I think I mentioned last weekend that Mr L badly cut his finger and we spent Sunday morning at the hospital so we didn't get as much done as we wanted to; as a result there were loads of jobs that he'd wanted to finish last Sunday that he did on Saturday and then on Sunday we managed to swap the old garden arch for a lovely wooden one I bought from B&M. It's called a twilight arch and one of the things I really liked about it was that the width was adjustable. As you can see from my photo there is an overhang of the top part to my sides but I think it still looks lovely and I've already got two clematis climbing up each side - I've also added some ladybird solar lights for Littlest L because she chose them and they've been in the shed for weeks whilst I couldn't decide what to do with them!
I was impressed with how easily it all went together - Mr L did add extra screws to the uprights holding it to the top (2 on the inside as directed with an extra 2 on the outside for more stability) and he added an extra screw to the middle of the trellis to hold it onto the uprights. I also bought some spikes to hammer into the ground so that the arch was very secure and not in a hole (which would rot the bottom). They were reasonably priced (just over £7) with 5% off if you bought 3 or more. I did have a little struggle with delivery (they said on the confirmation it would be delivered on Wednesday but when it didn't come they said it was 3-5 working days, which was up to the following Monday); I chased on the Tuesday when they still didn't arrive and they immediately resent them on next day delivery and I got them on Wednesday. Whilst it was 1 week later than I'd wanted it wasn't the end of the world because Mr L wasn't able to do them the weekend before with his hand anyway - if you do order them though I would recommend ensuring you have a good week before you need them to be sure of getting them in time for your project.
In addition to it being another job that I'd wanted to get done it also means that the shed is being slowly but surely cleared out of the boxes and wood so I can work in there again! Mr L also did some more work on my polytunnel. Once the frame was up I realised what a mistake I'd made not buying the legs for the staging. I called First Tunnels and they immediately sent me a set out, with free p&p because they could see how much I'd already spent with them! I ordered them on the Saturday afternoon and they came on Tuesday so once again brilliant service all around! My plot is on a slight slope and so they legs (to keep them level) are actually on bricks which looks really funny! I have decided that I'd rather have it like that than make the staging lower though so that I'm not having to bend while I'm working; which will hurt my back. I will be making a photo diary of the polytunnel construction separately to my normal photos so keep an eye out for that one. :-)
I did put some potatoes out last week and then we had snow! I was worried about frost damage, although hopefully we won't have any more snow and frost now and so I've experimented with a couple of different covers. On my Maris Piper's I went fairly traditional and covered them with a fleece; it's not a thick fleece but hopefully it will help to keep the soil warm and the frost off if we do get any more wintry weather. I've also tried covering my King Edward's with a thick layer of leaves. We have a huge leaf pile that the council drops off in a communal area and as a free resource I just thought it would be a nice organic way to protect any new shoots coming up - they were also light enough for Littlest L to happily bring up 3 wheelbarrow loads on her own which nicely covered the whole bed!
I also managed to get my strawberry bed covered with netting. You will have seen last week that I secured my hoops that I'd got from First Tunnels as well as a piece of blue MDPE pipe in the middle. I decided to buy a better quality netting that is UV stabilised and rot proof. The idea being that they can be used over and over again with a life expectancy of 7-10 years. It was therefore significantly more expensive at just under £22, than the green pea netting which is used once and throw away, but if it does last for 10 years then that's £2.20 per year and therefore works out to a similar price to the throw away stuff but surely better for the environment. The one I got was bigger than I needed and so once I've secured it properly (I've ordered some clips that I'll say more about when they come and I've had a chance to use them) I can cut off the excess and use it either over my pond to protect from falling leaves or for my peas to grown up if the experiment with the sweetcorn doesn't work.
I spent most of my time today in the greenhouse at home getting a lot of my seeds in that I either won't be buying plug plants for or that I just haven't got around to doing yet. One of my biggest problems with growing in the greenhouse is that when I work away from home I can't rely on the family to remember to water everything (or to be fair when I work long hours and I simply forget!) I usually pop my seed pots into gravel trays and keep them topped up with water. The problem with that is that bottom of the pots are constantly submerged in water and that's not always a good thing! I went along to Homebase to buy more gravel trays and come across capillary matting kits. They were £10 each (and I bought 2) but the gravel trays were £7 each and I needed at least 4 so the matting was better value and hopefully will work better. Essentially you lay the plastic sheet with the matting on top and put the wick in between the 2. Then you lay the wick into a reservoir (I used my gravel trays - 1 at each end) and fill them with water. You water the matting to start with and then all you need to do is keep the reservoirs filled. I'm hoping that all of my seedlings will therefore be kept watered until they're potted on and I'll be looking at whether I can use it to also keep my tomatoes watered all summer. :-D
The final job I did this weekend was getting the weed membrane down at my entrance all the way to the strawberry bed. I had quite a few perennial weeds making an appearance near my pond and some closer to the strawberry bed - the middle bit where everyone walks was still looking very bare but I want it to stay that way and therefore I felt it was important to get the membrane down to keep it clear. I lifted most of the rocks around the pond to tuck the liner underneath which hopefully will keep it secure but also means little weeds won't find their way out of the edges. My plan is to get plenty of wood chips from our local tree surgeon who lets us have it for free and cover all of my paths. Next weekend Mr L will be off mountain biking so I'm going to concentrate on getting the rest of the weed membrane down that I need and then when he's back we can get the final beds in place and the chippings down.
Hopefully we'll have a warmer week - happy gardening everyone!
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