Weather - 4 Year Cycle (I blame the Olympics!) & an Update

I love looking back over people's blogs, specially new ones that I've found, reading what they've been up to and looking at how they've done, or haven't done.  Anyhow, I found this blog and I was reading it, but I had to double check the date, were we in 2012?  No it was actually in 2008 but the weather was very typical of how it has been this season, e.g. April - cold start, warming up towards the end of the month.  May - Lovely warm start with highs of 22.5 degrees Celsius, but wait....it ended with days of rain and temperatures dropping to around 13 degrees... is this all sounding familiar?  June - again typically colder than average temperatures and the result for that year was a cold summer, with temperatures only reaching late teens, not a very good year for growing by all accounts. So, is this what we have to look forward to; a cold summer?  Oh and by the way, they had an Olympics that year too... so I'm blaming it on the Olympics, roll on another 4 years, LOL.

Back to the present day then, I have put on another four roof panels on the bottle house, it is starting to come together.  I'm going to have to sort out some kind of support for the middle supports of the roof.  With the weight of the panels on the back side it is pulling on the middle supports and tilting to one side.  When I have put up the two panels on the front facing side, I have had to put these in the middle positions with a hope to counteract the weight on the supports, once I have the final two in position I will assess it more, but I think to be on the safe side I'll have to sort something out, else I may come down one day and the roof will be in next doors allotment, I don't think they'll be too pleased about that.  Here is a quick picture of how it is coming on.

Six Roof Panels Attached

I've put up my bean supports, and direct planted some French Beans and some Runner Beans.  I have done this down one side of each set of supports, I have also sowed (have I spelt that right?) some Runner Beans in pots in the greenhouse, I will plant out these along the other side of the structure.  Hopefully this will give me differing cropping times, we'll see.  Additionally,  I sowed some Borlotti (French) Beans in the greenhouse, these are to go on the other side of the direct planted ones, these will be left on the plant for picking at the end of the season and drying for stews etc in the winter.  When I pull up my Garlic and Shallots towards the end of the month, I will plant another crop of French Beans, dwarf varieties in the bed which they vacate.  I may even try some in the little polytunnel I have (this isn't ready yet, area still to be dug over and cover put on).

Bean Frames

I've direct sowed some more parsnips.  My first batch which I pre-chitted at home and planted into peat pots were quite successful and these have been planted out and looking quite nice.  Thinking it was going well I tried to do the same again, but only about two seeds germinated, so I tried again, this time none of the seeds germinated.  I've given it one more chance using some free seeds which I got with a magazine only a couple of weeks ago, so the seeds would be viable you'd think.  I've put two/three seeds per station and will thin (hopefully) to one per station if and when they germinate.  I'm not sure with parsnip seeds, they say you have to use fresh each year, but I got the seeds last year but hadn't opened them, they had a sow  by date of 2013 so I thought they'd be OK, but apparently not.  I had hoped to plant out my brassica plants, but the rain came and boy did it come.  I'd dodged the rain all day yesterday and again this morning, but when I returned after some lunch the rain gods were not playing... 

More Work on the Bottle House

So today I spent my diamond jubilee EXTRA HOLIDAY (thanks Lizzie) working on another two sections of the bottle house roof.  The sections measure 4ft x 4ft (don't know if I've mentioned that in another post), and are composed of 2" x 2" wood, treated, there are 11 rows of bottles each row is composed of 5 bottles (1 whole and 4 with the bottoms cut off), so each roof section needs 55 bottles in total.  There are 8 roof sections and therefore the roof needs a total of 440 bottles (wow!).  Each  bottle needs it's label taken off and washed out, it takes some time just to prep them believe me.

Sad that I am, I timed myself making one of the roof sections, it took me just over an hour to put it together (this doesn't include the bottle prep).  I take 4 lengths of wood, and cut out a small section at each end so that I can fit them together to create a frame.  Each corner has two pilot holes drilled and two 45mm screws inserted to hold them together.  Now for the fun part, each of the 'whole' bottles has a small pilot hole drilled in the bottom, and then they are drilled with a 10mm bit, this creates a hole just large enough for a standard 6ft garden cane to be inserted.  The fun bit is trying to keep hold of the bottle to create the hole without it spinning round on the drill (this takes some practice LOL).

I insert a cane (for the roof I am using some that a friend's Dad grew, slightly thinner than standard canes) into the 'whole' bottle and fix this to the bottom of the frame.  I then put on 4 'bottom-less' bottles and fix the top of the cane to the top of the frame.  Simple.  Repeat another 10 times and then you have your roof section.

 4ft length with section removed

 Lengths all screwed together to create frame

 1st cane attached, this is in the middle of the frame

Finished article!

Working on the Bottle-House

Back at the allotment this afternoon, i'm concentrating on trying to get the bottle-house sorted ready for the tomatoes, chilli's/peppers, aubergines and cucumbers to be planted in it.  I've now completed all the beds (four) with a pebble path going down the middle.  I have also started to build the roof, I've put up two panels so far.  These are taking just a little bit longer than I thought would, but i'll carry on regardless.  I am determined to have it completed by the end of the month.

Four Raised Beds 

 Two Roof Panels Fitted

So Far......

How daft did I feel..... I'd built the roof panels (each measured 4ft x 4ft), fixed on the bottles, and went to put them in the boot of the car to take to the allotment.  Opened the boot, lifted the panel and doh! they were too big, how did I manage that!  So I had to take the side bars off so that they had a bit of flexibility so I could maneuver them into the boot... had a quick look around, was there anyone watching.... I hope not!