24th July 2021, Broccoli, nails, courgettes and progress

 24th July 2021, Broccoli, nails, courgettes and progress

Through the white mesh of the butterfly and bird prevention netting, the very first broccoli head begins to take shape. The leaves are edible too, allegedly, something to look forward to and unavailable from conventional sources. That’s another beautiful thing of growing your own food, you get to eat parts of the vegetable that are normally not sold.

Courgette / Pumpkin / Butternut squash leaves are all eaten in South Africa and full of nutrition. Who knew? Totally missed here in the UK, well certainly by us. Carrot tops, beetroot leaves, sprout leaves amongst a few things we can eat and will be plentiful from the “Haven”.

Desi showing us her glam nails, apparently an activity amongst young girls using local flowers to decorate their nails. (Not seen this before in the sheltered backwaters of Watford and being a boy.)

The courgette plants have gone absolutely wild. We planted 7 of them and having battled initially with the slugs, they have grown so prolific even a wagon of slugs couldn’t now take them out. We grew some yellow and green ones this year. Both types are producing an abundance of fruit, not much maintenance, and good for filling up space and ground cover. For next year will have to learn how to train them as they have a tendency to creep along the ground in a direction you don’t want - in our case, the path.

The whole plot is beginning to fill up with a mass of green vegetation and from a standing late start we are very thrilled with where we have got to here at the end of July. With a couple of growing months still available and a bit of wet summer thus far, things are behind but full of promise. We expect the potatoes to begin dying back soon as we have envisioned they could be available to eat from 2nd week of August (but we shall see).

The cabbages are looking amazing. When we decided to plant 40+ I thought what will we do with all those, now I can see them growing nicely. I’m still asking, what will we do with all those cabbages? Anyway another success story, just hope we get to them before the wildlife! The slugs enjoy a good cabbage, so I’ve heard, and they are enjoying this wet summer. 

23rd July 2021 More Building Going On

 23rd July 2021, Sun is out, bees are on the wing, construction continues

We are surprised ourselves - the Runner beans (on the 3rd time of asking) are already in full flower. The bees are going about their business, inadvertently pollinating our crops and providing us with a bountiful harvest (hopefully). 

The beans set nicely after the flowers disappear and as you can see, small beans very quickly turn into edible vegetables. You only have to turn your back for a minute and they have gone from a small cute mini baby bean to part of a wholesome meal.

We are probably going to need to get fairly creative with beans in a similar way to courgettes and tomatoes when the crops go well. Just boiling and steaming won’t cut it, so, we’re looking forward to interesting ways to incorporate what we grow into immediate delights and for storing away during the winter months.

It always amazes me how these beans know how to attach themselves around the canes and just how fast they grow… ok, you can’t see them actually growing, but go away for a couple of days and you really notice the difference.

Construction of the seating area continues. We have kind of nestled into roles down at the Haven. Desi is taking charge of nurturing seeds, potting on, and planting out, whilst I’m taking on the task of getting this terrace project moving along (and cutting grass). 

The basic idea of the raised bed can now be seen. How high the terrace is relative to the raised bed, the height of the retaining wall etc. planned (in my head anyway) hopefully will all turn out for the best… This seems to be what happens at the allotment: not too much planning, but good intentions and it all, kind of, comes together, somehow…  A bit like life? Don’t plan too much; one step forward; (assess) did it work; are adjustments needed; next step.

Notice the spirit level (Ha!) A fellow allotmenteer said “All a bit professional, a spirit level, isn’t it?” With nature, I don’t think anything is ever straight or level, but we can aim for it, right? With the terrace you don’t want puddles forming, so there is an element of getting the slight slopes at least draining onto the grass!

Soil mountains abound when we’re constructing. Here is our work area: soil hopefully keeping the polytunnel on the ground, functioning compost bins and a nursery for the lettuces soon to be put in the ground… but where exactly, who knows! 

