Our new garden project 7--another path and an arch

The next stage of our garden project was to continue with the path work. The bottom of the garden was now looking good, but needed linking to the house where the flagged area was. I had always wanted an arch to grow climbers up and could just picture one at the end of the patio leading out onto the garden. So our next plan was to complete the path from the seating area up to the patio through the arch and have a small flower bed each side of the archway. Holly the cat loves being in the garden with us and follows us around as we work.

After all that had been completed so far in the garden, this was a much smaller project and was finished in no time. As usual Richard was the builder and I was the designer and planter. The arch was put in place first and then the sleepers for the raised beds either side. The same system for building the path was used again with gravel and topped with slate chippings.

 I decided to delay the planting up of the two beds as we were going to have some rendering work done on the back wall of the house and I didn't want anything getting in the way of the builders or being damaged by them. The plants in pots which you can see in the photos are herbs which had been on the patio and were moved there to be out of the way of the builders.

In the meantime I gave a lot of thought to what I wanted to put in these two small beds. We visit a lot of gardens open to the public which gives me lots of ideas for my own garden. I like to be able to look at a garden and not see the whole of it in one go. So my idea is to have the arch covered in climbers and plants either side which will provide a bit of screening when we are sitting on the patio. I'm so looking forward to the scaffolding being taken down so that we can get on with the next phase of our garden on the flagged area.

Through the Garden Gate--June

June has been an incredibly hot dry month especially for us in Lancashire where we  normally get a lot of rain. We are not used to having to water our gardens nearly every day, but that is how it has been. Having a new garden with new plants we have had to take care of them, and then there are the patio pots too.

But despite the dry conditions our new borders are doing well. In fact they are growing at an amazing rate. I have decided that this must be because of all the good stuff I put into the beds last autumn to improve the clay soil--top soil, mushroom compost, manure. Well it worked because the flowers are all over the place in the raised beds. It is now that I can see where plants were wrongly planted and so in the autumn or next spring I will be rearranging the plants in the borders. It will be a case of  moving some plants which did not grow as tall as I expected to nearer the front and others which are too tall to be at the front need to be moved to the back. Then there are the colour combinations which didn't quite workout.  The bright red and yellow geums are a bit of a clash of colour next to purple lychnis.

In my last garden I could never grow nepeta or cat mint as it is often known as. In my new raised beds I planted three good sized pots of nepeta and they have romped away. Holly the cat loves it and if she's not chewing on it she is often to be found curled up next to one of the plants with a sleepy look on her face. As is her friend Zeus the cat from across the road. I love the way the plant tumbles over the raised bed with the Alchemilla mollis. they make a good combination.

In the smaller raised bed at the back of the seating area I seem to have managed the planting a bit better. A gaura which I bought from a visit to Holker Hall in Cumbria last summer has lovely dark foliage and the pale pink flowers contrast well with the dark red leaved persicaria 'red dragon' and silvery lamb's ears.

Some plants I brought from the allotment bog garden and are doing quite well even in the dry conditions we have at the moment. 

It has been really too hot to do much gardening on these lovely summer days and sometimes too hot to even sit out in the sun. But we have been taking time to just relax and enjoy the garden and watch new plants bursting into flower each day.

I am linking this post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea ' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate'
post

Our new garden project 3--raised beds and a seating area

We continued working on our new garden throughout the summer last year. After digging out borders down one side and along the bottom of the garden, we then turned our attention to the other side. 

One of the features I wanted in the garden was a seating area where we could put our little table and chairs. I wanted it to be a secluded area with flowers, trees and shrubs surrounding it. We decided early on in our plans that the best place for this would be on the far side. It was away from the house and faced south west and got the last of the sunshine in the evening as well as sunshine for most of the day. On this side of the garden the lawn was quite bumpy and uneven as well as being waterlogged. On a recent visit to RHS garden Harlow Carr we had seen how they had built a raised seating area with wooden sleepers and gravel and thought we could use this idea in our garden. 

