Our new garden project 2--making plans

Over the last few months since we started working on our new garden, I've spent ages pouring over garden magazines and books on garden design. Although we knew some of the features we wanted in the garden, how to put them all together was difficult. The books said make a plan before you do anything else, so we measured the garden and made an outline plan of the shape.

Having assessed the soil and shape of the garden we knew we had a few problem areas. Clay soil, waterlogging and a sloping plot were not going to to be easy to deal with.  We thought we could see signs that there had once been borders around the perimeter of the plot because of the change in the grass and weeds. There were also some big bumps on the right hand side, an old rockery maybe?

A few weeks after we had moved in to the house, our daughter Sarah came up to visit for a weekend and was full of enthusiasm for getting started on the garden. So Sarah and our other daughter, Helen set to work digging out a border down the right hand side of the garden.  Sarah also drew up a garden design plan.  As I still hadn't done a plan of my own, I found this really helpful to form a picture in my mind as to how it could look. The soil on this side of the plot is easier to work as it doesn't have the drainage problems as that on the other side of the garden.

When Sarah had gone home I continued digging but once I reached the bottom end of the plot I encountered stones, lots of them. It was impossible to dig so I left it for a while.

We then started on the bottom of the garden digging out a bed along the fence. The soil here was really bad and filled with water whenever it rained. We bought grit, topsoil and farmyard manure to try to improve the drainage and soil structure.

I had brought a lot of plants from our old garden and I started to set them out along the newly dug out borders. I decided not to plant up yet as I kept changing my mind on where to put them. It did at least make the garden look a bit more colourful.

As Richard started digging along the bottom of the plot he reached that bottom corner with the stony area and we both decided that this was an impossible area to dig and we needed to make it into a feature of some sort. We decided to put some paving slabs down. First the area was levelled then a membrane was put down. This was topped with some gravel, then the paving slabs were put in place. We weren't sure at the time what we would put on this paved corner, but it looked quite good.

It has now become a bird feeding area. We bought a bird table, the bird bath and  a few potted plant arrangements have been put in place and it looks quite good. The birds like it.  At first we had a couple of magpies, later we spotted blue tits, a couple of sparrows and a blackbird. We now have starlings and a robin. The squirrel likes it too.

Our plans are flexible as we encounter problems, but we are progressing.

A bit of digging and a lot of rain

The weather continues to be rainy and windy, so we're not getting as much done on the allotments as we would like. On Friday though, the weather dried up enough for us to go down and do a bit of work in the afternoon.

Last year when we took over plot 8  there were some small raised beds which were a bit rickety.  We managed to grow some beans and salad crops in them, but we decided that we would dismantle them at the end of the summer and start again with the bed.  This has left a huge bed which we will divide up into two or three smaller areas. The picture above shows the plot last summer with the raised beds to the left.

Digging nearly completed

I started digging this bed over, it was full of weeds, but the soil is quite crumbly and easy to dig.  We had dumped some soil improver in that area last year so I think that helped. The weeds came up easily and I managed to get  most of the  bed dug in an afternoon.  We went back on Saturday taking lunch with us.  An hour's work completed the digging of the bed. So that's all ready for planting when the weather is warmer. We will probably be growing, onions, garlic, carrots, parsnips and beetroot there. The bed you can see to the left at the bottom of the picture above is the next one to tackle after we've had a bonfire to get rid of all the wood. We need some dry weather first though!

We had to adjourn to the shed for our soup lunch when it started raining. It's quite cosy in there and the big window gives us a good view of the plot. The rain however continued so we decided to call it a day.

Newly dug bed

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?

Cold

Well it was really, really cold, but we still went to the allotment. Richard wanted to put some drainpipes into his dug out drains on plot8, Helen and I wanted to do other things.

 I still have restricted movement in my wrist so wasn't able to do very much. I just watched and acted as director of operations. Helen put some staging in the ploytunnel on plot 10b and sowed some carrots in a tub to grow in there.  She also dug up the gooseberries and blackcurrants and put them in a new border which we had prepared along the front of the plot. We had originally planted these bushes in the autumn in another border, but felt that there wasn't enough depth of soil. They should be quite happy in their new border. Helen dug over the old bed after we had moved the fruit bushes.  It will be fine to grow veg in.

We also went over to plot 8 to see how work was progressing with the drains. We investigated the pond and to our delight we found frog spawn!  Hoping that means lots of frogs to eat the slugs.

 

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

What's going on at the allotment?

There's a lot of team work going on at our new allotment. My husband is working hard on the construction side of things, whilst my daughter, son in law and I with a little help from the grandchildren have been doing other things.

We've been digging, weeding and clearing areas. There have been bonfires to get rid of rubbish.  The first one got out of hand and nearly burnt the fence down. It burnt one of the bushes but we were glad about that, it had to go anyhow, so it was helped along.  The grandchildren thought it was great fun.

