Farcebook

Category: Allotment

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Whoops! we upset the council

    Whoops! we upset the council

    When you own an allotment there’s rules. The rules are varied, depending on where your plot is, the council owning the site and seemingly the phase of the moon. If you have a plot of your own, some of you might know about the various committees that can exist to help the council manage the plots.

    Our council is quite keen on our plots not looking like weed infested abandoned bits of wasteland, and if they decide your plot is, you get a nice letter.

    Which is fair, mine did look a bit like a jungle but had they waited a few weeks more, I would have cleared it without them needing to send me a letter “requesting” that I clear it.

    So I set about the place with my strimmer and rotavator, turning it into this. The main bed is wider and some annoying lumps have been removed. It’ll need digging over properly before I plant anything though.

    While moving some plastic sheeting around I discovered some frogs. Hopefully they’ll help produce more frogs now that we have a pond.

  • Reap what you sow?

    Reap what you sow?

    Long grass is a problem, it smothers everything and is hard to cut down as it doesn’t fit in the mower and binds up my strimmer. So I decided to go old school and buy a scythe.

    It’s as mean as it looks and there’s a definite skill to using it. Get it right and the grass gets sliced down in a pretty satisfying way – you can feel the scythe working. Get it wrong and the grass just leans over then waits until you’ve gone home before springing back up.

    It’s let me get rid of some quite long grass that was around some fruit trees, and is good at dealing with nettles as providing you keep away from their long stems, nothing stinging gets thrown around like with a strimmer.

  • Things are starting to grow

    Things are starting to grow

    Now there’s been some rain, things are starting to grow on the allotment. Not all the things are wanted though. I’m getting a lot of grass and bindweed appearing, trying to choke things out…

    The bindweed just sprouts out the ground at random, climbs the closest thing and snakes across the grass. Dealing with this stuff is the main job.

    Some of the fruit bushes are having a go at making fruit, but it’s that dry malformed stuff you get when the weather is too hot. A few strawberries appear to have survived the mower too!

    In one of the main areas various things are growing. The beans are a bit stunted, I grew them from last year’s crop so maybe they’re not a good strain or something. I have a feeling all the ground needs more nutrients in it too.

    Something that is growing well is the random grape vine that appeared from nowhere. It seems to be growing out of a neighbouring house’s garden. I’ve also planted some cucumbers, I am quite certain they’ll grow a lovely crop of bitter tasting veg.

    The pumpkins have so far survived the slugs and other pests that want to eat anything with leaves. All my peas have gone, I’m suspecting the pigeons.

    Last year I attempted to grow some leaks, but they didn’t really do much and after accidentally mowing their tops off I decided to give up. The plants however had other ideas and managed to survive, so I’ve let them flower, the bees seem to like them anyway.