Here we are again, last weekend was Easter and it was a most peculiar Easter weekend. We are still in lockdown and I'm trying to leave the house as little as possible. Having said that, I was still working on weeding and mulching around the edges of my lawn. I therefore needed to go and buy mulch but with the majority of garden centres closed I went to B&M and bought a few essentials (cornflakes and ketchup) as well as some mulch and clematis.
The endge of the garden has been a bit of a challenge and I've ground to a halt because I've discovered that the ground falls sharply away under some parts of the fence so I can't just weed and put the mulch down. I have a couple of solutions to try and either block the gaps or fill the holes. I will share what I'm doing and hopefully it will look good when I'm done! Mr L also cut back the overhanging trees from next door; I was worried that because it's a conifer hedge that cutting it back would result in a very ugly dead looking hedge on our side but he managed to keep a lot of the green so it isn't too bad.
At the bottom of the garden I have wanted to put a deck since before we moved in. This corner is sunny all day and where we all migrate to for morning coffee, lunch or in the evening. The space is 3.7m × 4.5m so it's a good size. The challenge is that putting a deck will make the fence around waist height so I'll need to consider a privacy screen of some description. Mr L is now furloughed for 4 weeks so he's ordered the materials and will be spending his time building a place for me to relax when this is all done.
At the allotment I've continued working on clearing the beds and getting them covered. I'm beginning to contemplate planting rather than leaving it fallow for the year. I do need to keep myself in check because I absolutely have to get 86 up and running this year. I feel like I need to keep focus on getting the jobs done and ready for planting next year. If I don't get 86 finished this year I will have to give it up and I really don't want to do that. I feel like I therefore need to enjoy the flowers growing in 85 while getting stuck into 86 and making it as beautiful as 85 can be.
I also have some exciting news about 86 but I'll wait till next time because I forgot to take photographs so hopefully I'll be a to share that with you next week.
Until next time then...
Stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives and Happy Gardening x
It is nearly a year since I last wrote and I'm sure you've been wondering what I've been up to.
In March last year I left my job of 7 years, it was a very difficult decision, but I felt in order to move forward I needed to take a leap into the abyss. I was very lucky to have an interim job to go to, so after 2 weeks off I began a project role. The role meant that I was travelling a lot and dealing with some difficult issues. During that period I had somewhat of a realisation that I'd left a job I loved and whilst I loved my new job I had much less security and that threw me into a bit of a spiral. I was struggling to come to terms with what I'd done and how I would manage at the end of the contract (it ended up being great, because they offered me a permanentjob!) The interim job however resulted in me having less time to go to the plot due to work but then less inclination to go because of how I was feeling. On top of that we moved house in September so at a point when I felt I was starting to get back on an even keel I was busy with the new house. We have only moved 10 minutes down the road so we're not actually much further from the plot, as the cross flies.
Since then we have, of course, entered into this new state of uncertainty. I work for an organisation that is part of the behind the scenes support of the key workers. As a result I have been working long hours and unable to get to the plot in the week before the clocks changed.
We were then told that we couldn't drive to attend our exercise and so I was unable to go to the plot anyway. On Friday however Matt Hancock announced that people could travel short distances to their exercise so long as they observed all the other rules of social distancing. On Saturday I had jobs that I needed to do in the garden at home, but planned to go and spend some time at the plot on Saturday.
When the developers laid the lawn they left a gap between the grass and the fence. We have lovely Yorkshire clay, which is perfect for weeds to grow and so I set about clearing the area. I weeded and put a thick mulch of bark chippings down on one section (because that's as much as I had). I will be ordering more this week because it looks great and will really help to suppress the weeds. There is one section however that might be a challenge at the back because upon closer inspection it appears the ground falls away behind the fence so I'll need to look at a solution for there. I really do think the mulch is the way to go so I need to look at how I can stop it falling out behind the fence!
One of the things I had previously worked on is a small bed for a magnolia tree. It's a medium sized tree (max height around 12 feet), which I have placed in the corner of the garden that is slightly more overlooked by the house behind. I've always wanted a magnolia so it was a great excuse!! This part of the garden has a slight slope so I had to create a bed that is higher at the front to keep the whole bed level. I filled it with tree and shrub compost to give it the best start and underplanted with hellebores, tulips and pansies; I then covered in a thick layer of mulch which matches the mulch at the front (and what I've used to edge the law as above). My garden is mostly grass and Mr L doesn't want me to change it but I'm still considering whether I want to add a border somewhere and I definitely want to include a deck in the bottom corner where it gets the sun until the end of the day.
