29th May 2017 - Vandals and Helpers

Last week I showed you my watering system in the polytunnel, the sprinkler has an inlet and an outlet but because of the distance it has to be from the tap the outlet didn't work and so I installed a junction in the hosepipe on the fence which allows me to add a hosepipe and water the beds whilst still running the sprinkler in the polytunnel.  The outlets each have their own flow control valve and so I can turn them off if I only want to run the sprinkler or the hosepipe.  The pressure isn't great at the site but I'm happy with the result.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01DKGO0IS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1  

This week has been a really difficult one, the site has been struck by arsonists twice in the week.  A greenhouse of one of the tenants who's had a plot for over 40 years was burnt to the ground and just a couple of days later another plot had their shed burnt down too.  I was at the plot until nearly 10pm on one of the nights that there was a fire and so it's clear that whoever is responsible came after dark.  One of the things that does come from these horrible deeds is how people come together and offer to help.  We are a community and we will pull together.  We have reported it to the police but unless the people are caught red handed I'm not sure what they will be able to do about it.  Thankfully the bad weather has kept them away for the last few nights and hopefully they'll have got bored and moved on.  

This weekend I had a helper for a short time; littlest L decided that she wanted to come and help me (I think that I'd promised to take her to McDonald's on the way might have helped her make her decision lol).  She spent the couple of hours that she was there clearing the pond of duckweed. She tried to count the tadpoles, saw the newt and generally had a good time.  She did actually also help a little bit by pulling up the weeds on the boundary fence and watering the pots.  I loved watching the bees on the chive flowers, not least because you can see the water from the pond behind the plant. 

I also planted out some of my peas, I wanted to make sure that I had some succession planting this year and more importantly that I manage to get some peas home!  I planted some larger plants out a couple of weeks ago and then I've also planted some direct and some in the polytunnel.  The plan is that I will have peas throughout the summer.  I also have beans in the bottom third of the bed and I'm planning to put some pumpkins in between the rows.

Next week will be the first (hopefully of many) plant swap for Northcliffe Allotment Society.  All members have been invited to bring along any excess seedlings to swap with others; we'll have a BBQ and I'm really hoping that everyone gets into the spirit of things and bring things along to swap.  I've got strawberry plants and cornflowers to swap and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone; we just need to keep our fingers crossed for good weather!

The week has been difficult because of the mindlessness of someone who thinks it's funny to destroy other people's property; it has made me worried about coming to my plot - the place that I come to, to get away from the stresses and strains of every day life. I am determined though to keep working and keep positive.  

Allotment Tour May 2017

20th May 2017 - All beds planted & polytunnel watering

Well here we are at that end of May and so I've finished planting out.  I know that I say I wait until after the Chelsea Flower Show but that would be next week and I won't be able to go to the allotment on Saturday so I decided to get it done this weekend instead.  I have had the polytunnel door open for a couple of weeks to harden the plants off.  The melons have been under cloches to keep them warm but everything else could be grown inside or out.

My first job was to earth up the potatoes; in the same way that I tend to wait to plant out until much later than most people, I also tend to plant my potatoes later as well to avoid them getting touched by any late frosts.  As such the leaves have only just started to show and therefore my plants have missed the main risk of frost.  I use a draw hoe and stand on one side of the bed drawing the soil towards me from the middle and the opposite edge of the bed before doing the same down the other side - thus creating the mounds over my potato plants.


I then planted my brassica bed.  I already have savoy cabbage in the polytunnel and so the outside bed has cauliflower, swede and sprouts.  I got my veggiemesh straight on so hopefully that will keep the cabbage whites off of my crops; having said that I did notice that there were a couple of small holes so I will probably invest in a new net before the butterflies are properly out.  The last bed I planted was the onions.  I had 101 onion sets which I'd put into cells and all but one of them had germinated.  I planted 16 rows of 6 with one row of 4; in hindsight I could had done 20 rows of 5 but it left me some space to plant a few garlic.  I know lots of people will say that it's too warm to plant garlic now but the packet said to plant Feb-May and it is still officially May so hopefully it will germinate.

