Preparing For a Trip Away

 13th June 2022 - Preparing For a Trip Away

With the weather now permanently above freezing and all the plants benefiting from being in the sun, we are taking lots of the plants outside. Here, in the first picture you can see we have used a pallet for a makeshift shelf on which to put many of the seedlings. Lettuce, radish, alyssum, marigold, cabbage, and lots more besides. 

The cold frame is now emptied and we will be using it to store empty seed trays and containers as they become available.

Round the back of the polytunnel we have also created a “potting on” shelf to move plants on to the next containers as they grow. Basil, Dill, Coriander, Parsley and other herbs are also being grown this year… so plenty of work.

The Lobelia are starting to look nice and attract the bees. Behind the Lobelia is a fine array of different lettuces! On the shelf atop the structure behind the polytunnel some lettuces are starting to find their feet. This is a bit of an experiment. It might be that the guttering is used mainly for seed germination rather than growing the actual plant itself.

Over on plot no. 2, corn is in, beans have been sown directly into the soil and the 4 butternuts are now in the ground. We have also sunk some pallets into the ground at the end of the strip of land. This we have used to secure a fence, which we will use as support for whatever we decide to grow there, maybe cucumber.

The wooden makeshift fence has been strengthened (to the right) although to be fair it is still very makeshift!

The potatoes have now almost completely hidden the greenhouse behind us, as they continue to grow!

Around the front of the polytunnel, the courgettes are doing well. We are using the cloche to provide some protection against the wildlife until they settle in and outpace them. 

On the other side of the path, Desi has planted out some cabbages and cauliflower and has sewn two white nets together so that we can extend the protection from the Purple Sprouting and cover these new brassicas. Still loads more cabbages, cauliflowers, and sprouts to plant!😲

Meanwhile, inside the polytunnel, tomatoes are galloping along. We have also planted spring onions, marigolds, and some small basil plants. Some of the tomatoes in pots are getting a bit leggy now, and need to go out somewhere, the peppers are also in need of getting in the ground, the problem being most of them will go on the other side of the polytunnel which at the moment is in use and needs a bit more of a clearout and then we’ll get those peppers in.

Round the back of the compost bins the first sweet pea flower shines forth. We are looking forward to a long and plentiful flowering. The scent will be awesome if this ends up being everything we planned.

Canes, Corn and Construction

 11th/12th June 2022 - Canes, Corn and Construction

The tomatoes are growing fast and therefore canes are going in. Desi has also worked out a way of creating some troughs around the tomato plants to make watering easier. So it is all looking good on the tomato plot.

The grass is approximately 8 weeks old now and it is beginning to knit together nicely. There are some weeds also coming through, but we’re picking those out as soon as we spot them. Some bindweed has also found its way into the grass next to the bricks under the terrace there, so careful monitoring of that situation. The last thing we want is an infestation of that particular plant.

9pm on these photos, the long summer evenings are a delight, and warm! Can you believe it? The slugs have found their way under the terrace and come out of these bricks during the dusk. A bit like the snakes in that movie with Indiana Jones.

Planting in the new plot is happening. Having dealt with the courgettes in front of the potatoes, and planted / positioned the sweet corn, the final planting of the three sisters trio, the butternuts are next up!

We left in the final Kale plant (small tree)… although we’re not sure what it is going to do next. We aren’t planting in this spot yet, so we’ll wait and see.

The compost bins are beginning to look nice. The sweet peas have been tied up so they train up the pallets. We’ve reused an old bin we’ve scavenged as a water butt, and everything else appears to be growing well in the very warm weather.

The Jerusalem Artichokes have filled up the gap between the polytunnel and the compost bins perfectly and it is really nice to see all the infrastructure that we have created filling up nicely.

Go - Go - Go!!

 9th June 2022 - Go go go… it is all happening now!

Tea for two? This is the life: tend to the “Haven” and then retire to the terrace for rest and recuperation. The echinacea plants are being chomped on by the slugs, we’re willing them on to survive though, each day the slugs have taken another shoot down… now looking for those offenders! The grass is looking nice and tidy though!