On Sunday I managed to get up to the plot. On the way there Matt Hancock said on the news that because of the actions of some people yesterday the Government are going to have to consider whether to stop all exercise outside of the house. If that happens I won't be able to go back to my plot!! I therefore spent my time clearing and covering beds. I have so much to do but my logic was that if I could protect them from getting overgrown in case I am kept away then I'll be in a better position when I can get back there.
I am still hoping that I can get up there and until they say otherwise I will be planning to spend and hour each evening after work, now that its lighter for longer. I'm still intending to carry on clearing and covering the beds. I don't feel like I'll be in the best place to be growing much this season, especially as I got so behind last year. If I can focus on getting everything up to scratch then I can start fresh next year. So by the end of this year both plots need to be cleared and prepared for the 2021 growing season. I will be trying to get back into the habit of blogging and I hope my adventures in clearing won't be too dull.
Until next time then...
Stay safe, stay home, protect the NHS, save lives and happy gardening x
It will be no surprise to most of you that as it was a public holiday again it rained for most of the weekend - grrrrr! I had other plans on Saturday but wasn't worried about my to-do list because I still had 2 full days; that plan was completely scuppered by the persistent rain. I had hoped to get my beds built but I didn't have a long enough dry window to do it. In 85 I still have a significant amount of weeding to do on my paths and the area behind my compost bins. I also want to move some of the pots that I have on 85 into 86, partly because 85 has started to look cluttered but also because a lot of the pots in 85 were never meant to be there long term anyway. I also need to weed and mulch my fruit cage which has become quite messy in the last couple of weeks.
Mr L got a battery powered circular saw to cut the boards to size (I had a little go with it too but left it to Mr L to do most of the cutting!). As you remember they are all 13' long and so I've cut them into 9' and 4' lengths'. I will end up with 6 beds across the top of the plot.
I will need to do a little bit of work to weed the edges of the plot again before I place the beds. The edges are always a challenge because I can't put membrane beyond the boundaries of my plot. It's irritating but necessary to therefore keep it trimmed (or trained) to ensure that it's neat and tidy.
With the bad weather I did manage to get a few bits done in the polytunnel, where I was hiding from the rain! I've never been particularly successful at growing seeds but this year I've managed to get some germinated and so I spent an hour potting on with still more to do when I've created a bit more space. I have actually managed to germinate sweetpeas, which I've never done before, and despite having some not make it after being away for a week with work, I've got some very healthy peas that I can put out to replace the ones the pigeons have been feasting on. I also have a small number of zinnia, some cosmos, rudbeckia and alyssum.
When I cleared the greenhouse I found some plant halo's that I'd used a few years ago. I had 2 extra tomato plants that I'd not potted on yet and 2 aubergine. I have never successfully grown aubergine; I've grown them in pots and in the ground so this year I decided to try them in a pot with a halo. I filled the pot as normal and then watered it. This makes sure that the soil has settled before you put the halo onto it. You then put your plant into the raised part in the middle, the tricky part is making sure that you have compost around the sides of the plant because as you pack it in it's really easy to drop it into the halo and it's hard to get out again! Once the plant is in place you water it in as normal, this makes sure that the roots have good contact to the soil and are able to wick up the moisture from the soil in the lower pot. You then only water into the halo (although you do continue to feed directly to the plant). It will be interesting to see if this is more successful in producing fruit than my previous attempts have been.
I also managed to get some work done around the pond. Once a year I clear the area around the pond, I know that the ground elder will come back and I'm happy to have it because it creates a hiding place for the frogs but if I don't cut it back completely the it just goes wild! This year I also had to get rid of my planting table so I dropped all the old compost that had been in that into the area. I've currently just popped all the gnomes in there but I'm thinking about planting some shade loving plants that might grow big enough to compete with the ground elder! I'll keep you posted.
In the flower bed next to the shed it's a bit of a riot of purple. The alliums are in full bloom, as is the sweet rocket which is just beautiful and very much loved by the bees and other pollinators. I also have my winky blue aquilegia which is looking fabulous! Both the peony are in bud and ready to open; I'm really looking forward to them opening, the white one is called Shirley Temple but I've never seen the red one open because it didn't flower last year. I do have some supports in place but I don't think they'll be enough so I think need to do something more with them.
In my other flower bed the bleeding heart is doing really well. I planted two of them last year in the same bed but the one further up where it gets more sun died; the one that's left really seems to like the position and has tripled in size. I've also got lots of foxgloves growing in both flower beds; I haven't planted them they self seeded a couple of years ago from the plants I had put in and they're already starting to flower. I'll make sure that I spread seed around the beds again this year and I'll probably try to plant some in the flower bed in the new plot as well.
During the week this week I'm going to have to go and get some more longer screws to put my beds together. I absolutely have to build my beds this week and then I can get on with planting the potatoes and onions that I've got ready to plant.