In the polytunnel I sowed some beetroot and some more peas, I have peas planted out and I've planted some directly outside but I've also sowed some in the polytunnel too; I am really hoping that this year I'll grow enough peas to actually get some home!!  Mr L also loves pickled beetroot so I'm hoping to grow enough to pickle (I'll need to learn how first).  

My final job of the weekend was to set up the watering system for the polytunnel.  It is forecast to be warm next week and while I can't be there and I'm not allowed to set up a timed watering system I wanted something that I could set running while I was doing other jobs.  I bought a water station from QVC (reduced from  £27.50 to £15.66) which I have rigged to the crop bar in my polytunnel.  I need to get a longer hose so that I can run it up the side but for my first switch on it watered nearly all of my polytunnel really well.  It does need some slight adjustments because I want it to water more towards the top to get all of the cabbages but I'm thrilled to have it working and hopefully it will really help me to keep the polytunnel watered.  Setting it like this was my neighbour Colin's brilliant idea!  I should also say that the other side of water station has an outlet for another hose and so my plan is to run another permanent hose out of the other side and then while the polytunnel is being watered I can be watering the rest of the plot.

http://www.qvcuk.com/Pure-Rain-Handheld-Gun-&-Water-Station-Combo-Pack.product.506368.html?upsh=1

Overall and despite the horrible weather I had a very productive weekend; I spent a while with my neighbour hiding from the rain in her shed with a coffee and a lovely catchup/chat.  I hope you all had a good gardening weekend so, until next time, happy gardening!

Strawberry Bed

14th May 2017 - Beds prepared and start of planting out

I did get a bit more time at the plot this weekend but Littlest L had a football match at lunchtime on Sunday so that meant I didn't get to the plot until half past 3 (her team won 8-1 and she scored 5 goals!!)  I had to meet a new tenant who is taking on a particularly overgrown plot; she was so excited and hopefully she and her partner will get on top of it as it's next to one of the nicest plots on site.  It is one of the nicest parts of my job being the site rep when someone takes on a plot that has been neglected and turns it around.  

Back to my plot though, this week I wanted to focus on getting my beds ready for planting out.  I worked out that each section of the beds need one 50l bag of manure so these beds need 4 bags and the slightly smaller ones need 3 bags.  I don't manure the bed that my root crops will be in but that means I need 18 bags of manure for my beds.  I am therefore sourcing some manure to put into one of my compost bays for future use because buying that amount every year will soon become an expensive do!  Although for me it was a bit early some of my peas and beans were so big they really needed to go out.  I've had my polytunnel door open for a couple of weeks so they've been hardened off and I'm hoping that we don't get another frost in the next couple of weeks.  A couple of weeks ago we chopped down a hazel tree and I grabbed a few of the branches that I have then used as posts to hold the strings my peas and beans will grow up.  This is a new experiment for me so we'll see how it goes.  

As you know, my pond is for wildlife, I don't have fish in there and last week I showed you a photo of a newt that has found its way into the pond.  This week I had a damsel fly on one of the water forget-me-not leaves.  I'm still hoping to see a dragonfly but this was almost as exciting!  I've also got myself another fountain for the pond; this one doesn't store any charge so the sun has to be directly on the panel but the fountain is much stronger than the one with the stored charge.  I have put it into the corner next to the iris and it makes a really lovely sound; the downside of course being that it's very stop/start.

The last thing I did this week was make a self watering pot.  I intended to film doing it but it was so late by the time I got around to it that I actually forgot about it.  If it works; I will do another and film that one.  In order to make one you put a tray inside a pot that it slightly bigger so that it doesn't make it all the way to the bottom of the pot.  You then put 2 holes in the tray.  One is big enough for the pipe that you water through and the other you place a small plant pot into.  A small hole is drilled into the main pot so that when you pour the water into the tube you can tell when it's full because water leaks out of the hole in the side.  

