30th June 2021 - A Terrace to Be

Construction of the Terrace at the ‘Haven’ begins!

Although technically work had already started on construction with the compost heap, we are now getting into the terrace area. A passing couple walking their dog said, "We think a seating area is one of the most important items on an allotment!" With all the digging and makeshift seats we’ve deployed they had four willing ears with Chris and I…

So Chris got 4 posts for his birthday and with a quick trip to Wickes (there are other DIY stores available 😀) we secured some trellis to complement the posts. And off we go, the first post installed on the 30th June 2021. Not much sign of a terrace yet, you’ll have to wait a bit longer for that one!!

Next picture is exposing our two recycled chairs. Apart from the legs sinking into the mud and resembling a bucking bronco, very serviceable, and more so as solid ground to sit on appears.

The inverted Heineken bottles are not the end game of a boozy night during the summer solstice. These are markers for different elements of the terrace to be referred to, as construction proceeds.

The next picture is a quick shot across the front of the plot. We are approaching the very edge of our “terrain” and we do have to be careful of the water pipe (blue) which passes close by. The rather lush large leaf plant is Horseradish which seems to like it there and will pose a real challenge later on. However, Horseradish is good, if controlled! 

Next image - half complete compost heap with a good side-shot of the runner beans (the 3rd time of planting) which we think are going to make it, just planted straight into the soil, no faffing about!

The next picture looking across our potatoes - a picture of health - and you can see how the terrace will perch on the end of the plot, so that we can look out at the work we’ve done! 

Final two pictures for this post - check out the butternuts and the courgettes all adding to this quadrant along with 7 tomatoes. The orange peel and eggshells are an attempt at keeping the slugs at bay (mmm not very effective). Also, check out the brassicas (cabbages, caulis, sprouts, kale) under the white netting. And a blue ghost in the polytunnel 👻...

the ‘Haven’ comes alive

Back end of June 2021, the ‘Haven’ comes alive!

Seeds starting at home. We’re not really kitted out for seed propagation at the ‘Haven’ right now, and we've got the added challenge of furry friends! Best to get things going at home and get the seeds germinate and grow to small seedlings before we take them to the allotment for now. Next year will be different. Here we have lettuces and some self set tomatoes that we might be able to plant somewhere outdoors in pots.

With all the hassle over germinating seeds coupled with getting the soil all ready for a growing season, we’re a little behind and playing catch up. Hopefully we’re not too late to the party and things will fruit in time. We had problems with our brassicas and in the end we bought a lot of seedlings from the garden centre! Next year we will do better.

In an effort to prevent airborne disease and pests we are deploying some essential oils, hopefully these static diffusers will do the trick. Well, you have to try things! 

 

While sorting out the area where Chris will begin to build a terrace / trellis / raised flower bed, he came across this root network! Well, it was a rather large Stinging Nettles plant which had managed to grow fairly uncontrolled right where the path between allotments is, and, under the manure pile we recently dug into the allotment. This wasn’t all of it though! This is about ⅓ of it! A little bit of drying out and before long, back in the ground as ash… 

Two piles to distribute: one is the last of the manure, the second one is soil harvested from the roots we dried out on the pallets (mainly couch grass, bind weed and horseradish) mixed with an emptied fire which was full of ash. The area they are situated on, is slightly low in soil so it will be distributed on this quadrant.

Next week is the last day of June and beginning of July. We begin the construction phase of the ‘Haven’ (as if we haven’t been doing loads already) Plenty more to come!

June 2021, and summer continues!

As the good weather shines down on us, the work proceeds unabated. The plot is starting to fill up although there is a long way to go.

The potatoes are doing really well, some flowers even beginning to show on one or two. The outside tomatoes are doing well, as are the courgettes and butternuts. Hard to tell at the moment what is what in the Brassica section but everything seems to be growing well, with only the odd one or two signs of slugs… 

We have a small mound of sifted soil, on the fire quadrant and we still have the last dregs of manure left to move from where it was piled up as work will start there soon, after the compost heaps are finished.

Another picture of the top ⅓ of the plot. We have now relocated the pallets to here and arranged 5 of them into our basic structure for the compost heap. The other two still laying down are for the doors which will close the structure and keep everything inside. We will need a further two pallets for the two lids which will sit on top of these vertical pallets.

