Potting Up

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I could really spend some time on the plot, so made the most of today. Have been going every night to make sure the seeds/plants were not drying out, but other than that, working on the house had been the priority. Had a bit of a disaster last week, the high winds we had on the Thursday night (just realised it was the 13th, typical), had pushed the greenhouse about six inches across the ground. Quite amazing really, as it was screwed down, the wind just ripped the screws out of two sides, and pushed. The only problem was that two sides were still attached, so it twisted, resulting in 6 smashed panes of glass. So spent Good Friday re-affixing the greenhouse. 3 inch srews into concrete, backed up by expanding foam filler. Believe me, it's going nowhere now, just hope I never want to move it. Also I now have two unknown variaties of tomato, as the wind blew the labels out of the seed trays, so I now have no idea which is Gardeners Delight, and which is Garden Pearl. No major drama tho', they are all doing well.

So, started off today by potting up some of the tomato's and Jalepeno chilli's. Took two of the best plants from each seed tray, and potted them into 3 1/2 inch pots. This way I have at least four of each tomato plant, and they will stay in these pots until I transplant them into the greenhouse. Also potted four chilli plants, and again, they will stay in the pots until I move them into the greenhouse (from the small plastic greenhouse that is).

Then came the major task of tackling the ground again. I had already dug over about three and a half metres, but had only turned one and a half metres into a raised bed, so the other two metres became weed city again. The plan is to have a total of nine raised beds on that side of the plot, so I thought I had better get cracking with it. By about two o'clock, I had managed to turn over about 25 square metres, not a bad days work. This has now been covered with weed control fabric (porous membrane) to try to stop the weeds coming back before I can get the raised beds built. The wood for the beds is currently at work, hopefully I will be bringing this home next weekend. It mainly consists of pallets that have been broken up. Most of the timber is about 2.5 metres long. So, not a bad days work all in all, apart from the ever growing pile of detritus that needs to go into the incinerator. Just waiting for a less windy day. The only remaining task for the day was to repair the leaking tap on the waterbutt. So, after draining the water out (luckely it was only filled from the hosepipe, otherwise I would have had to find something to drain it into), a rather large amount of silicone sealent was applied to the sides of the tap. Will wait for this to go off before I try filling the butt again. Don't want it to leak when I finaly get round to putting the drainpipe around the shed.

The time away from the allotment last week wasn't wasted. In between working on the house, I started planning the top end of the allotment out. This covers the land from the greenhouse upover, and can be seen in the image below. The opposite side of the land from the greenhouse will be a fruit cage, but other than that, I haven't really decided what I am going to do with the bottom end, other than knowing that there will be a pond in there somewhere. So, the image shows roughly what the plot will look like at the top end, with one or two changes. Beds 10 and 20 will become one long unraised bed, to accomodate a 'dead hedge'. Beds 23 and 24 will be joined together, but split to create a path down the length. This was decided after reading Sweetcorns rose arch post, so this will become the bean bed, with a 70cm path between two 40cm beds. Hopefully this will work. Bed 21 will more than likely be started as an asparagus bed, and 22 will most probably become an extension of this, and possibly the bean bed, depending on growth. The rest of the beds will be used on a rotation basis, haven't decided on wether this will be a three year or five year cycle yet, but there is plenty of time for that. The shaded area bottom left is going to be the fruit cage. This will be started once the raised beds are finished, read for next year. The shaded area that runes the length of the plot will be a drainage ditch, as our plots are on a slight slope, and I don't want to get waterlogged. Well, that's it for now. More next week hopefully. Tony

Bedding In

Well, thought I would join in with Paul and Dave, and give you an idea of what I look like, so one self portrait.

Anyway, an update. The greenhouse is fully glazed at last, all it needs now are some seeds to germinate (or failing that, for me to buy some tomato plants from Strikes). But there is plenty of time for them to come through.

Ambient temperature in the greenhouse is around 22 degrees, which I am quite happy with, so no problems there.

Moved the waterbutt from the back of the house, up to the plot, and fitted the tap, so just need to run the guttering around the shed now.

Had to attach a couple of bungee's to it, as when I arrived this morning, it was half way up the plot. Won't be a problem once it's got some water in, but until then, I don't want it blowing away again.

Additional to this, I am going to try to lay my hands on another two butts, one for either side of the greenhouse, as this seems to channel quite a bit of water in a downpour (which there were several during the course of today).

Also managed to get hold of a sheet of perspex from work, so now have a window in the shed, which came in quite handy today, as I had to have the door closed a few times when the heavens opened, so that was a worthwhile job today. The first and second earlies have been chitting nicely, and have nice sprouts on them.

Only problem is, I forgot to label which were which, so not sure which are the first earlies and which are the second. Will find out once they grow however, as the second earlies are pixie, which are a salad potato, whislt the first earlies are shearers express (or something along those lines).

If they come out allright, I will be very impressed, this being the first year, first sowing etc. Kinda makes it all worthwhile, so fingers crossed for that.

Next came the big job of the day, starting to turn the ground over, intention for today was to get two beds worth cleared and dug, even though I was only planning on planting in one today. Started by raking off the weeds, dead stuff etc, off the top of the ground, and putting this through the incinerator (which was an absolute nightmare to light for some reason), before getting the fork into the ground.

So started to dig in, and found the couchgrass roots from hell, these things were going down nearly two foot. The bloomin' stuff is everywhere. This was no easy task, but needed doing, so set to. The plan here was to dig three and a half metres wide by 4.3 metres long. This gives me two beds of 1.5 metres wide, with a .5 metre path between them. After about two hours of digging, pulling up couch grass roots, raking, removing the stones, digging, removing more couch grass roots, and snapping one of the tines off my fork ( typical, last time I'm buying a fork from homebases' own range, Spear and Jackson next time methinks), I finally had the area near enough cleared. Only had enough timber to lay out one bed unfortunately, so the other bed will have to wait for a trip to the lumber yard. So one raised bed layed out, 1.5metres by 4.3 metres, ready top plant. Gave it a good rake over to get the soil to a fine tilth, then in with the first and second earlies and shallots.

So now have a bit of progress on what at first was a bomb site of a plot. The seed trays from the plastic shelter have been moved into the greenhouse to help them germinate, and there are three rows of potatoes and a row of shallots in the first raised bed. Not a bad bit of progress for only just over a month I think. Next week I'll get the next raised bed layed out, ready for my maincrop potatoes and leeks, with another next to it for my carrots and parsnips.