So I ordered sterile Comfrey root cuttings, and eventually (from China it seems) this package arrived. Not only did it contains unlabelled seeds, the packet said it was a necklace...
So I now have a refund for the missing cuttings, and a mystery to solve.
I will sow the seeds this month, anyone want to have a guess what they are???
Digging a ditch in the #allotment and pulled this out. Don't think this has been farmland for a very, very long time (#allotments are there on the 1913 OS map)
The problem with having leaf guards on your rain guttering, is that the snow tends to build up on them and you end up with an icicle problem when it all starts to melt. 😬 #today #gardening #allotment #NewEngland #winter #snow
Today was so cold and dank on the #allotment so prioritised pollarding elders on our plot and part coppicing to thin out a hazel on a neighbour's and processing all of the 'leavings' as the best way of keeping moving to stay warm. So now we haz some new hazel rods to remain bamboo free.
I’ve managed to do some soil blocking and seed sowing. With today being a fruit day, broad beans, field beans and peas have been sown in the greenhouse. Chillipeppers, sweet peppers, aubergines and beefsteak tomatoes sown inside. #Gardening#NoDig#Allotment#SoilBlocks#BiodynamicGardening
Well, that cheered me up on a cold, grey day. Good haul from one plant, and still several smaller shoots left to grow out. Shame two of my winter lettuce have vanished from the greenhouse, but I guess a mouse was hungry. #allotment#GrowYourOwn#organic
Couldn’t help it ❗️ We have bought some Edenrose hard neck garlic 🧄 to try 😛 We have not grown hard neck garlic or planted in the Spring before so we’ll see how it grows 👍 Twenty eight cloves in a raised bed and three spare cloves in small pots #Allotment, #Today, #GrowYourOwn, #Gardening
This “Oulin’s Golden Gage” tree was planted at the #allotment in 2021, no fruit so far but it’s grown really vigorously despite being on a dwarfing root stock.
I’m not sure, but I think I have to remove a few branches to thin it out as soon as I’ve worked out which ones will have fruit on them, any ideas?
Love how the very early nigella flowers often come out this dusty silvery blue, like proper snowflakes (these self seed every year and we're basically in the gulf stream in coastal Cornwall, so it's always quite warm here). Hellebores and camellias are out, onion seedlings are firing on all cylinders, the allotment has frogspawn. All about as February as it gets.
I amalgamated the communal compost into the one pile and added some soil and some old jute bag material that had decomposed in another compost pile. That should add some more microbial life to the pile.
On the communal compost plot the first compost heap has been turned and moved. A second heap is being built next to it as and when compostables are donated.
More material will be added every week now as more people start to get their plots ready for spring.
It’s been interesting to see the depth of good soil before the clay layer starts too. Being no dig I only get to see the top soil depth when I do a project like this. This area has probably been undisturbed for nearly a decade. I wish I’d measured the top soil depth before I started down the no dig route.
I’ll add a lid and then worms and feed them some food scraps regularly. The worms should be safe from predation and be able to escape into the soil away from any extremes of heat and cold.
I’ll add a layer of sand or grit at the bottom to improve the water infiltration as the worm box it is now sitting directly on the clay layer.
The worms may just leave for somewhere better but I’m hoping they’ll stay and provide lots of worm poo for the plot.