Allotment Life: Wildlife Friendly

I had a quick blast up to the allotment as I need to start making some progress on getting my polytunnel up. While I was there I saw; long-tailed tits, a robin, pigeons, magpies, and gulls. I heard the woodpecker and also saw blue tits, and either dunnocks or sparrows. I also saw my first peacock butterfly of the year looking gloriously new and fresh, an adult wasp (chilling out in my solitary bee house!), a dark edged bee-fly, some millipedes, a juvenile frog and black beetles!

I’m always very happy and excited when I see little beasties on my plot – it’s good to know that the habitat is there for them and that they are around. I usually get little grass hoppers in the summer so I always leave them some long grass, and my solitary bee house was being used by leafcutter bees last year so I hope to see them emerge this year.

Waspo

Froggo?

White-legged Snake Millipede? 

Robin

Peacock Butterfly

Dark Edged Bee-Fly

Crochet Blanket Inspiration: Granny Squares

So it seems that I just can’t help myself, and while sorting out my windowsill plants the other day I saw four balls of yarn side-by-side and straight away I thought – that’s a granny square combo right there!

I have been struggling with boredom lately. I am trying to stop using my phone and laptop quite so much, but I just don’t know what else to do with my time. I crochet, I have an allotment, I grow fruit & veg with work, I whittle (sometimes), I tend plants on my windowsill, I hula hoop (sometimes) and I swim (sometimes). I find it hard to read as I can’t concentrate for long periods of time, though I have recently starting reading again – but this puts me off using the library as I don’t like mooching (I HATE mooching), and I am so slow to read that I’d just be fined all the time.

This weekend I decided to start making some crochet granny squares, to see how far I get. So far I have made six – I haven’t done granny squares for years but it is one of the first things I learnt how to make – and I have no idea how many I’ll need for a blanket (probably about 150!), so at the moment I am using this as a boredom-buster and trying to make one or two a day. I have three main colours and an edging colour, so coming up with different combinations is fun. I am going to make as many different colour combos as I can before I start making multiples of each. Each square reminds me of batternberg cake!

Remembering to sew in the ends as I go is a useful second-hand boredom buster – as you can see from the pictures I haven’t sewn them all! I am using Stylecraft Special DK in Parchment, Saffron, Cream and Blush with a 4mm hook. Each square is about 11cm across.

Windowsill Gardening

This is something I do every year. I usually start peas and beans off in my window as I have wide windowseat and it is south facing. This year however, my dragon fruit cacti and aloe pups are taking over – so I have much less room for peas and beans!

I have managed to clear a bit of space and have started some things off. When these are big enough to be planted out, I will then start the next batch of seeds. So  far I have sweetcorn, I sowed 15 seeds and have 12 at the moment. I also have 6 tagetes (French Marigolds), and these are just starting to get their true leaves. I also have 2 artichokes (I have never grown these, but the bees, hoverflies, butterflies and moths LOVE the flowers), and I also have some celery seedlings poking through. I’ve never done celery either, so these two are very much an experiment.

One of my work sites has a visitor kitchen area and there are piles of single-use disposable coffee cups available. I hate them. They’re SO bad for the environment, not helped by our ‘use once and throw away’ culture we seem to have. I have collected a few of these to use as plant pots, and I have put a sunflower seed in each one. These are on my windowseat but I plan to collect more cups and make a ‘grow your own’ display at this work site, to encourage people to reuse them, or choose an alternative.

I prefer to grow things in my window rather than the greenhouse as I can keep a closer eye on them. They are also less likely to be moused, slugged, or spidered! Although I have before now had slugs sliming their way across the windowseat as they were in the soil when I potted something up.

Next on the list are more sweetcorn, more sunflowers, peas, beans and then pumpkins.

Tagetes

Crochet Blanket Inspiration: Cosmic CAL Update!

It has taken me less than a year which means that this might just be the fastest double-bed sized blanket I’ve ever made – but Cosmic is done! I first blogged about this blanket in November, and I finished sewing in loose ends this week.

The pattern is free and available here in parts. I used Stylecraft Special DK. I haven’t been keeping tally of how many balls of each colour I used but it’s about 5 each.  I haven't blocked it and I don't intend to! 

Double bed for scale!

Allotment Life: Four Seasons!

