Rooko's November Top 10 Tryouts & Tips!!

1. Don't forget the yearly ritual of checking over bonfires, before they are lit, to ensure any wildlife is not hibernating inside them.

2. Although the weather is wet cold and dreary over most of the UK, if you can collect fallen leaves from trees and shrubs, it will make good leaf mould for later use in the garden or down the plot.

3. Probably your last chance to plant the following in November. Garlic, Broad beans, Overwintering Peas, Overwintering Onion and Shallot sets. Try the following in a frost free greenhouse or under protection. Winter Lettuce, Endive, Pak-Choi, Spinach.

4. Save those long plastic containers discarded from curtain poles or window blinds. Cut away one side of the container and use them for light weight cloches to cover seeds/seedlings.

5. If you have a fish pond in your garden which may become frozen during the Winter, put a tennis ball, or 2, into the water to prevent it completely freezing over. Keep any water movement going during the Winter months.

6. Winter protection in cold areas for Rhubarb may consist of covering the crowns with about 10 inches (25cm) of straw. Mulching around the crowns will supply nutrients to the roots and may provide protection from frost also.

7. Some green manures can still be sown now. They will help to subdue weeds, which is helpful during spells of bad weather when the ground cannot be weeded. The green manure can be turned into the soil at a later date to disperse their nutrients.

8. This years extremely wet weather in UK has seen a large rise in the snail and slug populations. It may be prudent to purchase some nematode products to combat them, prior to next seasons sowing and growing begins.

9. One method of cleaning used plant pots is as follows. Firstly soak the pots in cold clean tap water for a few hours to loosen up any dirt on them. Fill a container with 2 gallons of clean water and add a half cup of bleach to the water. (Use protective clothing when handling bleach). Thoroughly scrub the pots until clean and rinse them again with fresh water. Leave them to dry before storing or using them again.

10. If you are storing seeds over the Winter months, keep them in tins. This will stop mice and other vermin knawing their way through containers made from less robust materials.

Still Digging (Part 2)

Meticulously the removal of the myriad of Dandelions continues on the center bed of my new plot. Monday and Tuesday of last week were wet and rainy so the war against the weeds was delayed yet again. Wednesday was sunny but cold along with Thursday. A fresh wind was drying out the soil by Thursday afternoon, helping the soil to break up more quickly as I continued digging. The rain returned on Friday, making the soil too wet to do much digging on Saturday morning which I spent moving the remaining items of my gardening equipment from my old 2nd plot to the new one. On completion of this some time was spent tidying up the shed on my new plot, installing various hooks and a potting bench in one corner of the shed. I have now officially handed back my old 2nd plot to our site representative. I understand that the plot will be split into 2 halves for letting out to the next 2 tenants.  One of the main complaints I've heard, in the past,  from new tenants is about the untidy conditions of the plots they are taking over. Well at least I've left mine in good order, apart from mowing the grass surrounding the plot.

How My Old 2nd Plot Looked Today

Top End of Old 2nd Plot Sown with Mustard to Keep the Weeds Down

 Sunday, Monday and today have seen dry, cold weather with a few sunny spells. This has enabled me to carry on digging up the Dandelions. As the work was going too slowly for my liking, due to the vast amount of small Dandelions smothering the grounds surface, I decided to remove, not only the Dandelions, individually, but also a few inches of soil with each batch of roots. This method sped things up considerably, yesterday and today. Although the larger Dandelion plants have been easier to remove than the smaller ones, many are rooted well into the sub-soil, so by the time the bed has been cleared of weeds it will have been well and truly "double dug". In fact late this afternoon a chap from the antipodes popped his head up out of the soil to say hi?

Just 2 Forkfuls of Dandelion  Roots

The Root of the Problem?

Halfway There

 More rain is forecast for this area tonight and for the next few days so more digging looks like being out of the question until at least this coming weekend. It looks like a good opportunity to do some work inside my shed cleaning tools, pots and trays.

