Getting the jobs done

Here we are in June and still waiting for summer, will it ever arrive? This week we've had some lovely warm days and maybe summer has finally arrived. But we've had some strong winds recently which have tested the stability of our allotment plastic grow house. Fortunately Richard secured it well to a strong base. This is its second year and probably its last. The zip has broken down one side and although we could probably buy a new cover I don't think it's worth it. It's served its purpose and Richard is making a base for another grow house or poly tunnel type of structure which he will build himself and will be much more stable. We don't buy things for the allotment if we can make them.

Things are starting to grow and it's looking nice and green with rows of broad beans, peas, salad leaves, onions, garlic cabbages and Brussels sprouts. The pea and bean frames are in place and so is the brassica frame.

This week I have planted out celeriac. I love celeriac but haven't quite mastered the technique of growing it.  Last year's crop was very small, but I will keep trying. I have also sown fennel, swede, more peas and more climbing french beans.  It always seems a mad rush at this time of year to get everything in the ground at the right time.  I don't want to miss out on any vegetables because I forgot to sow the seed at the right time.  But I feel I am getting on top of things and ticking off the jobs on the list in my allotment journal.

The strawberries are looking healthy.  They have had some lovely flowers and are now starting to form the fruit.  I have put some straw underneath the strawberries in the bath and still have to do the ones in the fruit bed. This year I must remember to net them before it's too late and the birds eat them all!

Disaster at the allotment

Today we had awful weather, sunny spells which deceive you into thinking you can get outside to do some gardening and then the next minute the sky clouding over and the rain bucketing down.  But we decided to risk it and go to the allotment because we had some jobs which could be done in the shed.  My jobs were quite important--I had seedlings ready to be potted on and as we are away next weekend I didn't want to leave them to get any bigger in their trays. However this was not to be.

We arrived at the allotment to find that disaster had struck on plot 8.  The strong winds of the last couple of days had caused the tubular staging in the growhouse to come apart. Well we knew the growhouse was a bit flimsy and there was a risk with it. All the trays of seeds waiting to germinate and others which had been pricked out had toppled off the shelf and were all over the floor and on top of the seedlings on the shelf below.  It was total chaos.

I didn't know how to start sorting them out and felt very tearful.  All my work of the last few weeks seemed to have gone to waste.  I started gathering up the compost and attempting to recover seedlings. I phoned my daughter Helen for assistance.  She was recovering from her son's birthday party earlier in the day, but came over to help.

Gradually we sorted through the plants and seedlings, some had to be thrown away, others could be replanted.  Most of them were flower seedlings which I had been growing for my new cut flower beds. With the growhouse emptied and swept up, Richard arrived with his drill and bag of screws to do a modification to the staging.  I have been reassured that the staging is now safe, so have put the tidied up trays back in the growhouse.

We were soaking wet when we'd finished, the rain had continued throughout but order has been restored. Let's hope it stays that way. What I really need is a proper greenhouse.

Building things

There's been a lot of construction work going on at our allotments recently. The shed and the cold frame I have blogged about. The other things, well first there was the growhouse.  That's on Plot 8. It's only a plastic walk in growhouse from Aldi and we don't know how well it will work.  But it's got a good solid wooden base to stand on and it's well secured to this base because we know how easy it is for growhouses to fly away on a windy day. A cheap growhouse like this is not the ideal, but we're on a tight budget and if it doesn't last long then at least it will put us on until we can afford a better one and there will be a good base to fix it to.

On plot 10b a recent 'structure' is a platform for the water butts.  They needed to be raised up so the taps could be fitted and we could easily get a watering can underneath.  It looks very smart and has tidied up the front of the shed area. 

The latest new project on plot 8 has been making a level  area outside the shed  where we can put the table and chairs. It's all ready now to put some membrane down and then top with gravel. I love this little space. With the weather improving we will soon be having our allotment picnics and this will be a good place to sit out when we want to take a break from our hard work.