First, Richard decided to investigate some of the bumps in the lawn and managed to unearth what was once a large,curved,  brick edged flower bed. We couldn't understand why it had been grassed over, perhaps a previous owner didn't like gardening? We were planning to put a flower border in this area and wondered if we should keep it as it was. It was a ready made border after all, but the more we looked at it the more we thought it wasn't very attractive looking. It would have to go.

old beds found under lawn

Because of the slope of the lawn and the drainage problems the new seating area was going to be raised up slightly with wooden sleepers to level it out and keep it dry. When we discovered the brick edged bed we decided we would still have a flower bed there but instead of the brick edge we would have it raised up with the wooden sleepers and make it bigger. This would then be at a higher level than the seating area to cope with the slope of the lawn and would look better. 

Plenty of bricks

A lot of work followed, digging out the beds. There were a lot of bricks in there, we thought we would never get to the end of all them. They are now piled up in another part of the garden,  I'm sure we'll find a use for them. A base for the shed perhaps?

setting out the timbers

Lots of digging work

Once the beds had been dug over and all the bricks, stones and weeds removed, we incorporated  topsoil and mushroom compost to help improve the soil. The timbers were then put in place.

Adding the topsoil

The raised beds looked lovely with the new soil and compost mixture and I was longing to get planting. Not yet though. It was going to be quite a decent sized flower bed so in the meantime I thought a lot about what could go in there.

muddy work

work progressing

As work progressed I did wonder at times if it would look right. I'm not used to straight lines in the garden, we've always had curves.  But there was no need to worry, once it was finished it looked great. The seating area was finished off with slate clippings.

Planting up the new beds would come later, but we now had somewhere to sit.  We loved this little seating area and throughout the summer and into the autumn we would sit there, even on cooler days wrapped up in coats! Well, having put so much work into building it we had to use it.

It's now a lovely place to sit with a drink, coffee, tea, wine, whatever--a place to take a break from gardening, relax, watch the birds, or plan the next phase of our garden.

January progress

January is not a good month for getting work done on the allotment. Snow and ice is often the problem, this month is has been rain and wind.  But there have been bright spells.  We've watched the weather forecasts to decide if it's been safe to go to the allotment for an hour or two.  We've managed that a few times this month and every little helps.

At the start of the month the job was to tidy up some of the rubbish still lying around on plot 8. This was mainly stuff cleared out of the old shed and wood from the demolishing of the shed. We spent a few fine days sorting through the rubbish, deciding what we wanted to keep (it might come in useful one day). We ended up with several bags of glass, plastic, metal and general rubbish which went to the local recycling centre. There is now a pile of wood waiting for the right day to have a bonfire and stacked up at the back of the shed out of the way is all the wood which we want to keep. There's always something to be made or repaired on an allotment so it's useful to have some decent pieces of wood.

We gained a few useful items as well as wood--lots of plant pots, a folding wooden garden chair, several sheets of membrane fabric, loads and loads of tubular poles and connectors which were probably once assembled as grow houses and staging. One day we will sort through them and see if we can make anything with them. It will be quite a puzzle I'm sure.

I started to clear the weeds from the new beds which had been dug over at the end of the summer. There's still lots of  weeding to be done but it's a start.

The next job was to top the raised beds on plot 10b with composted manure. This was a job we started in the autumn but stopped as Christmas took over. First job was the rhubarb bed then the blackcurrant and gooseberry bed. Finally the old roots bed which will have peas and beans in later this year. The raised beds on plot 10b now look very tidy.

The polytunnel was in need of some attention and I made a start on cleaning the inside with Algon.  I then  tackled the borders which are heavy clay soil.  I topped the beds with some manure and compost.

In the meantime Richard has made a start on building the path up to the polytunnel. This area has been causing some problems in wet weather because the soil is clay and becomes very wet and slippery. He's making some long steps up the slight slope. So far he has made a wooden frame (using our supply of spare wood of course) and is now filling in with hardcore before the final gravel topping.

