Autumn Alliums

My robin friend trusts me more and more. It keeps me company and enjoys all the worms I unearth. Could it be the same robin friend from last April? They're fiercely territorial little cuties, so I'm inclined to think so 🥰

As I moved some bricks from one place to another, again, robin friend went for this woodlouse but changed its mind, flinging it aside. Now I have to rewatch A Bug's Life. Yoo-hoo! Mr Early Bird! How about a nice, tasty worm on a stick? Definitely going to sneak it in amongst some Christmas films.

As robin friend knows, there's a lot of progress to report. I've taken annual leave and spent most of the daylight available at the plot.

Remember those pallets I lugged through the streets of Sheffield last year? Yeah, I still haven't used them. Compost bays were high on my priority list in theory, but in practise I never managed to clear back to the compost bay area as planned. Can you even see them among the nettles?

The pallets aren't the only things reclaimed by nature. Where this years pumpkins were didn't get much weeding, since it was hard to get in there without disturbing the pumpkin plants.

In the photo below the pumpkin patch started just before the barrow and extended well past. Yet you can't see where the bed ends, it blurs into as yet uncleared ground. Life, uh, finds a way.

With crop rotation and the position of the sun in mind, this seems like a decent spot for alliums including onions and garlic for next season.

Previously I planted out onion sets in April, and harvested in August. I only grew them initially as they were a gift from my allotment neighbour. It didn't seem worth giving over the space at first, since onions are cheap from the shops and as far as I know taste pretty much the same. However, it continues to be surprisingly rewarding to have a home grown staple in storage for use through winter.

Clearing the pumpkin patch to make way for new alliums was a much bigger job than I anticipated – easier than the first time around, but time consuming. Next year I'll be sure to train squash in such a way that I can still weed if needed. I'm also mulching as much as possible, but without those compost bays it's expensive.

I uncovered the pallets as a statement of intent and in the mean time brought in some more compost and manure.

Those five 50 litre bags didn't go as far as I hoped, at a good enough depth to suppress weeds. I ended up applying a good 3-5cm of compost on the first 1m x 3m, or so, and then followed with strulch (mineralised hay) over that and the rest.

In go alliums! 12 Elephant garlic, 20ish Solent Wight garlic, just 8 Golden Gourmet shallot, and about 24 of some kind of onion. We'll see how many make it. With the space I have cleared for them, I've prioritised getting garlic in the ground over onions. I'm interested to see how this autumn sown variety pans out though.

In other news. I've spent a good few years of my life trying to minimise plastic use, obsessing over plastic wrapped lettuce. This week I bought 4m x 20m of black plastic to run along the left hand side hedge. As I continue to use organic mulch and elbow grease to maintain existing beds and clear new ground on the right, that plastic will act as a mulch to clear further areas for cultivation.

Unfortunately for me, the pile of bricks I moved from the back of the plot and neatly stacked were in the way again so I spent a morning rearranging my bricks and rubble. A satisfying job, in fairness. With a widened path, the plot is now 2% more buggy accessible. Hazards remain high.