chester-and-the-himbo-tops

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

26/02/2023

No updates recently because I've had a cold and then was on holiday. But today I showed broad beans and peas. The other seedlings are all looking healthy too.

This week I've got a full week of work for the first time since November. I still have the dregs of this cold and I'm not going to know what's hit me.

#allotment #gardening #grow your own #plants

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

11/02/2023

Spring is definitely on its way despite a cold (but largely sunny) week. The crocuses are out and the buds on the trees and shrubs are swelling.

I've been spending a fair amount of time at the allotment on not-very-photogenic things - replacing fences, relaying a path (that the previous plotholder for some reason laid on plastic bags and old roofing felt that ofc have shredded everywhere???), etc.

The sweet peas have germinated, though - most started germinating within 72 hours, so I put them into pots, and as of yesterday some are poking above the compost.

And the second lot of seeds have been sown - Salpiglossis sinuata, Achillea millefolium and Cosmos bipinnata. These all need germinating indoors so my room is filling up with trays.

Re: the big pile of clay, I've decided to try to improve it and to that end I bought some "clay breaker", which is a mix of calcium oxide (flocculates the clay, i.e. breaks it into smaller clumps by making the tiny clay particles form aggregates into of a single sticky mass*) and sulphur trioxide (an acidifier, to balance the calcium's alkalinising effect, as my clay is alkaline enough already).

* I still don't understand exactly how calcium causes flocculation. It's something to do with the fact that clays are negative charged so hold cations, and Ca2+ is a better flocculator than other cations like Na+, Mg2+. But I don't know why it's a better flocculator 🙃

#allotment #grow your own #soil #plants #gardening

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

It worked!

23cm of water!

06/02/2023

Today I dug a big hole.

It's 80cm deep. I was aiming for 1m but hit bedrock. The plan is for it to be a reverse soakaway - basically for it to fill with groundwater since the bottom is below the water table so much of the time (sometimes the surface is below the water table in that corner). I'm going to get a soakaway crate to put in it so that no one falls in.

Crossing my fingers that when I go back tomorrow there'll be some water in the bottom.

Also I now have a large pile of clay subsoil:

#soil #drainage

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

06/02/2023

Today I dug a big hole.

It's 80cm deep. I was aiming for 1m but hit bedrock. The plan is for it to be a reverse soakaway - basically for it to fill with groundwater since the bottom is below the water table so much of the time (sometimes the surface is below the water table in that corner). I'm going to get a soakaway crate to put in it so that no one falls in.

Crossing my fingers that when I go back tomorrow there'll be some water in the bottom.

Also I now have a large pile of clay subsoil:

#allotment #gardening #grow your own #soil #drainage #gardens

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

Sweet peas are fairly easy to germinate (relative to things that need multiple cold/hot stratifications, or fire, or something). But they do have hard seed cases, so doing something to speed up water ingress so the seed can germinate is helpful to stop fungal infection before germination can occur, either by soaking before sowing or causing minor damage to the seed case (away from the eye of the pea).

So I do always soak them, but I think I must have not sown them deeply enough to exclude light, and/or just had bad luck with them rotting quickly.

03/02/2023

Sweet pea sowing time!

I've had difficulty germinating sweet peas in recent years. Looking at a guide I may have failed to exclude light sufficiently well. This year I've shut them in a drawer to germinate and also I'm trying the germinate-in-wet-paper-towel approach so I can check them in a few days before sowing them. After soaking and nicking the seed coat of the ones that didn't swell much, of course.

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

03/02/2023

Sweet pea sowing time!

I've had difficulty germinating sweet peas in recent years. Looking at a guide I may have failed to exclude light sufficiently well. This year I've shut them in a drawer to germinate and also I'm trying the germinate-in-wet-paper-towel approach so I can check them in a few days before sowing them. After soaking and nicking the seed coat of the ones that didn't swell much, of course.

#gonna germinate these children whether they like it or not #sweet peas #allotment #gardening #gardens #plants #grow your own

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

Spring is coming, early Feb edition

The primroses are in flower

The early rhubarb is pushing through (I love this pink)

The blackberry has flower buds....wait what?

#allotment #gardening #gardens #plants #grow your own #spring #rhubarb #blackberries

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

The hybrid trench composting/hügelkultur bed/mound/thing is done.

This summer I'll plant some squashes and courgettes in it since I know they don't mind being planted into trench compost beds and they're pretty easy to weed around (and I'm anticipating a lot of weeds).

Next year it'll be less weedy (because of a year I'd weeding) and less mound-y (because decomposition) so I'll be able to grow a wider variety of stuff in it.

Digging a shallow grave?

Nah, just trying out trench composting.

(There's much much more to go in, I just ran out of energy for today)

#allotment #gardening #gardens #plants #grow your own #composting

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

Digging a shallow grave?

Nah, just trying out trench composting.

(There's much much more to go in, I just ran out of energy for today)

#allotment #gardening #gardens #plants #grow your own #composting

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

Notes from the allotment, 22/01/2023

I pruned my apples and pears today and reflected that I've really not had much luck with fruit trees thus far. Part of it is due to inexperience, but part of it is just bad luck.

