ship shape in the evenings

The light evenings since the clocks changed have made a big difference to our workrate.

The first job came from a windfall. The community group that has a plot on our site is doing a load of work at the moment, they have had some luck with funding and resource allocation, so will be making a big push to sort out the space we have given them, with our help. This means a certain amount of clearing of their plot, one of which has a lot of gravel in it. Our Secretary made sure that they weren't considering just throwing it away and we are now working at moving it around to where it is needed.

First lot he moved to a big boggy area on the main path, and then a second batch we wheeelbarrowed away to our Leanhouse™ to make a floor for it. It is particularly boggy there (one of the reasons for siting it there - the soil was too damp to use as a bed) but now it has a ground sheet down and gravel on top, to keep the weeds at bay, make it look a little neater, and improve drainage. There is still plenty of gravel though, so we will have to get some other uses for it going. Probably communal paths.


This also coincided nicely with us retiring some metal shelves from use at home, so we reconfigured those as Leanhouse™ staging, putting the shelves on the wrong way up to form shallow trays. They are the perfect size for grow bags and seed trays. They cost us a few pounds about 10 years ago, so we are definitely getting our money's worth!


They are almost full now a couple of days later, we have mixed salad, peas, beans, broccoli, kale, chard, lettuce, all sorts of stuff just sowed or as young seedlings, in there.

Also in are the potatoes, we have gone for Arran Pilots and Desiree this year. We used compost from our functional bath, the Bath o' Salad, to go in the trenches, and then refilled the bath with new stuff ready for lettuce seedlings, which are now in.

And then last night we did a bit of spring cleaning rather than planting. We had put the last of our home produced compost in an old broken bath which was sitting there and looking unattractive and taking up room, so I dragged out a black compost bin and transferred it all to that. The cracked bath is now in the skip. Once that was gone we rediscovered a metal arch underneath it, so that has now been installed in the middle of the 'flower' bed ready for sweet peas to climb up.

And the old strawberry plants have been transplanted from their overgrown bed to a nicely cleared new one. That leaves up clear to do some serious grass removal in that bed in preparation for the squash going in.

All in all it is coming together, I reckon a couple more evenings and we may have it in a fairly neutral state, with all the beds ready to go.

the 3 compost shuffle trick

The compost is now where it needs to be for this year.

Keep your eyes on the compost ladies and gentlemen as I shuffle the BINS

The old stuff (originally in what I guess is BIN 0 before we moved the whole lot across the plot) from BIN 1 has been sieved and put on beds (what hasn't yet been sieved is in an a BATH)



This leaves BIN 1 free for the contents of BIN 2.


Which leaves BIN 2 free to become BIN 1 and start getting filled up again.

Compost

We had a look at our home compost heap today, as it needed a tidy around it, and it seems to be doing quite well. We just have one of the subsidised 'council' bins. You can check with Recycle Now by putting in your postcode to see if there is a deal via your local council.

We have been throwing in all our 'fresh' kitchen waste, shredded bills/receipts, sometimes our cat's paper based litter, and a minimal amount of cuttings and weeds from our small garden.

The big issue will be what we do with it once it is done. Our garden in too small to use it (and mostly paved) so we will have to work out a transport system to get it to the allotment. Could be an interesting day!

First Real Work of the Year

The day after the AGM, all fired up, we went to the plot to start clearing and preparing for the new seeds to go in. We had bought a sieve for our compost so the first task of the day was to go through that removing anything that was still recognisable, including nails, and glass. The last guardians of Plot 60 weren't so discerning about what they put on the heap, and we are still seeing the results of that!

The sieving was hard work, I felt like I was using all sorts of muscles jiggling about like that, and about an hour and 4 wheelbarrows later we had enough sieved compost to cover a bed about 5cm deep all over.


We covered it over with black plastic afterwards in the hope of warming the soil up and then I think after that we might plant the strawberry runners that we potted on into it. We are upping the fruit production this year, as smoothies made from your own soft fruit are one of the best things ever, and certainly save on our shopping bill.

The rainbow chard has survived the winter in the greenhouse, despite the ice in there. I may start feeding it when it gets a little warmer, as it is going very slow. That and the spring onions are the only things growing right now really. Well, a small turnip or two, and a couple of cabbages also, but they are more vestiges of a season passed than seasonal crops, so I'm not sure they count.

then and now

A little post to just compare where we are now with where we were when we got the plot this February. It is nearly 6 months now and I came across the 'panoramic' pic we took in the early days, so I took another from the same position the other day. The 'now' is at the top in case you can't tell!


I guess it might not look that different to someone who isn't there most days, but it just seems like such a huge difference to me. I had forgotten what a huge overgrown mess it was. The ground was covered in layers of carpet and metal and wood, all grown through with weeds.

And on the 'architectural' side we have moved the compost heap from one side of the site to the other, put the fruit cage in, covered the roof of the shed, created and edged beds. And of course all the sowing and planting, and the recent addition of the leanhouse.

I'm feeling quite proud of us today. We just have to make sure we keep up the good work.

Work Day

On 13th May we had a communal Work Day at the allotment to get some work done on paths and hedges. We also had a BBQ, which we volunteered to get going and man.

The main job was cutting down the large hedge on the outside edge of the site, it was filling the whole pavement and there had been complaints from people who lived nearby, so that was the aim. We gathered at 1pm and got going with one person on a Lidl scaffold platform with a petrol powered hedge trimmer and the rest of us with brushes and wheelbarrows ferrying the, considerable amount of, waste to the compost heap. Others got on with strimming grass on the paths and painting fences. With about 20 of us it all got done quite quickly, we stopped at 3pm for the BBQ. I had made mushroom, mustard beef, and spicy beef kebabs - peppers, red onion, small mushrooms on all of them and then one lot with beef marinaded in oil, lemon juice, mustard, chili flakes and honey, one lot with large flat mushrooms marinaded in the same kind of mixture, and beef ones marinaded in yoghurt and curry paste. Mmmmmmm. Plus pitta bread and salad out of the Bath o' Salad™ .

Other people brought loads of stuff too, so it was a marvelous social feast - we even had a little generator so we could run some powered speakers and our iPod. Apparently they tried a day like this last year and hardly anyone turned up, so the allotment committee were thrilled with how it went. It was good to meet people and we now know a few more faces.

And the neighbours can walk down the pavement now too.

Earlies

The Arran Pilots are showing their faces. I had started to get worried about them, but here they are.



Also new on the plot this week is our all new singing dancing 2 compartment compost bin. Constructed from 'Chep' pallets. MrUrban must have moved a tonne of compost (1m x 1m x 1m) from the old heap to the new one. He aches now.



New guttering on the shed too - just in time for the rain.