18th July 2021 Construction in Progress

18th July 2021, Another warm day, Construction in Progress

As the construction takes place it’s always a good idea to try and see how things are looking compared to the “vision”. We’re not using cement except in one or two minor places and so all the brickwork is dry. The bricks are also not always overlapping hence why you can see the canes inserted through the bricks in an attempt to keep them where they are. Maybe some plants will utilise them in the future to climb up, who knows… 

Now the bricks are in place it was possible to build up the soil against the wood in the corner just to see how it will look with some soil in place, plus we could get a couple of things planted including the Passiflora that we bought the other week. That has been fed into the trellis, to get it started. We also popped the Jerusalem artichokes into a bucket and buried that in the corner. They get quite high apparently, although we've never grown them before so we have no idea. And some pink mallows and small marigolds- let’s hope the slugs don’t get them before they have a chance to grow.

In the next picture you can see we have now moved our seating area to where we ultimately will be sitting, although there is a lot more water to go under the bridge first before that becomes a reality. For now, we are trying to locate these metal chairs where the legs don’t sink into the soft ground (which is harder than it might appear).

We hope to be able to sit on the terrace this year depending on how many nice days we get. The long evenings help - these pictures were taken at 9:30pm in the evening and still enough light to take them.

July 2021

 17th July 2021, Warmer weather requiring regular visits at this time of year

The Terrace basic outline structure is complete. We now have defined borders facing the road, an area where we can plant some flowers and bring a bit of colour to the plot. The Passiflora is in place threaded through the trellis, hopefully this sunny spot is to its liking.

Next step on the construction trail is to dig out an area for the Terrace / Decking and form the raised beds so we can attract bees with flowers and encourage good pollination. That’s the next task, one which is likely to take a good few weeks.

Notice we now have one lid on one of the compost heaps, which was sorted this week. This is not yet affixed to the actual compost bin and we are going to use “heavy weights” for the time being to ensure the lid doesn’t’ disappear!

This area by the side of the polytunnel is fast becoming a work area, doubling up also as a rest area while there is construction elsewhere. The strimmer is proving to be a good acquisition: rechargeable battery lasts about 30-40 minutes of cutting. May buy a second battery but to be honest 30 minutes per day is enough grass/weed-chopping. Mixing it up seems to be a better approach, little and often!

The Courgettes seem to really like it where we have placed them. They are huge now and already courgettes forming. We’ll be picking very soon.

Butternuts are also beginning to spread their wings. We have put additional “left over” tomato plants in as well. It’ll be a race to see which ones manage to stake their claim first.

All in all, for a first year, where we were quite late to the “growing” party, things are progressing quite nicely at the moment.

 

Hurried Polytunnel Usage

 14th July 2021,

Another mountain of earth, what’s going on here then?

Well the idea behind this little excavation was to provide an elevated “off the ground” space to work on. Basic, I know, but at least not plodding about in the mud! And the end result? A pile of earth (not topsoil most of this) and a couple of buckets of stones…

Now, about stones… Many people would just throw these away, "a pain in the arse for a gardener!" However, they are very useful, stones. They can be used to fill up spots where you don’t want soil but need some flexibility (because of their different sizes) and want to stop weeds from growing; good for drainage too! I’m a big believer in (yes!) sifting out bigger stones but keeping them. You never know when they might come in handy.

How this corner by the compost heaps is going to turn out? And what we are going to do with it, to tell the truth, we don’t really know yet, but…

The next picture you can see the trellis is almost finished. Just the last bottom section to finish off and then the flower surround is done. Raised bed / terrace next. Chris put in some rustic old brick steps just to add a bit of character to the path area there. Now that the stinging nettles have been removed, I think we have "borrowed" a bit of next door's plot (poetic licence on the borders) but only a small amount.

In the next picture, a little bit further down the plot, everything is beginning to grow nicely. In our keenness to coax our tomatoes along, we’ve planted a lot of “spares” along with the butternuts. Now it is a race between tomatoes and butternuts who takes the ground first, the butternuts have got their skates on!

The courgettes are certainly growing well where we have put them/ They have already taken up the same amount of space they did in a grow bag when grown in a previous year so looking forward to plenty of courgette this year!

