22nd May Allotment update

No specific subject today just some photos and a quick write up on how the allotment is coming along.

 

Seedling waiting to be planted out

Plenty of seedling waiting to be planted out. That will be this weekends job. It is raining at the moment which will do no end of good at the allotment. I expect the plants -and weeds- to go crazy over the next few days.

We were given three broad bean plants by a fellow plot holder so they went straight into the ground

Wombled Broad Bean Plants

I am not a great fan of broad beans but I never look a gift horse in the mouth and it is great to get to try things you don’t normally eat.

There was a blueberry bush on the plot when we took it over and there is plenty of fruit growing on it even though it is a small plant

Blueberry

I will add more fruit bushes in the future. I am also keen to add nuts to the plot.

We planted out a few of the larger turnip plants and scattered egg shell about to deter the slugs

Turnips

We have plenty more turnips to go in the grown this weekend.

Most of the Runner Beans have been planted out.

Runner Beans

We love runner beans and always try to grow a lot of them each year

We have planted an Apple tree on the allotment.

Apple Tree

It already has small apples on it so I am hoping to add a few of our own apples to the cider later in the year. There is also a cherry tree behind the apple in this photo.

Can anyone guess what plant is in the next photo?

Radish

This is a radish from last year. Very pretty little plant.

We have also planted out on of the Globe Artichokes.

Globe Artichoke

I am not sure what to do with them but they do look impressive when they are fully grown.

That’s it for now. I will post more at the weekend once we have put more plants in the ground.

aman

 

 

The Womble Wagon

I cycle every day. I cycle to and from work, I cycle to and from the allotment. I cycle to the shops I even use my bike to visit clients but the problem with a bike is you cannot carry very much stuff.

That is, until now.

I now have a trailer I can tow behind my bike. I picked it up really cheap  and it is like new.

The Womble Wagon

Apart from using it for wombling and going to the allotment with tools I can use it for work instead of driving into town to fit graphics I can now carry all my graphics and tools on my bike and get away without giving parking money to the local government.

I am also going to build an advertising hoarding to fit on the trailer so when I go into town to go to the bank etc I will be advertising my business.

aman

 

Guttering and a vent in the far end of the polytunnel

Spent an hour or so at the allotment this lunchtime. Yesterday was the Allotments Association Open Day and I met a lot more plot holders and spread the word on no dig gardening. I’m not too sure they were all that convinced but time will tell. They have asked me to give a talk on the subject at one of the committee meeting so I can’t have bored them too much.

I met Pete from the plot next to mine. He had some old guttering down the side of his shed that he no longer needed and a piece of pipe I could use as a down pipe. This was really handy because the rain has been coming into the tunnel off the roof and flooding the seedlings.

I used some old shelf brackets I had in the shed to support the gutter -or launder as we call it in Cornwall- and attached the down pipe with a screw as it was not a tight push fit. Everything was just the right length and nothing needed cutting. It just went together in minutes.

Wombled Guttering for the shed at the allotment

Here is a picture of the down pipe going into one of the water butts

Down pipe into water butts

I have three water buts in the polytunnel. They take up a lot of room but I am hoping they will help regulate the temperature both day and night.

Water butts in Polytunnel for watering and temperature regulation

I need to find a way to link the three butts together so they all fill evenly but at the moment I just use a bucket to transfer water from the filling one to the other two.

Cost of the guttering and water catchment system = zero pounds

Next job was to put some sort of vent in the far end of the tunnel to get a through draft and safeguard the tunnel from being blown away in the high winds we get around here.

As always I didn’t want to spend any money if I could help it so decided not to use hinges, catches or stays and to just work with what I had on the plot

I started by building a framework for the vent and then cutting the plastic and stapling it around the frame. Looking at this picture I may have pulled the plastic a little too tight and I have deformed the blue plastic hoop a little. Not to worry it will still perform OK

Vent in far end of polytunnel

Next I built a window frame to go in the hole and covered it in plastic. This was then fixed in place with just one screw half way up each side acting like a hinge pin.

Vent closed

I then added a baton to the vent surround near the bottom to act as a stop and a baton to the vent to act as a handle and stop

Vent open

So that’s that another couple of jobs finished

I also planted some onion seeds and started thinking about the next project of fixing the leaking roof on the shed. More on that in another post

aman