Nic Dempsey

The weather has turned, on Saturday, we went to the plot and it was cold and wet. We’ve got a ton of stuff to do but we are waiting on some key equipment (a wheelbarrow, a strimmer, some more woodchip!) and I should have brought the drill!

We have cleared and covered some more beds and we collected the last of the winter squash, did a bit of weeding and then as it started to rain, we went home. But not before admiring the roses, which are having a moment.

And we harvested sweet potatoes. It worked! This is my half, they were Ma’s idea and we’ll grow them again next year!

So let’s talk winter construction plans. In some of the flat clearing out over the last week, I found a rough drawing of what I thought the first half plot would eventually look like and it doesn’t look anything like that! So please bear in mind that these are our current plans but the allotment may have other ideas….

• First up moving beds, two of the beds that held tomatoes this year are going. We’ll use to wood from one of them to increase the depth of the third bed. And I’m going to have the lovely job of moving and riddling the soil from the old beds into that one and then we’ll plant garlic.
• Less fun will be clearing and spliting the big squash bed on the left. This was the last bed to have anything planted in it this year. However, Ma says it’s too big to weed and it is horribly weedy! So we’re going to split it into 3 or 4 beds and increase the depth of them, that with some more cardboard and compost should help with the weeds! I’m thinking that at least three of them will be used for overwintering onions, shallots and broad beans.
• I’m not finished with beds because the other squash bed is going to be split in half lengthways, we’ll put a path down the middle and in the spring we’ll make a tunnel for squash to grow up.

• The other thing I really want to sort over the winter, is the compost area. So it’s moving. I’ve already created a ‘rubbish compost’ pile by moving some of the pallets. We’re going to cover the ground at the back with cardboard and woodchip and then set up 3 compost bins that are easy access so I can turn it more easily. So once we’ve bought and assembled them, we (who am I kidding?) I will need to move the contents of the bins we have to determine what goes back into the compost and what we can use to top up the beds.
• Gooseberries. I have two that need moving into a bed and then the area where the gooseberries were needs weeding and amending and then I need to get rhubarb to go into that area.
• I’m debating whether the rhubarb in the corner needs splitting. It’s the only one that hasn’t and it wasn’t brilliant this year. So that may or not happen.

• Raspberries. I need to move the summer raspberries out and despite the advice, I’m going to put autumn raspberries into them. I also need to move the blackcurrants, I’m either going to move the entire bed and put the blackcurrants back into them or I’m going to move the bed and put more raspberries in that bed (we like raspberries!) and find another space for the blackcurrants.
• Patio. The patio may not happen but we are planning to put it slap bang next to the rose garden and pond and I need to sort out the edging for that area and plant some bulbs in the pond area now the soil is less concrete like.

So lots to do and while it feels like winter goes on forever there is actually only 26 weeks between now and our last frost dates next year!