Seeds of growth

Lots of seeds being sown today. The little paper pots were all made by Kathy using a wooden former, a huge pile of newspaper, and an endless supply of patience. This is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than lots of plastic pots which use lots of oil in their production. If we all use less oil, we might not need our 'leaders' to attack so many gulf oil states. Hey, Dig In builds the road to world peace! When the seedlings grow, we can pop the whole thing into the ground and the paper pot just rots down into the earth and produces less root disturbance (= stronger plants = more lovely veggies.)

Two new visitors today: Owen and Linda came along for the first time to see what we do. They braved a heavy shower of rain as we did the grand tour of the site, and Owen even got his hands dirty with the seed-sowing. They're both lovely people and we're all hoping they'll stay with us and help the project to grow.

So: world peace, lovely veggie, and wonderful people - not a bad day's work.

Jostaberry

What's Sean doing in that hole?

He's preparing the ground for the replanting of our new jostaberry bush which we'd previously put in the wrong place. A recent visitor to Dig In pointed out that we'd planted it too close to a gooseberry, and that jostaberries need a good deal of space. So Sean ventured out into the drizzle and put some muscle into digging a new hole for the bush. He fortified the soil with a good measure of fertiliser and set the bush in firmly, together with a stout stake for support as it grows bigger.

So what is a jostaberry anyway? Well, it's one of the new 'superfoods' - packed with vitamins and goodness, but don't ask me what it tastes like: at least, don't ask me until later in the year when we've harvested the fruits of Sean's labour.

Many hands

Plenty of people on site today, so we shared out all the jobs that needed doing.

Good to see Perveen back with us and Mary had overcome her poorly foot too. They joined in with Yvonne and Dominic, who were along for their first morning at the plot. All these good people teamed up to tidy up and weed the sensory beds, which are filled with herbs and flowers and are designed to look, smell, taste, and feel varied and wonderful. Even the pathways are studded with colourful marbles and tactile shapes you can feel underfoot as you stroll by. Some of the plants will need to be replaced in the spring as 'annuals' don't usually make it through the winter.

Nicola, Sean and Kingslee did a similar job of tidying up the bed and structure which is intended to house ladybirds: or Ladybirdland, as I like to call it. Didn't see any of the little spotted chaps, but hopefully they're sleeping through the winter in their snug little holes ready to emerge fresh and hungry to eat all the aphids that will want to eat our veg. That's our happy band in the picture, with Ladybirdland on the right.

Mary had brought a huge bag of donated seeds, which ben sorted into our seed store, ready for sowing at the correct time. Meanwhile, Kathy had a site visit and discussion with an eco-loo expert as we're looking at the feasibility of building a composting toilet.

Clearing the ground

At last. We've eventually found a morning that has been kind to us, and begun to set spade and fork into the soil for 2010.

Sandwiched between last night's snow and this afternoon's showers, we enjoyed a nippy but dry and bright morning. With fork, spade and trowel in hand, Kathy, Gill and ben set to clearing the first of the beds. We also popped a few flower bulbs into the soil; perhaps a little late, but they should hopefully spring up in due course and add some joyful colour to the Spring.

We also met with a new eager grower, Sean, who will be joining us to help out on the allotment. Sean, who has been working with a local volunteering scheme, comes highly recommended as a bit of an expert with a strimmer, so amongst other activities there'll be plenty for him to do when the grass begins to take over our community orchard again. Welcome Sean - we look forward to having you alongside.

New Life

Here's the very first seedling of 2010, just shooting out from the compost. It's a melon, in case you're wondering. It was raised under a simple, inexpensive propagator top from Wilko's, placed on a window ledge in a warm room.

Starting early seeds off indoors is a great way to get a head start on the growing season, even when it's too cold and wet outside to think of sowing anything in the soil. Tender plants, such as melons, peppers, and tomatoes can be germinated (ie. started from seed) in trays of compost in the house, with a propagator top which acts like a tiny wee greenhouse. The propagator top is removed once the first shoots appear.

