Penellype's Allotment

[Penellype]

More snow over night, with drifts in the garden of upto a foot. As it was blowing a gale and -4 this morning I was most reluctant to go out at all.

By this afternoon the temperature had risen slightly above freezing as water was starting to drip off the roof of the bay window. The snow had blown off the tunnel and cloches in the garden and I was hopeful of the same at the allotment, but I wanted my snow shovel to clear the path to the garage. I decided to walk down and get it.

Walking down against the wind was not at all pleasant and very hard work, but once on the allotment it was better. The snow had indeed blown off the tunnel and hotbed covers and nothing seemed to be damaged. I packed more snow into the dustbins and trugs and had a peep in the water butt (water, not ice, so the insulation is working). The hotbed thermometer now reads about 12C and the seedlings look happy.

Walking home was much easier and I now feel happier that all is ok down there. The snow has stopped and less of it is forecast for tonight, so now it is a case of waiting for it all to melt so that normal activities can be resumed!

[Penellype]

The best that could be said about yesterday was that it had stopped snowing. The wind was ferocious and seems to have found a way in under my garden door, which faces east. As its a plastic double glazed one I'm not quite sure how that has happened, but there was definitely a freezing cold draught from under it. I couldn't face the walk to the allotment straight into that wind. The snow was gradually melting, or more likely subliming into the air.

Today was still cold, but at least the wind had dropped. Today's job was to refill the dustbins and rubber trugs with snow as the levels had dropped quite a bit due to melting. I spent about 1/2 an hour scooping up various drifts and piles of snow and squashing them into the containers, and I also filled the wheelbarrow with snow. The volume will shrink dramatically (usually to about 1/10, but this is very light and fluffy snow so it will probably be less) when it melts so the more of it I can store now the better.

After that I checked the hotbed - the temperature is down to 10C (I'm not really surprised) but the plants look happy enough and it feels nice and warm under the cover. I'm really pleased with how this is working under such extreme conditions - when I ordered the cover I wondered whether it would stand up to strong winds or any quantity of snow, and it has coped admirably with both.

There really wasn't anything else I could do. The piles of weeds and leylandii were covered with a couple of inches of snow so I couldn't chop them and the compost heap that I was moving before the snow arrived (that was in the black bin) was frozen solid, as were the bags of it that I had stacked in the compost area ready for potatoes. Any ideas of digging horsetail roots out were absolutely out of the question as the ground was frozen and covered with snow. There was nothing to do but go home.

Given the performance of the hotbed and the forecast for continuing cool to cold weather for at least the first half of March, I have decided to make a slightly shallower hotbed using 2 layers of raised beds (already in place) for the potatoes. I plan to collect horse manure probably during the week and put a good layer of it in the potato bed. I've ordered another cover and hopefully next weekend or shortly after I will be able to plant at least some of the potatoes and bury the bottoms of the buckets in the manure so that they have the maximum height of the cover to grow into before I have to take it off. I've found that when I grow potatoes under cloches at home they usually get too tall for the cloches before the frost has finished, but this tunnel is a few inches higher than the cloches so I'm hopeful it will work well.

[Penellype]

More entertainment for the bus drivers and passengers today as I transferred the melting snow from the trugs into the dustbins and then scooped up as much of the slush and remaining snow as I could. It is melting fast now and will be gone by tomorrow.

As the ground is still frozen there is nowhere for the water to go and the whole place is a wet mess. I'm going to have to leave it to settle for a day or 2 I think before I try doing anything else.

[Penellype]

Least you visited Penellype, I have spent the last two days over the plots and not seen a soul

I have had the allotment for 2 months and 2 days and I have been down nearly every day. I have seen one other person there once, although the chain on the gate was in a different position today to how I left it yesterday so someone has been in.

[Penellype]

Just a short visit yesterday to check on the state of things. The snow in the trugs and dustbins had nearly melted and I tipped the contents of the trugs into the bins, one of which is now full (furthest away from the water butts). Since I got the allotment I have added nearly 500 litres of water storage and most of it is filling up nicely.

Checked the hotbed and sprinkled a little water on the surface as it was getting a little dry in places. The red beetroot has joined the yellow in germinating (it may have done so earlier as it is extremely hard to see). Temperature of the muck is still 10C.

Had a look at the state of the fruit beds, which didn't look too bad - removing all that snow helped them not get too soggy. I planned to try digging out more horsetail root today, but unfortunately we had a deluge over night. We were forecast some rain, but the garden is under water this morning. I think the digging will have to wait, although the forecast for the next few weeks is rain, rain and more rain

[Penellype]

Went to the plot this afternoon, taking with me a plastic cloche and 2 of the 30 litre buckets. Put up the cloche inside the tunnel, where it will cover the first early potatoes (Maris Bard). I will probably plant these tomorrow, so I have brought a couple of sacks of the compost that was in the black dalek into the tunnel at the sunny end to warm up if the sun comes out (it didn't today despite being forecast to).

