Allotment Update

Or - What went down at the allotment in 2013:

I originally took on my allotment from the local council about 5 years ago, shortly after we moved into the area, things have changed so much there over the years, but I am still not on top of it.  I wonder if you can ever be "on top" of mother nature?  This year I knew that I didn't want to over do it by planting loads of different, exotic vegetables, so stuck with what I know works and what I could manage.  With it being such a dry hot summer things didn't flourish as much as they could have if I had watered on those dry days but I still
harvested a modest amount of food considering how little work I put in.  It is so difficult to get down there with a toddler in tow, he is so curious and loves to explore so I have to either go there and hope he falls asleep in the car on the way or wait until I can go there with someone else who can watch him while I get on.  I am still so thankful to have it though it will be wonderful when Boris is a bit older and I won't have to worry about him eating something he shouldn't or wandering into other peoples' plots.

So now I am just starting to shut everything down at the allotment in preparation for both winter and my impending childbirth, covering the ground in plastic and picking the last of the harvest, a few small beetroots and, some runner beans and a couple of courgettes.  My mum helped me a couple of weeks ago, tidying the edges, tucking everything under the plastic and laying more plastic to keep the weeds at bay.

So I thought it was a pretty good time to do a little review with some photos of the allotment I took a few weeks ago.  I can't believe how much the weather has changed in such a short amount of time!  We were in the heart of summer what seemed like yesterday and now it seems like everything is closing down.
So here is what went down:

The last of the courgettes

The last of the rather straggly looking runner beans,

Small harvest

View of the whole allotment, my mum helped me put down the black plastic. 

What are you currently doing at the allotment?  Are you putting anything in?  Or just taking things out and covering things up? 

Happenings in the garden

As well as a 30 foot by 15 foot allotment that I rent from the council, we are also lucky enough have a little garden attached to my house, I mostly grow herbs in it and have a little space for Boris to kick a ball around and we also have a Braeburn apple tree!  We got it for free after collecting coupons on boxes of cereal about 4 years ago.  Every year we hoped and hoped for blossom and apples, one year there were 5 flower, we got very excited, they started to swell and were then eaten by birds *sad*.  In the winter I decided it would probably be a good idea to prune it, we had let it grow as much as possible thinking it was only little so we needed to give it some time to grow.  I cut back quite a few of the branches and a few months later the tree was covered in blossom!  We were thrilled and immediately covered it with net to protect it from the birds and hung old CDs from it to scare the bird off.  It has been positively cosseted ever since and is now heavy laden with apples that we are waiting with baited breath to fully ripen, then eat!  It is so heavy that we have had to prop it up with the frame of a portable green house!
So I couldn't resist sharing some photos with you of our beloved tree with it's apples, having waited so long for them I am sure you will forgive the slight boasting nature of this post!

 

What's growing in your garden?