So I have been very tired and too shattered to write very much.

I hope that everyone is getting along well and not lost too much because of the ridiculos weather we have been having.

Hope to hear from some of you soon

Badrill118

Everything is not coming up roses......

Hello All

Hope you are haveing more success than me this year. All I seem to have grown this year is more weeds than anything. The only crops doing well are the potatoes. As you can see here we have only took them from the surface and not really dug down very far. But we still have a bag ful from that alone.

The rest of the ground has been cleared and we are deciding what to do about it. Do we replant other stuff or do we just dig manure in now and hope or what?


















Weeds still out number crops and we will have to do something about that for next year. May a raised bed system of a complete weed killer operation before we start planting for the Winter




















Anyway the other the thing growing well again are my sunflowers. I gave some of my seedlings to another group of plot holders and here they are to prove that the sunflowers have grown. They are self seeded from last year's crop so they are smaller than last year, which reached about 15 foot. This year they barely managed 10 foot.

Anyway I will go now and you can leave me any comments you would like to

yours Badrill 118

Hello all you happy lottiers

Hello All

No photos this week forgot camera and the batteries ran out.

Well the weeds are coming down. HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been working very hard at work and it seems to be paying me a little eztra money so a holiday and maybe raised beds for next year would be money well spent. Even though we may move in the next 12 months we will keep the allottment for as long as possible and that would be very good for us. But if we move too far we may need to look for another one. Maybe we should only look for a new house were there are some allotments and no waiting list. All the best thngs come to those who wait.

Speak again later mim

Hello again

Hello all
The lottie was on the back burner this last week as I had a much needed break in Burnham on Sea. I had a couple of the lovely blokes from the allotment water my plot so it was fine when I got back.

No pictures of it though as the weeds are higher than the turnips and onion stalks so not ahppy showing you all. I hope to get some weeding done on Wenesday when the wind should be a little heavier than today and hopefully we shold have a thunder storm.

I do have some pictures of my aunt's garden though so you can see what she has been doing. The hedgepig is my favourite

So just a quickie today

I will be back soon

Mim

My FREE Potatoes and other Stuff

Hello all

Hope you are all enjoying the good weather, yesterday was quite hot and I got a little sunstroke, must remember to put on my hat next time. Anyway as you can see the weeds are gradually being moved and we can see the peas which already have pods on them. 1 week and they will be ready to eat, whilst I get ready to sow the last crop before the middle of July.

We got very few peas up this year so I thought that if I tried sowing them again we may get a second bite at the cherry as they say.

The lettuces are doing very well and some of them will be going to Somerset this week for my Aunt and Uncle to try.

Below are my free potatoes, as grown from ones left in from last year. I have only dug up three of them and you can see how many I have got. Along with the carrot thinings and a couple of stray turnips. I forgot to mark the row they were in as it pelted it down with rain and I had to take shelter and forgot to do it after the rain.
I tried Spring onions aswell and they have come up quite well until the hubby decided they were grass and tried to pull some out before I could stop him??????


So I will go now and have my Chinese take away for tea and come back later
yours
Badrill118

The weeds are still among us

Hello All

As you can see the weeds are still winning in one patch of the Lottie. I just can't keep on top of them and work all day as well at the moment.

Arrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh Life

what will we do I ask myself. Should we give up and not do it next year or should we use weedkilller ???????????????

Well I really don't know. In amongst all the weeds are carrots and beetroot. Just in case you all wanted to know the weeds are Poppies from the neighboring allotment.


You can see how far they spread. I have been told that poppy seeds can stay dormant for about 100 years. Anyone got any ideas???






Anyway here you can see we are actually growing some crops. Broad Beans to be exact. WE put in about 50 seeds and only about 30 came up. Smae with the peas. 100 seeds and only 20 plants.

I complained about this last time. But we will at least have some crops and I am going to replant my pea seeds and see how we get on. The variety I ahve brought can be planted out until mid july so we have 3 weeks. 2 successional sowings should bring us back up to date. Runner beans are in and in the next post I will put some photos on of them. The raspberries are going like wildfire and already friuting, so we should have some ready over the next month or so. The rhubarb is doing very well and my patio apple is full of apples and so we are hoping to hve some ready for September time.

Anyway must go now, will be back later.