I planted two apple trees on the first plot I took on in the first growing season I had it (2014, wow, this is my tenth growing season). One of the trees had its roots rot, or maybe never developed them, and I pulled its sickly ass out of the ground in 2018 (didn't even need to dig it out). The other has established incredibly well but uhhh it's a dwarfing rootstock and I didn't know how to stake it properly so it's listing at a worrying angle and will eventually fall over.

I've attempted to turn most of the second plot I took on (in 2020) into an orchard. All three of the cherry trees I put in have a bad case of bacterial canker (caught from the ancient plum tree during a year of bad blackfly infestation, I should have seen that coming), and one each of the pears and apples have had...something? wrong with them and the tops have died. It's probably fungal canker, though it doesn't look like most cases I see. I've pruned out the dead bits so assuming it hasn't already spread down the trunks they should be okay. The cherries will succumb eventually, as will the plum, and then I guess I'll leave it stone-fruit-less for a season before trying again.

Which means I'm thinking about my plans a number of years into the future. That's generally something I'm not very good at - either I can't imagine the future, or I can only imagine something to be anxious about; and I struggle to make plans due to not knowing where my head is going to be at in a day/week/month. But with the allotment I can see the whole growing season and beyond, through the years needed to establish trees.

Now how do I extrapolate that to the rest of my life?

#notes from the allotment #allotment #gardening #gardens #grow your own #plants

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

20/01/2023

Chester and the himbo tops have posts and rails for support now.

The posts have the bottom 60cm buried (leaving 180cm above ground), which involved digging down well into the subsoil. Since these allotments have been cultivated for over 100 years the subsoil is "better" than that in most of my clients' gardens but it's still full of lumps of red clay and coal (better for growing, and easier to dig through - basically I mean it's not solid clay).

I also dug out a few big lumps of iron-rich sandstone, which is the bedrock around here.

Idk man I just think earth sciences are cool.

#allotment #gardening #gardens #plants #himbo top #raspberries #blackberries #soil

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

20/01/2022

Onion sets! It's too cold for them to go into the ground yet (I mean, January is too early even when the ground isn't literally frozen), so I've put them in modular trays in the greenhouse so that they don't go mouldy sitting on the shelf again.

Doesn't seem particularly exciting but this is the first annual crop I've started this year.

#allotment #gardening #gardens #grow your own #onions

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

Stop idolizing the grind and start idolizing Hügelkultur

#when the old dying plum tree on my allotment inevitably comes down #i'm going to try a hügel bed

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

Seeds acquired! This year's vegetables (excuse the lighting, no natural light in this house at this time of year):

Bunching onion 'Ishikura'

Winter squash 'Uchiki kuri'

Sweetcorn 'Rising Sun' (have tried a couple of heritage cultivars for the past couple of years without success. Our climate isn't the greatest for sweetcorn so I'm going back to an F1 in the hope of actually being able to eat some this year)

Tomato 'Sungold' (this is one of my top recommended cultivars for easy growing, they're so happy to grow and make so much fruit)

Chard 'Bright Lights' (also highly recommended! I've tried a lot of chard cultivars now and this one grows best here and is damn tasty)

Kale 'Cavolo di Toscana' (highly recommended by my bunny - one year I grew kale that he said wasn't very good, it was very sad)

Courgette 'Coucourzelle'

Shallot 'Zebrune'

Bird's eye pepper 'Demon' (not an especially hot cultivar; this is for my spouse since I can't eat chilli peppers, they usually choose the hottest cultivars then complain they're too hot)

French bean 'Violet Podded' (they do stay purple on cooking but only if you stir fry instead of boil/steam them)

Broad bean 'De Monica'

Sugar snap pea 'Nairobi'

I also have seed potatoes ('Foremost' first earlies, 'Wilja' second earlies and 'Sarpo Mira' maincrop), and I inpulse-bought some French onion sets because they're called 'Pink Panther'.

And for flowers:

Sunflower 'Velvet Queen'

Cornflower 'Tall Mixed'

Cosmos 'Sensation Mixed'

Sweet Pea 'Fire and Ice'

Salpiglossis 'Superbissima Mixed'

Achillea 'Pastel Mixed'

Zinnia 'Giant Mixed'

Mostly for cut flowers. The Salpiglossis is for my Mum because she used to grow them every year but she's not able to grow them any more and they aren't easily found as ready-grown plants.

If anyone has actually read this and has also bought seeds or plants, please show me!

#gardening #plants #allotment #gardens #seeds

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

#gardening #allotment #plants #gardens

[chester-and-the-himbo-tops]

@april-december jokingly told me I should get some Himbo Top raspberries for my allotment, and since I was in need of some autumn fruiting raspberries...I did. They arrived today. Also a blackberry plant named Chester, a cultivar which is supposed to make 13kg of fruit per plant every year??

Naturally while I was planting them there was a surprise hailstorm. Here's a photo of me chilling with Chester and the Himbo Tops.

Yes that is mud on my glasses. I need to get proper posts and wire installed to support them once they start growing. Will probably do that sometime when it's not hailing.

I expect a small crop of raspberries this autumn as they're a cultivar that fruits on the current year's new canes, but I'll have to wait until next year for Chester to fruit.

#allotment #gardening #himbo top #grow your own #raspberries #blackberries