Waark!com

New raised bed for the weekend June 30, 2008

What a weekend!

Up at 7:30 on a saturday! First job of the day was to get some wood from my local wood supplier (8:10) (I like to have something easy to work with when I’m so busy!) which I dropped at the allotment (8:25) with some of the lovely blue plant safe treatment.  Then it was off home to pick up bike (8:30) then to the garage to drop off the car for repairs (8:40).  Back to the allotment by bike (9:00) to start treating the wood!

First job was to paint it all up which I managed fairly quickly, then whilst the first side was drying I made up the small raised fruit box.  Back to finish the other side of the wood then I went over to the new allotment rooms (three portacabins that have been installed into our new loos, seed shop & equipment hire + meeting room) to help dig the grey water channel.  I managed five feet before the allotment committee secretary popped over and told me they’d had a go, thought it was too difficult and hired a digger to do it.

Bah.

Back to the plot to screw the harlow bed together and bang it into the ground where I found the old adage of ‘measure twice cut once’ should have been applied.  Ten minutes of extra digging and a further half hour of de-couch grassing and my blue bed was in.  I then emptied 14 bags of fresh and rotted manure into the box and mixed it into the thick London clay.

I sowed out a new set of dwarf and climbing french beans, carrots, spring onions and chives, planted up some lettuce, courgettes, squash, peppers/chilli and tomatoes. (click to enlarge planting plan to left)
Looks spiffing.

I also weeded the three sisters bed and noticed the other climbing french beans planted a couple of weeks ago have germinated and are steadily climbing the rather short sweetcorn!

The sugar snap peas have started to produce, unfortunately they’re only about 1/2 foot tall.  I used the cane supports to plant up my existing rather tatty looking beans in the hope they might take off!

I finshed off the afternoon by digging in my fruit tree and gooseberry bush and covering the floor with woodchip to try and delay the couch grass (fat chance).

By the time I got home I was told my rush was over and my better half didn’t fancy going to her friends birthday party after all (headache apparently).  I wasn’t to complain and sat down to watch Dr Who instead.

Sunday we had a 15% off voucher at homebase - the manager served us and screwed up the order three times, eventually leaving the whole thing to one of the sales assistants who got it right first time.  Our new purchase was an incinerator which I used to smoke our strawberry patch and neighbours with.

My first ever real lunch was down the lottie today - first in 1.5 years - a proper picnic with fresh salad off the allotment but peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes from somerfields (along with the chicken strips and brie which I wouldn’t have been able to pick anyway…)

We did some weeding but Sunday really was a lazy day.  Today my hands are b*gg*r*d and sore - though I’m not as sunburnt as usual.  Factor 100 must be working.  Pics to follow.

Strawberries! June 23, 2008

About six weeks ago I got my first set of berries - about eight in total and I was quite pleased with them.

Yesterday I pulled out my 6ish (probably 8th or 9th really if we count the casulties of ‘official quality control’) punnet.  I’ve had strawberries almost every day and they’re still fruiting and flowering.  Happy days.  But it wasn’t always like this.  Last year I started with no strawberries at all.  I’d only taken my plot on about six months before the strawberry season and the plot was somewhat bare - we’d got the raised beds but they were still settling in and not particularly strawberry friendly being 99% manure.

From the downsizer forums I asked around for anything that would help me start - Sally on the forums sent me several fruit canes (most of which perished, but a few survived), several different types of seed and a couple of strawberry plants which from what I could see looked like they had little chance of survival!  A few days later they had sprung right up and produced several strawberries that were very tasty.  By the end of the season they’d sprung runners - in total I think we had about 25-30 plants from them which I planted up into boxes at the start of this year.

So thank you once again Sally, it was eversokind to send me those all the way from ireland and they’ve really made a tasty difference on my plot!

Wow - Asparagus June 5, 2008

There I was last night (at 10pm, I’d realised I’d forgotten to close up the greenhouses and would need to make the trip down the lottie) pulling up a bit of mares tail and my hand closed around something completely different - it was quite, quite dark, but even so I could make out what looked suspiciously like asparagus.

The early morning trip today confirmed my suspicions.  Huzzah!

whatalotafuss May 11, 2008

Blimey, how much effort was that!

You come back from a small two week stint in the USA (and it did snow whilst I was away!) and perhaps a couple more weeks later you finally make it down to your plot. Of course by this time it’s about 3 foot deep in couch grass, but none the less still your plot.

My fiance started off by doing some of the more boring work by popping down to the hire shop and getting an industrial strimmer - that made short work of all the weeds and with some suppressant membrane and bark we’ve reclaimed the plot.

I managed to rescue the strawberries and get them in the earth, de-weeded most of the boxes and finally got the greenhouse up. Helen painted the shed with a strange purpley-brown colour, stuck in some more raspberry canes and planted some salad. That’s not all -there was so much else but it’s so difficult to recount a full two days labour!

When I got home this evening I sat down (rather stiff) and had a beer. After that I veritably jumped up and er… made some butter.

It’s a very strange, but good life.

Check out my pipes February 25, 2008

Below is a lovely picture of my drainage solution.  Hi-tech support solutions (bits of broken pallet and drainpipe) really add to the character.

