Working in sunshine

Last week the sun shone so we made the most of it by spending more time on the allotment and in the garden. 

Not only did the sunshine spur us into action, but it also sent a signal to the bulbs to get on with flowering.

We didn't spend all our time last week gardening though, we also had a day out at Yorkshire Wildlife Park where it seemed that the animals were enjoying the sunshine too.

Back to the gardening, where we were mostly in destructive mode. We have two hazel bushes on the allotment, and every couple of years one of the bushes is coppiced. This year it was the turn of the bush on the left.

Martyn used a small chain saw to cut the thicker branches and the loppers to cut out the smaller ones. Having the right tools for the job makes the task far easier. In earlier times, all the power had to be supplied by human muscle and a pruning saw meaning the job took far longer.

The 'prunings' created a very large pile of what will become poles and twiggy supports for lots of our plants. The twiggy pieces are also good for laying on newly sown seeds to try and prevent animals from walking on the beds or birds using the area for dust bathing.

The chain saw massacre didn't stop there, as next for the chop was a row of buddleia. Each year the bushes are cut down close to the ground and each year they quickly spring up to their original height. The flowers are much loved by bees, butterflies and other friendly minibeasts. I have noticed though, for the past couple of years we have had far fewer butterfly visitors, other than the ubiquitous whites.

As it was fairly warm working in the sun, I took the opportunity to tidy up a few of our fruit beds. We don't use weed control fabric on all our fruit beds. Partly due to the fact that the bushes and trees were planted before we started to use the fabric but it also allows the opportunity to grow annuals in the same bed. I imply we grow these plants when in actual fact they self seed and grow themselves.

When I weed these beds I have to take care not to remove the seedlings that I want to keep, so the beds have to be hand weeded rather than hoed and weed seedlings need to be pulled out before they take a hold. It's important to be able to distinguish weed seedlings from the seedlings of plants that you want to keep

We also tidied up what we refer to as the allotment perennial bed. It's a misnomer really as the bed also houses shrub roses, a couple of black elders and, over summer, some annuals too. The roses and elders have been cut back and the debris from dead plants removed. I did intend to weed the bed too but didn't get round to that. It doesn't actually have many weeds yet. The soil is quite damp in this bed due to shade cast by a huge leylandii hedge planted in a neighboring garden.

Before above and after below

All the beds that had lumpy soil have had the lumps knocked back but we have cleared another overgrown bed that has needed to be tackled for quite a while. Also, Martyn has dug in the green manure, so we are not completely free of lumpy beds.

As well as working on the allotment we managed some work in the garden. Martyn cleared more of the area under the crab apple tree where the bluebells and snowdrops will be planted and also started tidying behind the garden greenhouse.

Whilst he was busy at the back of the house, I tidied the bed in front of the house.

We had plenty of vegetables stored at home but we did also manage to squeeze in a mini harvest.

I hope that qualifies me for taking part in Harvest Monday over at

Dave's blog Our Happy Acres

Our complete monthly harvests are listed here.

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett