Football interferes with lottying

Have been up to the lottie a couple of times this week, but hangovers and football tours have pretty much put paid to the intensive week that I'd planned.


Still, got the final bed dug, covered in half-baked leaf mould and covered with weed suppressant to give me time to figure out what I'm going to plant in there. Could start some more beetroot as we seem to like that now ! Mr Sluggy and his pals had chomped their way clean through the top of two full size beet, wee swines, but the sown in situ babies look as if they're coming on fine.

Just went up there this morning to see what was going on and to see how many marrows had put in an appearance. Nothing much was out of control. Did a bit of weeding, cut some comfrey and slung it in a water butt. Need to give everything a feed by the looks of things although I had thrown some chicken pellets around earlier in the week.




I have two baby squash! I was thrilled. Ahmed's Bosnian I think (as the labels are now pure white). Both on the same plant.





Supersprout's Gigantes have more or less all reached the tops of the canes now and are starting to bloom. Both red and white flowers.


The leek bed still is overrun with weeds despite me chopping loads of them off each time I'm up. The leeks themselves look as if they've taken ok though. The blue lake beans are still struggling to climb but the two rows of radishes have put on a bit of a spurt since the last visit.

The chard is looking good. Guess I'd better read up to find out what I'm supposed to do with it now, and how big I have to let it grow before starting to harvest.





Cut one baby marrow and things are definitely slowing down on the courgette front, but there are still plenty of tiny ones coming along.





The poached egg plants are starting to flower. Hopefully not too late to attract the bees.

So the next stage really is to make the edges for the raised beds and to get the second fence back up, get some WRM in and start some more stuff off in modules.

But we're getting there and it's great.

The trouble with 8' Canes

Is that when you're only 5'4", you can't reach the top ! After perching on a kerbstone, swaying and teetering rather a lot, I managed to pinch out one of the Gigantes ! I'll drag out one of the chairs tonight and do the rest (that need it).

Did some hand weeding last night and tried to hoe the leek bed without shoving all the weeds in the holes ! There must be a better way for next year, I'm going to have to think about it.

Watered the swedes as instructed.

Mr Sec can't see why I want a fence on the shed side of the plot after all, I can use the shed without the barrier being there. Well I can walk can't I ? I'll just walk out of the front gate, take a couple of swift right turns and STILL use the shed ! Men - huh ! lol

Have been thinking about next year already. Think I might turn the left had bean trellis 90o which will provide lot's of screening in that corner. Beans on the north side of the trellis might suffer though, so it might only be a one sided trellis lol.

I think I'm definitely going to invest in some planks and additional loam though to try and raise the whole plot a foot (or at least the beds). GYO mag are offering a tonne of blended loam at a discount this month, may well take them up on their kind offer and just keep it on the front lawn (such a waste of growing space and would save me having to cut it) ready to ship it up to the lottie bag by bag. Sadly I don't see a way of having a big bag dropped off @ the lottie. The committee would freak if I just had it dropped over the fence. lmao

Now that I've got at least half of the beds defined, I can take proper measurements and get sawing.

One more bed to dig, will have a go at that tonight.

The plan .... pretty much

The fence

Up at the crack of dawn and got two fence posts in. Wanted to sink the posts 24" but the ground was having none of it, so the first two went in at 19" (the others slightly shallower). Rammed broken bricks round the base of the post and backfilled with those very useful stones/pieces of tarmac that I'd carefully saved when digging over the beds.

Backfilled the top 4" or so with earth and had a good old stamping session. They seem reasonably solid but I guess the winter gales will prove how sturdy they really are !

Had to wait for the OH to raise himself and nailed on the first metal sheet. Used a punch to make a 4 hole triangle at the top, middle and bottom before actually nailing on. First section complete and rather fantastic if I say so myself.

Measured the distance for the second section, dug hole for third post, carried sheet over, misjudged the distance, had to stick in 4th post (leaving a couple of inch gap between first and second sheets ......... dammit. How come when I measured the first two on my own I got it right ? Hey ho. Will fill the gap at some stage with a piece of pallet or something.

Levelled second sheet with the top of the first, leaving a dirty big gap at the bottom ! Will fill with bricks and other assorted bits of rubbish ! Third sheet was slightly smaller than the first two but filled the final gap just fine.

Mr Sec turned up later in the afternoon and took him a good 10 mins to notice the fence ! No wonder he's never been able to see his weeds lol.

OH at this stage went for a kip in the shed, obviously suffering from the excesses of the night before ..... serves him right. That left me to carry on digging over the brassica bed and finally got in 6 cabbage of some description (kindly donated by lottee unknown on Plot 13) and 5 swede donated by Handy Man John two plots up (such a nice fella, full of stories and advice and SUCH a nice greenhouse extension to his shed that I've watched him build since I've had my lottie).

He says that I've got to water the swede (or suede as he calls them - there's a subtle difference in pronunciation) every day for a few days. As they had immediately drooped almost as soon as I got them in the ground I can see the reason why. I planted both through a membrane as I'm sick of seeing a million tiny weeds grow around my babies. Out of sight, out of mind.

