Week 5 on the allotment - Stuff in the ground - at last

After four weeks of hard work I have finally managed to start transplanting plants from home to the allotment.

It was starting to get pretty desperate as plenty of the seedlings that I have either bought in or started from seed have really outgrown the trays that they were planted in and have started to get root bound.

On Monday night I took a few trays from the blow away down to the allotment and started to plant up into the first bed.


The first planting

 In the picture above you will be able to see that I have marked out squares so we can employ the square foot gardening techniques.

Unfortunately the beds are 4.5 feet by 9.5, so the beds to the right and the top of the picture are 18" wide, but I have taken advantage of this to plant some of the larger, taller brassicas on this side as they won't shade out the smaller crops.

From right to left in the picture above I have planted:

Row 1 - 5 x Brussel Sprouts
Row 2 - 5 x Purple Sprouting Broccoli
Row 3 - 5 x Purple Curly Kale and a square containing 4 x leaf beet
Row 4 - 16 x Winter Onions, four squares containing 16 x All Year Round Lettuce

The two squares of climbers at the top of the bed contain 4 x Blue Lake Climbing French Beans.

One thing I wanted to get out but forgot to bring down were my peas - there is a spare square waiting for them next to the French Beans.

I went back to the plot again last night to finish off the second bed that you can see in the picture, and watered everththing with 1 cup of water per plant.  The lettuce in particular were looking wery worse for wear, but perked up remarkably with the water, so I think I will have to make daily visits to make sure they have enough water until they get their roots deep enough.


Potato Bed

I am also really pleased with the progress of the potatoes.  These were simply supermarket spuds that had been left in the bag too long and had sprouted. 

I stuck them in the ground on Friday July 13th so they will be four weeks old tomorrow.

These are growing so fast it you are actually able to see the difference in size from one day to the next.  I will have to start thinking about earthing them up soon, and I will probably use some of the bought in compost rather than taking from the bed itself.  I had originally made troughs and ridges in this bed and planted into the troughs, but the local foxes trashed the bed on the first night so it is pretty flattened by now, with no spare soil to use.

They were supposed to be there to break up the ground and also to provide some foliage cover to suppress the weeds - if they carry on like this they will certainly provide the cover, and if I do manage to get a crop from them, well then that will be a bonus.

The two pumpkins that I planted straight into the manure pile seem to have got over the transplanting shock and have started to grow again - the Jack O'Lantern is doing best but there are signs that the Mammoth is about to send out a vine - lots of little leaf buds (at least I think that's what they are).

The problem I am now coming up against is one I never expected when I took on a full plot - I am running out of room to plant things in.

The existing bed has 12 squares remaining, but four or five of them are already reserved for Savoy Cabbage - I have a mini competition going with stepdad Ken who is convinced that the bed I made using the no-dig method cannot possibly compete with the bed we double-dug together, so we are going to plant cabbages into both beds at the same time and monitor the results.

The double-dug bed is nearly ready for planting into - I finished filling it last night but I still need to level it and break up any large clumps, and I also need to pull out as much cooch grass root as I can.

There is so much at home waiting to go in that I really don't know how I am going to be able to fit it in, even with another four beds ready to fill the space we rotivated two weekends back.

Plants waiting to go in

There are already loads of plants waiting to go in that I have moved from home, with more Kale, Sprouts, leef beet  and PSB plus cabbage and cauliflower.

We have also been given a little rhubarb plant for when we eventually get the soft fruit area going, plus a couple of comfrey plants - thanks Diane.

All these, and I have still got a blow away at home absolutely full, plus the table in the front garden as well.

Almost ready for planting

We have been very busy at the allotment today.

First I went to our local ASDA to pick up a load of scrap cardboard - the store is 24 hour so they stock the shelves overnight and bin the waste cardboard about 7am, so I called late last night and spoke to the night manager who agreed to put some cardboard to one side for me.

I was there just about 6am to find about twenty pieces of 4' square card waiting for me, and they even helped to carry it to my car too.

At that time there wasn't much point going home so I went straight to the allotment and started to fill one of the raised beds we had made last weekend.

After weeding

I decided to use one of the no-dig methods on this bed, so I quickly raked and forked over the loose topsoil to remove as many of the couch grass roots that I could. 

I managed to get 3/4 of a bucket full from this small area

The bed covered with cardboard.

Once the base of the bed was more or less level I covered it with the cardboard I had got that morning.

This will hopefully keep the weeds in the underlying soil down by denying them any light, but won't stop any plants sending down roots from above.

The cardboard will eventually rot down and add to the compost from the manure, but this will take some time to happen so weeds will be stopped for quite some time I hope



Part Filled with Manure



On top of the cardboard I put about four or five inches of manure, fresh from the rapidly dwindling pile on the road.

If you look at some of the earlier postings you will see that I started piling the manure to the right on my plot, but after looking at the water distribution and drainage Ken has come to the conclusion that this pile needs to move to the left hand side of the plot instead, as the ground it is currently sat upon is probably amongst the best drained on the whole plot. 

