Nothing much happening outdoors

If you are a regular visitor to my blog you may have noticed a lack of posts recently. One reason for this is that nothing much has been happening - garden  and allotment wise at least - so I didn't have anything to share. My poor camera thinks it has been made redundant and my camera finger is restless and itchy.

Just to try and  ease the withdrawal symptoms, I searched in the garden for something, anything that I could point my camera at. 

We have had frosty mornings and damp and murky mornings most of which have set the tone for the day. There's plenty of outdoor jobs waiting to be tackled but it's just not been conducive to outdoor activity.

You may notice in the photo, bottom right above, that the spring bulbs are made of hardier stuff and many are pushing through the frosty earth.

Other plants are optimistically preparing for spring. The hazels and garrya already have produced catkins and other bushes are in bud.

We did manage one job in the garden which was to clear away a pile of debris that was abandoned after a lanky mahonia was cut hard back.

I also decided to plant some garlic in pots, in the garden, rather than try to plant in the allotment mud. I planted soft neck garlic in one pot and hard neck in the other. The cloves were saved from last year's crop so fingers crossed that they will manage to grow.

When we visited Harlow Carr to see the light show I bought a couple of amarylis bulbs, (or hippeastrums if you prefer). One was for me and the other for my sister. We have each planted them. Both bulbs had started to grow and both have two flower buds. Earlier in the month, I'd seen some ready potted bulbs that already had tall stems topped with fat buds but for me part of the fun is watching them grow.

On Thursday the rain held off until late afternoon - can you call it afternoon at three o' clock when the light is already fading? We decided to make a quick visit to the allotment to collect some fresh vegetables as stocks at home were dwindling.

Whilst, Martyn took care of the harvesting and did a bit of filming, I decided to start pruning the jostaberry bushes. At least, it is one job that can be done when the soil is soggy. The problem is that routes around the plot have to be varied to try to prevent the paths from becoming a slippery mess. We haven't been altogether successful and some care has to be taken walking in some parts.

I managed to prune two of the five jostaberry bushes.

They probably don't look vastly different but I actually removed quite a lot from each bush. I prune them in a similar way to gooseberries. Lots of straggly growth was cut out and any stems heading into the centre of the bush which I try to keep relatively open. Any branches crossing were also removed. If left to their own devices jostaberries will grow over 2 metres or about 6 feet tall and so I trimmed branches back to just above my head height so I can easily pick any berries. I also cut back any branches spreading too far to the sides either blocking the paths or interfering with other nearby plants.

For the past few weeks our harvests have been very similar - cabbages, carrots and parsnips. This week we also lifted a stem of Brussels sprouts which will be kept in a bucket of water and the sprouts picked off as we need them. Last year our sprouts were pathetic so we were happy to see that this year they have grown much better.

Unfortunately the wet weather is spoiling quite a few crops. Lots of layers of outer leaves need removing from cabbages and as you can see from the photo below the slugs are prolific and not even deterred once the carrots are harvested. The small species are particularly destructive.

Fortunately the carrots are large and once the damage is cut away there is some left for us. It makes you wonder how farmers manage to achieve such perfect roots.

Let's hope the New Year brings us some friendlier weather.

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