Putting My Feet Up

It seems that winter is certainly on it's way. We've had nothing but rain and strong winds for the last week, which means that digging over the allotment has been put on hold. Instead, I'm getting my gardening fix by putting up my feet and reading my magazines. I currently subscribe to Gardener's World magazine and Grow Your Own magazine, and I also have a stack of gardening books at hand ready for the long winter evenings when I'm confined to the house because of bad weather.

One thing I am short of is a good cook book. I have the usual celebrity chef books, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson etc. but I really want something aimed specifically at allotmenteers which also gives advice about storing and preserving so wondered if anyone has any recommendations.

Now that things in the garden have come to a bit of a standstill I won't be updating the blog as often as usual. There's so much to blog about in the summer months when everything is happily growing away, but much less in winter and I don't want each post to read that I haven't done anything due to the weather, I'm sure it would only get monotonous. From now on I'll only blog when I have something constructive to blog about. I hope that's ok.

Moth Orchid

I'm rather pleased with myself as I have managed to get my Orchid to flower again. I bought myself a Phalaenopsis or Moth Orchid last year and it was in flower for a few months. At Christmas, my hubby's auntie and uncle bought me another Moth Orchid which again flowered until about May. I read up on the internet about getting them to bloom again and the general advice was to cut the flower spike down to just above a bud, which I did. I then waited for months but nothing happened. They looked rather comical actually, bare spikes with no sign that they would flower again. In the end I decided that I would cut the spikes right down to the leaves. Within a few weeks of doing this both the Orchids sent out a new spike, and both are now beginning to bloom. The next thing I'll be Googling is how to repot them. The one in the photo is the one which my hubby's auntie and uncle bought me, and it's roots are growing so far out of the pot that it will definitely need repotting.

I spent Thursday finally putting the garden to bed for the winter. All the more delicate plants in containers have been moved into the greenhouse. I don't heat my greenhouse at all, but as the weather becomes colder I will drape fleece over the pots, and I find that this keeps the frost off them.

I forgot to mention a couple of weeks ago that I did finally manage to get my winter hanging baskets planted up. I have got one at the back of the house with Pansies in it, and two at the front of the house containing Violas. On Thursday I planted the few left over plants into the border to add a little more colour over winter.

Last week I was kindly given the Best Blog Award from Tanya at Allotments4You. I am very proud to say that I have been given the award again this week from Kella at Kella's Musings on Growing Her Own, Wildlife and Her Brand of Parenting. Thank you very much Kella, I'm really honoured that you consider I deserve the award again. Of course, this now gives me the chance to nominate some more blogs for the award as it was very difficult last week to choose just 15, so first of all, here are the rules again:-

Post the award on your blog along with the name of the person who passed it on to you and link to their blog. Choose 15 blogs which you have recently discovered and you think are great and pass it on to them. Don't forget to leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

The 15 blogs I would like to pass this award on to are:-

My Secret Garden

Little Green Fingers

Kitchen Garden

Reads Allotment Retreat

City Diggity

Organic Allotment

Green Tapestry

Green Patch

Frugilegus

Renaissance Little Green Book

Soilman

WeedyBeanz

Ryan's Garden

Woodland's World 2

Reap What You Grow

I hope you will all accept this award as I think you have great blogs. I have also found it fun to follow the recipient's links to the blogs they have nominated as it's a great way to find new great blogs. Other people haven't nominated the full 15 blogs as I have, so I think anything up to 15 will be acceptable.

Another Failure

As you can see, my leeks haven't done too well. I can only assume that the failure's I've had this year have been down to the condition of the soil. I'm trying to rectify this ready for next year by adding lots of manure and compost to the beds. This year it has been a case of planting everything into the soil as it was and hoping for the best. Luckily not everything turned out as bad as my leeks.

We had some nice weather over the weekend which enabled us to spend some more time digging over the allotment. It's a long hard task so we're getting as much done as we can before the winter really sets in and whatever isn't done then will have to be done in spring. I wouldn't have got half as much done without my hubby and son's help. They worked like troopers. When I first took the allotment on my daughter was really keen to help, but sadly her enthusiasm has waned along the way. She's quite happy to do little jobs like planting seeds or picking strawberries, but isn't quite so keen on the more laborious tasks. My son on the other hand is always happy to help out, and really is a huge help when jobs need doing.

I also dug up some parsnips this week which we had for Sunday dinner. When I say we, I actually mean myself and my daughter, no one else will eat parsnips, but I have to grow plenty as my daughter would eat them by the plateful if I let her. They were delicious and definitely one of the successes.

A Little Bit Of Magic

This is Skimmia Japonica - Magic Marlot. It's an evergreen shrub and fairly new on the market. This is now in it's second phase. The first phase is white flower buds, in the second phase the flower buds change to a deep pink as you can see, and finally in the third phase the white flowers open and these are apparently scented. I only bought this plant in spring so I'm witnessing these phases for the first time. It hasn't put on alot of new growth this year but I don't know if this is because I have it planted in a container. I'm looking forward to seeing the flowers open and finding out what sort of scent it has.

