Hows your allotment doing?

[Flatters]

Organic for me too. Good compost and chicken manure pellets. We have enough beds to rotate the crops.

 

[Luminos]

Organic for me too. Good compost and chicken manure pellets. We have enough beds to rotate the crops.

Can't seem to get the Bocking 14 comfrey here, but we have more horse manure than you can shake a stick at, so not really a problem.

I'm not too keen on squashing bugs though - we get Colorado beetle here and they're quite large when it comes to squashing. Hence I don't grow potatoes any more!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Our veggie plot and garden are organic, but only since we moved here nearly four years ago (we found all sorts of horrid pesticides and herbicides in the garage and even two bags of compost with added imidacloprid
I make tomato fertiliser from comfrey and nettle; have to have a strong stomach to use that but it's good.My mother,on a visit used it on the house plants...I don't know whether I've forgiven her yet.
We keep hens and the chicken poo goes in the compost bin.

Our Golden Wonder and pink fir apple potatoes are wonderful this year and there are masses of damsons to make Damson Gin with....hic!

 

[gingerbees]

Good question ! We also run our allotment organicly and in a sustainable manner.

For fetilizer we use seaweed from the local beach, or manure from the organic farm next door, and will be planting green manure this year.

We don't use any chemicals or pellets, comfry as a slug repellant, and we have a no watering policy. A water but collects a little, which we use when planting, but after that they are on their own and do very well indeed.

All the poles we use for wigwams and pea fences are either recycled ( as are our hive stands ) or made from Hazel poles we get from a local coppice. We leave spare areas for wild flowers and bee friendly plants and encourage hedgerow crops which we forage.

Even the plot is recycled because if we were not using it , then it would be wasteland !

A really intersting project and we enjoy both the work and the produce
Before :

After:

http://www.landshare.net/users/guy-and-tracey/blog/

 

[Luminos]

Wow Gingerbees you have worked really hard, it looks superb, esp. with the bees.
Daren't send a photo of mine, too many weeds

 

[Flatters]

Fantastic Gingerbees, A lot of hard work, but I bet you are proud.

 

[For want of a better word]

My out apiary lady gave me loads of brassicas to put in..................

she had spilled a packet of "Shoo Fly" seeds in amongst them....

not a single caterpillar in sight, and the "Shoo Fly" looks impressive with its large purple ipoema like flower...... and massive dark green leaves! Bees ignore it!
complementary planting???
any one else tried it?

 

[busybee53]

Hello all.

Gingerbees can you post up your tomato sauce receipe? Mine goes all lumpy and does not keep well.

To Ericalfbee and others, yes I'm using comfrey in a waterbut for tomato food and for the other veg too. The more it stinks the better I like it, but I always do it just before I leave the allotment and leave the perfume for others to enjoy.

Regarding organic slug killer I usually try to keep some frogs but this year they have deserted me. How does the comfrey do the job?

As for complimentary planting icanhopit asked about I use french marigolds spaced alternately with my tomatoes to keep the aphids off and I put the onion family next to my carrots to mask their smell from the carrot fly. Wish I could think of a way to stop the maggots in the peas though. The foxes now pull off my net curtain covers which were successful for a few years.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Hello all.



Regarding organic slug killer I usually try to keep some frogs but this year they have deserted me. How does the comfrey do the job?

You lay comfrey leaves flat around your plant. The slugs eat the comfrey happily as it is very succulent to them and leave the plant alone. It DOES work

 

[busybee53]

Thanks ericalfbee I will try some comfrey leaves around the more vulnerable plants, can't do the whole allotment. If it works for me I will plant more comfrey for next year.

 

[Insy]

Ive just taken on a half plot end of last week, it has very nice soil which im grateful for and most of the weeds are top soil weed and the brambles and thats arent so much but with this soil should be easy to dig up.

So far ive been blessed to find raspberries, blackberries, tayberries, gooseberries, potatoes, horse radish already amongst the weeds. I will rip up all weeds and dig over and remove as much of roots as i can, im heavily infested with bind weed which may be a problem but if i cannot fight it off i will place bamboo sticks all over my half plot let the bind weed grow up them then apply a weedkiller which will send it down to roots and kill off the majority of the bind weed.

Im going to take cuttings of all the fruit bushes and place them in greenhouse and dig up the old ones as where they are atm is a inconvience to what i will be planting here.

