Busy, Busy

We go on hols tomorrow; as ever, so much to do, so little time to do it in.  But it's all been done, just in time (actually, if I'm sitting here typing this with a whole evening ahead of me there's plenty of time).

The plot is actually looking quite good, courtesy of a mammoth strimming session yesterday.  You ever tried strimming a mammoth?  No, I thought not; take it from me, they're big chaps.

So, how do things stand:

• Runner Beans - in
• Climbing French & Dwarf French beans - in
• Mangetout peas - in & a successional sowing coming through behind
• Cornflowers - in
• Lovage - rampant
• Rhubarb - prolific
• Plum - has flowered
• Sloe - has flowered
• Asparagus - very poor, 2nd year running;  think it may be heading for an appointment with the Big Mattock
• Shallots - doing well
• Garlic - ditto
• Leeks - just so over, & bolting (a common problem at our age)
• new Leeks - poised in a nursery bed
• Gladioli - in but not up (only went in this afternoon so not entirely surprising!)
• Grapes - buds have burst; all 10 survived the winter and look healthy
• Broccoli, Cabbage, Cavolo Nero kale & Fildenkraut shredding cabbage - all in & Fort Brassica reassembled
• Strawberries - rampant & heading for a glut
• Cherries - tree shrouded in netting to keep Sammy Squirrel off
• Blackcurrant - flowering
• Blackberry - flowering
• Raspberries - lush
• Courgetti & Trompetti - in and not dead
• Salads - thriving
• Onions-grown-from-seed - half transplanted, other half in the nursery bed
• Coriander - in, looking OK
• Sorrel - just way OTT & had a haircut
• Sunflowers - through & here's hoping
• and finally, Weeds - yep, there are some but not too many.

 So after that fabulous list here are some pics after today's pre-hols (drink it while you can, chaps, cos there ain't no more for a week) watering session:

The Nursery Bed

The Bean, Pea & Cornflower corner, tastefully bordered left by Lovage Rampant

A potential glut of Strawberries (Problem?  No, I thought not )

Lush Raspberries

Six butts good.....

.....one butt, errm, not so good.  In fact, leaking.

Some time ago I had a leaking metal water butt so fixed it with what seemed like the crude expedient of putting a couple of shovels of concrete in the bottom.  Hey, it worked!

So when two more butts sprang leaks it seemed like the time to repeat the trick, but with mixed results this time.  The metal butt has been completely repaired but the plastic one, which in truth is a discarded Sheffield Council wheelie bin, still leaks.  I think the problem is that as the water fills the bin the plastic distorts and lets water out round the edge of the concrete plug.  I may have to put a liner in it.

But for the moment I have six lovely, FULL, water butts and one empty one, and of the seven I only bought one in a shop.  Now that's allotmenting!

But for the 3rd year running it's been me who has had to excavate the winter's silt from around the tap and hose connection so it is usable.  The tap & hose connection are in a box set slightly below ground so it fills with silt in winter and has to be dug out.  It's a grubby, dirty, uncomfortable job and some of the other plotholders on this site need to step up to their responsibilities a bit, methinks.

On plant-related matters, lest you think all I ever do is repair water butts & dig out silted up taps, the cherry is starting to flower, plum ditto, blackthorn has finished, lovage is rampant, asparagus is just starting to show and the grapes are on the point of bud-burst.  Needless to say the weeds are "active" too!!

And finally, down on the bindweed farm, look what I dug out of this bed. 

Horrible stuff.  I'm not convinced I got it all so may need to go back and do it again, conscious that even then I probably won't get it all!  The stuff at the end of the bed is sorrel, and it seems indestructible - probably because it bears more than a passing resemblance to dock.

It may not look very exciting but.....

...there are 68 strawberry plants in there.

 And I still had 30 surplus to give to family.  They are all Marshmello and originated from 12 plants, about 4 years ago.  The strawberry patch was in a terrible state, infested with couch and nettles, and had gone well beyond mere weeding.  It needed digging up and replanting, so that's what it has had over the last two or three days (yep, it took that long!).