Still Digging

First of all many thanks to everyone who has looked in on my blog in the past week. Not enough hours in each day over the past week, but I've been busy waging war against the Dandelions growing in my central bed on my new plot. This bed is the largest in area, equivalent to approximately a half plot in its own right. Up until Friday the clay soil was still wet and sticky, which meant that every fork full of soil turned had to be picked up by hand to remove hoards of Dandelions, roots and all. Generally the weather has been quite pleasant with a few sunny spells. Saturday and Sunday was breezy and reasonably warm and the soil was beginning to dry out as I continued digging the bed and removing weeds and any large stones I came across. The drying soil was breaking up better than earlier in the week which made the digging easier, good news, especially after putting in about 6 hours digging per day since last Monday. 

Not much else of interest (if digging can be considered interesting). I have harvested 2 lots of Runner beans several Lettuces, Cucumbers and the last of my Sweetcorn during the past week. I also harvested the first of my Leeks on Saturday which made a superb Leek and Potato soup for the weekend.

The annoying drizzly Autumn rain returned today so the Dandelion war was called off in favour of some D.I.Y.

My apologies for the lack of content and photographs within this post, hopefully the next post will be more interesting.

For all of you who have gardening jobs to do and haven't got round to it yet the following is just for you.

             This is a Round Tuit Just for You

I Must Be Out Of My Tree

A good productive 5 days, during the past week, down the plot, has seen a few changes to things, apart from the persistent rain, hail and heavy showers that is. Monday and Tuesday of last week were none starters due to more rain. I got down to the plot on Wednesday to find out that the plot next to my main plot had become vacant, after the previous tenants Cecil and Mandy had given it up. A shame really as we got along fine together whilst working on our plots. I had been waiting to swop my 2nd plot for this one, which Cecil and I had agreed to some time ago. The plot had become overgrown this year and I think the bad weather had caused Cecil and Mandy to give up on it, which has been the case  for quite a few other plot holders, this year, too. My first job on Wednesday was to start digging over the first of the vegetable beds, removing weeds, grass and in particular the first batches of  Dandelion and Buttercup plants, which were infesting most of the plot. Rotavating was out of the question, due to the wet ground and with the vast amount of Dandelions being well established, chopping the roots up wasn't an option either.

My New Allotment Plot (How It Looked Last Wednesday)

By Saturday evening I had cleared the first 2 beds of weeds, given a cursory mowing to the surrounding grass areas, cleared 2 large Rhubarb plants of dead foliage and weeds and transferred various items of gardening equipment from my old 2nd plot to N2 Plot. The 4 days work was slow and laborious due to the wetness of the soil and having to dodge rain showers, every 15 minutes, particularly on Thursday afternoon, with 1 shower of hailstones to boot. I used walking boards, underfoot, to avoid compacting the clay soil any more than necessary.

Lower End Of New Plot Overgrown With Buttercups/Grass

 Sundays weather was a complete contrast to the rest of the week, with sunshine all day. I didn't make it to the plot though, due to family birthday celebrations down in Devon, another county suffering with plenty of rainfall this year.

Rhubarb And Chives Weeded Saturday Top Of New Plot

First 2 Beds Dug And Weeded By Saturday

 I started work down the plot early this morning with more digging and weed removal. The sun made an appearance for about an hour, a little after midday. Just as the soil began to dry out slightly, back came the rain showers. After the third heavy downpour I gave up with the digging, having completed about 5 x 20 foot of ground, spending the rest of the afternoon transferring more equipment from my old 2nd plot. I picked 2 Sweetcorn cobs and cut a large Lettuce for tea, along with 2 Pumpkins, (for Halloween), before calling it a day. As I am writing this post the rain is hammering down yet again, but the next 2 days are supposed to be dry here. Hopefully I will be able to forge on with more digging etc tomorrow and hopefully for the rest of the week.

Progress On Central Bed Monday 15th October

A Sunny 25 Degrees Celsius Again

 It was early morning when I arrived at the plot but the glorious sunshine was already taking the temperature upwards to 25 degrees C. Yet another fine day. My first job was marking out 4 drills in the warm dry soil and sowing some more Parsnip seeds. After covering the seeds with soil they were watered in, even though the seed had been soaking overnight. It was the rattling of the rain drops on my bedroom window that broke my dream filled sleep, no plot today again, too bloody wet once more.

