[sharonl]

Hi all,

I just signed the lease for our new allotment!! yay!! but being a complete newbie at the allotment lark I'm not entirely sure where to begin. The ground has been rotorvated and thats pretty much it. We will mark out beds over next week but I'm not entirely sure about the extend of further digging, if any is needed. I would have thought we need to fork in some manure/fertilizer into the ground in the beds (except carrot bed) and keep raking it until we get a nice fine level bed? would this sound about right, apologies for the complete basicness (Idon't think thats even a word!) but I know a good bit about planting the vegetables and have always grown my own on a small scale in containers but when it comes to large scale I'm afraid the details stump me a bit in preparing the ground. I have a picture of the site as is at the moment on the blog I've set up for our plot, but I'm not sure if we can post up blog addresses, perhaps the moderators could confirm? and if so I'll post up the address and maybe somebody could tell me the best way to proceed with preparing the beds.

Thanks
sharon

[Liparis]

Your manure needs to be dug well in. It is better done during the autumn/winter months. At this stage I would go ahead as if the plot had been manured, ie mark out your beds and get your plants/seeds in. Once they have become established, give them a feed with growmore or some other general fertiliser then give everything a good mulching with the manure. During the course of the year the manure will work into the soil then all you have to do is dig and manure your plots next winter.
Bill.

[inishindie]

Hi Sharonl

Congratulations on the new addition.....

Just being nosey here.....Let's have a look at the allotment....

There's a growing interest in these valuable plots of land and the link at the top of the page to www.allotments.ie is a great place to start......

We're still covering our soil up at the moment to keep things warm....

Cheers

Ian

[sharonl]

Thanks for the tip Bill, looks like thats the way to go.

Since I haven't heard anything from the moderators re posting my blog address I'll chance it, I apologise if not allowed, please just let me know.

Theres not much done, deer and rabbit fencing is in progress but the plots are loosely marked out and rotorvated. There are some pictures on my blog. I'm hoping the fencing will be somewhat finished so that we can start laying out beds and doing...eh... something to them to get them ready for sowing seeds. Keep forking and raking until we get a nice fine tilth?? The allotments.ie website is very good, full of usefull info.

[inishindie]

Looking good.

I like the " Hitch your wagon to a star, keep your seat and there you are" bit

good luck and remember to keep doing your own thing...

Here's a bit of grannie's wisdom.....

Baking Fish


A little girl was helping her mother prepare a fish for dinner. She laid the fish carefully into the baking pan.

"No, no," her mother said removing the fish from the pan "We have to cut off the head and tail first."

She duly chopped them off before replacing the fish back into the dish.

The little girl thought for a moment then turned to her mother asking,
"Why do we do it like that mammy,"

Her mother thought for a while and then said, "I've always done it that way - that's how babicka (Czech for grandma) did it."

Not satisfied with the answer, the little girl went to visit her grandma to find out why she cut the head and tail off the fish before baking it.

Grandma thought for a while and replied, "I don't know. My mother always did it that way."
So the little girl and the grandma went to visit great grandma to find ask if she knew the answer.

Great grandma thought for a while and said, "Because my baking pan was too small to fit in the whole fish".

Cheers

Ian

[verge]

[Liparis]

[sharonl]

Thanks all,

I'll be careful not to over rake it so, although its more the texture of entire cakes at the moment rather than cake crumbs