30th April 2022, Just a few tidying up jobs left now…
Here we are at the end of the second month of spring, and the last bits of bark have now fallen off these two stumps we purloined well over a year ago. We rescued them from the communal area where the wood chip is stored for everyone's use. I thought one of them might be used as a kind of a chair, the other one, heavy enough, to hold things down perhaps. Anyhow, the bark fell off due to the weather, and we have now used some wood preserver on them, and they look really nice, well, we think so!
Inside the polytunnel we now have a convenient shelf all around which is serving as a nice ledge on which to “grow on” tomato plants (and other things). Last year there were weeds all around the edges of the polytunnel, so this year it’s very nice to know that we have dealt with all that. Things will be growing where they are supposed to be growing!
Plants are also doing well in the cold frame. As we have a heater for in here, it is suitable for both germination and growing of the established plants.
The grass is now starting to grow which means regular cutting soon. The grass seeds are also beginning to germinate although difficult to see until things start to look green. There are a few jobs still to do (not big ones): rebuild the fire, using a slightly larger concrete slab for the base, wood chip for covering and final groundworks around the door of the polytunnel, a wood surround to hide the water pipe in the middle of the allotment and finding a home for these pallets, off the plot where we intend to grow the brassicas this year.
While I am doing the above in a few weeks time, Desi will be planting out the tomatoes and other plants that are ready to go out.
Under the net there we have a few Brassicas from last year, brussels, and Kale. The leeks got infected by some fly, which basically renders them inedible… but the scent here is wonderful. We are leaving the leeks in for seeds.
This fire is a bit of a mess at the moment: I need to empty the ash and put it on the ground somewhere and then rebuild the fire. We still have a lot of wood to burn. You can see the bark from those two stumps behind there.
Inside the polytunnel is a very handy place to put the tools we leave at the allotment. This little corner provides a very handy place to store a lot of things we use each day, without taking up a lot of room. We also have a work surface to put some plants that will be going out soon. We have Lobelia there and courgettes maybe? We’re both looking forward to the planting out exercise, and while Desi does that, I (Chris) will start on the second allotment project, a lot to do there as well…