At our old allotment we are still growing crops, but we are starting to clear things away ready for when we move at the end of the year. The manure and compost bins have been emptied and all the stuff has been wheelbarrowed over to our new allotment and put in the bins there.  Fortunately it's only just along the lane, but it was still hard work.

I spent some time at the old allotment the other day.  I cleared away the last of the broad beans, took down the support frame and weeded the bed.  All that remains in that bed now is the climbing beans and a late sowing of peas.

A few days earlier my daughter and I had pulled up the onions. I weeded this bed, there are still some beetroot and carrots there and some leek seedlings which we will transplant in the next week or two into the beds at our new plot.

 I checked the cabbages for caterpillars. They are covered with a netting frame, but somehow the cabbage whites still manage to get in and lay their eggs. Apart from a few holes in their leaves the cabbages are looking quite good. The pumpkins and squash which my daughter planted are also doing really well.

The last raised bed is the fruit bed.  All the fruit will have to be moved over to the new allotment  some time before the end of the year. There are summer and autumn fruiting raspberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries and rhubarb. We've had a good crop of rhubarb this year, but I think it might be time now to stop pulling it.

Back at the new allotment, the onions from the old plot are drying nicely in the shed.  The raised beds which my husband has built are being prepared for the fruit and leeks from the old plot, and for spring cabbage, kale, swede, fennel and beetroot which I have started off at home. We also want to grow some onions through the winter.

The soil in these new beds is heavy clay, so we have incorporated well rotted manure and compost from the old plot, old compost from our potato bags and good soil from other parts of the plot.

It's good to be able to have a break from all that digging and weed clearing and do some proper allotment gardening.

What's going on at your allotment or veg garden at the moment?

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.

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.

Days like this

Being retired, you would think (and I know many people do think this) that I have all day to do just what I want. Like gardening. Gardening being the thing that I like to do a lot.  But my time gets taken up with lots of other  things most days. Looking after grandchildren, cleaning the house, washing, ironing, shopping, cooking, church commitments and more. All very important things. So I try to have some days in the week when I don't do any of those things.   I call them commitment free days, which is what yesterday was.

I was looking forward to spending time in the garden, there was lots to do. I sowed some radish and rocket seeds in one of the raised beds at the top of the garden. Now we have gained more allotment space I'm not going to grow as much veg at home. But I will continue to grow salad here.

Then I got down to work on  the borders. There's a lot of work to be done still on clearing away the winter debris, hoeing and putting down a mulch on the soil.  I've been using the old compost from the bags we grew potatoes in last year and also some strawberry tubs, tomato containers and any pots which had summer bedding plants in. I mixed it with our own leaf mould and some newly bought peat free compost.

The borders I've done so far are looking good.  I love that freshly turned over look they have as they wait for the new growth of the dormant plants to emerge and spread out.  It's like doing a spring clean. It's at this time that I have to restrain myself as I am often tempted to fill those gaps with more plants. That's why I'm so glad I now take photographs of the borders throughout the year, as it reminds me of how they fill out. I did plant some tete a tete daffodils, but those will have gone over before any bigger plants start to grow

Clearing up all the mess of dead plant material and leaves reveals some hidden gems and today was no exception. I found pink and blue pulmonaria, some chionodoxas just coming into flower and a lovely blue vinca flowering under the hedge.  The sulphur yellow of the euphorbia under the holly tree looks good in the shady border too.

I love days like this when I can be on my own with my thoughts, listening to the chatter of the birds and generally just feeling calm and peaceful.

Cutting down the tree

We've had some work done this week on a couple of our trees.  The main job was to cut down a leylandii conifer which had grown too tall. We'd been thinking for a while that it needed to go.  It was casting a lot of shade across the top of the garden and was taking moisture from the soil around. Trying to grow plants in this dry shade was proving quite difficult.

I was surprised at how quickly the tree came down. I thought about how long it had been in our garden. We'd planted it about 25 years ago, a few years after we'd moved in to the house. It had become a nuisance in recent years and we knew it had to go. But suddenly I became quite sad to lose it. And what about the space left? Well I would have a new planting area, that would be good, I told myself.  Once it had gone, I could see sky where it had been.  I should have been glad about all that light, but I felt exposed, too open.  That's silly, I know, because I'm sure I will love all that extra light when I get used to it. I will be able to grow so much more.

We knew there was an old bird's nest in there and the tree man showed me after the tree had come down. It had been a magpie's nest and it was made up of masses of bits of wire, probably collected from some nearby building work. They seemed to be all wound up together, those magpies must be very skillful.

The tree man cut up some pieces of the trunk for me. My husband is going to hollow them out a bit for me so that I can grow things like sedums in them.  This is an idea I got from other gardens we've visited.  I also want to use some of the smaller cut up branches to make a bug house and a log pile for wildlife.

The apple tree which you can just about see on the right in this photo was getting a bit squashed by the conifer. It can now be pruned into a better shape, the raspberries will also get more light, so maybe we'll get more fruit from them.

 That's plenty of new projects to keep us busy  for the next few months.