More green than brown! 28/06/2011

Look at all this green! The plot is really getting into its stride now thanks to days of bright sunshine followed by almost tropical afternoon downpours.

Rich supervises the first harvest of baby Swiss chard leaves.

Close up...

And the result... Perfect salad fodder.

Today we had 3 people asking us about the plot, all very impressed with how it's going and how nothing has been knicked or damaged! (Touch wood)

Matt

First Harvest! 14/06/2011

The first Harvest! Wahoo, 5 beautiful radishes, juicy with a smart little kick at the end.

Chris was so keen he tried his leaves/roots/soil and all...

Other big news is permission from the council to use the garden of Chatterton house, adjacent to the plot. The council leader Barbara Janke suggested it initially and the lease is now signed!

On the condition we keep the front of the house weed free, a small price to pay...

At the moment we have a sea of woodchip covering weed membrane with weeds growing all over the path and on the membrane, so looks bad but shouldn't be too much work to get it into a beautiful kitchen garden.

Matt

A celebrity visit! 09/06/2011

What an honour! The Leader of the Council Barbara Janke spent her lunch time visiting our humble plot.

I think it's fair to say she was impressed and made a few suggestions about how we could use Chatterton house to our advantage, such as; water butt, compost bin, fruit in the walled garden, chickens...

Ok, maybe not chickens.

After a brief tour we had a group photo and I was blown away with the response from the office, absolutely fantastic so many people came down to support us. Thanks again!

And finally somewhat cheesily we had the leader of the council and the leader of the allotment shot. Very nice.

Matt

Beautification 08/06/2011

So tomorrow's the big day; the day our little allotment (might) make it into the press!

In preparation a few of us spent lunch time doing a bit of tidying/weeding.

Getting rid of leaves and dead grass, cigarette butts and other litter meaning the plot now looks much lovelier...

Matt

Teenage plants 03/06/2011

Here we have Barry as he reaches teenager-hood (so called as Chris BOWIE-Hill was by far and away the most excited about radishes). The way things are looking the radishes are going to be the first product of the plot. Lets hope Chris isn't worried about eating a namesake...

David tending his pride and joy, the onions. The aim of this visit was to give some very much needed moisture to the vegetables (and explode the myth that watering during the middle of the day damages the plant)

We managed two loads of wheelie-bin water, thanks to Dave and Sam for providing the muscle...

An all round view of the plot, we can't wait for it to be full of green but for now we'll have to make do with brown with green spots!

Matt

We need rain!!! 01/06/2011

It's been a while since I last blogged, but don't worry we have been busy just I've been slacking on the picture front. The big news is we've had the driest march ever on the back of the driest april ever. So we've mostly been watering, Although you wouldn't tell as we have had some sad news with regards beans which I'll describe in a bit...

As we can see the beans are looking a bit forlorn, in fact this was the second attempt at planting beans and neither attempt lasted more than a week. We need rain!

The biggest success so far; the onions! Here we have Sam looking on with a paternal air although Dave is the one doing all the work...

Success in waiting are the potatoes, we can just see their little heads poking up and Dave is welcoming them with a gentle sprinkle of water.

You can just see on the left the plastic containers protecting the chard from predators, these mini-greenhouses also keep in moisture and warmth, just don't let the plants get too big for them! Th eradishes in front of the bottles have just been released for that reason and look very healthy. Lizzie and Isabel can be seen tending the courgettes which to be fair are struggling, bed 1 not doing so well....

Here comes the girls 12/05/2011

Quite by chance the second lunch time session attracted a significant number of female allotment team members, so we have; Lizzie, Eleanor, Joanne, Liz and Anne. They are planting our second variety of bean; the climbing bean. With 25 plants each of both climbing and runner we’re sure to be snowed under with beans. (As long as it rains a bit...) And in the foreground are our 6 beautiful courgette plants. Traditionally giving a huge amount of courgettes and, if you let them, marrows. 

The two Liz’s planting a fine array of beetroot, 30 odd in total so even if we get all of them there will probably be a bit of a scrap over who gets the A1 specimens.

Today we managed to get in the ground carrots, climbing beans, beetroot, leeks, courgettes and spinach.

And we’re off! 11/05/2011

The team hard at work, digging over the beds to ensure a “fine tilth” before planting begins!

David B making short work of the potatoes, with beautiful St Mary Redcliffe church in the background.

Pippa making the Rainbow Chard comfortable

Sam and David F showing off their scouting skills lashing together the bamboo supports for the runner beans and I’m planting up the 50 radish seedlings Chris BH demanded...

The finished product, planted today, runner beans, chard, swede, radish, onions, potatoes.

Still to go, climbing beans, courgettes, leeks, parsnips, carrots, beetroots, spinach... 

The Green Light! 11/05/2011

And here is the finished area, ready for us to wreak havok!

In the time before we took possession of the land we were not idle. The team planted up a whole host of seeds into trays (to the above plan, this is what happens when engineers run a veg patch...) and lovingly looked after them on window sills to ensure we were ready to go when the beds were ready.