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Katrina’s Allotment Diary

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Hello from Nottingham, UK

Recent Posts

  • Mini Apple Turnovers
  • Sensei Secateurs – Garden Tool Review
  • Minted Pea & Ham Soup
  • Volunteering at RHS Chatsworth Flower Show
  • April Allotment Tour Video
  • TOP 10 Seed Choices with Suttons

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[#AD] It’s time to start sowing your sweet peas! 🌸 These beautiful fragrant flowers are an absolute must for your allotment or garden. They love to be sown in deep containers for their extra long roots to establish before being planted outside. That’s why I’m using the nifty biodegradable grow pots from @lovewilko. For my ‘Old Fashioned Mix’ sweet peas, I like to add some perlite into my multipurpose compost mix to help water retention and soil aeration to encourage healthy roots. I love shopping at @lovewilko for my gardening goodies because they have everything you need to get growing! 🌱 I especially enjoy mooching around their great value seed range for all my essential salads, vegetables and flowers. The colourful seed packets always inspire me to grow new varieties and I’ve always experienced great results such as my ‘Romano’ peppers last year! I’m also loving my fab new portable potting box, have you seen it before? It’s fast becoming my favourite new gardening gadget! 💚 I can sow my seeds where ever I like, whilst keeping my surfaces clean and if it begins to rain I can simply fold up the sides, make a run for the polytunnel and carry on inside where it’s dry! Genius. #lovewilko #growyourown #allotment #sweetpeas #allotmentlife #cutflowers #seeds #sowingseeds #gardener
The ‘Harvington Dusky’ hellebores are the star of the show on my allotment right now. Theres something pretty sexy about those gothic, smoky purple flowers against the backdrop of ferns in my little woodland corner! 💜 Are you enjoying any new blooms in your garden yet? . #helleborus #hellebore #gardenershands #gardening #allotmentlife #flower #purpleflowers #thatwinterspringthing
Welcome to the world little Bahamian Goat chilli! 🐐🌶 There’s been lots of germination taking place over the last few days and some of the first ones up were from the seeds I saved from last year’s chilli harvests. 🙌🏻🔥 They’re almost all up now! I’m not sure if it’s just me, but sometimes it feels like my spare room has become a little plant nursery and I’m the midwife bringing new life into the world, taking care of all the precious newborns 😄🌱☀️ . #growyourown #chilli #seedling #growwhatyoueat #allotmentlife #homegrown #dowhatyoulove #chilliplant #gardener #vegetablegardening #germination
#tbt I’m not going to lie, I really wanted to see some vivid colour and my ball shaped bouquet of dahlias is giving me that fix right now 😌 A whole new dahlia season will be on us and I’m looking forward to adding some new varieties to my collection. You may have noticed that the flowers on my plot tend to have a white-pink-burgundy theme. I never use to be a fan of pink, and you still won’t find any in my home or wardrobe, but for some reason I just love soft pink flowers. I’m planning a sunset colour theme flower bed on my shared plot with Zorun where I will be growing some bright yellow pom pom dahlias mixed with sunflowers and calendula. I can’t wait! 🌻🧡🌼🌺 . #dahlia #flowers #garden #gardening #cutflowers #bouquet #growyourownflowers #cutflower #cafeaulait #wizardofozdahlia #cosmos #natal #cremedecassisdahlia #growyourown #dowhatyoulove #petals #allotment #gardener #allotmentlife #dahliawars #growyourownflowers
I’ve declared this week to be squash week! 💛 I finally cut into my whopping great big, 3kg butternut squash last night after storing it for 3 months and I’m so excited to make as many different meals as I can with it! Last night I made a squash and chick pea curry. Tonight I’m going to use the leftover curry to make pasties to take to work tomorrow! . Even though I’m going to enjoy all the squashy food this week, my priority was to scoop out the precious seeds, dry them and save them for growing new plants and sharing with others. 🌱 It’s amazing how long squash can be stored for and it’s so easy to save the seed! I wash mine in a sieve under the tap, dip it in a bowl of water and use my fingers to rub off any remaining squash flesh. Then I drain off the water with a little shake and tip them onto a sheet of greaseproof paper and allow them to air dry naturally for up to 7 days. Once they are definitely dry, I will transfer them into a labelled glass jar. Remember if they aren’t fully dry they could turn mouldy! . I’m so excited to grow these again this year but saving squash seeds comes with a risk. The new plants might not turn out exactly the same as the original and could have some rather unusual characteristics. That’s because I didn’t hand pollenate the squash flowers who are from a very promiscuous genus. The Cucurbitaceae family includes squash, pumpkin, cucumbers, courgette (zucchini) and melon! This means that the seeds I have saved could have been cross-pollinated with any other cucurbitaceae plants nearby! BUT, I could end up with an entirely new variety, crossed between my humungous butternut squash and the super sweet honey boat squash that I also grew. The result from that would be amazing. 🤩 I think it’s worth the risk just to see what will grow, don’t you? I would love to know if you have you ever grown any funky cross-bred plants! 👩🏻‍🌾