But, lest you think I slave away bereft of creature comforts, I thought I should show you
the refreshment station

and the necessary unguents for clean hands.

I do get a decent cuppa, and clean hands, out of this but the hands still feel akin to a badger's fundament.

And finally, new camera, new pics - I'm quite pleased with this one, demonstrating that the plum is beginning to stir into life.

Busy afternoon......

....in the great seed sowing emporium which is our garage.  So, today I've sown:

• Tomatoes (x3) - ordinary, cherry-type & plum
• Baby Leeks (non-specific, labelled as "East European"!)
• Onions (x2)- Bedford Champion & Red Baron (aka Manfred von Richthofen, ace German fighter pilot of WW1.  Why was he growing onions?)
• Cabbage - ordinary (Primo) & German shredding cabbage (Filderkraut)
• Broccoli
• Ordinary Leeks (Musselburgh)
• Rocket
• Pak Choi
• Basil
• Sybil
• Manuel
• [just checking to make sure you're awake]
• Parsley
• Mizuna
• Cavolo Nero Black Italian Kale
• Five varieties of Lettuce
• Night-scented Stoics
• Bidens (yellow, flowery, dangly things for hanging baskets)
• California Poppies (a David Douglas introduction)
• Poached Egg Plant - Limnanthes douglasii (another DD introduction)

And I didn't get to the Sweet Peas because I'd lost them.  But the best bit is that the neighbours are away so I can plug the iPod into the speaker system in the garage and crank the volume up.  Cue much hilarity when 'Er Indoors comes in quietly and observes Dad Dancing going on.

At last!

A new roof on the shed!!

It's only been a year (or more) since it started falling in.  But no more; the new roof is on today.

Looking back, I can see that the old roof was a poor thing.  I followed conventional (aka cheap) practice of using chipboard covered by shed felt.  Chipboard, when wet, has all the strength of cold porridge and it's heavy too.  Shed felt is horrible stuff to work with and when it inevitably fails it lets water into the chipboard which....well, don't stand underneath it is my advice.

So, judicious application of a wrecking bar removed it in much less time than it took to install it.  Two new "joists".  Then a combination of an underlayer of builders damp-proof membrane on the top and bottom thirds of the roof and the whole overlaid with clear corrugated PVC sheets which, handily, come in just the right size!  So the roof is waterproof and the shed has lots of light because the middle third of the roof is transparent.  Neat, or what?

And finally, in a burst of mad enthusiasm, I painted it too.  No, not the roof!  Just the walls, and it looks a damn sight better for it.

Hot, Hot, Hot?

Nope, not outside, still snowy.  But inside the greenhouse......nope, not hot there either

But I have just built a hot bed, essentially a giant heated propagator, to help germinate seeds.  20 feet of cable at 75 watts = warm, not hot, but that's OK.  Gentle warmth is what seeds need.  So here it is at the almost-final stage.  About an inch of grit-sand has now gone on top of the cable and it's quietly warming up.  In case you're wondering, there's a thick layer of coarse gravel and coarse grit underneath to ensure that the warmth doesn't simply vanish downwards.

And here's the power supply for it.

Know your history

There’s an excellent article by Lia Leendertz in the latest edition of the RHS magazine The Garden, on allotment history.  In the face of local authorities, notably Watford, wanting to build on allotment sites (and presenting allotment holders as selfish and defending a ‘luxury’ position), she reminds us of the origins of allotments.

Essentially they were a revolution-preventing sop to the landless poor following the great land grab, by the already-landed classes, which was the Enclosure.  Lia reminds us that “between 1600 & 1850 the rich and powerful fenced off and claimed as their own millions of acres of common land, previously considered a common man’s birthright…..They are our last fingerhold on the vast tracts of land we [all of us] could once call upon, carved off millions of acres at a time.  No-one should ever be regarded as selfish for defending that.”

Absolutely right, and well said.  Worth remembering as allotment rents are about to rise by 100% in Sheffield.