New life everywhere

Purple sprouting broc comes through, yahoo.  

We've got access to a polytunnel so everything is speedy as.  But you get blummin hot doing the watering so sometimes I water myself.  I thought the calf might like a little cooling down today but it just burped at me.

Mum's salad is also whizzing on quite nicely.

 

Thank you Jo for help with the watering.  There is a really nice little cafe onsite too, where we had a cuppa and some amazing pear and chocolate cake.  Anyone is welcome to join me :-)

See also some forget-me-nots tucked in around the edges.  They are in remembrance of my Nana who had an amazing allotment, even though she considered them weeds!

Loads of lovely baby lambs and kids out in the open now.  The kids are especially active, bucking around the place like they've eaten way too many sweets.

 

The calves have the most adorable long eyelashes and curl their tongues around anything. They are really calm and friendly.

Long hot summer days... in April....

It's been such lovely weather, if I was a pig, actually if I was allowed.... this is what I would be doing too!  Unfortunately the expecting sow had to be put down this year so no little piglets.  We take in our veg scraps for them, they go bonkers for banana skins.

My Auntie Ann gave us some of her surplus 'Fred's Magic Beans' plants and I've also sown a row of leaf beet.  You might be able to see a darker line of compost, this is to give them a fighting chance, as the clay soil seems to have turned the plot into a rock garden.

This is how close the hungry donkeys are from our juicy rhubarb!

Mum and I made this archway out of willow harvested from the farm.  It's hopefully going to be covered in sweet peas in the summer.  A little visitor curiously asked me what I was up to and after I had given a rather long explanation, she answered 'so what you're *trying to say* is like a really cool climbing frame for plants?'.

Seedy start

Getting packs of seeds through the post gives me the same feeling as when I see a newly opened pack of colouring pencils or tubes of paint!  I decided to go with Chase Organic Seeds.  Mum thinks I'm barmy growing from scratch, she just wants to buy the plants, but I'll show her, he he.

These are sweet pea seeds, I was surprised at how big they were.

 These are leek seeds! They look like... urm... gravel.







I'm going to eventually put all these overview pictures of the plot together into a stop frame film.  For it to look smooth I have to try and take it from the same angle everytime...

Peas go in

Mum planted some mangetouts.  The pea sticks are the recycled Christmas decorations, originally the brush cut from the hazel coppicing we did in November!

The manure is now dug in and a handful of nasturtiums planted in the corners. 
Looking forward to receiving my seed order through the post this week.

The plan (subject to (massive) change(s)).

PSB stands for the lovely purple sprouting broccoli.  And I'm sorry, I don't know how to spell courgette without spell check.

On with the poo

One of the many good things about growing on a farm is the lovely rich manure.  I forked a couple of barrow loads onto two thirds of it (the front third is for my king of greens - purple sprouting broccoli, which doesn't like the poo so much apparently) and have left the worms to have some fun before turning it in.  Well actually I had zero energy left to do it there and then!  I've loved being in the sunshine all day today, although I've noticed a tree that will probably steal the sunshine in the late afternoons when it blooms.  Mum had a couple of leftover purple sprouting broccoli plants that have escaped the mighty pigeon belly so far, so I put them in next to the rhubarb.

Super leeks

This is a pic of a fellow city farm plotter Paul and his mighty massive leeks.  He has been very kind and given me all sorts of tips and advice, where to find things, telling me that my biggest pest will be the excited visitors wanting to grab anything green to feed to the donkeys and setting the bar with his lovely well maintained patch.

Lovely sunny spring day!

A combination of some old planks of wood scrounged by mum at Lavender Ponds, and old sofa bed she broke up (which was headed for the skip) and a sawed up dumped old broken chair allowed me to erect some side panels to make it into a raised bed!  I say, eh.  I've also been breaking up the soil as much as I can but still needs more work.  Hopefully the air will start drying it out a bit and it might start crumbling instead of sticking.  If it looks to you slightly wider in this photo, you'd be right.  I might have put the marker post back in a little bit wider, whoopsy, I'm yet to encounter my human neighbours... 

Can you spot a little rhubarb plant?! 

Block of clay

The ground is really solid.  Back breaking work! I'm prising out big lumps of clay soil and it just sticks to the fork!  The hard work is breaking up the big chunks into something more soil like.  I hear the land used to be one big river clay fest in the early days.

There are tonnes of worms, I'm hoping they'll thank me for breaking up the dense soil.  Apparently the green 'weeds' growing on one half can be used as fertiliser so I'll dig them in if my back doesn't break in the meantime.  I wonder how my Nana kept a huge allotment?  Mine seems minute in comparison!

My neighbours the donkeys look on unfazed and certainly uninterested when they realise I've nothing to feed them.  Mum found an old horse shoe on the plot, a good sign!

Solid as a rock

Humble beginnings!

Here we go....

Hello!  This is where we'll be keeping a record of what happens in our tiny little plot at Surrey Docks City Farm, in South East London.  We were given the spot a couple of weeks ago and it's one of around 15 plots run by the farm's 'have a go horticulture' project.  Here's to a healthy happy growing season!