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Margaret's Patch: December 2016
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Saturday, 31 December 2016. Looking back on the allotment 2016. This time last year we were busy clearing our daughter Helen's allotment ready for the new tenants to take it on and I remembered the shock of finding a dead chicken in the manure bin! That had come from the plot behind- poor chicken, we don't know how it got there. Now we just have the one plot to look after it has been so much easier. Read about plot 10b here. Most of the fruit has done well, we are still eating the apples which are stored...
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Margaret's Patch: August 2016
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Sunday, 21 August 2016. A garden for wildlife. We do quite a lot of garden visiting during the summer, some of them large gardens, others quite small by comparison. I like to visit other peoples' gardens to get ideas for garden design, planting schemes, spotting how well plants grow in different conditions. A few weeks ago Helen and I visited an NGS. Here were fruit bushes and a few salad and vegetable beds amongst the borders which contained many perennial plants and shrubs. This was a garden for wi...
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Margaret's Patch: June 2016
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Friday, 17 June 2016. Rebuilding the bug hotel. The first bug hotel we built on the allotment was a bit thrown together. It was done as an activity for the grandchildren when we made the woodland den. A couple of years ago. It was quite untidy, but wildlife like untidy places. However being used as a step by an intruder to climb over the fence from the next door plot hadn't helped with its stability. Foxgloves growing under the sycamore tree. I spent a very pleasant afternoon putting it all together and ...
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Margaret's Patch: January 2017
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Monday, 30 January 2017. Through the garden gate in January. There's not a lot you can do in the garden in January and being such a long, dull, dark and dreary month, if you like to be out gardening it can be quite depressing. I like to plant up pots of bulbs as well as having them in the garden borders. So I went off to the garden centre recently and bought little pots of snowdrops and crocus to plant up. They will go on the garden table or potting benches. On Sarah's blog Down by the Sea. When I arrive...
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Margaret's Patch: July 2016
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Tuesday, 26 July 2016. At last the leeks are planted. One of my favourite winter vegetables is leeks and I like to grow as many as I can. We've usually had a good lot of leeks to harvest down at the allotment, but last year they didn't do at all well. So I'm determined to do better this year. I łove planting leeks, it's so different from planting other vegetables. Make a planting hole with a dibber, pop the leek plant in then fill the hole up with water. Easy but back breaking! Tuesday, July 26, 2016.
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Margaret's Patch: October 2016
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Friday, 28 October 2016. There's something really cosy and homely about stocking up the cupboard with jars of preserves to see you through the winter. You've always got a jar to give to a friend or donate to a charity coffee morning. Last week I decided to make some spiced apple chutney. I found the recipe in the Sept/Oct issue of Landscape. Magazine. As with all the chutneys I have ever made, it is easy to cook, but takes hours to make. I've also made apple and blackberry jam. Click here. All that remai...
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Margaret's Patch: February 2016
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Monday, 29 February 2016. Through the garden gate. This week I am joining with Sarah at Down by the Sea. For her monthly garden slot- 'Through the Garden Gate'. In this slot you are invited through the gate into my garden. As we move through February and into March I am now looking forward to new growth in the garden. I am also thinking about new projects and plans I have for this year. Cyclamen and snowdrops in a shady spot. Here's another gate in my garden. it leads into what we call the woodland g...
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Margaret's Patch: May 2016
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Saturday, 28 May 2016. I really love our little wildlife pond and bog garden at the allotment. It was new last year and I loved finding plants which would grow in those wet and boggy conditions. It was a whole new area of gardening which I had little knowledge of, so I learnt quite a bit. As the new plants started to grow, the wildlife came along to live there and by midsummer it was looking great. Here come the frogs. We find the pond fascinating and spend a lot of time insect and tadpole spotting. ...
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Margaret's Patch: Allotment catch up
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Tuesday, 10 January 2017. It's very quiet down the allotments at the moment, not many people about. Some we won't see yet until March when the growing season starts again. This time of year though, is a good time to catch up on maintenance jobs. Like mending fences, making new beds, sorting out a new allotment. The birds were glad to see us, we hadn't filled up the feeders for a while. We have probably now refilled them three times in the last week. Tuesday, January 10, 2017. 10 January 2017 at 16:34.
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