Farcebook

Author: james

  • Planting more than food

    Planting more than food

    After getting sent a letter about the state of my plot, I went and read the rules for what I can and cannot do on the land. It turns out I can grow more than food. Flowers are acceptable too.

    Poundland were selling packets of wild flower seeds bound into a layer of paper. I’ve got a raised bed that used to be at home and I literally plopped it onto a bit of weedy ground with some weed fabric under it to keep the bindweed and dock plants at bay. Inside I filled it with some half decomposed compost made from food waste.

    It’s all been covered with some old compost I found in a bag in the back of the shed. I tried growing wild flowers last year but could never tell them apart from weeds. Hopefully now that they’re contained in a box I’ll know what’s growing.

    I also bought another box of seeds, these ones are mixed with sawdust and some fertiliser. The area next to the pond is a bit weed strewn so after a quick go over with the rotavator just to remove the surface weeds I’ve sprinkled the seeds all over that.

    The last thing to go down was a liberal sprinkling of mustard seed green manure in the front plot where the car goes. I’m going to put down more green manure to smother out the weeds on the unused parts of the plot.

    I’ve got some fodder radish that supposedly grows over winter which might save me a lot of effort next year.

  • General Plot Tidying

    General Plot Tidying

    Now the shed is in a better place I’ve been going around the plot unearthing all sorts of rubbish, items I’d forgotten about and random pieces of broken glass. I’m now piling things up in different parts of the plot ready for a run to the tip at some point.

    Something I’ve discovered while tidying and organising is that there’s often a “correct” place to put things. The plot works so much better with the shed behind the greenhouse, and the bin store thing next to the side of the greenhouse. There’s enough space to get into the shed and I’m trampling all over a big patch of brambles which might help get rid of them.

    It’s quite important doing this now, before things start properly growing. I always make the mistake of leaving things too late and end up visiting the plot one day with the intention of doing something useful, and instead spend all morning clearing weeds, only for them to grow back the next week.

    I have no idea what to do about the old shed or the bathtub full of crap. I have even less idea what to do with the pile of carpet behind the shed. I think I’ll ignore it and pretend it’s not there.

    While digging around to get rid of the greenhouse I remembered there’s a section of weed fabric I laid with gravel. Since there’s no greenhouse there any more the weed fabric needed to come up.

    I think weed fabric should be banned on allotments just like carpet is. Sure, it smothers weeds, but after a while a new layer of soil builds up on top of it and the grass just grows on top instead. And then its roots get into the fibres.

    While moving some plastic sheeting around I found a rather large toad, and under the weed fabric (that’s been down for about 7 years) I found one of our spoons from the kitchen. I have no idea how it got there.

  • 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!