Round at the compost bins, check out those Horseradish plants! The sweet peas are also doing really well and we have a new landing mat for the step down to the compost area - a anti-slip step mat being thrown away - so we rescued it and installed it. It will be surrounded by stones in due course as we dig them up!

We’ve re-enforced the herb box as it was struggling… and hoping the sweet peas are going to outgrow the horseradish - bit of a competition here.

Looking quite nice and tidy from the road in the next picture. Will be lovely when the sweet peas are all in bloom.

Behind the polytunnel, the regular peas are doing well. The garlic (in pots) are growing nicely and the Jerusalem Artichoke looks very healthy, doing very well in this location. The multi-coloured plant in the pot is from Bulgaria and is called Zdravetz (it's a cousin of geranium).

Up top on the shelf behind the polytunnel the old yoghurt pots are doing well with radish in them. I think we have overplanted with 3 in these, but next time we’ll know better.

Check out the new bed! All done, the old makeshift polytunnel area has been reworked and it is now ready for planting. This new plot extends beyond the recently dug bit, to where the tyres are holding down the black plastic. So we have a fair bit of new land. Hard work though. Chris has made a makeshift wall with some old wood and rubbish. This drops down to where all that grass is… this is the path between the end of our plot and the neighbour's (which hasn't yet been re-assigned to someone new yet, but will be, soon).

Our pepper plants are warm and cosy in the second cold frame box. They are coming along nicely: a mixture of peppers and chillies… hope Desi can remember which is which 😅

The potatoes might start flowering soon. They are getting a little top heavy too. About this time last year we started to worry about blight… all good so far!

In this next picture you can see the whole plot we now have. From the white box at the bottom, right across to that black plastic in the distance, and then up to the road from the polytunnel on both plots. Quite a nice bit of land! Now we’ve got to get the new plot organised ready for what’s left of this year and properly ready for 2023.

The polytunnel is getting stacked up with plants that are awaiting planting out. Some of these will now go into the ground that's just been dug, but there is more work to do there beforehand… it feels a bit like last year now, busy trying to get soil ready and chasing ourselves once more.

We’ve got some Alysum seedlings on the shelf under the top there, plus leeks next to the polythene of the polytunnel… and the lemon / orange trees seem to like it in the warm here.

Things are shaping up with all the plants and the season is galloping ahead… but very enjoyable at the “Haven” this year… really we couldn’t be happier!

Tending the Flock

 4th June 2022 - Tending the Flock…

We are definitely getting some slug damage going on. The slugs love this time of year. Plenty of moisture still about for them, nice long warm nights, and lots of delicious sweet young plants to wreck. We have had to cover the Courgette (which you can see under the white box in the bottom right of the first picture). These slugs have been ravaging the Marigolds too, but luckily these flowers are quick growing and managing to stay ahead of the onslaught.

The cold frame is useful to keep the slugs away too and we may have to investigate the beer traps this year as the volume of slugs is causing issues for us. Having the polytunnel insulated with wood walls will definitely reduce the problem of slugs in there, however the prevalence of wood all over the plot now provides many hiding opportunities… always two sides to every coin!

We’ve taken down the majority of Kale and the rest of the brussels along with the white net. We are going to plant Swede this year in this area, a good dense winter crop. The potatoes are doing their own thing as is the Purple Sprouting. We have two unexpected hedges at the end of the “Haven” now. 

In the last picture, the Passiflora is now entering its growth stage, by the looks of it. It was looking a bit gloomy a few weeks back, but it has shed the winter blues and is now making great strides. There are shoots everywhere and if it continues like this we’ll be trimming it back!

Back to The Grind

 2nd June 2022 - Back to The Grind…

As we turn our attention now to Plot 2. here is a chance to take a photo for posterity at an instance in time. This is Plot 1. Apart from planting out and now having to look after those plants, fruits and vegetables as they grow and mature during the next 4 - 5 months, we are pretty much finished here for the time being. It’s been a good start to the year and we are very satisfied with the progress.

The herbs at the bottom left of the picture are doing well, oregano, mint and chives. Just across the new path on the other side of the fence is an interesting plant. It’s name is comfrey and it is used as a fertiliser. Basically once it has grown (possibly a bit bigger than it is here in the pot) it can be cut back and then put into a jar filled with water, closed and left to decompose. What you get is a very good feed for the plants but there is a price… it stinks, not just a bit, but a huge amount, very nasty… do it on a windy day with no one around, to maintain your popularity!