You can see the remains of the manure we had which was piled up from the water tap to the remnants you can see here. The rather nice looking long leaved green plant on the leftmost side of our plot is Horseradish. It is the root of this plant that you harvest (if you can wrestle it out of the ground), peel, mash, add some other bits and pieces and you've made a potent condiment for beef or eggs, or to add a bit of oomph to something like mayonnaise. Anyway we’re not harvesting any right now. It’s a bit of a prolific grower, so getting rid of some of it might be the first port of call.

Notice the sheet of corrugated plastic roofing material inside the polytunnel - an innovation designed to keep some furry intruders out who seem to have developed a penchant for seeds pots inside. 3 sets of courgettes needed sowing as previous attempts had been systematically consumed.

In the next picture the runner beans finally have taken and are reaching out for their poles. You can see the compost heap construction a little better in this one: just pallets tied together with electric wiring, but will be screwed together as more work is undertaken. 

The last of the dehydrating couch grass, bind weed, and horseradish on spare remaining pallets. Most of this has now been dried, burnt and returned to the soil in the form of ash. These weeds are not easy to compost and we’ve had a lot of them! 

Note the horseradish is going well over here as well. We can see us doing battle with this little lot during the summer / autumn seasons. Our seating area consisting of pallets and buckets has been relocated now to this area, away from the growing sections.

Grow, grow, grow!

 3rd Week of June 2021

Some tomato seeds planted, and a few lettuce - more of those will follow. Nice to be getting off into the growing season, proper. So far we have dug, dug, and done more digging, so the primary work on forming the outline of the allotment is complete!

The next stage is to begin the building phase to make the plot fully operational.

You can see under the white netting (just about see) plenty of cabbages are now planted, as well as cauliflower, sprouts, kale and broccoli. Outside of the netting, in that small patch, we have leeks, which are just tiny thin strips at the moment.

The potatoes are flourishing with lots of greenery going on there, although a couple of rows just haven’t emerged at all. We are thinking that the potatoes we used for seed were just not up to the task, maybe… Never mind, next year!

The one radish we left for seeds is also galloping ahead, carrots are up, as are a few parsnips too. The courgettes have also been planted out behind the pallets, although it is difficult to see them at the moment. All in all, a good start.

Notice the Orange peel laying on the ground. It is supposed to help keep slugs at bay, but to be honest, we haven’t seen a lot of evidence of that yet!

The renewed / repaired polytunnel is doing its thing - the tomatoes are doing really well in there with blossoms already appearing. We’re hoping for a bumper crop of beef tomatoes this year! 

We only managed four French beans this year. Here are two of them, the others were planted out behind the polytunnel on some spare stakes we had put in for the runner beans, that we didn’t need in the end. (Some more Orange peel to act as a decoy, not very successfully...)

A random shot of “roadside” not much been going on here thus far, but the incumbent horseradish are making a play already by the “weed drying-out area”. Nice Tap!!
More to see here as we begin to develop things. There are “loose” plans!

"Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!"

2nd Week of June 2021

The weather is galloping away with a very warm start to June, so much so that the hose is now making an entrance. It is absolutely amazing how the allotment can go from "being damp and not requiring water" to “having to water", because the ground is becoming so dry.

The white netting makes an appearance as we prepare the final plot to receive the Brassicas. We are growing Cabbage (lots of Cabbage), Cauliflower, Brussels, Kale, and Broccoli on that plot. With some space also for leeks we hope…. 

Desi is attending to the Tomatoes which like the potatoes are benefitting from this sunny period, after what was a turbulent May.

We may get a good crop of pallets too with 6 or so coming along nicely. We are collecting them together to make our compost bins for which we’ll be needing 9 altogether, so a good start with these.

At the top of the allotment next to the road we have spread out the couch grass, bind weed and other difficult-to-remove weeds, hoping the sun will dry them out and then they'll be easier to burn. We also want to reclaim the soil that the weeds were attached to.