I had a poke at the pile of weeds that still need chopping, and tried to chop some, but they were really far too wet and I soon got fed up of that. At home I have a system where if I create a pile of compostable material it is chopped for the hotbin that day (I haven't the space to do much else). This means that I don't have a problem with trying to chop soggy, half decomposing lumps of weeds. I think I am going to have to try and adopt a similar system at the plot.

Had a look at the raspberry bed (near the big leylandii hedge) and decided to give digging a go - I want to get the horsetail roots out and some raspberries in fairly soon, although I haven't ordered the plants yet. Sutton's sell Glen Ample (the variety I want) with some of last year's canes attached so that you can get fruit the same year, but I'm running out of time. I've already dug this twice and I was expecting to find very little horsetail left, but it soon became apparent that I haven't done a very good job. Most forkfuls brought up a long piece of root, and although one end of the bed was tolerably dry, I soon found things were far too soggy to continue. It is very, very tempting to simply order the raspberries and plant them and accept the horsetail as part of the package. I think I could dig the bed for a year and not get it all out. Maybe I will have another go tomorrow.

[Snoop Puss]

I have horsetail in my veg patch. There's not much I can do about it except keep cutting it back. Digging it up is nigh-on impossible as it snaps and there's always a bit left to grow. Masses of work for not much reward. If I were you, I'd stick the raspberries in and just keep cutting the horsetail off whenever you can.

[Penellype]

I have horsetail in my veg patch. There's not much I can do about it except keep cutting it back. Digging it up is nigh-on impossible as it snaps and there's always a bit left to grow. Masses of work for not much reward. If I were you, I'd stick the raspberries in and just keep cutting the horsetail off whenever you can.

I'm definitely coming to the conclusion that is the best thing to do. If it was my garden I might persevere more, but I think I will just be fighting a losing battle at the allotment.

[bikermike]

Another horsetail sufferer here.
I doubt you can get rid of it, but I have done some things that seem to work
1) going on "fork raids" - this is a good time of year to go after it before you get crops in - and if you find a bit, follow it as far as you can and take out all the bits
2) covering paths - if you can create a "firebreak" where it can't come up, it seems to slow it's spread - it spends lots of effort trying to put shoots up where it can't rather than extending further
3) pull up any bits you do see (even if you don't have time to do any more than just pull it up). And if you see one, and have the time, have a quick furtle round under the soil, most times one stem will have friends waiting just under the surface.
4) come back to where you've pulled it - if you pull a single sprout up, it will return with several - this is actually no bad thing, as long as you get the replacement, it's exhausting itself faster.
5) try to find the "spreader" roots - it seems to have roots that go down (a long way), and roots that go sideways that it comes up from - if you pull them up you are slowing its spread, and even if you get only the middle of the spreading root, the bits coming up will have to stop growing up and grow roots before they go on.

In general, I think it's a case of trying to exhaust it by breaking up it's structure (so individual bits can't rely on the wider plant for nutrients), making it overreach itself, and generally spoiling it's intent.

[1Bee]

Penellype, I hope you don't mind my asking, but where did you get your raised beds, or how did you construct them?

I'm thinking of putting a couple on my 'new' bit of the plot and am mulling over the best way of going about it.

Thanks.

[Penellype]

Penellype, I hope you don't mind my asking, but where did you get your raised beds, or how did you construct them?

I'm thinking of putting a couple on my 'new' bit of the plot and am mulling over the best way of going about it.

Thanks.

My raised beds were custom made to my specifications with a lot of help from geepee. We used 5" decking boards that were just over an inch thick (I think), to make beds 2m long and 3ft wide - this size fitted the space available best and is a suitable size for me to work with. At each corner is a 5" piece of 1"x2" timber offset by 1 inch to allow for secure stacking of the beds (as in the hotbed), and the boards are screwed to these. Apart from the obvious awkwardness of having to manipulate 2m long pieces of wood, they were fairly easy to make with 2 people, a decent drill and someone who knew what they were doing (not me)!

Because they are not attached to long stakes sunk into the ground (like many of the commercially available raised beds are) they can easily be picked up and moved around.

The original idea came from this video http://www.learn-how-to-garden.com/no-dig-hotbed (excellent website with loads of useful information).

[Penellype]

A nice day today, particularly in the afternoon when the sun came out. Pity it might snow tomorrow (unlikely to be more than sleet here but there is a yellow warning further south)!

