15th May 2016 - Weeds, weeds, weeds

This weekend has been primarily driven by the weeds on my plot!  I really want to have a no-dig plot because I do believe that ground that is disturbed is quickly taken over by weeds that have been waiting for such an opportunity. The new weeds may be even more vigorous than the ones you wanted to eliminate in the first place and so it's better to try and leave the soil as undisturbed as possible.

I think I've said before that my fruit bed is not an ideal raised bed, it's too big (6'6" x 13') and the top corner is really close up to the fence which just makes it awkward to get to; the fruit bushes are also all pretty scratchy and for those reasons I'd decided that I would spend time preparing the bed thoroughly before covering it with weed membrane; which I did back in September when I got the plot.  Over the last couple of weeks I've been weeding the edges where the membrane wasn't quite tight to the edge but then I had some grass growing up through the hole for one of the gooseberry bushes so I lifted the membrane and OMG what a nightmare!   I had couch grass, doc, dandelion, bind weed and marestail in there.  

I used to get really stressed about weeding but I now just think that it's a part of gardening - there's no point getting upset because you'll never get rid of them and so it's better to just accept and crack on!  I have never had marestail before though and I did attempt to dig down to get rid of one but it broke off at 2' deep!  I have it in my potato and onion beds as well so I'm just breaking it off and sticking it straight into the fire - I'll just have to keep up to it.

I also took the fleece off of the potato bed and found loads of annual weeds which I mostly pulled out by hand to avoid chopping the top off of any marestail.  I did find that one of my potatoes has shot up and I carefully cleared the weeds around it before earthing it up - hopefully I'll have some more in the next few days.  I will also be removing the leaves that I used to protect my other potato bed and see if that's worked next week.

Mr L also had a busy weekend - he finished the polytunnel and I could not be more excited.  I have posted a photo diary of it but to be able to have a space on the plot where I can raise my seedlings is just invaluable.  As you can see from the photo here I have covered the whole base with weed membrane.  Now that I've discovered marestail and bindweed on the plot I really want to do whatever I can to keep them out of the tunnel.  You can also see that I have staging set up at the right side, because my plot is on a slope Mr L has put the staging legs onto bricks because I didn't want the staging to be dropped lower, which I thought might cause backache when I was using it.  I had some staging that I don't use from my greenhouse and so I have used the aluminium angle from that to support the staging but I didn't have enough to go all the way along and so I've ordered some more from ebay to finish is off and then I'll have staging all the way along.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251945461691?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&var=550816203601&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I've already talked about the capillary matting that I bought from Homebase a few weeks ago.  I have been really pleased with it in the greenhouse and because I will not be able to go to the plot every day to water things in the polytunnel it will be invaluable to making sure that my seedlings are kept watered while I'm away.  I'm not sure that it would keep things watered for 2 weeks while you're on holiday because the reservoirs need to be filled regularly to keep the matting wet but I don't know how long the matting would stay wet without the reservoirs.

Mr L also finished my fruit cage frame for me today.  I had wanted some netting that was more robust than the pea netting you can get from the supermarket because that's a nightmare to work with and really only lasts for 1 season.  I wanted something that would last for a number of seasons that I could staple to the top but then fasten and peg down but be able to easily lift when I need to and I found it at gardening-naturally.com which I discovered from a leaflet in a magazine.  The holes are big enough to easily let polinators into the cage and my fruit bushes whilst keeping those pesky birds out.  I lost nearly all of my currents last year because I was too late getting my fruit caged and I wasn't going to make the same mistake this year!

http://www.gardening-naturally.com/cgi-bin/bb000002.pl?WD=netting%20bird&PRODUCTPAGE=Bird_Netting%2ehtml#aBN000

I was impressed with the different sizes available and the cost was very reasonable.  We stapled the netting on the 'roof' of the frame and then each side has the netting stapled just at the top.  I've used the crop cover clips (that I talked about on a previous blog) to hold the net into the ground and then I've just used a covered wire to close the corners.  The idea is that if I need to get into the cage to weed or pick fruit I can just lift the side that I want access to without damaging the netting and so that I can easily cover it back again.

http://www.gardening-naturally.com/cgi-bin/bb000002.pl?PRODUCTPAGE=Crop_Cover_Clips%2ehtml%23acropcoverclip&PRODUCTREF=cropcoverclip#acropcoverclip

When I sat back today having a quick drink and relaxing before going home I was looking at how close we are to finishing all of the structural work on the plot.  I have 2 more external beds (between the strawberries and polytunnel) and 1 bed inside the polytunnel and then that's all of the 'building' work will be done.  Mr L keeps asking if I really need the extra 2 beds and the answer is probably no, I could do without them but the space is there and there's so much more that I'd be able to grow if I had them and so I want them!  I will hopefully be going to the scaffolding man this week and to buy the last few boards I need, once they're filled with topsoil I'm sure Mr L will be thrilled to know that I won't need him any more (although I hope he'll still pop up every now and then to say hello!)

Oh! Finally, when I was sat back having my drink a woodpecker popped along to say hello!  He landed on the side of my garden arch (which I hoped he wouldn't peck!) for just a couple of seconds.  It was super thrilling because I've never seen one before, I just wished he'd stayed for long enough for me to take a photo of him.  As I was leaving to go home he flew across the plot like an RAF Tornedo, just a flash of black, white and red saying goodbye! 

So, that's all from me this weekend - I hope you've had as good a weekend as I did :-)  Happy gardening everyone!