Sunday, 5 January 2014

The shape of things to come.


It's seems to be quite hard to get to the allotment these last few months, and if you consider we are half way through winter and no sign of snow yet, you may be wondering what my excuses are. Christmas and all the preparations for the day have taken most of my time, when I do have time it has been the wind and rain that has kept me away. When I do have the weather on my side, it's the lack of daylight hours that forces me home. I only managed just over an hour today and that was with the cold wind and the occasional five minutes of rain bursts before it got dark and had to go home. On the upside, the days are starting to get longer and with that Spring shouldn't be too far behind. The only downside to the mild and wet Winter we have had in these parts is that the bug's and pests will have survived and the weeds have carried on growing.

So what did I manage to do today? I put more slabs down. My six sections are now starting to take shape ready for my crop rotation. I am finding that having all different size slabs means that when I getting to the end of a row, I find myself looking for a slab that is the right size. I still need to do a bit more scavenging to complete my paths, but I'm starting to get an idea of what it's going to look like.

I mentioned before the holidays that I am going to be involved in a transatlantic project. It's called 'Garden Connect' and the idea is very simple. Gardeners from around the world have a 6×2 foot plot and we all grow the same plants comparing the progress and the results throughout the year, good or bad. It's all the idea of Matt Hiemstra, a young gardener from Canada. He is also a blogger and I hope you get a chance to read his blog and see how things progress with his, mine are all the other participants. It would be great if you wanted to take part.Here is a link to Matt's blog with all the information I think you'll need. http://hiemstragardens.weebly.com/1/post/2013/12/garden-connect-identical-gardens-across-the-globe.html
Happy New Year, till next time and thanks for reading.
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6 comments:

  1. Unknown5 January 2014 at 20:25

    Always glad to see someone as excited as me for the upcoming project! The list of plants has been growing daily and I've started working on preliminary layout for the 6x2 foot plot. If anyone would like recommend a plant we should grow I'm all ears, so long as it fits our theme of Seed To Table for 2014 meaning it needs to have an edible aspect to it edible!! Once again for more information, check out the Garden Connect page at http://hiemstragardens.weebly.com/garden-connect.html

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  2. Unknown5 January 2014 at 22:52

    companion plant using edible flowers to increase pollination and homes for insects to eat up the preditors

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  3. Unknown6 January 2014 at 23:21

    If you need a person from California to join the project. I volunteer. Contact me at stunsparrow@yahoo.com sounds like an interesting experiment. Have a good day. Hope to hear from you.

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  4. Unknown7 January 2014 at 20:23

    Hey Amy, I'll get in touch with you later today!! Glad to have another person on board!

    Lesley, The idea for edible flowers seem to be a popular one. though we are limited on space we are certainly going to try and fit some in! Thanks for your recommendations!

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  5. Unknown17 January 2014 at 18:12

    Good luck with the project and I would like to have a go here in Norfolk England. It will give me something to put up on my new blog....jerry

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  6. Lost The Plot17 January 2014 at 22:33

    If you get in contact with Matt Hiemstra, he's the man with the plan. You'll find him on Facebook and Twitter as well as his blog which has a link on this post.

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