The lovely green leaves you can see making their appearance in the bottom right corner are horseradish plants - not something we planted, however we are going to try to control and cultivate. We’ve heard that horseradish takes over if you let it, so we'll be very careful with it as we build around this area. It is the final part of the allotment yet to be tilled, weeded and dealt with, but we have ideas and thoughts (mainly Chris has these) about what we could possibly do in this area.

The next picture gives a different perspective of this weed drying process. Once dried, we will separate the weed from the soil and then burn it. The ash will then be put back into the soil: a good source of phosphorus which is great for plants.

Taken from the road, you can see the whole allotment in the next picture. It is gradually taking shape from a “weedy field” to a working plot. Still huge amounts to do, as we have big ideas (no plans). We are taking this as it comes, the allotment itself guiding us at every step…

The last picture from behind the rather battered polytunnel. The runner beans are doing well. They are going to make it!  

Notice in the black buckets some Jerusalem Artichokes we have been given - allegedly like small potatoes going by the funny nick-name of "Fartichokes"... we’ll let you know about them.

A Major Milestone (or Three)

1st Week of June

In the first picture it’s looking a lot like summer!

The potatoes are galloping ahead in the warm sun and longer days. We’re also getting through the manure, just a small pile left now as the “digging marathon” end is approaching.

The tomatoes are doing well in the Polytunnel, we were very grateful that we didn’t put them in earlier as the winds and storms would certainly have brought them to an early demise.

We are now proud owners of a rechargeable strimmer which will be useful for cutting the grass. We are going to be cultivating every inch of the plot except for pathways as we want to maximise our growing capability. The strimmer will be handy for the currently uneven and less than perfect grass we are dealing with along the paths. Will need a second battery though as even with this small amount of grass, it takes 1 hour or so to cut.

Hoorah!! The 3rd quadrant of digging is finally over! June 5th - so, twice dug, manured and it has taken from October 10th 2020 to June 5th 2021 - that’s a lot of digging… but we made it!!

In the next picture you can see the 3 quadrants all nicely dug over. We are not using raised beds preferring open plan but it will be interesting to see during the summer how we are afflicted or otherwise by weeds growing through. Our intention is to keep taking out weeds, Couch grass, Bindweed, etc. as we see them pop out and just burn these directly so as to keep on top of everything. Regular weeds will just be hoed and left to compost on the soil. 

The butternuts are also now “planted out”. You can see them in the quadrant with the fire, bits of orange peel scattered around in an attempt to deter slugs (not very successfully). 

The next picture, a closer look at the outside tomatoes and the butternuts, which we will be growing along the ground this year to provide some ground cover. Notice to the right of the polytunnel we have planted out some onions into a narrow piece of ground. This bit of ground was going to be the fourth quadrant until the idea of the polytunnel came about. Now using it for our first onion crop.

The last picture is the first actual edible item we have grown on the plot - a radish and a mighty big one too! That might serve us a few salads. We intend to let some radish go to seed this year so we have plenty next year.

This time of year, the time we are spending at the allotment is increasing significantly as the days are longer, the weather nicer and there is soooo much to do!

Starting to look like an allotment

May 29th, 2021

The weather picks up once more and after a few days of hard digging as you can see in the picture the 2nd and 3rd quadrants are now racing ahead.

Check out the fire area though, look at the speed that the weeds (Couch grass in particular) has grown! This is why we needed to get our skates on - the whole area is coming alive now as Spring is coming to an end.

Check out the potatoes! We have Swiss Chard growing in front of the polytunnel too (no idea how as we didn’t plant any). Carrots, parsnips and radish all now making their presence known as well. 

In the second plot we have planted out some tomatoes. They are "Money Makers" which was a favourite of Chris' father. Let's hope these give us a good crop this year. 

We now just only have a small section of digging to do by the fire and a few rows on the 3rd quadrant to finish off. This plot had fewer weeds and so progress has been quicker.

Just in case you thought we had turned part of the plot into a pallet storage area, let me say that once the digging is over, we’re onto building a compost heap area… so these pallets are going to be the basis for this.

So far so good. Apart from the repairing of the polytunnel and the delay that it introduced into our schedule, things are progressing well. It’s been digging, digging and more digging thus far, but we can see the light at the end of that particular tunnel now.