The small pot has a number of holes drilled into the sides so that as much water can get into it as possible.  You then fill the little pot with compost (pack as much in as you can); I also used some strips of capillary matting that I put into the little pot under the compost and pulled up through the compost into the main pot.  The water soaks into the compost in the little pot which then transfers through the rest of the compost.  The capillary matting strips will also help with that water transfer. 

I planted the pot with one of my "Winky Blue" aquilegia and surrounded by white pansies.  When the aquilegia gets a bit bigger I'm hoping that will be a really lovely display.  After planting I did give the plants a really good soaking from above but it isn't my intention to put any more water into the compost; I will only water through the tube and see how the plants get on.  I've chosen these particular plants because I have 3 other aquilegia so if it does fail it won't be the end of the world. You do need to remember that the pot has no drainage to speak of so if you water from above as well you may drown the plants.  Having said that when I did soak them, some water did drain out of the little hole in the side so the water was able to make its way out through the soaker pot in the bottom.

I do feel like my plot is coming together ready for the growing season now and hopefully I'll be putting more of my crops out next week (I know it's a few days before the Chelsea Flower Show instead of after but fingers crossed it will be ok) so until next week - happy gardening everyone :-)

7th May 2017 - Newts, Nests and Mulch

This weekend hasn't been very productive in the allotment because of other commitments but I still managed to get up for a short while and was so excited to see a newt in the pond.  I have seen one before but I wasn't able to take a photo; this time the newt stayed in the same place for ages and I managed to snap a pic of it.  I am now even more hopeful that some of the tadpoles in the pond are newts as well as the frogs.

I also shared a jar full of water from my pond with 2 of my neighbours.  I can't remember if I mentioned last year that I was struggling with really green water.  I packed my pond full of oxygenating plants and I got some water treatment products but the water was staying stubbornly green!  My neighbour had a beautifully clear pond, even though hers was smaller than mine but she had brought a jar full of water from her home pond, which was also crystal clear. She shared a bottle full of water with me and it was full of tiny bugs that eat the algae.  I put it into my pond and within a couple of months my pond was clear and has stayed clear.  I had mentioned it to a couple of people so was happy to pass on the benefit and share some of my water with other people. 

The site also had a delivery of bark chippings for mulch on Saturday.  It was a £30 charge shared between 10 of us and I got 3 barrow loads to mulch my flower bed, which I think now looks fantastic.  I hoed the bed before I mulched but in hindsight should really have given it a really good soak as well.  Despite forgetting to water the bed before mulching I really do think that the value of mulching any bed cannot be overstated.  Mulching helps to keep the moisture in the bed (and this bed seems to be particularly dry) as well as helping to keep the weeds down.  In the middle of this picture you can see that I've lifted the netting that I've been using to protect my sweetpeas from the pigeons.  I'm hoping that they're established enough to be safe now and so I've just lifted the netting but I decided not to remove it completely in case I'm wrong and I need to cover them again.  


The other exciting news I have is that the nest box I have in the hedge does seem as though it's being used by a bird this year.  I saw a while ago that it had been filled with some nesting material but then it looked as though it had been abandoned.  This weekend it looked as though the old material had been pulled out and lots of new stuff has been put in there.  I still haven't see any birds near it but I'm really hopeful that there will be eggs in there very soon.  I am trying to keep as far away from it as possible (this was super zoomed in to get the pic) so I really hope that me being on the plot won't disturb them.

At the end of the day today I collected some cast iron arms of a bench that I'm hoping to clean up, repaint and restore to it's former glory.  I got them from Freegle, which is a site I love and use regularly.  I have the chairs that I put in and out of the shed every time I go to the site but it would be nice to have some seating in different places where I can sit and enjoy the plot from different places.  My plan is to use a spray paint (probably one that you would use on a car) and get some wooden slats that I will just oil instead of painting; I'm hoping they will look good.  

