Planting At Last!

 April 17th - First crop being planted out

The weather had been good, the activity levels high, the soil being prepared.

As you can see in the first picture, potatoes are going in. Maybe the troughs weren’t that deep, maybe we shouldn’t have used manure, perhaps watering wasn’t necessary but we did them all anyway!

Where did we get the potatoes from? The supermarket - and they had already started growing roots in the bag before we put them in the ground. But there is a little extra story here. 

Although we had made a start on all three growing patches, we focused on the one nearest the polytunnel, this is where we intended to sow the potatoes anyway. This second weeding business was easier than pre-Christmas, but boy oh boy weren't there plenty of them lots of small tuber-like plants which we eventually found out were in fact edible (much much much later it was, like in November, when we did discover this, but tiny though too, hardly potatoes!) 

We also sowed carrots and parsnips straight into the soil. Maybe a little early but hey ho, let’s hope something comes of them. 

In the meantime we had a pile of manure delivered! I (Desi) was singing and dancing in excitement at the sight of it and surprised myself there - never in my life had I ever imagined it possible that I could be so happy over a pile of stinky shit!

We ordered the manure up because we felt the soil could benefit from some extra support, perhaps some fiber. It looked like an onerous pile, but we figured if we dug this into the soil as we went over it again (the second time ) that it would help along our first growing season on the plot.

POLY (short for "polythene") + TUNNEL (it looks like one)

 31st March - The Polytunnel

This is about as exciting as it gets!

Thus far, we have dug, dug, and more 'dugging', but now we have a new toy!! 

The ground had been meticulously prepared (or so we thought) and we were enthusiastically erecting our brand new polytunnel… Neither of us, neither Chris nor I (Desi) had put together or commissioned a polytunnel before, although Chris for sure had worked in a greenhouse and I had seen one from the outside and knew for sure that cucumbers like the climate in one.

The day had been well selected, no sign of rain and no wind. The recent weather hadn’t been too kind and consequently here we are almost the middle of spring with our first chance to swing into action.

After a few blind alleyways, some mistakes etc, it was done!! The two spades were a very good replacement for another pair of hands - see how well they can hold the poles?

The polytunnel looked awesome, we congratulated ourselves and staked the whole thing down with 9 stakes that looked serious enough for the job at hand - Chris had purchased those additionally because we knew we had to play it safe! We had a few buckets with soil in, so we dotted them around the polytunnel for extra weight in case the wind got up.

Although the ground was a little uneven we decided that this was enough for one day and we would sort out the finer details on another day. 

In the last picture you can see the beginnings of changing over the path from grass to wood chip. We had done the same thing inside the polytunnel - use cardboard on top of the weeds/grass and then place wood chip on top of the cardboard. We hoped it would work, but having never tried it before couldn't be sure for real.

First Documented Visit of 2021

27th March 2021

Coming back after winter and the festivities of Christmas. 

As you can see by the pictures, spring is advancing with the fresh signs of green growth. The winter has done its job of breaking down the soil with freeze-thaw and it is much more workable and the weeds easier to extract than prior to our winter break.

We had already been down to the allotment a few times prior to these pictures. As you can see in the picture above the two smaller plots have already been dug, ready for the brand-new polytunnel that Desi had as a Birthday present. We haven’t even had a chance to consider putting this up with the wind and rain but the time approaches now. Neither of us have ever erected a polytunnel before so we are excited to take this task on… perhaps next week!

In the final picture you can see the plot is beginning to take shape. The three roughly 4m x 4m main growing plots with their associated paths are now clearly visible and the 3m x 3m plot mapped out for where the polytunnel is going to go. The rest of the plot is as yet undefined, but we know there will be a rest area and composting bins.
 

As we were digging the polytunnel areas we took advantage of some bags of free leaf mulch from one of the allotment holders and dug that in too. This mulch will hopefully add some minerals back into the soil ready for tomatoes and other crops destined for inside the polytunnel during the coming season.

Acquisition of some “free” bricks meant that the fire could grow a bit too…. More space now to actually burn things! (weeds etc.)