All of these new projects as usual have been made using recycled wood or paving.  It keeps my husband busy. He loves a building project, I only have to say I would like something and he gets his tape measure out and starts to rummage through our collection of wood. The least amount of money spent the better. Now what next? It could be gravel paths, which might involve spending some money. I suppose it had to happen sometime.

Muddy at the allotment

 

Last week we made a lot of progress at the allotment. During the week there was soil delivered for the plot holders. It was not the best topsoil but when it's free you can't complain and with a bit of manure and compost added it will be fine. So at the weekend we were barrowing soil to our plot for our raised beds. Fortunately the soil was delivered to the car park just outside our plot so we didn't have far to barrow to.

The weather has been really wet recently which has hampered our attempts to do any work. The clay soil becomes very slippy when wet and just sticks to our boots.

The growhouse is finished, it now has a sliding door. It even has guttering and water butts. With all the rain we have had recently the water butts are now full. We may not need to water our crops but at least we can clean our wellies!

We also have two new raised beds complete with soil.

The plot still looks like a building site but we are making progress

Salad chat update

My salad growing has not been good in the last few weeks.  The seeds I've sown have not germinated or I suspect have been eaten by slugs early on. We've had so much rain, that when I have been able to get out into the garden there have been so many other things to see to that the salad has got neglected.

There are  still salad leaves for picking--red salad bowl, watercress, mustard and rocket. The rocket and mustard have flowered and look very pretty! I can't remember when I last bought any lettuce.                

 I haven't done well with the sowing of new salad leaves. In fact things were so bad that when I went to the garden centre the other week I bought a tray of salad leaves to plant in the hope that they would be strong enough to resist the slugs.  Well I planted them and they are still there so there's hope yet. They might do bettter than my own sowings.

In the cold frame the cucumbers produced some tiny fruit, but some were chewed at by the slugs. And after the heavy rain this week the plants looked so bad that I decided to give up and throw them out.

The good news is that we have a growhouse now at the allotment and I'm wondering if we might be able to grow some salad in there during the colder months. Also at the allotment the fennel we planted last month is looking good. Some of the beetroot we planted earlier in the year didn't get thinned out so we harvested them as baby beets and they were lovely in a salad.  There is plenty more beetroot both at the allotment and in the garden cold frame.

 In the next few weeks I shall be sowing some winter salad leaves and start sowing seed for microgreens and pea shoots again for the cooler months.

For more information on growing salad crops and recipes to try check out the 52 Week Salad Challenge posts on  veg plotting's blog

Polytunnel or greenhouse?

 

The work on the allotment polytunnel is nearly finished. Last weekend R started covering the frame with the sheeting and he managed to do all but the door.  On Sunday morning he covered the roof and in the afternoon Helen and I couldn't wait to get started so we moved in to dig over the soil. We plan to have a flagged path in the middle with a border each side.  The soil is like the rest of the soil on the plot--heavy clay.  So we will have to incorporate plenty of organic matter to break the clay up before we can plant directly into the soil.

I brought some pots of chilli plants from home and put them in there standing on some wooden boards and Helen planted up some potatoes in bags of compost.  We've both tried before to grow potatoes a this time of year for cropping at Christmas, but without success.  We thought we would try them under cover this time and see if that works.

Working away in the growhouse we were full of ideas and plans for what we could grow in there.

Since then we have had two days of continuous heavy rain which has certainly tested out the drains which R has built recently. Unfortunately the rain was collecting on the growhouse roof in places so some adjustments had to be made.

So there it is, still things to be done, but very nearly complete. Most of it has been made from the frame of the old cabin. We've had to buy the polythene covering and a small amount of extra wood.

We're now trying to decide whether it's a polytunnel, greenhouse or growhouse. We originally set out to have a polytunnel, but it's not really a tunnel. It's probably more like a greenhouse. Polyhouse maybe?