MY WEEK : 10 ( 5TH MARCH )

Welcome to this week's update from my Allotments and Kitchen Garden. We have had a fantastic week with the weather being just like Spring, I have seen Red Admiral Butterflies, Ladybirds and Bees this week showing that the Plants, Birds and Insects all think that Spring has arrived let's hope so!
Last Sunday I went to my allotments only to get drenched by heavy rain which I believe most of the country experienced so not a great deal was done I'm afraid. The fruit cage has bitten the dust so I will definitely be removing it and having a re-think as to how best to protect my soft fruits. I had a visit from a fellow allotment holder on a nearby allotment site who had seen my website and asked to visit, it was lovely to see so much enthusiasm in a young gardener (17) who also has two allotments and writes a gardening article for a local magazine, I wish that I had caught the gardening bug at his age rather than later in life but never mind I'm making up for it now, thank you Adam and John it was lovely to meet you both and hopefully I will visit your allotments soon.


The week started at the Kitchen Garden with the clearing of the overgrown Brambles that were growing against the outside wall at the back of the garden, they had become so overgrown that I decided that the best course of action was to cut them down to ground level, this will encourage new vigorous growth which can then be trained along the existing wires on the wall and kept at a manageable size making it easier to harvest the fruits in future.






In the Kitchen Garden itself we have used a couple of existing plants along with some new stock of Timberley Early to re-establish a Rhubarb section, before we planted them we incorporated a good deal of well rotted manure into the planting holes to give them a good start. We have also pruned all the wall trained fruit trees around the garden including Apples, Pears, Fig and this beautiful example of a fan trained Morello Cherry which although has probably reached the end of it's most productive life is still worth keeping at the moment if only for it's appearance.






The bed where, as the top-left photograph shows, had the two huge Eucalyptus trees in and the spare Box plants has now been cleared. It has also been rotorvated, raked and fertilised with Growmore in readiness for the Onion sets to be planted into, along with the Roscoff Onions which are currently growing well and which will be potted on into 3" pots next week. The top-right photograph shows how the bed now looks, quite a transformation once again. The old Mint bed which is in the foreground of the photograph will be removed as I intend to create a Herb Border in the near future in another part of the garden.






The builders have made the retaining walls this week at the bottom ends of the two large beds, this is to prevent the soil along with the Box hedging from slipping down onto the paths again, which resulted in much of the old hedge dying. I then planted the new Box plants 1ft apart to create the new hedges, it will take time for these to grow to the size that I ultimately want to blend in with the surrounding hedges and I will also have to clip them carefully to encourage them to grow over and cover as much of the wall as possible.





This week I started to hand pollinate the Peach Tree using the Rabbit's tail that I showed you a couple of weeks ago, this has to be done every day for two weeks at around midday which is the best time to gather the pollen and transfer it to the other flowers. This has to be done because the Peach is flowering so early and in the greenhouse their will not be many pollinating insects to pollinate for you.


Here is a slideshow of other sights from around the Kitchen Garden this week for you to enjoy.



As you can see from the slideshow the garden is really taking shape now, the temperature reached into the 80's F this week in the Glasshouse so a great deal of watering had to be done to keep the seedlings moist and I had all the windows and doors open as well. Whilst clearing the Brambles away the Pheasant made an appearance, nearly giving me a heart attack in the process, next time he may well end up in the chef's pot!!

The seed sowing, pricking out and potting on continued in earnest this week as I'm sure it will for many weeks to come. I have sown Celeriac, Sweet Peppers and the early Pea ( Misty). The Cabbage F1 Duncan and Romanesco have been pricked out and placed in the cold frames to grow on and also in the cold frames the Sweet Peas are doing very well.

During the week we had a visit from the Grandson of the former owner of the hall who was pleased to see the progress we are making, it was wonderful to here of things that he could remember as a child here, along with information regarding certain plants such as the Orange tree whose fruits were used for making Marmalade being 100 years old and the Peach tree being about 80 years old, also how the Rose Garden was re-created and the possibility that I may get to establish which varieties of Roses there are. Thank you Richard for all your advice it was wonderful to meet you and hopefully it will be the first of many visits.

Well that is it for this week's update I'm afraid, as you can see everything is going really well and taking shape it is nice to see it coming together, we still have a great deal to do though before production gets into full swing. I hope you all have a great week and manage to get to your plots as the weather is set to remain mild and mostly dry for the next week, speak to you all next week regards Steve.