Monday 20 April 2009

Purple polka dot wellies!!

The purple polka dot wellies finally came out over the weekend as we spent our first day on plot 103. Which is just as well, as my balcony is really getting ridiculous at this stage and Lady Isabella Harvey (the cat) has become increasingly indignant that a number of plants have taken over 'her' balcony. She promptly aired her grievances by digging up one of my window boxes and depositing not one, but two little surprises in my gazanias and busy lizzies!!




Her ladyship is not impressed!!!












The Balcony in a ridiculous state!









On the plus side, THE SPROUTS HAVE SPROUTED!!! Broccolli is also poking its head above the surface but the few leeks I started off a 2 weeks ago in the tray have yet to make an appearance.




Sprouts sprouting!!





Well we couldn't have gotten a better weekend to get started. We got all the beds marked out and even got the onion bed dug and ready (I think!) for the onion sets to go in next weekend. We have strawberry, raspberry and rhubarb plants sitting on my balcony, (so far untouched by the cat but every now and then I catch her glaring at them!) so hopefully we'll get the onion sets in, and the beds prepared for the fruit bushes and if we're lucky another bed for the leeks. We found that the soil seems to be somewhere between nice loam and probably a bit sandy, which I think the strawberries will love. I also found one little grub which turned out to be either a chafer beetle grub or possible a vine weevil grub (fat white body with brown head). So if anyone has any tips on getting rid of them, answers on a postcard please!
Jemma and Cillian hard at work marking out the beds.
Me and Jemma digging away.

The finished onion bed!!! (hopefully)

5 comments:

  1. Love the wellies, very flash, don't forget 'Corrigans city farm ' tomorrow nite 8.30 rte2 I think. Great weather last weekend down here too, got loads done on saturday. Keep the faith

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  2. Thanks for the reminder! great show, have on weekly reminder. Its about time someone did something like this in ireland. Plus it'll raise the profile of allotments, theres so many people want to do it but don't know how to go about it. If he'd done it in dublin I'd have taken the hand off him to get involved. Can't believe he initially had trouble getting people to sign up!

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  3. It had to be done in Cork, lets face it, it's the cultural capital :-),I was surprised as well with the initial uptake, would love to have got involved but 20 miles is too far and with work and my own gardening endevours, time would not be on my side. Also meant to say to u about the wellies, was in London last November for a couple of days and the amount of women wearing those type of colourful wellies around the centre of London was unbelievable, so u can be on the allotment all day and head straight for the nightclub without changing footwear.

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  4. but of course!! Just because your digging in the muck all day doesn't mean one can't look stylish!!

    In reality though, I bought them in dunnes for 15 euro purely because proper wellies were way more expensive in garden centres and I've just about splashed my last bit of cash on some netting for the eventual cabbages and fruit bushes ;-) besides, I think they're kinda funky! for the garden but can't say I'd be wearing them in a nightclub, stilletos all the way mate!

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  5. The plot is looking good and you have a good range of plants ready to go out soon, once you get your onions in, the end of May will be time enough for lettuce etc.Watch out in Lidl or Aldi they often have netting etc on offer.

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