When I ventured outside in the morning it was really sunny but really cold. The Met Office app said it was 5c feels like 1c, so I decided to venture back inside to put my underlegs and another jumper on! Grabbed a few things from the greenhouse and off I went.

I am very pleased with how many daffs are out on Plot 31 - but this autumn I plan to plant an awful lot more

I still haven’t put up the new polytunnel yet. We had a bit of a Storm Freya incident during which Mommas polytunnel took flight and landed 5 plots down, tangled in their fruit bushes. We have managed to retrieve it, straighten it, and now have wild plans to reinforce it, weight it down, add internal guy ropes, AND put wooden batons on each vertical pole, as far into the ground as they’ll go and cable tied to the frame. Hopefully when that is all done it will stay put – but it hasn’t made me want to hurry up and sort mine out..! 

Today though, I finished up what I started a couple of weeks ago. I had covered a bed with the intention of it being this years fallow bed, but now that polytunnel is happening, I needed to relocate my herb patch. The fallow bed was chosen to be the new herb bed, so I had begun digging it over and breaking up the clods, but then got rained off. I was going to finish digging it today but thought it looked good enough, so set about nailing the timber together to make the frame. I successfully hammered my finger but I also got the frame done in record time.

To raise the ground level I had already decided to dig out a massive pile of dirt from by the shed. This was originally inverted clods of turf that I had lifted when I dug new beds – I just piled the turf up, upsidedown, and over the last four years or so it has given the wee beasties somewhere to hide (last year it had a wasps nest, and I found a perfect mouse nest in it as I was digging, as well as lots of black beetles, centipedes, worms and miscellaneous grubs), but it has also rotted down into really nice compost. A bit rooty, but couch grass is everywhere, but otherwise it is good stuff. I have wanted to get this dug out for a while but was hindered by the wasps nest, but now it is done!

All the digging attracted this lil guy

The new herb bed took seven barrow loads of dirt to get it topped up, and then I started to dig the plants out of the old herb bed. And then a large black cloud came over. And then it started to rain. And then it started to hail. And then the hail went sideways and torrential. And then I took shelter in the shed!! My plot neighbours decided to make a run for it, I looked over to Plot 4 to see Momma (she too had taken refuge in her shed), and the birds went silent. It hailed for quite a long time, and then just… stopped. So I continued digging!

All of the plants I had dug up are now in their new bed. I chopped the fennel down low before I moved it; very glad to see the new growth starting to come up. The fennel and comfrey both had massive roots but I’ve saved what I can and hopefully they’ll be ok. I replanted lots of strawberries, found more raspberry canes than I knew I had, and lost three clumps of chives. Wyevale are doing 5 for £10 on their wildflowers and herbs at the moment so I shall take a trip up there at payday to get some more. My sage disappeared a few years ago and I’d like some more thyme.

Quince in the centre, and then a smattering of other things. Raspberry, Rosemary, Strawberries, Comfrey, Fennel, Lavender. Thyme, and Black Grass. I want to add Sage, Chives, more Thyme, and maybe some mint in tubs. This bed is 6ft square and 6" deep.

All in all it was quite a productive few hours. I did nearly everything on my to-do list. I planted snakes head fritillaries under my apple tree (it is very wet there), lambs ear under the plum in my new wildlife/wildflower bit, catmint in a flower bed, and a hazel whip near my garlics. I also fed the birds, watched the robin for a while, and my radish seedlings are poking through!!

Next step is to take up the frame for the old herb bed and repurpose the timber (it is destined for a mega new compost bin overhaul), get the bed dug out, weeded and levelled, then set about putting up the polytunnel.

Snakes Heads. I bought one pot and have divided it into five clumps.

Under-The-Plum Meadow: red clover, black knapweed, red deadnettle, lambs ear. 

A Plastic Free Allotment?

I’ve been a plot holder for just over nine years now and I still feel like I’m learning it all, and still have so much to learn. My plot evolves every year as I choose to do new things, or set aside new areas. For the last two years I have had a rotting wood pile under a tree for the wee beasties, and this year I have installed bug houses and a frog shelter (the grass collecting bucket from my manual mower). As B*xit moves ever closer (ugh) I am getting more determined to grow more food. I don’t want to leave the Eu and I don’t want to pay stupid money for food. I want to be more self-sufficient and actually have good, reliable, heavy crops. I need to up my allotment game.