I tried swede last year on the plot, but were overcrowded and rotted. These 5 are very well spaced so I'm hoping for something vaguely edible from them. In the absence of any felt for root fly collars for the cabbage, I cut 4 thickness squares of weed suppressant and placed them round the stems instead held down by more useful stones. I've also got to take some netting up to keep out the evil Cabbage white. I can see myself hunting for some carpet squares in preparation for next year. Handy Man John uses BOTH felt and carpet so I doubt my thin things will do the job but I can hope. At least yet another bed is planted, leaving only one to be dug now and then that's me lottie full and I can draw up the final plan, so I know where put stuff next year.

My sown in situ beetroot is actually thriving. I'm so proud. Everything else on the plot was transplanted but these little babies are actually growing. Yee haaa. I can see transplanted beet that I could actually pull now, if I wanted baby ones. I am mightily impressed with that.

Supersprout's Gigantes have reached the tops of the trellises in some places so I'll be pinching out tonight. The climbing beans seem to be struggling a bit. I think Mr Snail and his pals have been having brunch. Two sunflowers have also suffered. No signs of Sluggy, but plenty of snails which have carefully been launched into Mr Sec's weed patch.

Some of the salad leaves and spring onions under the cloches have germinated but despite putting down a layer of newspaper under the compost, so have a million and one other things. The radishes sown under the tee pee are showing in their nice neat rows so I can tell the difference and weed around them. Good idea that ! Anything not in the row is a weed. Broadcast sowing is now out !

One of the squash is travelling at speed, the other one doesn't seem to want to know. Onions are struggling on. Rainbow chard is still with us but not doing much. Lost one of the broad beans but the other four are growing, despite looking a bit feeble. Need to hoe the leek bed but am scared I'll be pushing the earth into the holes (some of which have already been filled due to the heavy rain).

Going on a pallet collecting mission now for the other boundary fence. Got sufficient posts for the job.

Must try and get down to Ayr to pick up a couple of car loads of WRM in preparation for the winter and simply have to get the raised bed edging done. But all in all am very pleased with the progress made in the short time I've been a proud lottie owner.

Great Weather

which naturally meant that I couldn't get to the plot to do much yesterday due to the Glasgow Walk which was gathering at the local park just around the corner. Much mayhem and closed streets in surrounding areas.

However, lovely colleague donated half a dozen or so fence posts to the cause, so in exchange for 4 heads of garlic (which I forgot to take round to him) I have sufficient material to build the fence between me and the lovely Mr Secretary. Two big sheets of corrugated metal should keep his weeds at bay !

Will hopefully get up there today to start the project. Pure sunny blue sky 45mins ago, now first big cloud has come over. Still you don't need sun to dig holes do you ?

Digging in the rain

Due to the poor weather this week, and what with getting back to work etc, I've not managed to get up to the lottie to do as much as I liked. There's the big Glasgow walk today, which means the lottie will be out of bounds as the traffic around it will be hellish so jumped up there last night for an 1 1/2 hrs digging over one of the last beds to be done. I've still got those poor cabbages to get in that were donated on Plot 13 on Tuesday, bound to have got root fly by now I suppose.

Managed to get one fork in the ground before the heavens opened ! Still carried on regardless until I was thoroughly soaked and then recovered it. Will have to have a good go at that tomorrow.

Picked about a dozen strawberries but left some courgettes to become more huge !

Anyway, some pics of yesterday showing the sunflowers and weeds that seem to have put on a spurt this week and one of Ahmed's Bosnian pumpkins that doesn't seem to mind the rain.



I need to get fencing up, so I think today will be spent sourcing fence posts and pallets and would you believe it, the sun is out ! Typical.

Rain stopped play

Ran up the lottie for an hour yesterday to take up some bricks, wood and a bag of stuff for the compost bin.

I managed to weed the onion bed and beetroot before the rain fell. You can't really see it in the pics so you'll think I'm making it up, but believe me, it was raining and there was lots of it so we didn't stay long.


Cut two huge courgettes that I missed a couple of days befefore, noticed some nice sized beetroot, beans are struggling up the poles and strawberries seem to have taken nicely. I think that planting through the fabric is a much better way of keeping the fruit clean that the straw method used at home. Some nice soul left a load of plants sitting on the communal plot for anyone to take, so I grabbed half a dozen cabbages. Didn't manage to get them in though, need to clear another bit of ground first.

After the last couple of weeks activities, I'm just so bloody popped though. I've got to get back in the swing of things and when the weeds let me, I'll have another damn good concentrated bash.

On Sunday (which is why the ground is dry) I took a couple of pics to get a website mocked up by the OH. People at the committee meeting seemed quite keen. Won't be anything flash but it will get us a presence on the net. Here's our front gates.



Got to build some fences though and have no idea where to start ! Want to keep cost to a minimum but the OH isn't keen on skip raiding. Ah well I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled.

Hope the water is draining where you are.


xxx