Fingers crossed i can get it all dug up and ready for spring to start mass growing .

So far ive found newts (placed in wildlife waters around allotment to prevent damaging), lots of glass, metal, woods, 4 broken rotten wheelbarrows and man bin bags containing what looks to be rubbish no doubt ill find more but nothing to much of a problem i like a bit of hard work.

Last year ive harvested around 25kg-30kg of potatoes and 4 tescos bags full of onions and shallots. Thats all i managed to grow and they have done very well.

 

[Luminos]

Luminos, for the garlic did you buy the garlic bulbs that are designed to be planted or did you use a grocery bought bulb?

Hi Flatters - well I've tried both, the shop bought ones were more successful as you would expect but still not as good as I'd hoped

 

[busybee53]

Newt

Funny you should find a newt insy because I found one two days ago under my borrowed hive stand. At first I was pleased then concerned because I wondered if they eat bees like toads and frogs. When I checked the web there was nothing about eating bees but it said that they could be found under rotting logs at this time of the year. Says a lot for the equipment I borrowed. No point in finding out if they eat bees either because they are protected and so the only thing I could do would be stand the hive legs in oil or put something like grease on the stand legs.

 

[gingerbees]

Hi busybee53 i got my tom ketchup recipe from the river cottage preserve book. It calls for roasted toms but i have made it with ripe toms, tinned chopped toms and even tom puree and all have worked well.
If you dont have the book let me know and i'll copy it for you.

 

[gingerbees]

found it

1.5 kg tomatoes
1 large onion (I used red as that is what we have grown in the garden)
1 small red pepper ( or half a big one)
50g soft brown sugar
100 ml white wine or cider vinegar
A square of muslin or tea towel, boiled for a few minutes to sterilise and then filled with the spices listed below and tie with string to make a spice bag.
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp cumin seed
½tsp mustard powder
piece of cinnamon stick
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp ground mace
1 bay leaf
1 garlic clove, bashed once to bruise
1 ½ tsp black peppercorns

½ – 1 tsp paprika and salt to taste at the end of cooking

Method

Chop the tomatoes, onions and pepper and then place in a pan over a medium heat and cook until really soft. I cooked them for about 25-30 minutes.

Rub the tomato mixture through a sieve over a bowl to achieve a smooth skinless purée.

Place the purée back in the clean pan and add the vinegar and the sugar and the spices in the bag. Bring the mixture to a boil and the reduce the heat and simmer gently until the mixture is a good tomato ketchup consistency. Keep tasting as you will need to remove the spice bag when they have infused the mixture to your taste. I removed my spice bag after about 15 minutes and simmered the ketchup for about 40 minutes.

Add paprika and salt to taste. Pour into warm sterilised jars and seal. This made 1¾ jar fulls for me.

 

[aberreef]

It's been my worst year ever this year. Beetroot, carrots, parsnip, courgettes all failed totally, mice ate all my peas, broad beans and sweetcorn and strawberries. I planted WAY too many potatoes but these are set to give a super crop. Onions are tiny and I'm doubtful of my garlic. Tomatoes are looking good though and had some lovely cucumbers.

Oh well, there's always next year.

On the plus side the livestock has done really well, reared loads of ducks, a few chickens and quail. Lots of lovely fresh eggs and, now they've grown, delicious meat.

One of my Kune Kune pigs gave birth on monday to 7 of the cutest little guys you'll ever see. One piglet has a chest infection so shes being spoilt for the night and is currently having a hug as I type

 

[Luminos]

...piglet photos, please

 

[aberreef]

...piglet photos, please

As requested

Hope you like them

 

[busybee53]

Gingerbees. Thanks so much for the tomato ketchup receipe. Sorry I took so long to say it. Have sorted my tomatoes out and am going to attempt it with yellow tomatoes too. But without the spices. I expect you will think that is strange but we dislike anything with spices.

Oh and to the pig breeder, What lovely little piggies, especially the one close to the camera. I bet you could sell those, get them made into cards or at least get them on the books of an agency.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Ooooooooooooooooooooh oink oink
How gorgeous.
You lucky fella

My cream crested legbar went broody and sat on six eggs, two her own, two vorwerks and two vorwerk hybrid crosses. Five hatched and looking forward to eating the boys we found that four were hens!