Once the plants are big enough they are usually 'potted on' - that is, transplanted into larger pots to give the roots more space to spread out. Then you can start 'hardening off' by putting them outdoors in spring for increasingly long periods each day until they're finally able to look after themselves out of doors once there's no more danger of a bad frost.

These melons will eventually go into our polytunnel, rather than outdoors. They need the extra warmth provided by the tunnel's protection even in spring and summer. By starting the melons off nice and early, they have plenty of time to grow. They need to be quite big and be producing fruit in good time for the summer, which is when there will be enough heat and sunlight to ripen the fruits. That way we can dare to grow sweet, juicy melons which are not normally associated with our British weather.

Winter colour

The skies over Stapleford may be cold, bleak and laden with snow, but there is still plenty of colour to bring cheer on the Dig In allotment.

OK, so this might be cheating, but the beautifully painted mural on our storage container-cum-tool shed comes into its own when the earth isn't producing much in the way of natural blooms. Those beds in the foreground are just a small part of what the Entry to Employment (E2E) team achieved last year. Great work from those lively young people to transform a patch of bare earth into well-made paths and beds which are just oozing potential. You can expect those beds to be bursting with colour and goodness once we're into the growing season.

Now, here's some more natural colour: Autumn-planted onions shooting above the earth, full of promise for the year ahead. They were planted as 'sets', which are like miniature bulbs and, having rested in the earth through the worst of the cold, are now beginning to put up some lush green growth above the soil. It will still be a while before the bulbs swell into tasty onions but, when they do, the head start they've had will allow us to pick and enjoy them a few weeks earlier than any Spring-sown onions.

And finally, something that's already available to eat. Winter lettuce growing in the shelter of our polytunnel. Amazing, if you associate salads with Summer only. Those frizzy leaves may look delicate, but they've grown through the winter, even when the snow-filled days and frosty nights brought temperatures plummeting inside the tunnel. They're quite hardy and will thrive when other plants won't survive. They'll keep growing back after you cut a few leaves, so long as you let a few leaves and the root behind. They live tough, but taste tender; in fact they really do taste as good as they look.

What we did Wednesday 3rd February

We arrived to find the site blanketed by a hard frost: beautiful, but any digging was out of the question.

A walk around the site put us in mind of various jobs that need doing: drag the weed from the pond; renew the wild flowers in the insect zone; identify and label all the plants in the sensory garden once they emerge in Spring.

The winter salads in the polytunnel are looking well, and some of us treated them to a little light weeding whilst the others set our newly-purchased seed potatoes ready for chitting. It will be a couple of months before they go into the soil, but the rows of tubers are a fine reminder of what we can look forward to. Mary chose them from the Nottingham Organic Gardeners' potato day, and she has selected a good range of cultivars.

Kathy and ben counted all the beds on site because we plan to number and label tham all. This will make it easier to reference them and so aid with planning and crop rotation in future. Wow - the site has over fifty beds. What a tribute to everyone who has worked so hard to put the infrastructure in place.

Ben has obtained some scrap wood for the labels, but we are likely to need more in order to complete the task. Let him know if you can contribute anything from this list:

• wood for labels (about 5" width and 1/2" section is ideal, but larger sizes can be adapted.)


• wood for pegs (about 1" width and 1/2" section is best, but larger sizes can be adapted)


• unwanted tins of outdoor or household paint


• unwanted tins of varnish

It would be good if we could use leftover materials, so check your loft, shed, garage, or wherever else you dump the stuff that you can't bear to throw away.

With little else to do, we retired for coffee, muffins (thanks Nicola), and chat. Discussion centred around a banner for our big events this year, and Nicola obliged with an excellent design. We also finished sorting our stock of seed into date order, ready to be sown at the right time of the forthcoming season.

Our stock of seed looks good, although there are still some that we need to obtain, if we are to grow everything we'd like to this year:

• borlotto bean


• cauliflower, Romanesco


• beetroot, Chioggia Pink


• tomato, a variety of different cultivars


• carrot


• courgette, though not too many


• sunflower


• sweet peas, any favourites?


• shallot sets


• garlic bulbs

Anyone who is going to this month's Beeston Transition seed swap event can help by looking out for these.