Allotment Week - Shelves finally complete

It's allotment week. Again? Wasn't there one just a couple of weeks back? Well yes. It's because I'm now no longer able to carry over an obscene amount of leave from one year to the next. Covid has meant that I can't go anywhere else. The only places I can go is home and the allotment. I can't go to shops. And any face-to-face contact with other people must be outside and fully masked. As such I accrued a large amount of leave that was generously carried over. But now we're rolling it back so that only 5 days can be carried over. So once again, it's time to spend a week down the allotment.

Today was just a short visit. But I finally managed to get the shelves that I've been building, finished and mounted at the end of the greenhouse.

I suspect that these will end up as the storage points for the Tumbling Toms. I still have to fix the footings properly, but it's wired into the top of the greenhouse to stop it falling over. It's just damned hard trying to screw into hardwoods with just a screwdriver. I really need to get a decent set of tools. Which means I need to go shopping... which I can't do at present. Ho hum.

It's almost like Spring

 Bright blue skies. Sun is shining. Bees are buzzing. Anybody would be forgiven that it's Springtime. So it's time to get the allotment ready. Well OK, not exactly ready as we're still a few weeks out of properly decent weather.

So today was a chance to work on any odd little bits that need tidying up, and also a chance to go over the plot a bit closer following after last weeks blow. First thing to do was to put the panel back in the door. I didn't fit it last week as it was still a bit blowy, but today is perfect weather for re-fitting it. And there were no problems. However I did take a closer look at the greenhouse during this and I did notice another bit of an issue. Namely that the flapping about had caused some stress fractures on the perspex roof sections.

Whilst this is not a problem at this time, it could be an issue further down the line. I think next time I come to the plot I'll bring my tape measure so that I can measure up all of the panels just in case I need to replace everything.

Elsewhere on the plot things are starting to grow. The garlic has started.

Now we've never had much luck with alliums on the plot, so this is the first time we've tried full blown garlic here. So it's kind of a gamble. But the fact that there are lots of new shoots here is somewhat gratifying.

Elsewhere in The Wife's flowerbed the daffs are just starting to show. But also the Cosmos has started taking over.

And at the other end of the flower bed there is an oddity. There is a rogue plant that's got in. Now we're not unfamiliar with rogue plants as we've had a few, but this one could be a problem. We've got a rogue artichoke.

So I guess that's something we will have to keep an eye on in the future.

Repairing the damage

So we have totally lost the Courgettes. But the Crown Prince only appear to have suffered damage on the outer leaves of some of the plants. Yes, some are completely dead, and one seems to have been the victim of a cut worm, but a couple of the plants are sprouting new small leaves which means that the damage is not as bad as we initially thought.

Even so, when I reported the failure earlier in the week, I immediately started looking online for replacement Crown Prince seeds, only to find that there were none to be had. Steve from the Seaside Allotment Channel, offered to send me some replacements which I gratefully accepted. If you have not been following Steve, then you are really missing out. This is somebody who is relatively new to the allotment, but who has taken to it like the proverbial duck to water. He is doing stuff the likes of which you would find in commercial Market Gardens and the sheer amount of food that he turns out is absolutely astonishing.

Anyway, our day started off with the Divine Miss Vulpine turning up, despite the amount of people who were on the plot.

We re-planted the courgettes with some of the spares we had in the greenhouse.

Meanwhile is was transplant time for a number of other plants. The Wife did the Petunias, and a donated flowers (not sure what it was) and I later re-potted the Chillies.

We also had a damn good clear out of the 2nd greenhouse, as this will later be used for the above mentioned Chillies and the Two remaining Cucumbers. It definitely looks a bit cleaner compared to the last time you saw it.

I've nipped the seed heads out of the Pak Choi as they were starting to reach for the skies a bit. Oh and got rid of another of those pesky snails which were munching on our produce. But there are plenty of leaves on them still.

Whilst cleaning it out, we came across a few tubs of old beans. Since we also lost our beans in the previous cold winds, we took this opportunity to re-sow. We also planted out all the sweetcorns. Sine we've had to split the sweetcorns across two beds, I'm going to try a little experiment. I've dropped a few peas into the base of each plant in one of the beds, and beans into the base of each in the other bed. Hopefully they'll germinate in a few weeks and can use the corn as ready made canes. It's a bit random but we'll see if it works.

Sunny day for Spring Cleaning

Today is a nice sunny day. Too bad that it's as windy as a hurricane. It's still too wet to do anything outside, so today we're spring cleaning the greenhouse. When we previously did a clean we washed the whole thing. And that's what gave me last year's Lung Infection that laid me out the rest of the year. So this time, no inside washing. Just sweeping and tidy-up.