Never mind - there is only about five or six tons there already.



Fully Manured



This layer was also raked to get it approximately level, and I also had to make allowances for the uneven surface of the soil below, because once the cardboard becomes wet it will mould itself to the lumps and bumps under it, so any voids would cause subsidence above.

The fully finished bed, ready for planting.

The manure layer should also protect from slugs coming up through the ground- they don't like it as it is too warm and acidic for them. 

It should also burn any weed shoots as they try to grow through it, but won't harm the hardier roots from my plantings.

The final stage was to top the bed with three 70L bags of compost.  ASDA currently have these on offer at £2 per bag - their previous price was 3 for £10.

This gave a top layer of about 3 inches for sowing and planting into. 

I have decided to give this first bed to Will who is going to try Square Foot Gardening as this will be his only bed on the whole plot.

The first bed was completed by 8.30 am due to the minimal digging required, so I set off to pick Ken up who was going to help for the rest of the day.

Ken had different ideas about how to complete the second bed and wanted to make it the traditional way - double digging and incorporating lots of manure as we went.

Our Allotment Secretary had lent me the head off a mattock the night before, so we used the haft from a pick axe and got to work digging the bed down a foot or so.

Bed emptied and levelled 1 foot down

With the right tool for the job this only took a couple of hours to do, with the soil from the bed piles onto wood which we had placed on either side.



We then added six inches of compost from my pile on the roadway, levelled it off and refilled it from the piles either side.



Digging Hoe



I received a new tool in the post yesterday, a digging hoe, which was absolutely the best tool to use to get the big chunks of earth chopped down into little pieces.

By 16.20 we were both totally drained of energy so we decided to call it a day with the bed not quite finished.



Nearly finished bed no. 2

There is probably only another 30 -45 minutes of work left to do to complete it, but it will have to wait for another day.

Once again, the decision to pack up when we did turned out to be a good call as the heavens opened within five minutes of us leaving the plot. 

We had been favoured with good weather all day, with only a hint of a shower around 10.30 and a bit of far-off thunder about 15.30, so we can't complain, especially as the forecast was for lots of heavy showers throughout the day.

Looking forwards to next week now as I can finally get some of the plant in the blow away in the ground.

The Generation Game

We had three generations of family at the allotment all yesterday - me, my son Will and my stepdad Ken.

It was an early start as we had to go to the reclaimed timber yard for 9.15 so that the van could follow us to the allotment with the wood for the raised beds.  The owner of the yard told us that the wood we had bought had originally been used in the construction of the new Wembley Stadium.  It had been part of the roadway laid for the construction equipment to stop them getting bogged down.  Although it wasn't important, it is quite nice to know a bit about where it had come from.



Timber Pile



He had also put in quite a few pieces of hardwood including a lot of oak.  This would normally have cost about four times as much as the wood we had originally agreed upon, but he let us have it for the same price.  This seemed a good deal at the time, but later we had cause to regret taking it, if only slightly.

We travelled in convoy to the allotment, and by 10.15 the van had been unloaded and sent back to the yard.  The pile of wood was about three foot high, and each piece was about 7"x3"x10', and very heavy.  The oak was shorter, but nearly half as heavy again - an incredilbly dense wood.  It took two of us just to lift each piece.

We borrowed a couple of saw horses from a plot neighbour and were just about ready to start trimming the timber to size when the heavens opened on us.  It had been raining earlier in the morning, about 6.30, but had been dry since so this was a bit of a blow. 

Fortunately for us it only lasted about 20 minutes after which Ken got on with measuring and cutting the first piece while Will and I went to collect the plot rotivator and get some basic training on how to use it.

Five minutes later I started it up on the plot and got to work.

Five minutes after that I had to stop as the combination of wet ground and long grass had caused the blades to become clogged and basically useless.  The only way to clear it was to get in there and pull the mud and grass out by hand.

The sun came out and we carried on with Will and me alternating on the rotivator, and either helping Ken or moving more of the manure when we weren't rotivating.

We didn't go with the original plan of rotivating the manure into the soil as we were finding it hard enough without adding extra moisture - all it would have done would have been to clog the blades more often.  We would also have been enriching the soil under where the paths were going to go, which would have encouraged the weeds.

As the day went on, we discovered the downside of having the oak timbers - as they were much shorter than the other planks Ken had decided to use them as the short ends for the beds and had trimmed two of them to five foot lengths.  The wood was so hard it took ages to saw off the ends, and then when we tried to drive 6" nails into them the nails actually bent rather than go through the wood.

We also discovered that the brand new saw blade I had bought had been blunted as well!  Hard wood indeed.