Until next time...
Happy Gardening
This week I managed to get up to the plot for a little while during the week. I prepared the bed in the polytunnel last weekend but wasn't sure what I was going to grow in there. I decided that I would have another go at sweetcorn. Last time I attempted sweetcorn I grew it outside and every cob was eaten by squirrels and pigeons!
I noticed that on The Beechgrove Garden they grow sweetcorn under cover in the polytunnel so I decided to have a go and see what happens. I have also set them up on the automatic watering system. Corn needs to have regular watering, skipping watering particularly during pollination will result in cobs with missing kernels.
I bought the watering system from Groupon, it's pretty simple really - just a timer and stick it in the bucket. It runs for 30 seconds every day which seems to be enough to really soak through for now, (I don't know how many litres per hour it's putting out). Once the weather gets hotter I'll need to increase the regularity of the watering and possibly for longer. I'll need to keep an eye on it. I might also need to split them into 2 buckets. At the moment I've got 10 on one unit and 4 on the other so if I decide to split them I'll make it 7 and 7 which will help to make water last longer. http://tinyurl.com/y63o98ym
I've mentioned that I've planted fruit trees in pots which I'll probably end up putting into 86, I've also got the peach and lemon trees. This week I spotted a pomegranate, which is half hardy and can be grown in this country so naturally I thought it would be fab to try it out.
I have a number of fruit trees now that I'm planning to put into 86, I don't want that plot to be primarily for growing fruit but I am enjoying that I have the space to grow more fruit and permanent crops. I just need to work out how best to have them on the plot
In 86 I repaired the membrane which had been pulled up with the winds over the winter. As you know I've been keeping the plot covered while I was preparing for the beds but I've struggled to get the planks and so it's been covered for quite some time. It's interesting to see how some plants (read weeds) are still pushing their way through or seeding themselves into little bits of soil that had settled in the folds.
We did manage to get some planks from the local scaffold yard. They'd originally said they could only get 5 and 6 foot lengths but they called us to say they had some 13 foot lengths and so I managed to get 12 of them (to make 6 beds).
My lovely allotment neighbour has a canoe trolley and he thought it would be ideal for transporting the planks from the clubhouse up to the plot. It worked perfectly and we were able to get them all up in 2 loads (I had already taken 2 up by hand so it was 5 on each trip). It was certainly much easier than trying to carry them individually up the hill.
I've asked Mr L if he can come and and cut the planks for me. I'm going to have my beds 9'x4' so each bed will be made of 2 planks and I'll be able to make 6 beds. They're going to go along the top of the plot and will be my rotation beds and fruit beds. I am also planning to have a wider middle path to make room for pots; in the first instance I have the fruit trees in pots but I'm intending to plant them into the ground.
I also got cracking with some more of the weeding. The bottom path of 85 was a disgrace! I didn't keep on top of it last year as I had in previous years and so the weeds really have been trying to take back my plot starting with that path!! I filled the tumbling composter just with the weeds from that path; I need to add some cardboard to help its balance but hopefully I'll be able to make it into compost much more quickly than my normal way.
I do still have the paths behind the polytunnel and fruit cages to weed and the path in front of the polytunnel. These are all paths that I don't use much and so it's easy for the weeds to run away there too.
Overall I'm really happy with what I've got done this week and hopefully by this time next week I'll have the beds in place in 86.
Until next time then...
Happy Gardening x
I've talked before about making a self watering pot but I don't think I've done a step by step guide to it. As I've emptied and was about to refill it I thought I'd take some photos and share it with you all.
I started with a large container, it's the same size that I have planted the fruit trees into.
The other elements needed are a pot saucer (the bottom of the pot fills the base of the saucer), a small plant pot (approx 9"), a piece of pipe and some capillary matting.
Cut 2 holes in the saucer for the pot and pipe. you need to keep them fairly tight so that they don't fall through and so that the compost doesn't fall into the reservoir below the saucer.
I also put extra holes around the side of the small pot.
Put the saucer inside the pot and measure from the top to where the sauce rests. On the outside of the pot measure down to where the saucer sits and drill a small hole just below this level.
Push the capillary matting strips through the sides of the small pot so that they're in the reservoir below and fill with compost (pack it in tight)
Fill the pot with compost, laying the capillary matting at different levels. I half fill the pot with normal compost and then use my usual blend (compost/gravel/root booster/all season feed/water retaining gel) to top it up.
Plant and water as normal so that the plant is well bedded into the pot.