Fortunately my 375 square meter plot escaped the thick blanket of snow that many of you are currently snuggled under! ❄️ Looking at my winter allotment, I’m so pleased with how it’s looking. I put in a lot of hard work over the last 12 months and it’s really paying off. The green manure is slowly growing, the bulbs are beginning to come up through the soil, my paths are freshly wood-chipped and the side of the shed area is finally tidy. 🙌🏻 Now that I’m feeling prepared for spring on my own plot, it’s time to take a look at my new shared plot and get the ground ready. I’ll be there for a few hours tomorrow to have a look around and see how much work I have to do! 👀 I hope that you’re keeping warm and are enjoying the weekend my garden friends!👩🏻‍🌾 . #allotment #garden #growyourown #allotmentlife #homegrown #nottingham #growwhatyoueat #sustainableliving #dowhatyoulove #urbangardening #gardenersofinstagram #shed #polytunnel #myhappyplace #thesecretgarden #girlswhogarden #vegetablegarden #urbangarden #allotmentlove
I think today will be remembered as the day when the frost never thawed and the fog never really lifted. I keep having to pinch myself. It was four months ago now that I left my office job behind to embark on my new life, one where I’m permanently outdoors and in my element! I’ve never looked back. Not even on these freezing cold days when the air temperature is -4°C. I’m often asked how I keep warm. I wear layers and lots of them, that way I can quickly take them off if I’ve worked up a sweat like when I’m chopping logs! 😅 On an average winter day I wear two pairs of socks, three bottom layers and six on top. Then there’s my hat, scarf and I wouldn’t be without my Winter Touch @goldleafgloves! 🧣🧤Not a day goes by when I don’t think about how lucky and grateful I am to be here. #gardener #estate #careerchange #gardening #formalgarden
💪🏻 The big plot tidy is now complete! Thanks to your help (by voting in that poll) I finally cleared out all the rubbish that was haunting me at the back of my allotment 🧟‍♀️ When you take on an allotment garden there’s usually a tonne of rubbish that comes with it, left over from the previous owner. This mess has been playing on my mind for a long time and it feels SO good to have it all tidy and no longer stuffed away out of sight! Take a look at my new YouTube video to see the transformation! ✨You can find the link in my profile. 👩🏻‍🌾 📽 . #allotment #mariekondoing #growyourown #gdnbloggers #vlog #allotmentlife #gardener #organicgardening #urbanorganicgardener #vegetablegarden #gardenersofinstagram #wintergarden #nottingham #growyourownfood #dowhatyoulove #vegetablegarden #garden #gyo
There’s no Instagram filter that can beautify those muddy root veggies but this is homegrown goodness as fresh as it gets! I roasted up some of the parsnips last night and I hope to make some parsnip and beetroot crisps this evening if all goes to plan. 🤞🏻 I decided to clear the majority of the winter bed before the weather gets really bad. So I weeded and mulched the bed and the remaining chard with a blanket of compost just before the snow arrives this week! ❄️ . #allotmentlife #homegrown #eatfresh #reality #growyourownfood #growwhatyoueat #allotment #gardener #parsnip #beetroot #grownfromseed #girlswhogarden #ediblegarden #veggiepatch #gardening #winter #rootveggies
Returning home from the Nottingham Potato Day with a huge box o’ spuds! 🥔Thank you for sharing you favourites varieties with me in the week, I’ve bought lots of your suggestions! 😁 . What’s in the box? The potato varieties include Ratte, Pink Fir Apple, Cara, Charlotte, Highland Burgundy, Pink Gypsy and Yukon Gold! I know it looks a lot and I did get a bit carried away, but some of these are for work and I’ll be growing a lot of them on Zorun’s plot! . I also picked up my ticket to see @charles_dowding’s talk in March, some heritage seeds from Thomas Etty, a couple of golden raspberries canes and some mashua, which is a climbing flower similar to nasturtiums but it grows from a tuber and the entire plant is edible! . Big thanks goes out to the members of Nottingham Organic Gardeners for organising and hosting this special day year after year. 🥔💛 Potato Day is such a great event for the grow your own community to share tips, find new varieties and it was so nice to meet some of you today! Now I just need to make some room to chit all of these 🙈 . . #potatoday #surroundedbyspuds #homegrown #eatfresh #potato #allotmentlife #growyourown #vegetablegarden #gyo #gardener #dowhatyoulove #nottinghamorganicgardeners #gardenersofinstagram #harvest #growwhatyoueat #organicgardening #chemicalfree #allotment #gardener #homegrowntastesbetter
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© Katrina Harrison aka Homegrown.Garden, 2014. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without written permission is strictly prohibited. Excepts and links may be used, provided that full an clear credit is given to Katrina Harrison, aka Homegrown.Garden with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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