Hollyhocks? Not on my watch

So it's been a funny old growing season. With both parents fully retired I've been somewhat relegated to weekend duties. Most of my time is spent weeding, making coffee and running the group of Community Payback workers that help us out with general site works on Sundays. Occasionally I get to play with the chickens.


Despite my initial misgivings about flowers on the plot we seem to have ended up with a few garden areas and I'm not totally adverse to them. Some of the flowers Coryn has chosen are nice enough. The Spurs fan in me hates the colour red but she's managed to get some deep pinks in and I'm too soft to dig them up but I guarantee that they will not make selection next year.


There is also the Hollyhock. If you have never come across this plant before your life is better for it.

This ghastly plant grows six feet tall and has big blousy pink blooms that flower directly off the plant stems. It's horrible chintzy cottage garden fuzz and I have begun a hate campaign against it.

I'm going KGB on this monstrosity. It's an affront to all things smart and slinky.
My plan is old school cold war tactics. Take down and misdirection. First inject it with undiluted Jeyes Fluid in the Autumn and deny all knowledge of a Hollyhock ever being in the plot.

"You are mistaken Mrs Coryn." "We have no records of a Hollyhock with growing privileges in that area."

Later I'll admit to a humour of Hollyhocks in the general area but I'll blame a mysterious, well meaning but misguided member using weed killer on the nearby path for killing the plant.
I know I’m an Evil genius. I am also available for children’s parties.

just about back in the game

This is really just a sign post to all of the other posts that are about to be added.

Problems with PCs and cameras have recently abounded. Throw in a couple of birthdays, a world cup game or two and some chickens and all of a sudden I've got a bit of a backlog.


Well the Camera is back in action.



The PC died and it will not be mourned. Hateful pile of leaky transisters. Fortunately I back up pics and docs ( but not Cds) so I didn't lose anything.



I've managed to knock off a couple of posts for May, June and July at work and these will go up as I can add some pictures.

Yes I said chickens.



Don't forget to scroll down to pick up the missing blogs soon.

Chicken update

So the chicken coup is finally constructed. A few glitches along the way like the door getting in the way of the roof but I'm happy that it is not completely horrible and it should be safe from the local fox and rat community.

(pics to follow)

We've got a few cockerels in the coup at the moment. They are still quite young so it's difficult to be sure. A "girls only" ruling in the Allotment Society bylaws means all those noisy and tasty little fellows will be destined for the pot. The remaining chickens will be left to get on with it. We recon we might get a few more hens in a few weeks time to bolster the numbers. The egg laying will begin in earnest in August from the girls. We hope.

(pics to follow)

Pictures of the coup. (pics to follow)


More pics of our chickens (pics to follow)


You know what? They are really, really dumb. Honestly It takes a special kind of stupid to be a chicken in this coup.


In addition they are beginning to show some very human character traits. They are mean and spiteful and self-serving. They will step over their own Grandmother to get what they want and squawk and fuss if they think they are missing out on anything. Yet for all these character traits I don't hate them. (You reading this Bobbi?)


In time, I think that I may grow completely ambivalent towards these Chickens.



Aaww. They're great. Stupid, but great.

Asparagus update

So here we have the Asparagus fern in all its glory. Those pesky north westerly winds have provided a jaunty angle to my ferns at present.

(pics to follow)
I'm updating now so that you can see how huge these things get.

(pics to follow)

Hand weeding continues a pace. It's boring and difficult but at least it takes a really long time. Last weekend I was in the middle of those ferns it started to drizzle. I didn't realise it was raining until after I'd come back out!

(pics to follow)

It's about time to mulch and feed the plants. By the time they get to this size they have taken a lot of food from the soil. Now is the time to replace that in regular increments throughout the summer. It also keeps weeds down.

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Just weeding, feeding and waiting now.

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More mulch required later in the autumn to keep the worst of the cold weather off them.
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Been 'aving some work done.

We spend a lot of time at the allotment.

I spend every weekend of the spring and autumn at the plot and most weekend s of the summer too. With Coryn & Harry fully retired now there seems to be a lot more going on at the plot and a lot more tidying and organising.

No where is this more obvious than at the bottom of the plot.

(pics to follow)

It stared with the shed. The ground was so uneven and dangerous after we finally rescued the shed from its hundred year slumber...

(pics to follow)
that we had to put down slabs to make it safe. Before you know it the levelled ground in front of the shed was some two feet lower than the rest of the plot, so we bricked it in and it's kind of a sunken patio. It's nice.

(pics to follow)

Then at about the same time the greenhouse came along. Concrete footings and a pathway down one side. All very civilised.

(pics to follow)


Then last year came the herb patch which on the other side of the green house. That has now got a proper pathway too. It's meant to be groovy. (pics to follow)


It's a long story how this happened. Looks nice though right? Sometimes, just sometimes, you have a bricky on your hands and you have to keep him busy for an afternoon. (pics to follow)

Finally Harry dropped down some paving outside the greenhouse. Very tidy. (pics to follow)

So this is where most of the work for both plots goes on so it is sensible to have all this safe clean working area to deal with. It's great. (pics to follow)

But how would you react if I told you that now about one sixth of my plot is now concrete.

The prenials plot

I am very lucky to have one and one half allotment plots.

(Pics to follow)



The half plot contains our fruit trees, the asparagus and the bean frames (as I won't have runner beans and french beans on my plot).



(Pics to follow)

From time to time we grow other catch crops down there too. This yuear we have squirreled away some cauliflowers down on the plot. With a few exceptions the plot runs itself for 30 weeks of the year. Everyting happens at the same time and the same place every year.



(Pics to follow)

No crop rotation and nothing too exotic just berries,
(Pics to follow)

fruit
(Pics to follow)

aspargus
(Pics to follow)




and beans.
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With occasional line of something that we could not squeeze on the larger plot.
(Pics to follow)




It's a happy little place. I like it down here.

Slicing and dicing with death.

First up, the first picture of the Engine Room.




Tricked out and full to bursting just like everyone else's this time of year. A snap shot from late April of the happiest place I know that does not have a wine rack.


Among the many wonderful things growing on my plot this time of year I was most pleased to this year's spring crop of pretty, colourful, and let's face it, deadly fungus.

After the last couple of years of wood chip delivery to the site for our pathways we've been getting some pretty weird and wonderful fungus growing on our highways and byways on the plot. Most of the fungus arrives in great eruptions during October after the first cold snap.

So here are the Spring 2010 runners and riders.

This looks flat out scary.
I'm going to call it "The Purple Nasty". It's also red so it will just have to go.


This one looks like it would sooner kill me as look at me.
Currently lurking with a few of his buddies under my raspberry bushes. Lets call this "The Yellow Peril".

This little guy is lurking on my path by the herb patch.
Just from the smell of this one I'll christen is "The Brown Trouser".

This one however looks like it could be quite, quite delicious.
...or because fungus is such a tricksy and deviuos quarry, it could easily be quite, quite killy.

For argument sake let's call it a Morel. A non edible, now covered by a cage, dangerous, and potentially deadly Morel.

So this little lot could make one of my already pretty spectacular omelets in to a dream breakfast...

or they could put me and a chosen breakfast companion in hospital for ten days.


As reckless and easlily led as I can be, even I know not to muck about then it comes to fungus. I'd better get an expert in for these bad boys. I bet my expert takes them all away for further investigation! I would.

Perhaps we could make a field trip out of the expert's visit. I'll let you know how I get on.