We cleared out on side of the greenhouse, and swept it all up. The wooden slat on the bottom shelf are supposed to have spacers, but although they look smart, they don't stick very well. So instead we decided to remove them altogether and fit all the wooden slats together. It makes for a stronger shelf, but obviously when you remove the gaps, you need more wood. So I sawed up some spare planks to the same length and fitted them. But I still need a few more.

Once one side was done, we moved all the stuff to the other side. We thought we'd try shuffling things around a bit. The Palette Table which I made many moons ago sticks out into the doorway a bit, so we thought we'd move it to the very back of the greenhouse.

So we played a bit of 3D Tetris to shuffle everything around... and then realised that it wouldn't work. There is a shelf at the very back where we put some of the seedlings and smaller plants. When we water anything on that shelf then the water occasionally runs to the side and drips down. In this case it would drip onside the desk. and cooking area. So we shuffled everything back again. We may as well stick with the layout.

We had intended to also do some seed sowing, but I think that's going to have to wait. Maybe tomorrow.

Spring Clean

So today we fully intended to start planting seeds. But when we got there we saw that the water had been switched back on, and we even had new taps as well. So instead we decided to clean our old greenhouse. We cleaned the new one a little while back, and the old one is desperately in need of a clean because of the bloom from the tomatoes last year. So we started emptying it out.

Eventually we pulled out the tables and my home made pallet desk and could then set to and clean the glass.

Eventually we managed to get everything nice and clean, not without having a lot of cold water running down my arms, and so it's time to move everything back in. Well needless to say by this time we'd been down the plot 5 hours and we were getting tired. We we didn't get everything finished.

We're going to a change around this time. We're putting the table on the right. Just because... Well, why not?

There is just one problem. We've taken everything out of the greenhouse. We can't leave it strewn around the plot. So we had to put the "stuff" somewhere. Cue the picture looking the other way.

Yeah, it looks like an explosion in a plastic plant pot factory.

Tomorrow... well I guess we can get everything back in it's right place and start planting the seeds that we have lined up.

Sunny Day for Cleaning

Well now. There's a surprise. A brilliantly sunny and warm day in February. Just the sort of day to highlight how much work we have to do on the plot to get ready for this year's growing season.

Our two greenhouses are in a bit of a state. They need a damn good clean. But the problem there is that the water to the site is still turned off. There are ways around that of course, but only for the small greenhouse. The bigger one will have to suffice with just a sweep-up for now and will have to face a big wash later in the year.

The big greenhouse has the wooden work bench in it.

The smaller has just plain shelving racks.

The small greenhouse was washed down inside. Easy enough to wash the windows, but trying to rinse off the suds if not so easy. Fortunately a watering can with a rose fitted to the end and large amounts of swinging it around to splash the water up onto the roof panes managed to do the trick. It now looks much, much better in there. It is surprising how much of the bloom from tomatoes gets onto the glass.

The big greenhouse just got a general sweep out.

There was plenty of weeding to be down outside as well. We removed a whole mess of weeds that were infesting some of the paths between beds. As well as starting a new compost heap to deposit said weeds in. After that we liberally made use of the huge wood chip pile to put down a thick layer of chips. These will get more added as they settle.

There are also some other areas which need attention. The willow fence that I made as seen better days. But as the new tenants of plot 29 have seen fit to completely chop down the willow tree, I'm not sure where I'll be able to get replacements, if at all.

I might be able to rescue part of it, but it may end up in the fire.

Slowly but surely, we're bringing the plot back to life. It's going to be a while but I have some holiday booked off in a couple of weeks, so we can get things sorted. Meanwhile, the Daffs are going full speed ahead to bring the first flowers to the plot.

Flaming June

It seems we're having a spot of good weather at the moment.

By "good" I mean sunny with no rain. Which means that the plot has to get watered at least every couple of days. The rain barrel is dry so it's time to run the hosepipe. Fortunately our plot is right next to the water point so it's not too much of an issue. The only real sticking point are the plants in the greenhouses. These are in small trays to hold the water. But as the temperatures in there are regularly topping 40C then this water can get used up pretty fast. A few times I've walked in to find the plants wilting in the heat.

The greenhouses are getting full and although we've moved a lot of stuff out into beds, there is so much growth that at times it feels like a jungle.

But watering is a serious issue.

Now for the most part, each plant pot has it's own tray, but there is an issue which I didn't really foresee with the Sweet Million Tomatoes. They now reside in large pots... to which I have no equally sized trays. So either I need to keep them topped up with water or I need to find an alternative solution. I need to put my thinking cap on.

Edit: Inspiration granted!

So I cut open the old compost bags that I squirrelled away and duly sawed up an Estate Agent's sign post to make a raised area and laid the compost cover over it. Now I can fill it up with water. I can keep about 3 pots in these, so I'll have to juggle things carefully.

Meanwhile there is lush green growth in all beds... even the ones we didn't plant. Yes it seem that a few rogue courgettes (or squashes, not sure what exactly), potatoes and even tomatoes have managed to germinate. Whether they thrive is another matter.

