Lovely Weather

Welcome Rooko, thanks for popping by and sticking around.

Well what can we say 'Glorious'.... that's what it's been over the past week, temperatures in the 20's, great stuff.  The tomatoes, aubergine, pepper and chilli plants are all growing very nicely, I'm sure they have doubled, nearly tripled in size due to the warm temperatures, just what they needed as they were looking really sorry for themselves.

On Thursday evening and again on Sunday I finished off clearing and digging over the bottle grow-house.  I have made a start on creating the planting beds in there.  I will have 4 beds 7ft x 2ft to plant out the toms etc.., I have built 2 so far, hopefully the other two will be completed this Thursday evening.  These beds are made from scaffold boards so will be nice and deep.  I'll try to rotate as best as I can, will probably have to dig out and replace soil in a few years time.  There will be a pebble path running down the middle so I can wet it down on a morning, something that is advised in greenhouses, so I suppose it's something I should be trying to do in the grow-house.

I've got some annual leave booked in for next week, so hopefully I'll be able to make a start on the curcubiteae area.  But I'm not putting any money on that, it always rains when I'm on leave.....

Couple of picture of the inside of the bottle grow-house.  Two beds complete.

Plans for the Weekend

I’ve got plans galore that I want to get done over the weekend, how many will come to fruition only the man in the sky knows, him and his little weather pixie anyway, but nonetheless this is what is on the agenda:
· Get the 2nd earlies chitted (this should be easy, not weather reliant).
· Sow some leeks, tomato (in heated propagator), melon, peas, lettuce, chillies (again not weather reliant)
· Cover small bed (4ft x 4ft) in back yard with fleece (well old net curtains) so soil starts to warm up for carrots/parsnips to be sown in a couple of weeks.
· Get electric lead for propagator (must do this before item 2)
· Tidy up back yard so that raised beds and greenhouse (small plastic ones) can be put into place ready for hardening off and more planting.
· Buy some garden canes and collect plastic bottles from Mrs ‘C’ (she is saving 2 litre bottles for me for my bottle house).
· Get down to the allotment, see what can be dug, and dig, dig, dig. If not possible to dig, i.e. ground frozen and waterlogged, and then it will be build, build build.
· Wash out pots and seed trays.
· Oh yeah, last but not least eat and sleep (again not weather reliant, lol)

A couple of dates for your diaries, if you don’t already know about them. Gardener’s world is back on 5th March BBC2 at 8pm and also Alys Fowler will be presenting The Edible Garden, this is due to start on Tuesday 16th March BBC2 at 8pm.

Plans for 2010

Well there is nothing really to update you on regarding the plot so I though I would describe it to you (with a couple of photos thrown in how the plot looked when I took it over) and share with you my plans for 2010.

View 1 (front fence joining right fence & curved fence)

View 2 (curved fence to left)

View 3 (back fence joining right side fence)

I think the best way to describe the allotment as is an odd shaped ‘pentagon’. My back fence measures 40 ft and the long fence to the right of my plot measures 70 ft the left side fence is 40 ft and the front fence is about 16 ft. This is all joined together by a diagonal fence which I’ve not really measured as it’s not straight; it’s a kind of curving fence. If you measure from the bottom of the left fence straight across to the right fence, this is about 60 ft. So you can see I’ve got quite a decent size area to grow everything.

The previous owners left me a decent sized shed, which I’ve now moved into the back right hand corner of the plot as this area is very shaded with trees from the plot next door and I don’t think I’d get much to grow there. I’ve made this area my working area by laying a patio and that’s where I’ve got my compost & water bins.

As for my plans for 2010, first and foremost I would like a productive season, which goes without saying. I’ve decided to follow a four year crop rotation policy and so far I’ve built raised beds for three of the rotational/cropping areas and therefore need to get moving and finish the raised beds for the fourth area.

I’ve bought myself a little greenhouse so I would like to get that put up/built and utilised ASAP. I am currently using a couple of those little plastic ones (at home), with three shelves in them, so I’m looking forward to being able to potter around in my new one.

I’d really like to get a fruit area up and running, I’ve been donated some raspberry canes and strawberry plants. I’d like to grow some rhubarb, grapes and peaches and if I can prepare an area, plant up some apple, pear and plum trees next winter. I’m going to make a few permanent beds, to put in bits like rhubarb, herbs etc. I’ve earmarked an area where I’m going to have some flowers, especially those which attract bees. Lastly and probably my most adventurous plan, I’m going to build a bottle-house. Here I plan to keep my toms, aubergines, cucumbers and peppers once they are past the seedling stage and need a bigger area to grow.

Other thoughts for 2010 (but more like 2011), I’d like to make a wildlife ‘hotel’, build a pond and maybe at some point in the future start to keep some chucks.