Happy cropping all

Hi ho HI ho it's off to work we go.........

l
Hello again from the Lottie of Badrill118,
Things here have go a little out of hand recently with the weather and other things so the weeds have grown better than the crops. Anyway here are my mom and friend sproggie helping with the weeding. This is me again doing as little as poss in the heat as I had to go to work about 1/2 hour after this. really could have done with more time at the lottie.

We have a lot of rouge spuds coming up all over the allotment and hope we will get some nice FREE spuds from them before we go away in the summer. This year we will really dig them out up to 3 foot deep is we have to.

As you can see the lottie was covered in weeds until the sproggie team got involved and they were mainly poppy seeds. Under them were my peas, carrots and beetroot. They all seem to have thrived having some shade but not all the peas have come up so I am going to have to plant some more. The spuds are doing well, but the tomatoes have all died off and so I have to but some more to replace them.

The onions, garlic and shallots are doing very nicely and i hope to using some of them soon. The flowers are doing very well, Anenomes are very happy and the Sweet William is a wash of colour. The Freesias have yet to come out. We will hve to wait and see what happens to them.

Speak to you agian, Weather and work permitting.
Yours Badrill118

Weed meet again.........

Hello All

I have been lottieing again today and found that the nieghbours have taken out their poppies and mine are still coming up with avengence.

Anyway I have found this year that most of my seedlings are not not coming up only 45% of the seeds put directly in have germinated and so I am now have to find more things to put in to cover the ground.

Last year we had 100% germination and I am not sure why it didn't happen again this year.
The tomatoes have produced 4 plants out of 50 seeds and the peas 100 put in have produced about 25 so I really don't think that we will have much to freeze this year. The only good thing happening this month is that the raspberries are going wild and I know we should have a bumper crop from them. So we do have some good things to think about.

My Runner Beans are none exsitant so I have had to resorting to buying from my local shop. They always have very good quality and always have a good crop from their stuff.

Anyway I must away and will post again this weekend.

Happy cropping this week

Yours Miriam

Did we have a lovely day the day we went to ......?

Hello Everyone Just thought I would let you guess where I was on Thursday instead of doing my lottie.
A couple of clues, the sea is rarely seen here and the place has a connection with Jill Dando.

All anwers please to be put in comments.

See you all soon

Mim 

Hubby "Scarecrow Number 3" working at last......

Hello Happy Diggers

Hope the good weather has given you the chance to catch up on all those little jobs. And the big ones. As you can see the Hubby, Simon has been done and done some work at last. About time we all cry. But I think he should become Scarecrow Number 3 as he looks scary enough to me.


He has some very little work up till now me and mom have done most of it again this year. But we shall see what transpires over the year. He has done another row of potatoes and dug me some ground ready to plant the brassicas in later on this month. Cabbages and Cauliflowers, Sprouts and the such will all be planted in the ground below.






















He decided to get his own back on me for taking his photo and so it looks like I don't like getting my hands dirty, but I really had just stopped for a sec to have a break from the weeding.

Anyway the Lettuces are all coming up nicely and we should have some of them in the middle of June I am hoping if not earlier.
Anyway people

Good bye from the Sunny climbs of Smethwick and hope to hear from some of you soon

Happy Digging

More Weeds than Plants...........

Hello we are here again.

The Lottie is in nearly full swing

The Raspberry canes are all increasing much better than expected. The largest ones are two I out in last year and the smaller ones are ones that I brought this year. The bean support in the back ground needs some work doing before we can put the beans up it this year.




I transplanted some of my patio apples this year and I hope they will do well. This is the better one in flower. The resulting apples are normally very nice and sweet. One of them looks like it has died but we will wait and see what happens to it.

The potatoes are starting to show at last. We still have another 3 ranks to put in but we will have to do them very soon.

As you can see the weeds are everywhere. It is a full time job just keeping on top of them and the planting sometimes has to take a back seat.

















This is my mom and as you can see we are already harvesting things. We will have rhubarb crumble later on this week and the radishes are only the first lot to be taken out. So far the thinnings have given us over 60 to eat. Friends will soon be round for more.

Anyway more hard work to follow will produce bigger and better than last year and so we will still get the benefit of a good feast after much hard work

More of the Chronicles of Badrill118 lottie in the future


Happy Digging

Flowers and Onions

Hello happy lottieers.

