26th-31st August 2021, New project, Seeds and Floods
Well, what do we have here?
No sooner one project completed another begins. We are running out of time in 2021, the shorter cold days will be with us soon enough and the available days through weather tend to reduce as well this time of year.
So in another part of “The Haven” some pallets have been stacked so that Desi can paint (with wood preserver) the first part of our brand new table, created from recycled pallet wood. The second picture is the second part of the table, awaiting the same treatment. When weather protected, the assembly process will continue.
Meanwhile, the first Marigold we planted is bushing out in the raised bed around the terrace. This plant was becoming pot bound in a yoghurt pot but as soon as it was planted in the raised bed it began to take off as you can see.
We will be leaving some flowers on the marigold to harvest as seeds for next year, just as we are doing with the runner beans. So important to plan the seed production into the harvesting timetable as next year's crop will come from this exercise.
What do you make of the next picture?
Looks like a huge deluge has hit us, but has it?
During this construction phase we have removed a lot of earth from just inside our plot. This you have seen from the Terrace construction project and also where the actual woodworking is done, a lot of earth has been excavated there and also for the compost bins. What this has meant is that although the terrace is almost as high as the ground was, the area isn’t solid soil any more, nor the work area where the table is being created, which is at least 60cm lower than the road.
Just out of picture on the right hand side is a water tap…
And this tap had been turned on by someone and left on. The plot owner opposite ours had to use Wellington boots to get through the water to turn off the tap, but not until hours after it had been turned on and left running.
Consequently this water (and there is a propensity for a puddle in the road to form here too) gathered around our plot and then of course filtered through the soil and under the terrace and additionally right where the compost bins / work area reside.
The pictures shows you how waterlogged the whole area is, and this is sometime after the event - the water had been turned off some time ago before we discovered all this carnage.
Fortunately drainage had been on my mind whilst building and no serious damage had been done, a little bit of rejigging next phases of work has now been thought about to ensure no damage is caused by a similar event in the future. We have also requested moving the water pipe (that has gone down like a concrete zeppelin with other folk) if only to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
Desi took a picture of the waterlogging at the other end of our allotment some 11 metres away… and this carried onto the plot below us too! I dread to think how many gallons of water were wasted in this event alone.
The last picture above provides a visual explanation as to what happened:
All the way along the internal allotment road, no water! We have had a few days of no rain actually. And the road is bone dry except for around out plot and you can see the standpipe with the blue downpipe just right of centre in the picture. The puddles remain on our side but the whole area around the plot was under water! We are definitely looking to get this issue resolved soon…
We thought that growing food and allotments would be a simple process. But… , you also have to deal with the vagaries of people too. That’s often the hardest part!