And now, let's see what we can make of the new land we have been allocated.

Desi getting stuck into the hole she has been excavating for the potato covering soil. This has all gotten a bit hard and quickly this year on account of the lack of rain. The trouble is, we have a hole but nothing to fill it up with at the moment, making planting in this spot a bit of a challenge.

Except for finding some spots to plant everything we don’t really have much of an idea about what to do with the new plot yet, we’re hoping that it kind of arranges itself a bit like plot no.1 did. 

It feels different facing the challenge of plot no. 2 knowing that plot no.1 is there and we can always retire for a cuppa and a biscuit in semi luxury (in allotment terms). 

Summer Has Arrived! Woodchip Finale

 1st June 2022 - Summer has arrived!  Woodchip finale…

Since February 8th we have been putting in the hours to finalise plot 1. We didn’t even know about plot 2 back then, but we ran out of days last year to get everything done that was on the list. Today as we sort out the front of the polytunnel and put down the woodchip this is basically the last landscaping activity needed. Look, there are still things left to do of course, but for the most part the tasks needed so we can get on with the growing season are complete. Now we can focus on the new plot, and get cracking with developing some more land to plant everything we’ve got on the go.

The large concrete slab has been sunken under the wooden frame around the polytunnel. The concrete slab for the watering cans is now in place, as is the slab at the centre meeting place of all paths… so it was just the case now of adding the wood chip.

The broad beans (to the side of the polytunnel) are getting close to needing to be harvested. They have shot up really well over the last month or so, we have been battling with aphids (spraying with milk, apparently they get all stuck to it and they don't like lactose) and so time to harvest and then reuse the space for something else maybe. 

The front of the polytunnel looks good now with a sturdy woodchip working pathway. After yesterday's slippery wet day we are glad to have had woodchip available - we might survive falling over for a while yet! Here is what it looks like, as seen from the bottom perspective of the path.

Just the grass path to do now. The jury is out as to whether this would be another woodchip installation or we keep it grass… the path’s are subject to quite a bit of wear and tear, so we’ll have a think about this, just like we changed our mind about the access to the polytunnel. We originally thought we would have it as grass...

And so, finally spade gets put into the soil where the make-shift polytunnel/greenhouse of the previous owners used to be. This was originally dug out, some kind of weed suppressant buried and then soil on top. This “weed barrier” is making things a little difficult to dig, and the weeds / roots underneath are pretty voluminous. This is the patch that we are going to use for our “3 Sisters” idea. This is the so called "companion planting" of runner beans, sweetcorn and butternuts. 

The idea with the 3 Sisters is that the corn grows tall, the beans grow around the corn while providing nutrients into the soil and the whole thing is kept weed free by the butternut which grows on the ground and fills up the space. We’ll see how we get on. 

We have learned that apparently this plot has historically had a lot of thistles growing. I can see some for sure, we’ll see how much of an issue this is as the season continues.

Last Day of May

 31st May 2022 - Last day of May brings spring ‘22 to an end

We are having some well needed rain, although, to be honest, these light showers, apart from making the ground wet, don’t really provide the plants with a real watering. Infinitely better to have rain than drag out the hose though. We’re all tidy on plot no.1 and almost ready to do battle with plot no.2.

One final task for the spring is to get the last of the wood chip down in front of the polytunnel. It is all a bit of a quagmire here at the moment. This pathway which became very hard and durable very quickly has turned into a skating rink, so the sooner the woodchip goes down, the quicker we’ll save our necks.

Round the back of the plot the potatoes are growing nicely, as are the gooseberries in the distance, although, to be honest, we haven’t really taken much notice of them - there are other more important things to worry about this summer. The wild grasses, weeds and vegetation on plot no.2 are galloping away, so it is time to focus some attention over there now.

That’s a wrap then… spring is over and the next one is the last ever picture of spring from 2022. Everything is enjoying a little bit of the rainy weather, even the Lobelia (in the raised square) has begun to flower now. 

Thus far we have managed to dig a hole on plot no. 2, steal some soil, and cut the wild foliage… we have work to do!