 

As we come to the end of the month, the weather is not just rainy but extremely cold too. I'm glad we made the most of the fine days to get those jobs done.

All ready for planting

As the weather has gradually improved over the last couple of weeks we have been able to do more at the allotments.  On plot 10a our potatoes are now planted up in containers.  The containers are a mixed bunch of deep pots, potato growing bags or old compost bags. They are grown in a mixture of rotted manure and multipurpose compost. We've always grown our potatoes this way and we get a lot of success.

Richard has been making  paths around the raised beds, using much of the rubble and bricks we found as we cleared the plot. It's good to be able to use the things you find around the plot.

We have been preparing our raised beds ready for planting up with veg started off in the polytunnel.  We are very fortunate on our allotment site to have a regular supply of manure delivered, so we can keep our manure bins topped up. We have also recently had a supply of soil improver available through our allotment association. Our beds are new so we have mixed  rotted manure and soil improver into the fairly heavy soil. Hopefully this will help to break the soil down over a period of time.

In the fruit beds we planted our gooseberries and blackcurrants into their final positions at the front of the plot and their new growth is starting to show now.   The rhubarb is also growing well. The winter veg are coming to an end now and although the brassicas got attacked by the pigeons we were pleased to see that the purple sprouting broccoli is recovering and we were able to harvest some at the weekend.

The raised beds are empty at the moment except for the leeks and kale, but as the sun warms the soil we are ready to get sowing and planting.  The polytunnel is full of seedlings and it's so exciting to see them growing more each day.

What's happening on your allotment/vegetable plot?

Allotment plans

Last week I was feeling quite down. Trying to do things with my left arm after breaking my right wrist, and coping with the pain is quite tiring. Another result of my fall on the ice, that of a back injury is now becoming apparent. My emotions have ranged from tearful to angry to just plain miserable. Don't anyone annoy me for I might just whack you with my plaster cast!

It's quite frustrating not being able to do the things I want to do, especially when I read about all the things I could be doing in the garden right now. I have to remind myself that up here in the north it is still too early to be sowing any seeds. In a few weeks hopefully I will have more movement in my hand and then the time will be right for sowing seeds.

We checked through our seeds the other week and decided what we want to grow this year. This will be our first growing year on our new plot, so it's quite exciting. Our allotment association are doing a seed order from King's seeds, so we have put an order in. We also need to buy some potatoes, onion sets and garlic yet.

In the meantime as I can't garden, I have been thinking about our plans for the allotment this year. My daughter and I went down to the plot the other day to see how things were doing. We were pleased to see that the daffodil bulbs which I planted in the autumn are showing signs of growth. I'd put one lot under the holly bush and the others in front of the grow house. The soil is very heavy clay in these areas and I wasn't sure if they would grow. The garlic hasn't shown any signs of growth so we will have to plant some more in the spring.

Our plans for this year are: 

•  Do the paths between the raised beds. There is a lot of rubble around the plot which we can use as hardcore before putting some gravel down. The pathway up to the grow house and beyond may need steps. It is a sloped area and being clay soil gets very slippy when it has rained.

• We also want to lay some flags  to create a little patio area next to the shed. It will be somewhere to sit and eat our lunch, have a brew or for the grandchildren to play. There are some paving flags which we have found around the plot which can be used.

•  Dig over and improve the soil in the growhouse with compost, then make a path of some sort. This depends on what we can salvage from the stuff that we have found lying around.

•  Have a good tidy up of all the 'stuff' which is lying around the plot, like pieces of wood, bricks and rubble. These can all be recycled to use around the plot or stored somewhere safe. Other things which are of no use need taking to the local tip.

• Move the fruit bushes. These were given a temporary home when we moved them from the old allotment. We now have a long border along the fence which has a good depth of soil and has had soil improver added. It just needs some compost adding.

So those are the main projects for this year which, all being well, I will be able to be involved with in some way. If I can't do any physical work then I shall just have to stand and watch, giving orders and cracking the whip!

