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.

Allotment Week: Can you build it? Yes we can.

If yesterday I was Samwise Gamgee, today I was Bob the Builder.

The day started out with a long trip to B&Q to look for various bits. We wanted a kind of rubber mat to put on top of the various tables that we'd built over the time. But sadly we had no luck in finding anything suitable. Certainly not in the small quantities we needed. Rolls of Lino, yes. Offcuts? Not so much.

We did buy a whole load of cheap buckets which will do for spuds, so that 10 more spud "bags" for the plot. And a new wood saw.

Back on site the new saw made short work of the wood pile. So now there is a second trough to go with the first.

And I added legs to the low shelves from last year, for the second greenhouse.

Hopefully keeping things raised up will stop some of the wood louses and mice from getting at the crops.

But I'm afraid that building work stopped at that point. Not because I ran out of energy, but because my drill did. The old trusty is getting long in the tooth now, what with it being a Ni-Cad battery. It's definitely suffering.

Tomorrow hopefully I can get the second shelf done, and build the third and final trough.

Allotment Week: What's 'Taters,' Precious?

I feel like Sam at the moment in that I'm seeing 'Taters' everywhere.

I've finally got the final two beds at the front sorted. It's taken a day longer because I had to dig out all the Bindweed rhizomes and the Couch Grass roots right next to the new path. It took a bit of digging but finally got it sorted.

We now have four 10ft beds along the front of the plot. The first two are strawberries. One from last year, and the second newly planted from all the mother plants over wintered in the greenhouse. The Wife definitely wants her Strawberry Empire.

The third bed will be beetroot (currently sown in the greenhouse), and the final one has been seeded directly with turnips.

A lot of the soil from the old mound got shifted into potato bags. So now it's time to plat the 'Taters.' We prefer Maris Peer potatoes rather than any of the other varieties. They may be going in a little late, but that no problem.

Although, we seem to have far more seed spuds than we thought. So I guess we'll have to find a few more places to drop the spuds in. But you can never have too many 'Taters, Precious.

It looks like tomorrow may well be a construction day. Time to get new kit and get building.

Allotment Week: Wait? What?... Sunshine?

To quote the great Richard Wilson ala Victor Meldrew, "I don't believe it!" There is sunshine. There is spring. There is lots to do on the plot.

First job of the day is dealing with the old mound at the front of the plot. The mound has done it's job and left superb quality soil behind. Now I just need to dig it out and put the ready made beds down.

The amount of soil there is quite a lot. Much of it will go to fill up other beds. But first things first, it's time to fill up the spud bags.

I've not planted the potatoes yet, as that will be a job for tomorrow. So after a couple of hours digging and wheelbarrowing heavy damp soil around the plot, I managed to get one bed ready.

Tomorrow this bed will be planted with more strawberries (like the bed to the left), and the other beds will get  sorted out. Well, the one under the carpet is already done, but I need to sort out the final bed before everything is in place properly.

Meanwhile, we're contemplating grow a rice crop in the paddy fields.

Though at least the far end bed may be OK, because that's going to be this years compost mound for the courgettes. But even that one has a moat of water around it. Damn London Clay.

On the other side of the plot though, the rhubarb is saying "Soon. Soon."

Better lay in a stock of ginger.

Back to the plot tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after. And... yeah there is a lot to be done. Fortunately I have the week off work.

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.