You might remember that I use the Chelsea Flower Show as an indication of when I should plant out.  That means that at the moment my polytunnel is pretty packed.  I've also sown over 120 peas today.  Lots of people talk about how peas don't like their roots disturbed and that they should only be planted directly outside but as I have problems with mice eating them or moles disturbing them I've found that creating plug plants has given me significantly more success than trying to plant direct.  I've also sown some cornflowers for the first time and I'm hoping to get a few of them to pop into the flower bed.

I am hoping to get back into the allotment for much longer next week and will be busy preparing the rest of my beds for when it's time to plant out.  Until I see you next week, I hope you have a fabulous week - happy gardening!

30th April 2017 - Getting There (and YouTube)

Well, as I'm sure you've seen I've started a YouTube channel, which was a bit scary (and I need to stop saying 'erm') but I'm hoping it's a nice addition to the blog and will bring some of the posts to life - literally!  Please let me know if there is anything you would like to particularly see me do.

 I can't remember if I told you that it was the allotment inspection a couple of weeks ago.  We have inspections twice a year, normally one in the spring and one at the end of summer.  They aren't about seeing what people are growing but more about checking that the plots are being cultivated and looked after and that tenants don't have carpets on their plots (one of the few rules we have).  

Because I am the site representative I have to do the inspections with the council's allotment officer and so I was slightly mortified to have one bed that was sooooo overgrown.  I therefore cheated and covered it with weed membrane so that she couldn't see how bad it was lol.  I'm sure that she wouldn't have been at all bothered but it was important to me.  

I do occasionally use a weed killer from QVC (part of the Richard Jackson's range) but I do find it particularly satisfying to get on my kneeler pad with a hand fork and clear the bed by hand.  It took 4 buckets full of weeds to clear it but as you can see all I need now is a good covering of manure and it will be ready for my brassicas to be planted out.  I will say though, that last year I used the council manure and when I cleared this bed I could see that the majority of the weeds were just in the top couple of inches, or just in the manure from last year!  Lots of manure will come with weed seeds so whilst manure is great for adding organic matter to your soil but you should keep a close eye on it to keep on top of any weeds that might appear.

I have this weird love of wood and stumps, I really think an old rotting stump is amazing; the life they hold as well as how pretty they are (I know, I'm strange!)  I was looking for some old bits of wood to add to my woodpile in the corner for all my little bugs and creatures to hide in next to the pond, and I came across a really lovely old stump that I have put next to the pond.  I think it looks lovely and can't wait to see what happens to it over the coming years.  I also helped to cut down part of a willow tree that had got really overgrown into the path and I managed to grab a nicely shaped stump that is going to go where my England Gnome currently stands.  It has a nice shape in the middle that I might be able to plant something into so that could be a really pretty feature.  

My polytunnel is still jam packed full of plants waiting to go out, I think I've said before that I don't plant out until after the Chelsea Flower Show because by then I know that I'm totally safe from frost and so there's still lots going on behind the scenes but at the moment the beds all still have their covers on and I've started to put the manure down ready for planting.  I can't wait to get going and so some of my more hardy seedlings will probably be out in the next couple of weeks and then it will definitely look more like a worked allotment.  

My final pics this week are two that I took after I left the allotment at around 8.30pm on Bank Holiday Monday.  My allotment is in the valley of the town where I live and my house is at the top of the hill. As I drove up the hill I had to pull over to take pictures of the sunset which just looked amazing.  I really do love it when you stand looking over the town and see the sun setting over the Yorkshire Dales in the distance, it reminds me how lucky I am to live in Yorkshire, despite how cold it still is up here when other people are frost free down south! 

I hope the weather has started to turn now and we can look forward to some warmer weather.  Until next time then....

Happy Gardening!

Sink Planter