Moving

We haven't done much work at the new allotment during December, the weather has either been very frosty or very wet. But everything is reasonably tidy, the beds are topped up with manure and the sprouts, leeks, broccoli and cabbage are growing well.

What we have done is clear our old plot which we are giving up at the end of this month. A few weeks ago Helen and I went down and lifted the blackcurrants, raspberries, gooseberries and rhubarb.  They are now replanted in the fruit beds at the new allotment. We've cleared away all the rubbish and pulled up the remaining cabbages. I also lightly forked over each raised bed so they are now tidy and weed free ready for the new tenants. It felt a bit like moving house.

When we first got offered our new plot--a proper allotment, I felt a bit sad to be leaving the raised beds plot. But as we started work on the new allotment I saw how much better it would be with sheds, a growhouse and more space. A space with a fence around and a gate we could lock. A space which wasn't encroached upon by other peoples' weeds, this was a major problem on the other plot which was a communal area.

So I'm happy that we've moved to another plot, but I do hope the new tenants look after our old one.

Plans and projects at the allotment

We've now got the most important work done on our new allotment, which means we can have a bit of a breather and ease up on the heavy work until we start with next year's projects.

My husband has now finished building the raised beds in the main part of the plot. There are 12 of them. This may seem a lot but we share the plot with our daughter so we are feeding 2 families on the produce we grow.  We also wanted to have as much if not  more growing space as we had on our old allotment.

 There are two beds where we are growing brassicas--red cabbage, brussels sprouts, sprouting broccoli, cauliflower, kale, spring cabbage and swede. Another two beds are planted with leeks and garlic. Three beds are going to be for growing fruit bushes and rhubarb. Last weekend we topped up the remaining five empty beds with manure which will rot down over the winter.

 

Also at the weekend we went over to the old plot where we cleared away the pumpkins, squash and french beans which had all gone over. We dug up the rhubarb, brought it back to our new plot and planted it up in one of the new beds. We still have  blackcurrants, gooseberries and raspberries to move to the new plot. We have the old plot until the end of the year, so we have time yet to clear the beds completely and move the  fruit bushes.

Back at the new plot my husband has been putting some cladding on the lower end of the fence to keep the weeds out.  He is also digging a border along the front fence where we want to grow some climbers and shrubs to give us some screening as it is very open and exposed at the moment.  It's not an easy job though, as there are lots of big boulders, stones and bricks below the surface.  We are getting quite a collection of rubble. I'm sure it will all come in useful in other areas of the plot eventually, but it's hard work shifting it and trying to dig. The cladding for the fence came from the old cabin which we demolished a few weeks ago. It's come in very useful for all sorts of things and there's still lots of it. Even if we can't use it all there are plenty of other allotment neighbours who have got their eyes on it.

Our plans for next year are to sort out paths between the raised beds and to clear the top end of the plot behind the grow house. The area behind the grow house is like a secret garden and my daughter and I love to spend time there cutting back the brambles and nettles, each time revealing a bit more space.  We haven't decided yet what we will do with that area.  We may have a wildlife area and perhaps one or two fruit trees.

 

New allotment week 7

It's our seventh week of working on our new allotment and I am now beginning to feel we're getting somewhere, even though it still looks like a building site or scrapyard (I'm not sure which).

The plot came with four sheds which is a bit too much for anybody. We've decided to keep two of them, one will be for general storage, the other more of a potting shed.  Richard has built staging and shelves in the potting shed and it's looking good now.

One of the sheds was taken down this week leaving a lot of rubble, but also lots of space.

There was a lot of interest from grandchildren, who wanted to see what grandad was doing.

Richard has also made some more raised beds and  my daughter Helen and I have dug the ground over and put the beds in place.

We have found that the soil is mainly clay, but there are some areas of good soil.  This better soil  we have dug out and put into the raised beds along with our own compost and anything else we can get our hands on to improve the soil structure. We have started to empty the compost and manure bins at our old plot and bring the stuff over to use on our new growing areas.

