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.

I'm a lumberjack and.....

.....I'm OK

I pay my subs,
I cut down trees,
I go....

[OK, that's quite enough of that, we get the picture]

But I have done both of those today.  Paid my subs to the local Allotment Society (£3), and cut down a hawthorn which has been lurking, and a damn nuisance, at the bottom of the plot since I took it on.  It's gorn now though, the last of the self-sown trees to be cut down.

I'm beginning to wonder whether my neighbours at the plot have gorn too.  Haven't seen either side for weeks now, in fact not sure I've seen them this year.  Perhaps the proposed massive rent increases for allotments have caused them to have a rethink?

The 2013 campaign.....

....has now begun!

First seeds in, sown in the command centre which is our garage & potting bench. 

 
A couple of varieties of Tomato (Gardener's Delight and Pomona - an F1 hybrid from Seeds of Italy).  They are in a heated propagator in the greenhouse because......I've now got electricity in there, courtesy of a long and "outdoor-ised" camping power lead from when we used to go trailer tenting.  I've got some soil warming cable too to make a hot bed for germinating even more seeds.  I've also sown some Onion seeds (Bedfordshire Champion and Red Baron).  I've never done this before but the results with sets have been decidedly mixed so I thought I'd give seeds a go.

And on the allotment itself, digging has started.  

 

Old Foxy strolled across at one point but didn't wait to have his photo taken, or help with the digging either.  Though I must say he looked very fit and healthy, absolutely in the peak of condition.

Suitably replenished with string.....

.....I've finished tieing in the blackberries.  Job done!

Not deterred by rain and hail, the coppicing is also finished.  Yay!  Job done, even if the photos are out of focus because my hands were cold.

Only minor lacerations.....

....and the job is nearly done, the job being that of tieing in the very thorny Himalayan Giant blackberries.  And it's only "nearly done" instead of completely done because I ran out of string.  The gardener's faithful friend, string!  But the blackberry hedge is now not so much wall-of-sound as wall-of-blackberries.  It's fully 15 feet long and about 5 feet high (this is only about two-thirds of it).

Anyway, let down by absence of string,  I moved on and pruned the autumn-fruiting raspberries (Joan J) and in the process gained a stonking pile of pea sticks from the prunings. 

Frugal or what?  The raspers will look better once they've been weeded so you can wait for a picture of those!

Then there's a load of work to do around the summer-fruiting raspers (Glen Summat-or-other).  They didn't deliver many rasps last year but had their best-ever season in terms of actual growth, which means (hopefully) a good crop this year.  But they too need a better support system, done early and with wire into which they can be tied.  That'll make a radical change; they're normally done [too] late and with yet more string because they've degenerated into a floppy mess because they weren't done early enough.  This year I'm determined to get on top of them early enough!

And finally, I've started to coppice the hazel again.  I last did this about five years ago and although I got some decent poles off it they were a bit too gnarly & lumpy to be much use, so they've sat around in various spots being not much use at all.  Think I'll probably end up burning them.  But the ones I've been working on today are altogether different.  This is coppicing as it should be done - the poles are long and straight, ideal for bean poles and/or sweet peas.  Here's a before,

 

in progress, 

 

 and 'poles' view of the hazel clump.  Neat!

I think that in terms of job description I've been an underwoodsman today.  Suits me.  I quite fancy being a charcoal burner but it'd be a bit hard to get away with that on an allotment!

What a difference a day makes

Yesterday....snow stopped play.

Today.....snow all gone.  I was able to work on the allotment (cold but not in the least bit snowy), building a blackberry hedge, until it was almost too dark to see the knots I was tieing.  Absorbed in my work I looked up and found all the street lights were on.  Ah, time to go home.

And I've only done half the job.   I started with the Oregon Thornless, cos they are easier.  Gotta summon up the courage to start on the thorny one next!

Snow stopped play

Well, it's as good an excuse as any other!  But, famously, snow really did stop play at a cricket match in Buxton on 2nd June 1975.  We were living in Aberystwyth at the time and it snowed there too.  As I recall it the next day was quite hot.  Both unusual for Aberystwyth!!

So...... nothing has happened on the allotment.  BUT.....this year's seeds are ordered, this very afternoon.  All the usual suspects, except that having not had much luck with onion sets for the umpty-umpth time I thought I'd try growing onions from seed this year.  We'll see!

I only went to pick some Leeks

But you know how it is.  Having taken the trouble to go there I didn't feel that picking Leeks was quite enough.  So I started to prune the Blackberries.......and when you've started, well you can't just stop.

Pruning the Blackberries is always a nightmare.  I have two plants of Himalayan Giant, which produce HUGE berries but also HUGE thorns.  They lash about and lacerate my hands and, if I'm unlucky, my face.  This may sound a bit overkill but I prune them wearing safety glasses!  Then I have two plants of Oregon Thornless which, do what they say on the tin vis a vis thorns; their berries are good but more seedy.  Tough choices, huh?

