Farcebook

Month: March 2024

  • Creating a covered planting area

    Creating a covered planting area

    After moving the shed I was left with a patch of ground that is relatively low in weeds and planned on using it as just another area for growing things. However, after getting rid of the other greenhouse I was also left with a greenhouse base that either needed giving away to the local metal fairies or reusing somehow. So I had an idea…

    If I removed all the grass, flattened a lump of grass that I built up after last year’s wasp incident and dug in the remains of a compost pile, I’d have a nice area for growing more delicate plants.

    Also it’d thoroughly dig up the ground where the wasps were, so future ones didn’t get any ideas.

    My trusty battery powered rotavator chewed the ground up fairly well, and after some mildly dangerous antics with the greenhouse base, I had an area that was enclosed which should help keep the weeds out.

    The next step was to actually plant things in there. The Range were selling strawberry plants, and after the demise of Wilko they also seem to have bought all their stock and are selling it off cheap. So Wilko’s 99p seed packets were 50p.

    The second photo is for my reference too. There’s two rows of beetroot, two rows of carrots and then several rows of parsnip. The ground had a really good chewing with the rotavator and now actually resembles something you could grow plants in, rather than a field that’s had the grass ripped out.

    The final stage was to set up a small plant cover I’d bought off Amazon. It’s one of those kits made from the tubular metal and plastic connectors that tends to last a season at best before something fails or the wind takes it away. I’ve tried to buy a more robust one so maybe it’ll last all year if I’m careful?

    It was a bit bigger than I expected too…

    The only irritating thing is the plastic cover doesn’t have many straps for tieing it to the frame. I hope it doesn’t explode in the wind the next time we have a storm.

    To prevent this I got creative. I was tempted to attach it to the greenhouse base, but once the parsnips and carrots have grown a bit I’m intending on moving the cover to another part of the plot to cover something else.

    Here’s the finished thing

  • Moving the Shed

    Moving the Shed

    The shed’s moved finally. The stupid thing is now behind the greenhouse out the way from prying eyes, sticky fingers and the vicious strong winds that try to blow everything away. Making things wind proof is the aim of the game really.

    It’s one of those horrific thin metal sheds with the razor sharp panels and a million screws. The only good points are that it’s metal so it won’t rot away and it’s quite light so moving it was only mildly annoying.

    We spent some time patching the glass in the greenhouse too, it’s reasonably covered now, although the door seems to have vanished. The metal shed is acting as a wall and might reflect some sunlight back in and make it even warmer.

    The greenhouse has bits of an old rat cage on it after I visited one day and found some of the roof panes mysteriously broken and suspicious stones in the place. There were some really stupid people living in the house behind. They seem to have gone away now so I think the risk has passed.

    One good thing about having a plot in a crappy bit of town is that if you leave old bits of greenhouse lying around in a pile they magically disappear, just like the old lawnmower. This is also why I keep nothing of value on the plot. I just wish people would steal bathtubs and rubbish.

    The next job on the list is to dig over the plot and give it a good turning over ready to plant things. The weather has warmed up and the last frost has gone, so it’s time to get some seeds in the ground and hope nothing eats them. I’ve bought a cover this year, let’s see if I can stake it down well enough that it doesn’t escape.

    Oh and the rhubarb plants aren’t dead, which is pretty surprising really. I think they grew one leaf last year then got smothered by brambles. The brambles are getting ready to grow, I might have to get the spray out and kill them off.

  • Trying to repair my lawn

    Trying to repair my lawn

    Grass at home doesn’t do well, I don’t know whether it’s my inconsistent mowing, the shaded parts of the garden where the grass is, or that the soil is thick and full of heavy clay on a layer of building rubble. Possibly it’s also the slightly too agressive mowing I did last year in an attempt at making the grass more bushy and the lawn less patchy when mown.

    Either way, it looks a right mess, there’s barely any grass. So I’m on a mission to fix it.

    First I gave the remnants a mow, then pronged the ground to aerate it a bit and to break up the soil.

    Then I sprinkled on some fertiliser, grass seed and in one area where nobody goes, a few boxes of cheap wild flower mix. There’s one corner of the garden where grass doesn’t do very well, so I’m going to try growing some wild flowers instead. There’s usually a lot of grass amongst those mixes so it should fill out.

    The last step was to cover the whole thing in three bags of sand. This should keep the birds off, protect the seed while it germinates, and over time work its way into the soil helping to break it up.

    Now I just need to leave it alone and hope the cats don’t want to investigate a new giant litter tray!

  • Start of year tidying

    Start of year tidying

    We’re almost at the last frost of the year, which to me is the actual start of the year when it comes to growing things. Here’s a bit of an update since the last post…

    • November – it rained a lot and got cold
    • December – it rained a lot, got colder, I was ill
    • January – it rained a lot, was insanely windy and even colder
    • February – maximum coldness, even windier. The final week it didn’t rain, I managed to go and survey the mess.
    • March – now.

    So we’re in March, people down South have mentioned snow. Last year it snowed around this time and was -4c. I’ve at least bought all the seeds I want to grow and have been trying to clear and better organise the plots.

    During the insane wind one of the greenhouses tried to fold itself flat so one of the jobs I’ve been doing is removing the glass from it to put into the other greenhouse. I’m going to just have one, the space can be used for something else.

    I did try to see if the greenhouse would just stand back up, it is made from bolted together aluminium after all. However some of it snapped and other bits twisted out of shape, which just shows how windy it was – a greenhouse with no windows managed to get blown so hard it snaped in places.

    Intent on turning something kind of annoying into a positive situation I realised there was enough glass in both greenhouses to make one greenhouse be complete. This would save me quite a lot of money. I just needed to take the broken frame down. It’s been up quite a long time and came to me part assembled, and the aluminium bolts pushed into aluminium frames seem to have welded and corroded themselves together. It was not going to come apart easily.

    So I bought a new toy…

    And 20 minutes later it turned a wonky frame of a greenhouse into a flat packed stack of scrap metal. I was expecting some effort but once the blade bit into the metal it ate through it like it was nothing.

    I decided since it’s so windy moving the shed would be a good idea. It can go behind the greenhouse. This will shelter the shed from being blown over, and help prop the greenhouse up. It also means I need less glass to fill in the missing gaps.

    The first job was to clear the back of the plot. A place I’ve rarely gone and it’s mostly full of rubbish thrown over the fence from the houses behind and junk that I’ve abandoned and forgotten about.

    I put some weed matting down to try and keep the brambles at bay, and then moved eight pretty heavy paving slabs from elsewhere on the plot to make a base for the shed.

    When moving the slabs I managed to find all the frogs, and moved them to the pond out the way.

    The next jobs on the plot are to dig over the beds so they’re ready for planting, and to get the shed moved and the greenhouse ready. I’m going to use it for starting off plants until they’re big enough to go outside. Anything that needs more warmth can start on my kitchen window or something. Or I’ll put them in my shed at home with the grow lights if they still work.