After a bit of a dull start today has turned out rather nice. It poured with rain last night but today has been dry, sunny and really quite warm. I took advantage of this and spent the day doing jobs in the garden.

I've tidied up the flower border again. There were still a few flowers around when I last did this, but everything is now well and truly finished for the winter so I've cut alot of things back. Some foliage has been left behind for insects to take shelter in throughout the winter. I saw two ladybirds today, one native and one which I think may have been a Harlequin. Hopefully I can get the native species to hibernate in my garden so that they are still here when I need help with the nasties in spring. The small pond still needs sorting out but I didn't have any rubber gloves, so that job has been put on hold for another day. The plants in the pond have really thrived this year so they do need a little cutting back and their roots need trimming.

The spring bulbs which I bought for the garden have been planted today. I planted some Fritillaries around the small pond, and also some Narcissus - Minnow which produce up to five flowers on each stem and are a creamy yellow colour.

I am the proud recipient of this Best Blog Award. This was kindly bestowed upon me by Tanya at Allotments4You. Thank you very much, Tanya. I'm pleased that you enjoy my blog. That also goes to everyone else who regularly reads my blog and makes a comment, it's very much appreciated.

I now have to pass this award on to other blogs who I think deserves this award, but first of all the rules.

Post the award on your blog along with the name of the person who passed it on to you and link to their blog. Choose 15 blogs which you have recently discovered and you think are great and pass it on to them. Don't forget to leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

The 15 blogs I would like to pass this award on to are:-

A Life Less Simple

Slow Growing In Scotland

Midges, Moss and Mud

Melanie Fleur

Urban Veg Patch

Moj Vrt

Secret Cottage Garden

My Small Cornish Garden

Manor Stables Veg Plot

Allotment Heaven

The Green Grower

Tales From A Cottage Garden

Allot Of Veg

Run For The Hills

Scattered Gardener

I hope you will all accept the award as I think you have great blogs. Other people haven't nominated the full 15 blogs as I have, so I think anything up to 15 would be acceptable.

Hooligans At Halloween

I was going to show you a photo of my son's elongated pumpkin which he managed to carve into something resembling Shrek (complete with ears) but unfortunately I didn't take a photo on Halloween. I had left it in the conservatory and intended to take a photo today, but when I lifted it up it had started to decay, and collapsed. So instead, here is a photo of my daughter's tiny Hooligan pumpkins which she instisted be carved for Halloween. They're only about three to four inch in diameter so you can imagine it was a tricky job. I think they are rather cute.

All my good intentions of having the allotment dug over before winter are dropping by the wayside. Time is ticking on and I'm getting nowhere. Family life has taken over and there's always something more important to do. Digging over the allotment seems to be way down on my list of priorities. I've got the next few weekends off work so I'll have to make more of an effort to put in some hard work.

The 'C' Word

Dare I mention Christmas yet? These are the potatoes which I'm growing in containers, hoping to get some lovely new potatoes for Christmas dinner. I saved a few of my Kestrel tubers which I bought in the spring and kept them in the salad drawer in the fridge. They've now been planted up in a container, and as you can see, are growing well. They've been earthed up as they have grown and the compost has now reached the top of the container. Now that we keep getting risks of frost I have moved the container into the greenhouse as it's important they don't get frosted. I've never grown potatoes at this time of year before so the results will be interesting.

I hate to admit that I still haven't got my hanging baskets planted up. I did start to make an effort today, but the weather was awful, it has rained all day. I thought I would bring everything into the kitchen and do them in there, but the plants were rather soggy after being out in the rain, so I have moved them into the greenhouse to dry out a little. I'm hoping to have some spare time this week as the kids are on half term, so I'll do them then. Watch this space!

On And On And On......

As you can see, my runner beans are still flowering, though now that the colder weather is upon us I doubt if these flowers will come to anything. They're a variety called Scarlet Emperor and have been very productive. I have picked more beans today, they just seem to go on and on and on, hence the title of this post. There are still more beans maturing on the plants, but as soon as we get a proper frost it will be the end of them. I pulled up the French beans at the weekend. I had my last harvest from them last week when flowers were still to be seen on the plants, but the cold weather finished them off.

The area of the allotment which has been used this year is in much better condition now than when we took it on. It's so much easier to dig than the area which has been left untouched. That area is back breaking to dig over. I'm trying to get out as many of the stubborn weeds as I can, and then hubby is going to dig over the area getting the rest of the weeds out as he goes. Well, that's my plan, he doesn't know it yet.

Lots of seed catalogues have been dropping through the letterbox, and I have been pondering over which potatoes to grow next year. I wasn't very successful this year as alot of the potatoes had slug damage. Charlotte seemed to do well, and they're known as having a good resistance to slugs, but I wasn't over keen on the taste so I'm looking for alternatives for next year. I'd like to have a go at International Kidney, but apart from that I'm open to suggestions.