Maintenance, Management And Potting On

 27th-30th May 2022 - Maintenance, Management And Potting On

During February of this year we had some pretty strong winds, some say the worst on record. Anyway, there was plenty of devastation on the allotments. Although we got away reasonably lightly, one of the things that sustained some damage was the trellis. You may have seen in some of the pictures that the trellis was leaning towards the road.

So, the job of sorting out the trellis that was added to the bottom of Chris' job list back then, has now come to the top, and is pretty much the last job before he can focus his attention on the new plot. It was also left till now as it was a bit of a challenge to figure out how to deal with the problem.

So this is a two stage task. The first will be to attempt to secure the pole which sustained the most damage (and is the middle one too) with the other side of the raised bed. The old water pipe pole was hammered in quite a long way to provide the anchor (that is the one with the white scratchy markings on it, not the white paint) and then it was secured to the raised bed wall and all solidified with parallel woods supports to the main centre beam of the trellis. 

In the future there are plans to fix a 3m pole the other side of the grass and decorative fence with a beam to the top of this same trellis centre pole and maybe turn it into some kind of living pagoda, anyway that is for the future. For now we are enjoying the green grass!

We acquired a new sledge hammer🔨… you can spot this in the picture of the terrace with the grass, table and fence (3rd photo)… on the right hand side next to the black tool case, on the other working terrace. Very useful for hammering in poles and beams, this will be getting plenty of use, no idea how we managed to build all this without a sledge hammer to be honest.

Picture number 4, the finished article. Doubles up as a little drinks table when entertaining. Let us hope this keeps things in place for the time being. Some border plants have now made their way into the raised bed. These were also a little late going in, but Chris needed to dig holes to sort out this trellis, so the planting was waiting on this job being finished off.

We are quite pleased with this bit of landscaping: the wall, the herbs, the terrace, grass, planters and fence, all combining to provide a very enjoyable rest space.

Meanwhile, back in the polytunnel, we are gathering quite a collection of plants that are waiting to be planted outside. The trouble is we’re running out of places to plant them! The new plot beckons… just as well we are running out of tasks that need our immediate attention (except for planting and watering) on this first plot.

Here is a better picture of the handiwork regarding securing the trellis. With Desi dousing it with a few coats of wood preserver it has now turned out to be a bit of a feature. If we want, we can put flowers inside those parallel planks… so it turned into something useful after all, apart from helping secure the trellis.

At the rear of the polytunnel, the additional shelf has now been completed and some salad leaves planted out in that spare guttering. Potentially this concept could be used in other places to… watch this space.

The final picture for this post showing how things are looking as we come to the end of Spring. The Passiflora was looking a bit sorry for itself earlier in the spring but now lots of new growth is appearing and looks like it stands a chance of covering this side of the trellis this year. Can you also believe the size of the “purple sprouting” it is now pushing the limits of the white netting… to think the birds almost saw this off just a couple of months ago! The potatoes are also doing really well, if they grow much more they will hide the neighbours greenhouse completely.