By about two o'clock we had managed to rotivate all of the area we had chosen for the day, and given a special going-over to the section that was to hold the first few beds.  The middle of my plot was now looking pretty level, or at least much more level than it had been, and the blades of the rotivator weren't clogging up at all by now - presumably the moisture from the morning's showers had now either dried off or been mixed in, and all the grass was well chopped.

It was now time to assemble the first bed.

Due to the weight of each individual piece we decided to assemble the beds in situe, so we lined the first end up on the edge of the road bordering my plot and put the first side in place and hammered the nails home.  The other corners were nailed tight, and we all stood back to look at what we had worked hard all morning to create.

Now it was actually starting to look like an allotment.

I had already told Will that this first bed was his, and he has started planning what he is going to plant out.  He wants to grow spinach, brussel sprouts, plum tomatoes, carrots, coriander, onions, peppers and lettuce to start.

I will give him some of the leaf beet, brussels, onions, lettuce, peppers and tomatoes I have already growing at home, and he can have some of my spinach and carrot seeds as well rather than buying his own.  As he will only have a single bed to work with he is going to try and use the square foot gardening method which should hopefully work well for him as he won't be able to get to the plot by himself, so is only likely to be there at weekends to do his weeding and watering.

He also fancies growing strawberries and rhubabrb but those can go into our designated soft fruit area once it gets set up - quite a way to go with that as yet.

Throughout the day we had been visited by several of the other plot holders coming down to say 'hello' and to have a look at how we were getting on.  We were even given a few pounds of potatoes - thanks Diane.

I am still amazed at how friendly and helpful people on the allotment are, and I am so happy that I chose to take a plot here rather than hanging on for a plot elsewhere that might have been in a bit of a better condition.

We had been lucky with the weather up to this point, but the clouds looked like they were starting to get darker so we decided to get one more bed made and in, and to clean off the rotivator before we finished off for the day.

This turned out to be a good call as the rain started again within about an hour of getting everyone home.

Compost pile next to manure pile

So, the sum total of the day's work was 400' of timber delivered and stacked in a temporary pile on the roadway, about half a ton of manure moved to the holding pile, two 5' x 9' raised beds made and in place, about 80 square metres of plot turned over and well rotivated, and three very tired men.

The plan was to come back in the morning and carry on making and filling the raised beds, but it has been raining pretty much constantly since the early hours so we have decided to give it a miss today and try to do a couple more hours each evening through next week, weather permitting.

Without the help of my family this weekend I wouldn't have been able to complete half as much as we did so I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks, and I love you both loads.

Getting Closer .....

Had an email from the allotment Secretary last night to let me know that the existing plot holder has not been in touch and so has until Wednesday July 4 to come and claim anything that she wants from her allotment, after which it becomes mine.

I think it is unlikely that she will turn up, so I stand to inherit a dalek composter, a wheelbarrow, and a small tool store (which may or may not have tools inside).  There is also a small tree - don't know what kind but hopefully there will be a label - and I have been told that there is some rhubarb on the plot somewhere.  Oh - and a sea of grass and weeds about three feet deep across the entire plot.



The whole allotment before it was handed over by the council.  My plot will be the square to the top, right of the road.



My original plan was to strim the weeds and then rotivate the entire plot, then cover in weed suppressing membrane until I had chance to get working on each section which I would uncover as and when needed.

This decision mainly came from watching a series of videos from a guy who took on a plot last autumn, rotivated intensely and got a nice looking plot, but his latest video has shown that he is suffering from a huge amount of weed regrowth, just as folks on the Grapevine Forum had told me would happen.

You can watch his allotment diary here :

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL84138F977456FA48&feature=plcp 

I think he makes great videos which are informative and easy to watch.

After seeing his problems I think I will strim, then cover with weed fabric and not rotivate - at least until I have been able to get most of the perennial weeds dug out of each patch first anyway.

I am only getting 3/4 of the plot as another lady on the waiting list just wanted a quarter plot.  One of my quarters will be used mainly for growing fruit - shared between my wife and stepdad, whilst I will have the remainder for veg.

I am now leaning towards making my first beds using the Square Foot Gardening method. (you can Google it easily - there are loads of examples online)



This uses beds of 4'x4' which are further subdivided into 16 1 foot squares, the idea being that in each square you can plant either 1, 4, 9 or 16 individual seeds depending upon how far apart each plant needs to be. 



Exmple of Square Foot Gardening planting



The beds don't need to be raised, which helps cut down on costs, but this all depends upon the condition of the underlying soil - if it is really poor or full of clay I may have to go to the raised beds after all.

Each bed is surrounded by a path so the growing space need never be stood on and compacted, all parts of the bed can be reached from the edge.

The ground does not need to be regularly dug or fertilised as this should be done naturally as you harvest each square's crop, and with the plants being so close together they should help to suppress weeds as well, which cuts down on the maintenance needed.  I intend to go organic, and this seems to suit this system pretty well.



What I hope my beds will look like soon



It sounds pretty good to a novice, so I will give it a try with a couple of beds and let you know how I get on.