So I’ve been thinking about the wasteful things I do. Plastic waste is a big issue right now, and rightly so, but I am guilty of using and relying on it. GUILTY. It’s just so cheap, easy, accessible, and hardwearing. I want to move away from single-use plastics on the allotment but it is taking a lot of thinking about and planning.

Every year we grow peas and beans, and we attempt varying brassicas. All of these things are grown up or under pea netting – which we buy for a pound a box on the high street. I still have four unopened packets in my shed. I hate the stuff; it tangles SO easily and rips easily, and once it’s been used, it is quite hard to untangle it and reuse it. It is easier and less stressful to just nip to the shops and buy another box. We have also had to untangle wee birdies from it, so it is not wildlife friendly either. I also use tarpaulins to cover the beds when I’ve dug them and some of these are getting old and tatty, and are starting to fray so there are bits of plastic tarp strip in the ground or the compost bin. The rubbish bags we use in the shed are plastic (generally second or third use, but while I reuse bags for rubbish bags, it is still plastic going to landfill). Plant labels I tend to keep and reuse as I grow the same things year on year. I recently used a plastic plant label to mend a (plastic) bird feeder that the squirrels have ravaged.

I buy lots of seed, mealworm, and fat balls for the birds, all of which are packaged in plastic. I try to reuse the fat ball tubs as water bowls or mint growing tubs, or as storage in the shed. I have been buying 20kg bags of seed from my old job and then storing that in fat ball tubs (mouses (and rats) know where I keep the food…), but it is still a lot of plastic.

I generally grow straight from seed, and any pots or seed trays we use (plastic) are years old and get reused year on year. I don’t think we have a lot of plant pot waste as they get taken back home to be used again.

How easy will it be to reduce allotment plastic? I think not very. I think a lot of it will require financial input which isn’t easy, and a lot of forethought. I plan and intend to start buying rolls of square metal mesh to use as caging, to make sturdier, permanent veg protection. Bees will be able to get in through the gaps but the pigeons won’t, and birds won’t get their feet stuck in the mesh when they land on it. Rolls of metal mesh are not cheap and I need to do some basic planning work to calculate how much I need and making the wooden frames for the covers. I’d like a series of dome cloches – simple timber rectangle bases with domed mesh attached which can be lifted over crops.

I think a lot of it will come down to attitude. Bird seed and fat balls etc can be made at home, but it’ll be more inconvenient as I’ll have to find a no/low waste store, and my nearest one is a few miles away, and then I’ll have to make the fat balls. I need to get into good habits and really think about what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and why I’m trying to do it a certain way. Lots of the regional Wildlife Trusts sell bird seed, so that could be an option.

This year, I want to make more permanent structures on the plot. While I am getting good at bamboo cane & pea netting cages, I know I can improve and change the way I do things. It’ll make me feel better about my environmental impact and will go a small way to helping wildlife.  

I’ve been reading up about plastic free allotments to try and learn more, get new ideas and hints, and to encourage myself to go for it. The general advice is to start small and build up – it can get very overwhelming very quickly, so I think I will try and aim for reducing one or two things a month.

Easy switches will be plant labels [links to Woodland Trust shop]; reuse what I have (plastic), or use wooden lollipop sticks. Years ago I made some Fimo plant labels, some of which are still going strong. I’d like to make more of them as they are hardwearing and look pretty ace. I have decided to not use the pea netting anymore, even though I have some new boxes in the shed. I think my biggest struggle is going to be bird seed, and larger things I buy in such as compost/soil improver (my home compost is not enough to supply the plot!), grit, gravel, and chippings. There are often lots of little bits of plastic on things too which are unavoidable as a consumer – the ties used to attach labels to things, or ties used to keep planks of wood together. I’d rather buy fat balls in tubs instead of bags as I can reuse the tubs, but even they have a little bit you have to break off the rim to open it, which gives another slither of plastic to be disposed of.