Sheds! February 21, 2008

Since getting engaged Helens brother Tony offered to buy us a shed for our plot.  Last weekend we finally got round to getting it from Focus.  Yes it’s small and probably not sustainably sourced, but it is a shed and that is all that matters.

Our shed was lovingly put on six paving slabs on bare earth.  We shall see how silly this was in the forthcoming months.  Already the outside of the hut is very muddy, mainly from me running in and out exclaiming “we’ve got a shed!”

I’m not really that excited.  Well, maybe a bit.

Already we’ve strung our tools up, rigged up water catchments of sorts (that’ll be the first to fall down as it is supported mainly from bits of wood) and sorted out a potting shelf (cum-shed support)

Yes, there really is nothing holding the shed down at the moment - just a few pallets stacked to one side (my potting shelf) and a few bottles of beer inside to weigh it down.

Pics below!

Engagement January 5, 2008

I should also write of my wonderful lady friend who was mad enough to say yes on new years day.

As an engagement present we’re getting a shed from her brother!

Asparagus graveyard!

The asparagus is officially dead.  when I put it in last year, it sat around in the bag for a few days rather than going straight in whilst I quickly dug it a bed.  it was put in, but I had no real growing instructions.  Unfortunately the weeds got in quick and did the dirty on it over the summer.  During the clearup I did manage to hack it back, hoping in vain it would recover.  No soap, today it is like soggy paper.

I’ve also got rats in the compost bin, which I dug out today and the majority of it is lovely earth.  That went onto the ex-asparagus bed which has been split in two for early potatoes.  I dug over the old herb and carrot bed.  The all died anyway so it wasn’t much of a problem.

Also to note is the formation of the local allotment association and the introduction of polytunnels!  We really wanted one last year for the tomatoes and squash, but were turned down by the parish council.  Now we can take the old greenhouse that was offered to us and take out the glass and use the frame for the polytunnel.

I went home to return with lots of plastic bottles I’ve been meaning to take down there as my tempory greenhouses.  Whilst down there I spoke to a fellow allotmenteer who after hearing of my plight of the asparagus has shown me where a big patch of wild asparagus is growing.  I may be over there to split the crown later in the year!

Allotment clearing September 9, 2007

It’s the end of the season.  Almost.  It pretty much is for us as everything is either dead or dying and we’re looking forward to next year.  Hurrah.

Twenty minutes into the hand scything I realised it was a lost cause.  Sweating profusely I went into the nearest garden shop to buy a petrol strimmer.  £150 for the cheapest ‘oooh you don’t want that sir, it’ll break immediately’.  Hmmm…

So today I hired a nice big strimmer from mark1hire (must be more environmentally friendly to share) and set about our much neglected allotment with vengeance.  After a tank of petrol I’d cleared the whole site and had a fairly large pile of debris behind me which will become in time some decent compost or so I hope. I burnt a good measure to provide me with some ash for the heap.

What amazes me is the number of small hopefully slug unfriendly creatures we now have living on the allotment.  All my neighbours have ridiculously neat allotments covered in produce and no sign of pests.  The main reason must be chemicals.  That and I think they snigger as they toss them onto my plot.  Seriously though, did anyone know slugs can grow a foot long and arm wrestle a man to the ground? No? Oh.

Our allotment is literally teeming with small lizards (which I’ve never seen in my life except this year in tenerife where the place was infested with them, and no I didn’t bring them back with me…).  I’ve also found frogs have found my pond.  Actually I first found two or three huge drowned slugs with heads sucked off.  Then I noticed the frogs - at least they’re doing their jobs, so next year I must make the pond bigger for the wonderful amphibians.

So ok, I’ve not had the best year in allotmenteering, but at least where my plot was an empty desolate patch, it is now covered in wildlife, the odd useful plant, less couch grass and has potential for next!

And if anyone is interested, whilst clearing the site I fell down a bit of uneven ground and twisted my ankle quite badly but still worked through the day and be damned with the consequences.

Revisited

When I first took over my allotment last november I had a half plot rectangle of couch grass and mares tail.  It took a lot of motivation to be out there early december/jan putting up my boxes and filling them with manure - I wasn’t even sure it’d work though there had been plenty of people trying it and disappearing shortly after.

We dug over two small beds which have all in all not been particularly productive.  We’ve also had three manure beds doing, well, pretty much nothing (except a buckets worth of potatoes).  The 50/50 manure/earth bed has had more success with 24 strong sweetcorn plants each providing a cob of sizeable proportions.
My girlfriend on the other hand has been kept in salad for the entirety of the summer - which has been fairly annoying as I rarely saw any.  Only at one point did I break down during the summer months telling my girlfriend what do with the courgette she was cooking.  Yes, any idiot can grow them, as long as you can outsmart the slugs.

Successes:

Sweetcorn, Strawberries, potatos (a sort of success, though not as good as it could have been), courgettes, mini-cucumbers, beans, mange tout, chard, lettuce, mint, rhubarb, cabbage, leeks.

Failures:

Potatoes, onions (all mini), asparagus (didn’t see it at all), cucumbers (slugged to death), melons (slugs), carrots (carrot fly), butternut squash, basil (boy did we kill that repeatedly), chillies, peppers, ohdeargodthisissodepressing…

So, roll on 2008 and eight and see how we do then.