I have realised I haven't taken very many photographs of my allotment this year, so this afternoon after I had finished planting I decided to take a few.
This first photograph is the view from my allotment, in the distance you can see Hoad Monument. The monument is a 100ft tower built on the top of Hoad Hill in Ulverston, it was built in 1850. It commemorates Sir John Barrow who was born in Ulverston in 1764, he was a founder member of the Royal Geographic Society. Hoad Monument is open to the public, I've attached a link to a leaflet from the Ulverston Council website which lists opening times and a detailed background on Sir John Barrow, here
The first raised bed has two different types of beans in so far, Minidor Yellow Dwarf French Bean and Aquadulce Longpod Broad Bean, I have grown all of these from seed. Unfortunately out of the eight broad bean plants I had grown from seed, only four survived.
The second bed belongs to my 4 year old nephew, he has planted a row of crispy lettuce, long and round carrots.
The next bed is full of white Sturon onions.
This is our latest allotment bed, it was full of old strawberry plants, which were not producing very many strawberries so we decided to get rid of them and sometime in the future we will be building two more raised beds especially for strawberries. In the meantime we dug and sieved the soil and dressed it with lime and two weeks later I planted Organic White Globe Turnip, Organic Rubine Brussels Sprouts, Green Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower and Long Leaf Kale.
The big fern type plant is Sweet Cicely, I am loathe to dig this out as it smells fantastic in the summer, a lovely aniseed type smell, I have stewed rhubarb with a few of these leaves and have also used the seeds in homemade bread, so for the moment it's staying where it is.
At the side of the brassica bed, I have three very large red and green gooseberry bushes and a large blackcurrant bush, in front of these I have nine rhubarb crowns. The other side of the raised beds is a green gooseberry, two blackcurrant bushes, one redcurrant and one white currant bush. We also have two small cox's apple trees.
The next bed has three rows of Bright Lights Chard, three rows of Giant American Spinach, one row of Scarlet Globe Radish, one row each of Organic Rocket, Red and Green Salad Bowl Lettuce, Mizuna, Green Crispy Lettuce.
The last bed has two rows of Johnsons Boltard Beetroot, three rows of Chase Organic Detroit Globe Beetroot, three rows of Savoy Cabbage, and three rows of Pointed Cabbage.
The cabbage plants should really not be planted in with the Beetroot as this bed was going to be the 'fibrous' bed, but I ran out of space so they have had to go together.
There is one plant in the allotment I definitely would not like to be without and that is Soapwort, as it's name suggests it is a form of soap, take three or four leaves and rub them between your hands with a little bit of water and a green foam starts to happen, keep rubbing the leaves together and your hands soon become clean. Apparently the National Trust also use Soapwort to clean some of their old tapestries as modern detergent is too harsh. In the Summer Soapwort also produces small pale pink flowers which have a lovely delicate scent.
My one and only Rhodedenron. This is the only plant that was originally in the allotment when I took it over ten years ago, the rest of the allotment was like a field just full of couch grass and nothing else.
I still have a few other photographs to share but this will have to wait until tomorrow.
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