Having just spent a couple of hours reading through ALL of the blogs that I follow, both on my profile list and blogs I follow list (they are all gardening/allotment blogs or related topic blogs), it was nice to see that only a few were not up to date. It was interesting to see the diverse topics and view many wonderful pictures and photographs, my favourites being various forms of wildlife we have here in UK. Although each blog was unique in its own right the goals were the same, to produce good fruit and vegetables for the dinner table. After one of the worst growing seasons for many years, in most parts of the country, one thing was common to most blogs. Despite our adverse weather conditions this year most bloggers had still gathered in a reasonable harvest, which is a tribute to their hard work, ingenuity, skill and patience this year. If you fit this description the smilies are for you.

 

  During the past week I have only managed 3 visits to my plots, on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday mainly due to, you won't believe this, yes more rain. I spent Tuesday clearing out some old brambles from the lower end of my main plot to make space for my cultivated variety to take their place. Once the roots had been dug out I completed some weeding around the same area. Then I finally got round to covering one of the beds on my second plot with black fabric and weighting it down with various heavy objects, harvested a few more Carrots, (Autumn King and Flyaway), before departing for home.

About 50% of Octobers Carrots Affected by Carrot Fly Earlier Ones Were Perfect

 On Thursday a few odd jobs were called for so my second compost bin was cleared out of various items such as pea sticks which were bundled and tied up, then stored away in the dry for later use. The other various poles, sticks and tree branches from the bin were made into a log pile underneath the roof of my manure heap, for the use of any hibernating creatures over the Winter. The newest compost on the top of the pile was then transferred into the second bin before I use the more mature compost, on next years Brassica bed, when the rain lets up. I removed the cloches from my over wintering Carrots to allow some moisture into their soil, they have certainly had plenty of that since Tuesday. Before leaving for home I harvested afew more Runner beans, Cucumber and Sweetcorn.

More Sweetcorn Runners and Cucumbers

 Sunday started off on the wrong foot when after finding out I could take videos with my camera, then forgetting to take it down the plot, I discovered that every one of my grapes had disappeared from the vine, a great pity as, despite the lack of sun they were ripening nicely, recently. A host of hungry birds were no doubt to blame and obviously the use of netting is called for in future. After hoeing and weeding part of my second plot I tidied up and cleaned some pots trays and tools as the afternoon came to an end.

The Mixed Lettuce Loves the Rain

This is More Cheerful

Top of My Back Fence in the Rain Tonight

Plot or Not

Well just as I was thinking the gardening year was slowing down, a week like the last one comes along and reminds me how lucky I am to be able to get away from it all down the plot. No such luck, since the beginning of last week. A running battle on the phone with the "tax man" alias tax man prat, took up most of my time last week. Then my car went in for its M.O.T. on Wednesday only arriving back this afternoon after more delays than Abu Hamzas extradition. At least I managed more decorating.

Saturdays Harvest

 The weather locally has improved slightly from just over a week ago, with a slight rise in day and night time temperatures and sunny spells during the days. A few rain showers, mainly overnight, have given the Runner beans on my second plot a new lease of life, with some excellent specimens harvested on Saturday. Even a few more Strawberries are developing again. The Mustard which was sown earlier has germinated helped by the rain showers. As Mustard grows faster than most weeds it should save me from more weeding over a large area of my second plot for a few weeks at least, until it is forked into the soil as green manure.

Saturdays Harvest

I did manage to borrow a friends car on Saturday, visiting the plot for four hours. I finished turning over the last few feet of one of my vacant vegetable beds. Luckily I had kept a spare spade in my garage, which I took to the plot with me, as my shed keys were on my car key ring, (remember the M.O.T.). The black plastic sheeting I had intended to cover this bed with was locked in the shed of course. I carried on with some weeding during the afternoon and then harvested some veg before leaving for home.

When You Can Take The Marble???

  Hopefully I will be back down the plot tomorrow to get something constructive achieved and take a few more photographs I missed out on at the end of September.