how do you tell a plum from a pear when not in leaf?

Yesterday this search on google brought up no results, at least in the first 3 or 4 pages worth.
I needed to know because I came across some of the cheapest fruit trees I've ever seen on Saturday at £5.50 each. I've been wanting to put some kind of fruit tree in the garden for ages, toying with the idea of a very mini forest garden. Anyway, in what for me is a mad spending spree I bought a cherry, 3 plums and a 2 pears. I carefully stacked them out the back to await planting.
It blew up a hoolay that very night, "the wind blew as t'wad blown it's last" etc and all the labels blew off. The cherry was easy to sort out --paler bark and a much more delicate look all together. The other 5 bare root year old fruit trees were pretty much of a muchness. After careful studying I'm hopeful I've sorted them out. There was a very slight pale fleck mark running vertically on the bark of 2 of them and the other 3 seemed to be completely self coloured. So I've planted the 2 flecked ones (pears I hope) up at t'allotment, while the 3 plums are going to be trained against the fences in the garden. The cherry is going into a very big pot while I think about it.

I've been up the allotment in the dimsky 3 nights in a row now. The last two nights I've been there from just after 5 till 7o'clock. Even though it's been breezy up there both nights, I've been busy enough to stay warm. The view is phenomenal. The topsoil is 12-18 inches of really nice loam over a red clay subsoil. Things begin to recover a bit from the brutal strimmer haircut it had before hand over and I think I've got raspberry canes too. And one very neat row of oniony things. My body aches all over, but it's a muscular, I'm getting fitter type ache, rather than a my joints are going to catch fire or my tendons are getting shredded type ache (so far anyway).

oh also saw a very bright shooting star tonight. that or some space hardware dropping back to earth. It wasn't even properly dark yet and the moon was full. I must check if any showers are due.

Seed Potatoes-update

finally settled on (mainly due to availability when I'd finally decided)

arran pilot 1st early
Edzell Blue and Nicola (very small bags) 2nd early
Sante mc
pink firapple late main crop/salad

allotment and obredim process

There it is then. So, obredim stands for:-

Observation

Careful observation has revealed a couple of rhubarb crowns and about half a dozen strawberries, so some sort of yield shoud be possible, (you can just make out one of the crowns in the bottom left quadrant of the photo). Picture is taken facing fairly well due South. Prevailing wind is South Westerly and those trees down the bottom (I'm told by John, my next door neighbour but one) cast shade about half way up in winter. The slope is fairly steep (still to figure out how steep). I want to find out the altitude too, cos its quite high up.

Boundaries

Well the actual plot boundaries are visible in the photo. The allotment rules are another set of boundaries to consider, the no sheds above 1.5m thing is a bit difficult when I live so far away and love drinking tea in sheds. Apparently getting much of a yield from certain crops might involve setting some serious boundaries for thieving squirrels and pigeons. Time is definitely a boundary issue, especially this year just getting it at the beginning of the planting season, and just when the home garden needs attention too. but also in terms of the time available for maintaining it.

Resources

2 tool storage cupboards 1meter high

pallet compost bin (contents not very composty, but not fully explored)

a bit of weed proof membrane

John, my friendly new neighbour.

John's hose pipe that will reach all the way to the water standpipe.

water available on site

Evaluation

seems an odd place to put evaluation, before design, but I suppose you evaluate what you've got so far, and what you've learned from other design tools/processes you've used before designing, and then since its a circular process, you end up back there again after

Design

Implement

Maintain and then back to

Observe

broadbeans in yellow pages pots

Here are some more BB's in the yellow pages pots. Each pot is two sheets of yellow pages thick and uses no staples or fasteners. At planting out time the bottom of the "poke" can just be unfolded, although they might just disintegrate once they're in the ground anyway.

allotment panic

I have grown veg before, in fact I've shared an allotment before, and that might be the source of the panic... I know how much hard work it is but I still feel like a complete beginner. bought some seed potatoes, now chitting on the window sill, but still need more,

researching:
4 year crop rotations
companion planting, (savoury with broad beans)

should buy some lime for the brassicas.

made some nifty little root trainer pots out of old yellow pages and sowed my first lot of Broad beans.