Back end of June 2021, the ‘Haven’ comes alive!
Seeds starting at home. We’re not really kitted out for seed propagation at the ‘Haven’ right now, and we've got the added challenge of furry friends! Best to get things going at home and get the seeds germinate and grow to small seedlings before we take them to the allotment for now. Next year will be different. Here we have lettuces and some self set tomatoes that we might be able to plant somewhere outdoors in pots.
With all the hassle over germinating seeds coupled with getting the soil all ready for a growing season, we’re a little behind and playing catch up. Hopefully we’re not too late to the party and things will fruit in time. We had problems with our brassicas and in the end we bought a lot of seedlings from the garden centre! Next year we will do better.
In an effort to prevent airborne disease and pests we are deploying some essential oils, hopefully these static diffusers will do the trick. Well, you have to try things!
While sorting out the area where Chris will begin to build a terrace / trellis / raised flower bed, he came across this root network! Well, it was a rather large Stinging Nettles plant which had managed to grow fairly uncontrolled right where the path between allotments is, and, under the manure pile we recently dug into the allotment. This wasn’t all of it though! This is about ⅓ of it! A little bit of drying out and before long, back in the ground as ash…
Two piles to distribute: one is the last of the manure, the second one is soil harvested from the roots we dried out on the pallets (mainly couch grass, bind weed and horseradish) mixed with an emptied fire which was full of ash. The area they are situated on, is slightly low in soil so it will be distributed on this quadrant.
Next week is the last day of June and beginning of July. We begin the construction phase of the ‘Haven’ (as if we haven’t been doing loads already) Plenty more to come!