The apple tree has had it's June Drop as well. So now we have a pretty reasonable set of apples which are starting to swell and ripen.

But it seems that there are a few areas which aren't so happy. For example the potatoes in the shopping baskets.

As you can see they have quite a few yellowing leaves and they just don't seem to be doing so well. So I decided to empty one of them out and see what's what below the soil. Well for starters there are some small spuds. About a decent portion for myself and The Wife for dinner tonight.

But the biggest takeaway from this discovery is that the soil is extremely dry. Whilst I have been watering them, it seems that the water, for the most part, has been heading for the sides of the baskets and then running away. Not much of the water is actually penetrating the main portion of the soil. So instead of pulling the other two, I decided to give them a long slow watering and see how things progress for next week. If they don't recover then it's not too much of an issue. I still have plenty of other potatoes in bags (and buckets and in the ground) which are showing very healthy green leaves and flowers.

Out at the front we get a lot of people stopping by and commenting on the petunias. They are certainly putting on a dazzling display.

Not bad for a few Estate Agent's signs and a couple of gravel boards.

Allotment Week: A quieter day

There's this thing called sunshine. And for some reason there appears to be a lot of it at the plot this week.

Which is no bad thing really. At least it's taking a while to dry up the paddy fields on the plot. Although now the water level has dropped sufficiently that the algae is growing all over the place and makes it smell like a swamp.

Anyway, I managed to get some legs made for the other set of shelves for the second greenhouse.

Just in time too, as the Pak Choi has been sprouting well in it's little seed tray and needs to find a new home.

So now it has pride of place as being the first produce on the new shelves.

It seems that there will be other ready for transplanting soon, as everything is trying to play catchup after the rains and late winter. Lots of things are sprouting in the greenhouse.

Tomorrow we're going to try and get there first thing in the morning to do the work. Then we can slack off back home come noon and the main heat of the day. We might pop back later in the day for a BBQ.

Cleaning the second greehouse

It's a dry day. Which makes a change because we still have a swimming pool at the plot. However it means we can clean out the second greenhouse.

I should have taken a photo with all the junk in the greenhouse, but we got stuck straight in. The wooden pallet shelves we built did a superb job last year in supporting the tomatoes.

However one drawback of growing Toms in the greenhouse is that there is a bloom on the inside of the glass. Not only does it cut down the incoming light, but it may well harbour disease. And it also looks pretty disgusting. So we had to empty everything out and give the insides a good clean.

After we did that it's more planting time.

We started by using the old toilet roll trick for the Edamame (Soya beans).

But we also planted Foxgloves, Cape Gooseberries, Starflowers and a whole load of other flowers. "We"? Nope this was the Wife's handiwork. I did the sweetcorn. We have two varieties of sweetcorn this year. We kept some of last years crop which are perfect for popcorn making. And we now have a second variety which should be better suited to eating as a kernel as it ripens with a definite change meaning we can catch it at the right time.

Elsewhere on the plot, the Rhubarb is suggesting we ought to lay in a stock of ginger ready for jam making time.

A bit cleaner

Well I managed to clean out the rest of the greenhouse and slowly started dragging all the gubbins back inside.

At least the plot looks a little tidier now, than compared to yesterday.

But on the good news, at least I don't have to move the Strawberry Empire back inside. They can now stay out side and keep the Daffs company.

Still more stuff to do though. Maybe I can get things done next week when there is a four day weekend. If the weather holds that is.

Clean up

It's been cold recently so we're way behind on getting things organised down the plot. One of the main things we need to do is clean the greenhouse. It's a bit of a mess in there.

But first, coffee...

It was rather tricky to wrestle the shelving units out now that we have the second greenhouse facing the first. But we managed to get it sorted in the end.

Though the pallet wood table was a real pig to move out. It needs a damn good clean as there are plenty of spiders making a home in out, as well as a few mouse droppings all over the place. Guess they've been after our seeds.

We pulled out the old weed membrane and decided to put down a layer of wood chip before we put in a new lot of membrane. This should give us a put of a cushion and allow us to try and level the tables a little better.

Needless to say, after a few hours cleaning, we still haven't finished. Let alone started on the second greenhouse. So at the moment a lot of stuff has been left outside overnight.

We'll be back tomorrow. Well, I will be anyway. The Wife is off gallivanting about with her friends. I think she calls it "shopping".

Meanwhile, we tried an old trick to get some melon seeds started. Wet newspaper wrapped in plastic. Things seem to have started ok.

Of course, it's going to be too cold to leave these fragile things at the allotment, so all we did is pot them up ready to be taken back home to a nice warm kitchen. We can't even consider starting seeds yet. It's just too damn cold.

But that hasn't seemed to affect the onions...

Or the rhubarb...