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!