As I wanted to move some beetroot seedlings to my friend's greenhouse I used the journey to bring back 4 trug fulls of fresh muck. This is now being stored in the green dalek composter.

Having done that I planted 3 30 litre buckets of potatoes (2 Maris Bard and one Lady C) under the cloche I put up in the tunnel yesterday. The buckets were wrapped in bubble wrap and a piece was laid over the tops of the buckets to keep the cold out. I used the compost that had been made by the previous plot holder, with a decent scoop of BFB added as I have no idea what he put in there! I expect all sorts of nasty weeds to emerge, which is why I have not spread this compost on the raised beds. There is plenty of it, which is just as well as I need another 8 buckets worth for the buckets of potatoes that will go in one of the raised beds. I'm hoping the tunnel will give a little protection against blight. Most of the ones I will plant outside are said to be blight resistant to some degree (Sarpo Axona and Nicola).

Having done that I chopped up some weeds then had a go at digging the raspberry bed again. It wasn't quite as wet as yesterday but still pretty soggy. I've made a ridge along the middle of the bed to plant the raspberries in as I've seen this recommended in wet areas - raspberries don't much like wet feet. I pulled out a bit more horsetail in the process.

When I got home I ordered my raspberries, which should arrive within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime I will need to be ready to put up some supports for them. I have a good idea what is needed and if all goes to plan I should be able to do it reasonably easily.

[1Bee]

Thanks Penellype. I can manage all of that except the "2 people" and "someone who knows what they're doing," bit...

[Penellype]

Nothing doing yesterday, although I did go and shake the snow off the hotbed cover.

This morning was lovely and sunny, but started off with a frost, which hopefully will be the last for about a week. My pink blueberry bush arrived, so I took it down to the plot when things had warmed up a bit. It is in a 3 litre pot so its not urgent to pot it up. I also took some old blowaway greenhouse shelving and my Meteor peas which have just germinated. I put up the shelving inside the tunnel and put the peas in a tray with a plastic cover over, effectively the same as my propagator at home. Hopefully they will be safe from mice and slugs in there (I put a band of copper tape around each of the legs of the shelving) until they are big enough to plant out.

Chopped up a few more weeds - progress is very slow but the pile is getting smaller.

Checked the hotbed and was pleased to see that there are finally some carrot seedlings showing. Left the cover open for half an hour to give everything some air, as the sun was on it and it was very hot in there.

One of the things that was left at the allotment by the previous owner was a bundle of 6 hoops made from blue plastic piping. I'd tried before (and failed) to make them stand up well enough to put a net over them in one of the raised beds, the problem being the cardboard at the bottom of the beds and in some places the edges of the weed matting from the paths preventing me from pushing the hoops in to any depth. I'd had a think about this and after lunch I brought some tools down to see if I could improve things a bit. This is my sort of DIY, and it will probably fall down, but my idea was to put a protruding screw in each of 3 pipes on the inside of the half circle at the top of the arc, so that I could tie a piece of string to it. Then tie the one available long piece of 2x1" timber to the top of the hoops with the string to make a slightly more stable frame. I scraped back the compost, muck and cardboard a little from the edge of the bed where each hoop was going and made sure the matting was not in the way and pushed the hoops in firmly until they were level (they are all slightly different lengths). I also put a protruding screw in each end of the timber to stop it slipping off the hoops. I wouldn't exactly say the result is firm and robust, but it makes a decent frame for a piece of the spare debris netting that was lying about next to the tunnel. I left the frame up on the bed next to the hotbed, and I will put the netting on when the cauliflowers that are due to arrive in March have gone in.

I put screws in the other 3 pipe hoops while I had my tools there - these will make a similar frame to go over the parsnips and carrots later.

Next job was to measure up the raspberry bed so I know how much wire I need between supports. I have some gripple wire at my friend's, left over from putting up wires to train the cucumbers along, but I'm not sure there will be enough. I reckon the distance between the 2 outer posts will be around 14ft so I will need at least 28ft of wire plus a bit extra for securing to the connectors. I'm pretty sure I have some spare connectors too. I stuck bits of twig in where the plants are going as it is much easier to do this with sticks than huge raspberry plants, and was glad I did as it took me about 3 attempts before I was happy with the position of everything.

Finally I sowed some summer leeks in the spare end of the onion bed.

No digging today - the soil is far, far too wet. There is another 15mm or so of rain forecast for tonight, which I could well do without.

[Snadger]

You don't have to put the plastic hoops ends into the ground. You can either knock short lengths of a bigger diameter pipe into the ground and put the pipe ends in these or you can knock short lengths of solid bar into the ground and put the pipe ends over these.