What other tips and hints are there to reduce plastic waste when growing? I have been reading the following to get started:

Burgon And Ball: https://www.burgonandball.com/blogs/news/the-trend-for-plastic-free-gardening

Abingdon Carbon Cutters: http://abingdoncarboncutters.org.uk/abingdon-cuts-plastic/plastic-free-gardening/

My Productive Backyard: http://www.myproductivebackyard.com.au/how-to-grow-2/towards-a-plastic-free-garden/

A Day Out to Ludlow

AKA the day we saw the remains of a MASSIVE tree

I have been moaning to David about how we never go anywhere anymore for walks, so we had an impromptu day trip to Ludlow! We chose Ludlow as I have a Wildlife Trust app on my phone where you can look for nature reserves. We enjoy walking on Highgate Common, so I chose Whitcliffe Common for a walk. I also wanted to explore a trail I know about in Ludlow, the geology trail (obviously!).

So off we went. It was pouring with rain as we left Wolverhampton but it stopped and cleared up the further away we got, so most of the drive was sunny and glorious. We managed to find a spot in the short stay car park in the centre of Ludlow, had a quick look around the market (Teacakes! Cheeses! Whittled objects! Vinyl!) and then settled into a pub for lunch. I had soup, fresh from the pot (it wasn’t ready when we ordered it, but it was lush when it arrived). We went and had a quick look at the castle and then we drove to the other side of the river to visit the common.

There is a geology trail but I didn’t see much that really explained about the bone bed or its significance. Each bench has a cement fossil animal next to it, but I think more interpretation signs along the walk and base of the cliffs would be a great addition here. David has canoed this river before so he was showing me the weir and how you’d go over it to avoid being sucked into the pool at the bottom.

We did a loop around the common (it is TINY) and then on the way back to the car, David found a hidden quarry! So of course I had to go for a mooch. We found lots of brachiopod and bivalve fossils in varying states of preservation, and then in a pile of rocks that had been used as a fire pit I found a mega nice rectangular bit of rock – with preserved ripple marks! So I now own a piece of Silurian ripple marked seafloor.

Usually when we visit places of geological interest I come away with pockets full of rocks, but I am trying to not do this anymore. I have a lot of fossil brachios and bivalves so really don’t need anymore, and this site is a SSSI, so hammering is not allowed and generally you can pick things up from scree to collect. I limited myself to one sample instead of pocket-loads and I am happy with that.

To celebrate a near-perfect Saturday (a lazy start, crochet, three chocolate biscuits with my tea, a sunny walk, geology, beer at lunchtime, spending time with David…), we then went to a gig on the evening, to see The Lancashire Hotpots. I for one had a great time!

We drove home over Clee

Allotment Life: February 2019

I did a lot of faffing in February. 

I painted lots of wood, I built up raised beds to make them deeper, I painted more wood, I helped Momma P paint on Plot 4, I drew up my allotment on the computer and labelled my beds to work out what I want to grow where, I read up on No Dig and even ordered a book about it all.  I have uncovered one of my flower beds and pulled up some docks by their 10” long taproots, and I cut a limb off the little apple tree. Momma P bought me 10 bags of compost which have just about filled one of my new raised beds.

It is still too early to plant most things, though I will admit to sowing some seeds in one of the beds. I have started carrots, radish, parsnip, beetroot, spring onion, chard, and swede. I do get carried away at this time of year and I always like to see if I can get an early crop. I'll be sowing more seeds in five weeks time anyway and I have literally thousands of carrot seeds (thanks, work!) so it's no loss if nothing grows now.

Budgeting money each month for the plot is really helping. So far this month I have bought red clover plant (great for bumbles), lambs ear (good for carder bumblebees – they rasp the hairs off the leaves to use to line cells). I get common carder bumblebees on my allotment; not so sure about wool carder bees though! I also bought some catmint and a new yellow raspberry cane. The wildflowers have been put under my plum tree along with some red dead-nettle I dug up from Plot 4. Hopefully this little patch will become a nice wee habitat under the plum, with a rotting wood pile nearby for good measure.

Momma P has had a new polytunnel on Plot 4 which I helped to put up this month. I am also very jealous of it, so Momma P has bought one for Plot 31 too! So one of the jobs in March is to put this up. But to do that I need to relocate the herb bed. But to do that I need to dig over and weed another patch of the plot, make a raised bed, fill it with earth, then relocate the herbs from their current bed. THEN I need to level the ground. Then build the polytunnel. Then work out what I’m going to grow in it. A small job to keep me busy this month!

So March will hopefully see me put up a polytunnel, lay some new paving in front of the shed, and fill up my other huge 6x6ft raised bed with compost. Best get shopping……..