Both of them are very vigorous but this year they seem to have been on something (Manure! Doh!).  That combined with the warm, wet weather has seen phenomenal amounts of growth.  I was reeling the buggers in from the adjacent raspberry patch.  Some of the new growth was a good twenty feet long, and not spindly, feeble stuff either.  Good solid sturdy growth.   Must have had my eye off the ball for a long time for them to grow that much, although they do go pretty fast once they start.

All that has led me to conclude that the existing support framework (post and wire) just won't do.  It's starting to show it's age and it's debatable whether it was holding up the Blackberries or vice versa.  And with 20+ feet of growth to deal with it just ain't big enough.  So this week it's off to the timber yard to get the tallest posts I can find to start building the framework for a Blackberry Wall.

Lord knows what Wilma Wilbury will think when I broach the subject of yet more Blackberries this year; we haven't quite finished the ones from the year before last.  Now we don't eat puddings (sob!) I fear they may have to go into a new batch of Blackberry Vodka (yum!)

Phew, just in time

Garlic and Autumn Shallots should be planted in......?   Errm, Autumn?  Yep, the clue is in the name for the Shallots and Garlic needs a spell of cold weather.

So when did I plant mine?  This afternoon.  Phew, just in time but at least I'm in the right year.

On which note, Happy New Year to all allotment bloggers everywhere.  Hope you're looking forward to a good season, ideally a bit drier and sunnier than this year.  See you next year.

I am the God of Hellfire

Well, not exactly, but I have just had a stonking great bonfire.  All the hedge clippings which have been stacked up and drying, Gorn I tell you.  Gorn.

Here's before

and here's after.

Gorn, innit.

And I followed that up by sitting in the sun under a clear blue sky, drinking hot coffee and eating chocolate biscuits.  What's not to like?

But that's about all that has been happening on the allotment recently.  We're well & truly in the slow and torpid season.  Come on lad, get a grip; this isn't good enough.  The list of jobs doesn't get any shorter.  Actually it did this morning, by one, with that bonfire!

Progress report

Well, a lot has happened and we're edging towards ship-shape!  The pile of hedge clippings isn't burnt yet but it's tidy (there's tidy!), even despite the addition of an equal volume from my son's house. And it's all out of the manure bin, which is therefore ready to receive manure.  

The shed roofing material (corrugated bitumastic sheets) has however been at the bottom of the manure bin for so long that it's started disintegrating and is NBG for the shed roof.  So that has to be scrapped and Plan C started.  Plan C will actually be much easier, involving manageable sheets of plywood (not heavy chipboard) well screwed down & covered in roofing felt.  I hate using roofing felt; it's horrible stuff, but needs must.  So I can see light at the end of the tunnel, which will be a blessed relief because for the last few months I've been seeing light through what remained of the shed roof.

And I actually did some productive work today, fitting some more vine eyes and tieing in the grape vines.  So far they're looking good.  

 

This year is just about letting them establish.  Next year should see them going in the right direction, literally, with some pruning & training.  Now there's a scary thought!

It's been a while (again)....

....what with being in Crete for two weeks.  I love Crete.  Sun, heat, souvlaki, raki.  Bring it on.  And you just have to close your mind to the allotment fending for itself.  In truth, it's been such a poor season that it didn't make much difference.  Even Operation Deluge didn't make that much difference, although it did add another week's absence.  I was expecting it to have come over all jungloid but it's not too bad.

Needs a concerted effort of course but then, isn't that the case everywhere in autumn.  Priorities (and, as ever, these are just the priorities) include:

• more wires and more tieing in for the grape vines
• moving the mega hedge clippings pile out of the manure bin and burning them (Problem - need to clear some space before I've actually got room to burn them)
• order manure (Problem - need to move the mega hedge clippings pile out of the manure bin....)
• cut the hedge (again.  Yet a-chuffing-gain).  To add to the mega hedge clippings pile
• clear the shed out and tidy it up some
• put new roof on shed (Problem - new roofing material is at the bottom of the manure bin - don't ask - under the mega hedge clippings pile.....).  

Beginning to see a theme here? And once the mega hedge clippings pile is moved into a burning space we're going to add my son's mega hedge clipping pile to it, thus clearing two huge piles (so to speak) at a stroke.  We'll have to be slightly careful in setting fire to this lot because when my neighbour Ivan burnt his mega etc it was so huge the police helicopter came to have a look.  Hmm.

Anyway, problems aside, I'm still cutting the hedge!  Just in case I run short of hedge clippings to burn.

 

The raspberries, feeling very sorry for themselves and distinctly mildewed "apres le deluge", have recovered rather well and are still giving a decent picking.  This today, and there'll be more.  And one day I'll learn to get them in focus.  That's what comes of not wearing your glasses while using the camera.

And you just have to cheer this brave effort from my one remaining courgette plant doing it's utmost to defy autumn. 

 

Better get a move on, matey.  I need the space to burn a mega.... !!

In an indication of how bad a season it's been......

......the September Allotment association show, traditionally held on the first weekend of September, has been CANCELLED.

Not good.

Hack and Slash; Hack and Slash

Well, if ya gotta cut your hedge it's the only way.

