What I did today - 2017

[Cadalot]

I tend to keep anything that may be useful one day, and in my wood store are some timber bed slats, two have been ripped up to form the ties to screw the timber batten shelf together for the extension to the shed, and the remainder & another to form corner connectors.

In the photo below the shelf is upside down, and in hindsight I should have bought another couple of battens home, I've placed a couple of off cuts in to see what it would look like with two extra timbers.



The rectangular bed slats corner connectors are to be painted and pre drilled so they can be used to fix roofing batten together to make a front timber picture frame that debris netting can be added too which will keep the foxes from sticking their heads and paws in the extension when it's being used as a cold frame/ hardening off area.



Next job is to pre drill & paint them.

[vixylix]

Thursday and Friday (around work) and Saturday (around domestic chores) was once again spent clearing the garden. We chopped down 5 conifers, dug up the root balls and were ready to continue clearing what will be my asparagus bed when we came across an old metal fence post.

OH has spent two full days digging it out and the end is still not in sight. Best laid plans and all

I instead spent a glorious (not) 3 hours cutting a berberis into tiny pieces to get it in the brown bin - not a fun job, but very satisfying when done!

Its slowly coming together, but my asparagus crowns desperately need to go in, and we're just not close enough I'm amazed the weather has held out as long as it has, so it could be worse!

[Gillykat]

I'm in the same situation as regards asparagus Working silly hours (19 hours this weekend alone!!!) and not due a day off this week as boss is off sick so finding time to work on the allotment is proving tight....perhaps if I gave up sleep it would work I've worked out where their bed is going - just need time to dig it over! And with this next few days being a tad 'chilly' I don't want to put my precious babies out yet. They're currently in a seed tray in compost and seem happy enough for now Hopefully next week it'll warm up and I can get them outside and they can stretch out and get growing

Not going to stress out about it though....everything will get caught up in the next couple of weeks.

[Martin H]

Today I covered up all the greenery on my potatoes with loose soil to keep the frost off. Except for the first batch which are much too big, so I made sure the fleece and netting layers were well fastened down:



It's supposed to be windy as well as cold so I've got my sweet peas tied onto their canes:



OK weather, bring it on!

[Jay-ell]

Had a smashing time at the allotment – decided that my favourite tool for putting out greenhouse windows is a firemans axe. Unpicked more putty from as many panes as possible but there were a couple that were rock hard or too inaccessible to risk so with a quick flick of the axe and with a sound track playing in my head down they tumbled. Need to gather up all the pieces from inside now.

Dead headed a couple of blackcurrants and pruned them back to one stem each – the flowers had gone over and they were going to seed

These were the spare currants I didn’t have space for which had been languishing at the back of the plot unloved and in pots - so I’ve decided to try to grow them as cordons because black currants can’t be grown as cordons.

Planted out some more chives to take the chive hedge to the end of the western orchard path. For the other side of the path I cant decide on whether to grow garlic chives or Bute Isle Blush – possible a half & half/Alternating. Don’t have enough of either yet but if I split them up, space them out etc by this time in two years my tiny clump could have expanded into the length of the path.

Weeded the spring allium bed.

Harvested 2 types of perennial leeks – Sand Leeks and Allium Polyanthum.

[Bigmallly]

What do you reckon I should do with these Martin?..................

..............

[1Bee]

Last rites?

[Bren In Pots]

Potted on Basil then sown more beetroot in newspaper pots.

[forgetmenot]

Sowed 3 types of beetroot, chucked some chicken manure pellets on the empty beds, gave the Dahlias a rousing speech to help them pull through their frost bite, fleeced up greenhouse and came home for toad in the hole.

[bramble]

Potted on all my peppers and chillis this evening.
Covered everything I could with fleece.
Brought a lot of pots and containers into the greenhouse.
However, I am worried about my potatoes outdoors. Some of them already have flowers on them. I put upturned buckets over them and put a brick on top to stop them from blowing away but I wasnt able to cover them all.

[bario1]

Part filled the five new potato bags I ordered with soil from the plot and used them to weigh down the front edge of the cardboard under my fruit bushes - i love it when something performs two functions! I'll plant them up with spuds and fill when i get the chance.

[Cadalot]

On the allotment by 7:15 and managed to erect, assemble and fill the new Comfrey Pipe



It had to be done as the Comfrey is going bonkers and starting to flower

[bario1]

^^^^Awesome, I want one!^^^^

[Cadalot]

Easy to build see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtWvfTs1xtA for the cap end, 3 bits of wood for the bottle holder. A 2 litre pop bottle full of sand and a rope so you can pull it back out when you need to fill the pipe again and you are away.

Updated Link to my blog were I discuss the assembly http://cadalot-allotment.blogspot.co...frey-pipe.html

[1Bee]

Unexpectedly had two hours free this afternoon, so braved the hail showers to:

Dig over the rest of Bed 4 (beans and squashes) and swear a lot as I hit another scrapheap patch. Ah well, that's a couple of kgs of rusty nails, glass, and an old saw blade that I won't have to pull out again.

Put up the bean teepee with my new hazel poles. Gloated over hazel poles. Put down cardboard and weed mebrane inside the bean teepee, as the kids use it as a den.

Used three canes to brace the top of the two arches with the canes running down the sides between them, making a tunnel. Threw my new jute netting over the tunnel and tied it in. Gloated over jute netting.

Laid weed membrane over the rest of the bed, to plant squashes through.