The last day of October on the Allotment

A breezy, bright day that kept the midges away – lovely to work with the sun on our backs.

Today, there was lots of activity in a quieter corner of the allotment. We weeded the brassica beds, removing older leaves, weeded the surrounding paths and laid fresh wood chips.

All beds were assessed for future repairs by our woodwork Tsar. Holes in our fruit cage were stitched, Frankenstein-style, with old bits of string, recycled from previous incarnations. ( Sorry – had to lever a Halloween reference in somewhere – the stitching was actually very professional). Our alkanet maestro spent the day rooting it out along the windbreak and the strawberries received some TLC, with old leaves and flowers removed and runners between parent and baby plants cut.

It felt good to do some planting. We cleared a bed, hoping for early onion and garlic crops next June. Onion variety was Senshyu Yellow, Garlic – Carcassonne Wight and Thermidrome. Satisfying also to add some home-made compost. All bins are fed weekly with annual weeds and plant scraps. Today we sloshed some water into the largest as it was looking quite dry.

Harvesting prize goes to the sprouts today – why leave them till Christmas? (Hopefully we’ll have some left by then).

Jobs or next week: no time for the Enviromesh task this week, so we’ll cover the plum and Damson trees; clear around the bramble bed beside the old wheelbarrow; clear out the old compost area as we have plans for a new raspberry bed