Substantial progress made this morning before rain stopped slashing (or started slashing, depending on your point of view).

Here is BEFORE, so you can see it was deffo overgrown.



And here is AFTER, much better I'm sure you'll agree



And here is WHERE IT WENT. 

 

I'm sure you'll also agree that this is but a problem postponed.  That's because it's in the [currently empty] manure bin.  But that is destined to be refilled in October so all the prunings will have to be out by then.  I feel a Mother Of All Bonfires coming on but that, in turn, will have to wait until the beans and courgettes are finished because that's the only space I've got available to have one.  So this all feels like an appointment with MOAB in October.  Yippee!

And finally, the door to the Secret Garden is now visible again.

Crikey, where did the time go?

I realise, to my embarrassment, that it's a full month since I posted anything here.  Well, that might do in winter but it's distinctly remiss in summer.

Mind you, what's been happening?  When it wasn't raining it was..........raining.  

But the Blackberries and Raspberries are doing OK, and plums are imminent.  There won't be as many as last year but a reasonable number.  

Leeks are in, early & main crop (Musselburgh), and I've finally tied in the grape vines to their wires.  

 

Won't be long before they need a higher set of wires, or two.

And, lest you think it's all edibles and nothing decorative (although some of the edibles can be quite decorative) let me show you the Cornflowers
 
and, a first this, California Poppies. 
 

 

These are a David Douglas introduction from the 1830s and this is the first time I've got them to flower so I'm well pleased with that.

Finally, on a grumpier note, I've had a "cut-thy-hedge, thou-wastrel" letter from the Council.  I'll not repeat the ranting I've done on Facebook about it but suffice to say I was not pleased!  Pah!!

Making progress

Strimming done? - Tick
Hedge cut? - Tick
Top two sections weeded? - Tick
Fourth section weeded - Tick (Yeah, I know, I was going to be systematic but sometimes...)
Lovage trimmed? - Tick

It's beginning to look a bit tidier, although everything is showing the effects of rain and low temperatures.  I suspect essential nutrients have been washed away downhill because things are just standing still.  There's been little discernible growth in the last two weeks.  Perhaps if I start to feed and water it'll all come right again?  Perhaps??

The full horror is revealed

I knew it would be bad.  In truth, I can't say I didn't think it would be this bad because I DID think it would be this bad.  But it really is bad.  Constant heavy rain, along with being away on hols, and not being able to get at it has had the predictable result.  Hols was Norway - lovely country but Soooooo expensive.  "Fish and chips twice" off a market stall at Bergen harbour (paper plates, plastic cutlery) = £28.  Chuffinelle, as we say round here.  Beer at £7 for not-quite-a-pint.  Chuffi....  Burger and chips £15.  Chu.....

But I digress (up a fjord; lovely chaps, fjords).

This, trust me it is, is the strawberry patch.

 

I've had one picking this year.  One.  Last year I was picking kilos of them for several weeks.

This, even worse (I hardly dare show you), is the onion and garlic patch.

 

Ye Gods & Hatti-Fatteners.

But nowt comes of wringing your hands and moaning.  You just gotta get in amongst it.  Brace up, Mr Bracegirdle and get on with it.  It's tempting to start with the worst bits first but it's all so bad that I thought I'd be systematic and organised, rather than just lashing myself into a frenzy (steady on lad, it's only an allotment, we'll have none of that here)

So here's the plan:

First, do some infrastructure.  Strim the paths and cut the hedge.  I can't abide untidy paths and hedge.  It's like working in a mess; I don't like working in a mess; you should see my potting bench.  Paths and hedge are no small task but it'll feel "better already" when they are done.

Second, work downhill doing a sub-plot at a time.  Do each one, do it properly and before you know it Robert will be my Father's Brother. 

• Note to self - this is gonna generate vast amounts of compostable stuff; must get some more compost accelerator

Third, errm, that's it.

Well it's a plan.  I think I'm just going to have to treat it as a job (what?  can't do that; I've retired.  I didn't retire from one job to do another.  Needs must, though) 

Anyway, always conclude on a positive note.  Here are the vines.   

 

Still doing well.  Tickety-boo, in fact.

Mudsville

All the received wisdom is that you shouldn't attempt to work the ground when it's wet.  Not hard to work out why; it compacts, sticks to your booits and you end up reet clarty.

But sometimes you just have no choice.  Time presses; stuff has to be planted.  Things that should have been done earlier have to be done now.  So it was yesterday that I was plodging through the clarts hitting fence posts with a sledgehammer.

Here are the posts, the first stage of the trellis for the vines (which are coming along nicely).

I also managed to get in a decent number of Climbing French beans (you'll remember that it took three sowings to get any at all but at least it looks as though I'll get some this year.  In truth, I prefer them to runner beans but A N Other has a different preference so I grow both!

And I seem to have acquired a mutation.  Well, not me personally; I've always had green skin and three ears (two in the normal places and a final front ear).  But have a look at this on the blackberry.  One major stem has gone all strap-like and little shoots are growing directly out of the strap.  Weird.  Anyone else ever seen one like this?