My Allotment Shed

My longed for shed has at last been delivered after a summer of waiting for a pause in Hubbies work schedule to help me construct it.  I spent most of the day in the wind and rain at the allotment not knowing when it would be delivered.  Luckily when it arrived the rain had stopped and the sun was out though it was still blowing a gale.

After waiting in the allotment all day my shed
eventually arrived mid afternoon.
With careful driving the delivery men were able to
get my shed sections really near my patch.

Ready to go but ...... must answer emails first!

 Wind blowing hard. Pete's beard is nearly horizontal!

The first join and the beginning of the hard work

Me painting hard. The panels were blowing over and the wind was whipping the paint from the brush!

The vertical building has begun and Pete has decided to become Chad!

Pete joining the sections

It can stand on its own.... so long as the wind doesn't blow too hard!

Pete doing manly things!

Doors on!

Roof on and putting the glass in and even a coat hook.

The beginnings of my tool collection.

The all important chairs for a well earned rest. Got the inside to paint yet.

What IS Pete doing?!

The back

All finished on the outside.

Early Autumn jewels

As the season turns surprisingly slowly to autumn this year my garden is loosing it's overall beauty but with just a little observation many wonderful sights can still be seen.  There is nothing better than pottering about finding delights at every turn.

My backdoor foot scraper hiding in the mind your own business.

Courtyard colour

This twinkles with the suns rays as they catch it in the afternoon

The bees are still busy

The sedum is doing extremely well this year

Garlic chives gone mad with an autumn fling!

Bay tree buds

Allium seed pod.  I really don't remember planting this but it reaches 6ft every year!

Autumn crocuses amongst the pansies

Can't remember the name of this plant but it's beautiful all the same.

White Autumn crocus

Callicarpa close up.  They are hairy berries - very wierd.

Callicarpa in all its glory.  Such a treat in the early autumn.

More white autumn crocus

Wonderfully striking Lobelia

The leeks I left from last winter. I will soon have loads of seeds for next year and pretty heads for the frost to fall on.

Autumn raspberries for my tea.

A newly cleared patch clawed back from the ivy filled with bulbs for year round interest.

The prize of my garden at the moment a waterlily autumn crocus.

My allotment over the summer

I have been really buy over the wonderful summer watering my crops and digging out weeds in a couple of beds in my garden and tending crops.  Now the autumn has suddenly hit - it was 28c last week! - I have different things to do but before I start I want to show you what I have been up to in my allotment since the last blog ending my new purchase yesterday at the bottom.

Go on holiday for a week and I have giants invading! I am really please with the onions.  I grew them from seed two years ago but they only made pickling onions and sets in my shaded garden but this year in the sunshine of my allotment they have grown huge.

The largest beetroot I have ever seen!  It actually cooked beautifully and wasn't woody at all.

Some more of my beetroot.  I have never been able to grow beetroots before in my garden - lots of leaves which are great for salad but no roots.  The allotment is paying off :)

My beetroot all vacuum packed and ready for the Sous Vide.  They freeze well in these bags and are actually easy to separate after.

More of my harvest just 2 days after.

Statice plants ot attract the bees with my courgette plants behind and my runner bean plants hiding behind those!

My broccoli plants have grown too big for their covers but it still keeps the pesky pigeons off.

The last of my beetroot fattening up.

My allotment yesterday.  One new HotBox compost bin - fill to the brim with weed tops and mess of my inherited compost pile to the right.  I have just begun digging where the onions and beetroot were over the summer to plant spring cabbages and leeks.

On the right where the black plastic has been killing the weeds all summer will be laid with paving stones ready to house my shed.  Exciting times!

Garden blitzing and finding my flower bed

Today I decided that as it cooler but not raining I would just dig out the geranium that had overgrown in my flowerbed and was in real need of digging out and replanting.  After a while I realised that the whole bed really needed sorting as the Ivy from next doors had crept in over the last year while it had been too wet for me to notice.  So, despite the temperature rising and rising I carried on digging and digging.  More and more pieces were cut away and dug up and I could begin to see my long lost flower bed again.

My flower bed at the beginning of the day - a mass of overgrown geranium and ivy

All this cleared out plus a bin full of roots. Shredding al this ment I could fit it in my compost heap.

So much clearer.  I can even see my flower bed edging!

Some of the many plant labels I found in my clear-up.  Many of the plants are long since no more.

The start of the replanting.  I repositioned the Phlox that had been suffering under the bush and planted the buddila  that I had bought last year when it was FAR too wet to even trad on the garden!

All clear and the tiny pieces of geranium replanted.

After a rest I decided to plant out the plants I had in pots into the bare bed The poor Cosmos was still in there seedling pots but the ones I had planted earlier in the month had doubled in size so there is hope for these too.

All in all a very productive day despite it ending up at 30c I seem to have got a lot done.