Monday, 1st of August 2022

Thursday, 25th of August 2022

One day I got stuck on the level crossing on my way from work. One train went by and then another and they still didn't open it, so I picked my phone and started to write this article. That day was... well, clearly over 3 weeks ago!

All I did was I added many pictures and left it here as draft, then forgot all about it. My online presence since around my birthday at the end of May was almost non existent. I managed to put together one article in July to update you guys on what I've been up to and then continued my silence.

With the start of a new job, my life might have found its new rhythm, but to achieve it I basically scrapped my old routine that wasn't working for me. Time I used to spent online was replaced by time at work and outdoors and more frequent allotment visits have become a part of the new routine. I am yet to incorporate some parts of the old schedule that did work well back into the routine, but I do it with little steps at the time and for now my allotment is sure grateful for the changes.

My new/old shed!

One thing I am extremely happy about when it comes to my 3rd, lucky plot is this new/old shed:

I know, it's an old shed. For me it is a new addition though. One of my allotment neighbours called it a retro shed. That or vintage are more favourable descriptions for it I'd say. The bottom line is that it does the job. I have somewhere to store the few tools that I own and I don't need to either carry them with me to the allotment every time or keep them in my neighbour's shed. Little things to be grateful for every day :)

The above 2 pictures are some of the very first ones I took when I acquired this plot. I love to look back at these to see how much I've achieved in a few months. First achievement was in fact clearing the inherited strawberry patch, but I already wrote about it in this article here.

A few weeds have already took over the most recently used part of the plot, but luckily most were annual weeds, easy to pull out. Nowhere near as much work as I would have removing all the grass from Plot 22 had I decided to keep it.

First plants are in!

Knowing myself and my perfectionism, I'd probably take longer to prepare the first growing space, but there was some level of urgency created by the gift from my neighbour Diane - tomato seedlings which would go to waste had I not planted them asap. Especially for those babies I quickly dug up just enough space to plant them.

Seriously, I wasn't even sure if they will take. So far I haven't had much luck with growing tomatoes in my back garden. I usually plant them out too late in the season and I have plenty of fruit, but never ripe enough to harvest, despite growing small varieties. Planting them at the end of May, exactly on my birthday might be too late again, but let's see.

Next I could take a bit longer to dig up some more space for other plants. There were some nice lilac dianthus flowers growing there already, so I decided to keep them and make them a part of my growing space. Flowers not only make everything more beautiful, but also attract pollinators, which is what we need for successful crops.

At the end of the plot I also found some oregano growing, so I transplanted a few little plants to grow around the dianthus flowers.

Next came the beetroots! My neighbour, John, have grown way too many seedlings and shared a few of them with me. While digging up the Plot 22 I also found a few sprouting potatoes, so I transplanted them to my plot as well. Only 3 little plants to see how well they will grow.

Before I knew it, the first growing space was already filled with plants on which I actually didn't spend a penny! The last to join this growing area were round courgettes that my friend Nunzia got me from her trip to Argentina again this year. She also started them indoors for me.

Some time later I visited a local shop and found some heavily reduce shallots and swede seedlings. The second growing space was about ready for something to start growing, so in they went together with the seeds of carrots, Chinese leaves and beans.

My little growing space was ready just in time for the peak of the growing season. The above and below pictures were taken a week apart. You can see just how much everything grew in that short period of time.

Courgettes experiment

We run a little experiment with courgettes this year. 3 plants were planted in already prepared beds, while the remainder were quickly stuffed in the soil that was not properly prepared by removing all weeds and digging. The reason for this was that it started raining when we were still in the middle of digging, so we quickly planted them in unprepared soil to avoid getting wet. We were curious if there will be a huge difference between them and if it's worth doing all that extra work.

Below are the rushed courgettes. Out of 8 seedlings only 6 survived. At first I thought that these will be the winners. Although they grew much smaller leaves, they were the first ones to bear fruit and a lot of fruit too!

Those 3 planted in the prepared soil were much more impressive - just like I remembered them from last year. They started growing the fruits much later, but their size of them was also much bigger in comparison to the other ones.

I know, this one below looks big! It's only because I took picture very close to the plant. I was wondering if maybe yellow variety naturally grew smaller fruit, but there were also 2 green varieties on the rushed patch and one of them didn't bear any fruit, while the second one grew much smaller courgettes to those planted in well prepared soil.

The result of the experiment shows that it is indeed worth it to put extra work into preparing the soil at the beginning of the season. No excuse to be lazy next season then!

At the end of July I went away for the weekend and didn't go to water my allotment or harvest any new courgettes. As a result, one courgette from the 1st batch grew so big that it looked like a green pumpkin! I hear the right size to harvest them is when they're about the size of the 8 ball. I let them grow a bit bigger than this, but pumpkin size was my first!

The last 2 pictures were taken also a week apart. You can see in the background just how much my pees have grown in that time. By now they already bear fruit, so I'll be harvesting them soon. But hey... that's for another article, as this is already much longer that I anticipated!

Until next time 💙