Allotments 4 All

... were all the weeds are growing.


I took some photos yesterday when I starting to clear the allotment.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/enable//allotment/allotment.htm 
(click to enlarge the Pics)

Lets just say I have a long way to go.

Next time I go down I am taking some gloves, I have blister on blisters  :'(

Blimey.  You're brave.   What are you planning to grow when it's all sorted?

Great start. How big is it + how long did it take you?

Any grapes on it?  ;D

Er that looks like a bit of hard work. Don't go mad, it's not going anywhere  :)

It is HUGE! :o  Well done you. Your to do photo reminds me of what my plot looked like when I took it on!!

I will probably be back down on Saturday, depending on the weather.

I did plan to measure it but forgot  ::)

The chopping down and cutting took about 2 hours  and I think I have many more ahead as for the grapes I dont know, I did not get that far in but it should have some on.

What I am going to grow, thats a good question.  I am not sure, I was thinking of mostly green manure (if it not too late to grow) and some cabbages just to get something in.

Ooh get something in as soon as you can if only on a little patch.  That will keep you motivated.  Not too late for brassicas, winter spring onions (if you know what I mean), winter lettuce, Spinach (bordeaux which I have a spare packet of if you want it), Japanese onion sets.  I might even try and get some carrots in meself  :)

Have a good day on Saturday and don't kill yourself.  Stand back lots and daydream about what it will look like when it's done.  Why not leave a piece for you to park your deckchairs and picnic table on so you can kick back too, and have peeps round.  They might even help  :)

I still have to dig out the weeds yet and the weather has taken a turn for the worse.  :( but on the up side the green manure seeds arrived today :)  There dont seem to be many so I assume they are broadcast thinly. (Phacelia & Red Clover)

I thought it was too late for carrots (especially being in the North east England), but I think I will plant some and see what happens.

Time to go shopping for some winter brassica plants (I think its a bit late for seeds), and try and find some onions.  Thanks for the offer of the seeds.

I already have a grassed parking spot, but the grassed area was around the greenhouse with daffs around the greenhouse and brambles along one side.
(Thats the last pic on the link)

weldone you , going to have nice size lottie there good luck :) :)

Wow you have certainly worked hard Chris. Don't go too mad and knock yourself up!!! Keep pics coming as you do each stage. Good luck Lorna.

ditto  :)

There's a house I pass on the way tothe allotment with a mass of phacelia flowering in the front garden. It's always covered in bees, all mine.

Can you tell your bees apart from others?

Easily; I'm the only one for miles and miles who keeps native British black bees. So if I see a bee in the area without a yellowish stripe on it's abdomen, it's mine.

Do your bees go for the nearest food such as red clover and phacelia, and avoid everything else, or do they get what they can and go for a mixture of stuff
How does this affect the honey, ie   would you call it clover honey or what?  Scuse my ignorance but bees fascinate me
I asked a local beekeeper what the local honey was as I wanted some for my niece who has hayfever.  He told me that the local honey was lime blossom.  How can a beekeeper label the honey as such if the bees are gathering pollen from other sources.  I'm not being pedantic about labelling I was just interested to understand about their behaviour :)

Only spent 30 mins there today as it was soaking wet. I did a bit more chopping down of the weeds and remembered to take some gloves with me this time  ;D

I measured the width of the allotment and it is 22 foot. I did not try to measure the length as the tape measure was only 9 foot long  :D

I cleared a way to the greenhouse and there are grapes on it  :) Now all I have to do is make my way to the door. Looking at the greenhouse the vine has totally filled it up.

I bought some winter lettuce and cauli seeds today and planted a tray of each and bought some cabbage plants to put in. I could nto find any of the Japanese onions anywhere, anyone know if these are still available online ?

Wow Chris, some task you have there !  I wish you well with it!  ;) :D

I've got no onion sets yet but will get them from our lotty shop.  B & Q sell them as I suspect do lots of other places.  Try Kings seeds online as they're offering Senshyu yellow at £1.49 for 50 sets described as heavy yielding. 

My bro and I were discussing this and he thought it too late to plant them but I did mine last year in November and they were fine and produced a fab crop

Honeybees go for the most efficient source of nectar they can find. That depends on the amount available, the sugar content, which can vary from about 5% to around 30%, and the distance they have to fly. The rule about specific honeys is that they have to consist predominantly of honey from the named plant; I'm not sure wheterh there's any exact definition of that, or quite how you'd tell. Honey which hasn't been microfiltered always contains some pollen, and you can get an idea from that, so if someone was selling clover honey, say, which turned out to contain no clover pollen, and lots of pollen from Chinese flowers, they might get in trouble. It does happen, unfortunately. You get many situations where most of the bees are going to be on a particular plant' if you put them in the middle of a field of flowering oilseed rape, for instance, which will draw bees in from quite a distance, you could be sure that almost all of them were on it. Or if you put them on a properly maintained heather moor at the right time of year, most of them would be on that, though it will never be as pure as rape honey can be. Where I am, there will always be numerous species available, and the result is what's traditionally described as 'flower honey', though in a dry summer 90% of it probably comes from bramble.

Thanks RB - fascinating stuff.  We had bees on our communal plot but their owner gave them to a beekeeping society as he was diagnosed with cancer.  We were left with a new bee suit and all the gear but no bees.  A tad disappointing but we may get our own one day  :)