The beans have not reached the top of their stakes. We should really have got 2m canes but then again how would we harvest them? And in the polytunnel, tomatoes are growing nicely. It has been a bit of a hurry getting the polytunnel ready this year with all the winds in May and almost losing the entire thing, but it is operational now.

The last picture showing our aubergines which got all mixed up with peppers and we don’t know what the hell we planted in the end… there are a few peppers… but mostly looks like we’ve got aubergines. Check out the makeshift “suspension” shelves and see what I mean by "hurried polytunnel usage" - all around the edge of the polytunnel we have weeds growing, a pet hate btw!

Taking stock

 10th July 2021

Chasing the season, but progress is being made.

With the digging to get the ground ready for the season only just finished in May, late planting of any kind of seeds, construction work then beginning, plus maintenance work to keep nature in check (as best we can) and keep things tidy, well... we have not been idle down at “the Haven”.

This blog post is just giving us time to take stock and take a look at what is going on...

The ground is now beginning to fill out It’s amazing when you first put things in the ground how it all looks very small and insignificant and yet now you begin to wonder if you have given everything enough space!

In the foreground of the first picture is our Brassica area: pointy cabbage, round cabbage, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, kale, broccoli, and some leeks to finish off the square.

One of the challenges that we’ve got with the growing areas is that they are on a slope. This means that water “runs-off” and we get uneven irrigation. This is something that we would like to do something about next year but for this year let us just get some crops!

In the second picture you can see the leeks. 

In the 3rd picture you can begin to see the allotment plot beginning to take shape and the garden is now filling up. We have the following veggies:

Potatoes, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, celeriac, chard, tomatoes, butternut, courgette, cabbage, cauliflower, sprouts, kale, broccoli, leeks, onions, French beans, runner beans and also aubergine and peppers in the polytunnel!

This is not a bad start when you consider we have been chasing ourselves all year!

2nd July 2021 - More Building

 Construction continues, growing continues, maintenance grows!

July arrives and we are now into the middle month of summer. Everything is nice and green, receiving plenty of sunshine during the early part of summer. Since we thoroughly weeded the soil during the second dig, nowadays the weeding consists of disturbing the soil and picking up regular weeds, with the consistent removal of “the enemies” (bindweed and couche grass) as they raise their heads!

In the picture above, take a look at these courgettes as they find their footing in their new location. Freshly fertilised soil and well spaced out, they are starting to take off with first flowers already making an appearance.

6 Butternut have made it into the “field” as well, along with the tomatoes, making up the rest of what we will grow in this area. Butternuts are incredibly prolific growers and we are thinking they will easily fill this area, although difficult to imagine what that might look like right now.

Looking down the other side of the plot, we have the beans doing well beginning their journey up the “bean poles”. These are filling a space we left when we erected the polytunnel - we wanted to create some usable area behind as well as the front of the polytunnel.

This next picture shows the Brassicas. It is difficult to say what is what, but we have cabbage, sprouts, kale, cauliflower and space for leeks too! They have been growing well, and now we are thinking if we put them too close? One of the biggest problems for gardeners is wanting to grow as much as possible and the tendency to cram plants in. These plants each need the space they need, so being mindful of this is an important lesson.

First stage of the terrace complete! This is the easy bit, although not without its challenges. If you cast your mind back to the very early scenes in October 2020, you will remember we dug a trench around the plot. This was a random trench really to identify what we were working with, to define the patch, so to speak.

Now when coming to put the Terrace boundary in, the trench turns out to be in the exact spot needed to put in these pillars! Put it down to coincidence maybe, but if you seek out these confirmations to support "being on the right track", then here was the first one! How did we know, when we didn’t even know where and if there would be a terrace? 

This is another snap of the trellis looking up the plot from the polytunnel and check out the temporary seating area - much fun riding those chairs in the soft earth…

The last picture is another Trellis picture. This time you can see the dry wall addition of the bricks to assist in creating the side of the raised border which will eventually house a lovely flower display for us to enjoy sitting around.