We are also finding loads of stones and boulders as we dig over the soil.  These are being used to make drains, or as hardcore for paths.  Nothing goes to waste here! The wood for the raised beds has all been found on the site.

We now have vegetables growing too, in the first lot of raised beds at the front of the plot. We've planted red cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, brussels sprouts and cauliflower.

 As we progress we are building a sort of plan in our minds as to how we want the plot to develop.  We are pleased that we have spent very little money on the plot so far.  All the materials for building raised beds, making the compost bins, and shed staging have been found on the plot. The next stage in the plan is to take down the fourth shed--the big metal cabin.  This will not only create more space but  will also provide materials for building more raised beds.


Thanks for reading my blog, feel free to comment.

Family weekend at the allotment

As we come to the end of another week's work at our new allotment, I'm happy that it's beginning to look something like an allotment.  My husband has finished building the drains, we've had a lot of rain to test them out and they seem to be working. We now have four raised beds. They have been dug over several times, and  as many stones as possible removed ( there were lots of them). We have been  incorporating some good soil from another area of the plot and some well rotted manure into these beds. We plan to use three of the them  for fruit growing as we will need to transplant the fruit bushes from our old plot in the autumn when the tenancy comes to an end.  We have been working on this section of the allotment for four weeks now and in that time it has gone from looking like this:

to this:

and this:

to this:

 

We have planted up some purple sprouting broccoli, red cabbage and brussels sprouts in one of the beds.

At the other end of the L-shaped plot, weeding is in progress, but it's a long job.

All the family got involved this weekend. We had to make it fun for the grandchildren, so I made some obstacle courses over the muddy areas.

And we tried to make a way through the jungle of weeds. We still haven't managed to get up to the top of the plot, there are so many weeds and brambles. My grandson said he thought there was a bear living in one of the bushes. Hmm I wonder!

The plot is still full of surprises, my husband found two scythes in the shed. My daughter used one of them to cut down some of these weeds. I am used to finding many stones, boulders and bricks as I dig but today I had real trouble digging, my husband helped me and we unearthed this huge piece of metal. I'm sure we'll find a use for it somewhere around the plot!

There's a tremendous amount of work to do, I know it will take a long time to get the plot looking good but after this weekend I am feeling much more hopeful. 

Slow progress at the new allotment

We are making progress at our new allotment although it feels very slow. I think that is because we are just impatient to get some growing space. We do realise that it is going to take a long time to get it all sorted. And it's only 3 weeks since we started. So bearing that in mind we are actually doing quite well.

My husband, who is the engineer of the team, has built the compost bins using wood which has been left on the allotment car park for everyone to use.

My daughter, son-in-law and I have cleared weeds from several beds  as well as around the outside of the plot, as we were told by the allotments officer they were our responsibility too. We have also cleared out and cleaned two of the sheds which we are going to keep, the other two sheds will eventually be demolished.

One of the difficulties we have encountered as well as the weeds is the heavy wet sticky soil, the stones, and the drainage problem which became apparent last week after the torrential rains.  My husband is now building two raised beds at the front of the plot and putting in drains using many of the stones we have found.

 There is also an awful lot of rubbish lying around the plot, wood, paving slabs, bricks etc. Some of it is useful stuff which we will  keep and can use in many ways around the plot. My husband found scaffolding boards in the big cabin, he is using them to make the raised beds and the stones are being used to make the drains. We have found tools--a big lump hammer and two huge scythes ( useful for chopping all those weeds down with). I'm trying to make a storage area next to one of the sheds for all this reusable stuff. It's quite a treasure trove of recyclable materials.

Despite all these problems we love going to work on the allotment and every time we go we make a little bit more progress. Our main priorities for growing at the moment are to create a permanent growing space for the fruit which we will bring from our old allotment in the autumn and another space for the winter veg--purple sprouting broccoli, kale, swede, spring cabbage and leeks etc.

These are the next areas to be cleared. It's a bit daunting.