I hope you are all well and happy digging and planting. Well the weather is not too bad today , just rain all day so no really work can be done by me, but we all need the water don't we.

Anyway my onions and garlic and shallots are doing well.

This was taken about 2 weeks ago but they are much bigger now and more of them are up. I planted both white (strukkgard I think but I will check on that) and Red (Red Baron) in the onions. The garlic, I am trying 2 different sorts, the first I will have to check on the name and the second is just a half of a fresh garlic I brought from the local shop. Just thought I would try both. The shallots have no name they were mixed sets from the local garden shop.

I have also tried to grow to flowers this year from seed or bulb. Normally I just buy the plants and then I have instant colour. I have started to grow anenomes from seed and they seem to have taken to the ground quite well.


I have also planted some freesias. I hope that these will make a lovely display over the summer and then I can pout them in the house as cut flowers.

Anyway the new scarecrow is keeping a watchful eye over the flower bed and the old one over the veg...........

In my next blog I will try to show you my very first allotment and the uphill struggle we had with that. An d how the work though very difficult was still fruitful. 3lb of spuds in and 30lb of spuds out. Not a bad return for a years hard slog and now much else to show for it.

Happy Digging All

More Sunshine and a New Scarecrow

Hello Again

All the sunshine this week has made me go down to the lottie and try to sort out the weeds. I tried to go down this morning but the weather was so bad I had to come back very early. But anyway less of the weather for today and more about the lottie of this week

Firstly the daffs are now coming to an end so I am slowly replacing them with pansies and petunias. All mixed colours and varieties. Can't stand all one colour but I don't like clashes either so no red and pink together for me at the same time.

When my Mom and Dad came back from Portmadoc, they brought me a new scarecrow and so I put it in the flower bed of the Lottie. I hope you all like him. The older one is with the Turnips and Radishes.

Anyway the lottie is doing well considering we are about 6 weeks behind last year. This year I thought I would try to have plug plants alongside home grown ones to see which fair better in my soil. I am only doing this with the Cauliflowers, Cabbage and Brussels. Everything else is going to be home grown or self seeded from last year. In some respects I hope we are not as successful as last year. Why I hear you all cry?

Well last year every seed we planted came up and produced something. So there is the hubby finding room for 300 tomato plants, 25 courgette and marrow plants, 100 broad bean plants ,as well as 10 ranks of spuds, runner beans, peas, sweetcorn, turnips 300 lettuces 300 carrots and parsnips. Our plot is only 115 feet by 20 feet. Not much room for all that lot.

We had been working on a 75% germination rate and we had 100%. So this year we are planting less to start off with but the germination rate is not even 75% this year so that is one reason we are trying plug plants alongside our own attempts.


Anyway on the right is what the lottie looked like last week on the one good day with enough sunshine to do some work. I don't do raised beds yet but am considering them for next year. You can also see the old scarecrow in the foreground as well. They make a lovely pair. In my next post I will put some photos of one of the 1st bumble bees I have seen this year.

Happy digging

Glorious Sunshine At Last....... Hurray

At last the weather we have all been waiting for, Sunshine and dry weather so we can do some really gardening. For me at least I love Spring with all the new life and green shoots etc coming up. I t makes Winter seem many months behind us and Summer too close.

I managed an hour at the lottie today what with work and home life I don't get enough time to do it all. I did some weeding and some tying up of the Raspberry canes which are now really getting a spurt on.

Can't wait to be able to eat them again this year. I don't have many but the new shoots are going to treble the amount I had last year.

I have planted a number of things this year including some flowers, not many but something to brighten up the Lottie in the Winter months. Just some colour at a drab time of year.

Anyway I have planted a lot of things in the Lottie already,:-
Onions, Garlic, Shallots, Carrots, Potatoes, Parships, Leek, Spring Onion, Lettuce, Parsley, Rosemary, Chives to name just a few.

I will post again tomorrow if I get chance.

My first post

Hello All

This is my first posting about my Lottie.

Here is my allotment and some of the people who have helped me over the last year. The tall one is the Hubby and the little is his youngest brother. This was taken in May last year. We only got this lottie in March 2004.

The old one was too much work and covered in loads of mess and weeds, Horsetails amongst others. We found it really hard going so we got another one in the same block and it proved much easier to handle.