Pottering around the plot

strawberries all over the place

At the allotment in the last few weeks whilst Richard has been putting up the new green house, I have been pottering around doing other things. Pottering around is about all I can do at the moment with the damp weather. 

The fruit bed badly needs sorting out. The strawberry runners are all over the place, but the ground is still too wet at the moment to do any digging up. I managed to tidy up the strawberries in the bath and that looks much better.

a bath full of strawberries

The rhubarb which had been on Helen's old plot got dug up before Christmas and I left the crowns until I had more time to divide and pot up. They have now started to show signs of new growth, so I spent some time splitting them up into smaller plants and potting up. I was amazed at how big and woody the roots are. I have planted some on the allotment and given some away to friends but there are still rather a lot left.

just a few of the rhubarb plants

I didn't get chance to clean out the wildlife pond in the autumn, so that's another job I've done in the last couple of weeks. Armed with rubber gloves I got down on my hands and knees, scooped out the leaves, dead plant foliage and some of the silt from the bottom. A week later there was even more silt so I was back doing it all again. The silt is coming down the drain into the pond from the plot above us and with all the rain we have had recently there is  more coming down the drain than usual. I know that a certain amount of silt is needed for the pond creatures, but this is a bit excessive, I want a pond not a bog.  So my next plan is to empty the pond of all the plants and rocks, so that I can get more of the silt out and then start again with a fairly clean pond. That's if it doesn't rain too much.

murky overflowing pond

A wet plot and a new greenhouse

A new year on the allotment and there's lots to plan and look forward to. Now we just have one allotment to look after there is a sense of relief as we go down there and walk past the old plot. I must admit though there was one moment last week when we arrived at Plot 8 to find water pouring out through the gate and puddling on the beds and paths that I wondered if we had chosen the wrong plot out of the two to keep. But after scooping out the debris from the drain at the top of the plot, the water started to clear a bit. A couple of days later it had all cleared and we had a reasonably dry plot. With all the rain at the moment it will never get completely dry. 

With bad weather around there's not a lot can be done on the allotment but  this is the time of year when less urgent and  maintenance jobs can be done. It's the time to mend the fence or build new compost bins.  On our plot, as well as sorting out the drains, Richard has started work on building a greenhouse. This is a small greenhouse which we got for free from our grandson's school. The door was bent after damage from vandals, but that was easily put right. We spent a cold day last November in the school playground dismantling it. Since then it has been stored in our garage waiting for suitable weather to assemble it.

Finally the storms and heavy rains have eased off and given way to drier, colder weather.  Knowing that in a few weeks time I will be needing space to start off seeds under cover, Richard got started on the greenhouse. It is going where the old plastic growhouse was and the winter storms very kindly saved us the job of taking it down ourselves! The original base had started to rot so we replaced the wood. It's a bit of a puzzle remembering where all the pieces go back together, but Richard seems to know what he is doing, so I'm letting him get on with it. I'm sure he'll have it finished in no time.