Wet Summer 2021

 30th July 2021, The digging is mostly done (for now), weather continues

The weather hasn’t been playing ball too much of late, so we are having to dodge the rains. The first picture is the last spade of soil to be excavated from the terrace ditch. This was all dug by eye as opposed to trying to level the base all out. The thing is, nothing is level, so everything is just at a different height. Best thing to do, Chris decided, is work on the basis that it is approximately correct and then when we are filling in the hole we level things up before we put the decking on. 

We believe this is our very first Passiflora flower. Chris says his mother used to have this in her garden and he loved the flower, how very exquisite it is. Who but nature could engineer such a thing of beauty as this! Not only that, but totally functional and works in every way. 

A view across the allotments. This is what we have been contending with pretty much for the whole of the summer. And we wonder why the tomatoes and potatoes are complaining… stop / start rain! Great for slugs and ducks, not so good for ripe tomatoes!

Pretty impressive cloud formations though… you have to hand it to nature, its got everything covered, from flowers, vegetables, rain, sun and of course wind.

10 months and still pushing on

 29th July 2021, 10 months into the project almost and still pushing on

We have had the allotment over 10 months now and so much has happened, but as soon as things get done, new ideas spring to mind to take things onto a different level.

These top bits of ground by the path appear to house plenty of rubble as you can see by the big pile of bricks, stones, and the like. Makes digging tricky and laborious but that’s the interesting thing about allotments, you never know what you might find under there.

Once the pile of earth is out the next step is to finish the side wall and to build a dry brick wall for the other side. (Still some way before doing that though!)

The next picture you can see a small mound of soil along with the egg shells (good for calcium in the soil). Here we are beginning to tip the surplus soil from the construction as well as the growing mound by the side of the polytunnel. Not much soil to go now thankfully or we would genuinely have nowhere to put it.

Tomatoes are filling up the polytunnel as well, although to be honest, there isn’t a lot of fruit on them. Seems like they have been producing mainly foliage and flowers that don’t get pollinated. Hopefully they will pick up as we can only see one or two tomatoes in there.

The outside tomatoes are faring better, although they have a different type of issue. The leaves are disfigured and curving. It's definitely not lack of water, as this certainly hasn’t been the case, could be some disease or other, we are getting a feeling it must be something.

Round the back of the tomatoes the butternut squashes are beginning to take over the lower patch of ground. I have a suspicion that August and September might see a flurry of fruits being created, well we can always hope…

As the terrace area is constructed we are locating our seats wherever we can. This piece of ground in the excavation is quite stable, although the metal feet of the chairs have a tendency to sink into the mud! Can’t wait until we have the seating area all set up and we can rest in comfort overlooking the rest of the “Haven”.

Wet, Wet, Wet (weatherwise)

 26th July 2021, Construction, wet, and something seems wrong

Construction continues unabated. The entire length and width of the terrace area can now be clearly seen. Just a massive pile of soil remains in the middle. Can you see the space where that soil can go? No, we can’t either. This has been a constant struggle of ours- trying to develop the “Haven” whilst at the same time growing things. Basically, we keep running out of space to put things (mainly pallets and earth).

Notice a small version of Desi resting on top of the compost heap :) 

Also, there is a pile of bricks between the compost heap and the polytunnel. We expect to be using these later on this construction too…

The whole plot is looking very green here: the potatoes are doing very well, butternuts are galloping along although we have lost one to some disease or other. No butternuts as yet to be seen, but we are hopeful. 

So far this year March / April were amazing and very dry, May was a month of heavy winds, and never a dry day pretty much. "April showers" in the wrong month, so to speak, and now here in June / July we see a continuation of rather rubbish summer weather. We haven’t had a prolonged patch of dry weather and everything has been disappointing so far except for the runner beans which have been amazing. We just hope there is enough time for everything to catch up. The only plants that seem to like it are the brassicas, despite their (and ours) constant war with slugs.

The patch near the fire is beginning to be overrun by the butternut. We have planted out a load of leftover tomato plants in the hope they would win the speed competition against the butternuts. We will have to wait and see what happens. 

We are watching the main crop of tomatoes carefully as there appears to be a fair amount of disfigurement with the leaves. They are not brown or anything, might just be a symptom of the unseasonal weather that they are struggling with (fingers crossed!)

The courgettes continue to produce a bountiful crop and we are having to get very innovative to use them up these days! 

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.