Fill the reservoir through the pipe
When the reservoir is full the water runs out of the overflow at the side
13th May is the last frost date for my area, so I took a risk and cleared my polytunnel of the plants that I had been keeping inside. I mulched the bed with compost and now I need to decide what to plant in it. I have the tomatoes, aubergine and cucumber in pots at the moment.
I want to plant the olive tree into 86 so I'll keep that in a pot for now (I'll need to check that it's ok in the allotment rules), but hopefully I'll be able to plant it, if not in the ground then a big pot.
I left the door of the polytunnel open tonight, I will go up to the plot at some point tomorrow to check on the temperature overnight but I'm hoping it will be ok to leave open now because having it closed means that the plants are getting a bit baked on the hotter days (it was nearly 40oC in there today!)
I got the first of my bedding plants done and planted in the hanging baskets. I've still got more and I need to decide where to put them. I'm thinking of hanging one of them from the shed, to the left of the window. I will need to make sure that I have a strut to fasten the hanger from because it will be too heavy for the wall. If I can't position that properly I will need to work out how to fasten a piece of wood on the inside of the shed.
The only other thing I did on the plot this weekend was plant out more peas. I still have loads in the polytunnel and I need to decide what I'm going to do with them because I want to be able to have plenty to harvest.
The last thing I did this weekend was enter the allotment competition. I nearly didn't do it this time but I really do like it and I was hoping it would give me the kick I need to finish clearing the paths and doing the little jobs to tidy everything up. I've also entered the 'best shed' competition! I love my shed and I think the whole area with the pond and arbour really makes it a beautiful area and so relaxing. There is some additional work to be done around the wild area to tidy it because it has become a little too wild!
It's coming to the time of year where there are allotment competitions and vegetable shows around the country. I'd love to hear about what you're entering and how you get on.
Until next time...
Happy Gardening x
I have a greenhouse in the garden at the house but for a little while it's been used as a bit of a dumping ground. I decided I wanted to move it to 86 and Mr L said that if I clear it he will move it to the allotment for me and so this weekend I set about clearing it.
It's amazing how much stuff was in there; I found some tomato halos and some big pots that I'd previously planted tomatoes into. I had huge amounts of cardboard that I'd saved and has now been moved to 86 ready for my new beds. I also found the capillary matting that I had on the staging, which is still in really good condition and with the plastic sheeting underneath, which means that you don't have to have trays to put your plants into. In the interest of reduce, re-use, recycle I won't be throwing it away as it's in good condition and so I'll take it up to the plot and see if I can utilise it on my staging to reduce the amount of plastic trays I need.
This weekend was World Naked Gardening Day (WNGD). For those who don't know WNGD is 'celebrated' on the first Saturday in May and was set up with no particular political agenda although it is a celebration of the human body. We live in a world where everything is airbrushed and 'normal' is some model who looks like she's never seen a pie, never mind eaten one! I feel like it's important to have body confidence, whatever your body looks like. I set up my camera in the polytunnel (on top of a tub, on top of a bag of gravel, on top of a bag of compost) and prayed that my allotment neighbour didn't turn up or he'd get the shock of his life! I was super brave and shared the unedited pic on one of my Facebook pages; most of the comments were really lovely and positive with only a couple of nasty/miserable comments. I also got 1 person sending me a private message, the message itself wasn't rude or unacceptable but I did make it clear that it wasn't OK for someone to message me on the back of me participating in WNGD.
On 85 I had already planted out one set of peas (Tom Thumb dwarf peas) a couple of weeks ago. It has been quite cold so they haven't really come on very quickly, which is a shame because the pigeons have been at them and they're looking a bit sad. Today I planted out some Mange Tout (on the wigwam closest to the camera). I had loads of them and so I added an obelisk in between the wigwams and planted an extra 4 plants against that. I still have about 12 more plants so if the pigeons get to these I'll still have some to replace them. I've also got a whole tray of meteor peas to go out next weekend, I'm hoping that by staggering putting them out I'll have a succession of peas throughout the summer. I have got room for at least one more obelisk (and maybe two) in this bed. I have also planted some Ambassador peas in the polytunnel when everything was being eaten by the mice and I didn't think I'd have enough - now I'll have too many!!
I have now ordered boards for the beds in 86 so I'm confident that I'll have the built and productive very soon. I can't wait to get them going, I have potatoes left over from planting in 85 and, as I've mentioned above, I'll have additional peas available. I don't know that I'll plant any brassicas because I don't have protection for them from the butterflies, but I do have the fruit trees that I need to find homes for. I have a small bed that I have considered using just for the blueberries. I will be able to easily fill it with ericaceous compost and construct some netting to keep the birds off them. I am planning on using my blue piping as supports, because the bed is small it should raise the netting up high enough to keep the birds at bay.
Until next time...
Happy Gardening x
