Penellype's Allotment

[Penellype]

The main job today was to add 6 more raised bed layers, which will enable me to have 2 3-layer hotbeds and 6 beds with 2 layers each. This required considerable help from Geepee, for which I am very grateful.

With absolute inevitability the day we chose to do this was the day the tree men brought their lorry a lot nearer to my end of the allotments. Fortunately they left enough space between their lorry and the bus stop to park a car and we were able to get the job done without any problems.

The tree men were making good progress by lunchtime and looked like they might reach my plot by the end of the day. I had things to do at home in the afternoon, but walked down at about 4pm to see how they were getting on. They were cutting all the branches off and had got about half way down my plot, where they were struggling with a wire fence that was embedded in the trees. They had moved the neighbour's shed forward and I was concerned that they may need to move mine, which I was not expecting - there isn't room to pull it forward much and there is absolutely no way I could put it back myself. It is also full of stuff that I have nowhere else to put. They agreed to try to get the trees down without moving the shed. They also agreed to take off a large branch of an ash tree which is overhanging the shed and could fall on it.

I'm not able to get down there today until late afternoon (when it may or may not be dark) so I am just going to have to leave them to it and hope that all is ok when I next see it. Fingers crossed.

[Penellype]

Managed to nip down to the plot yesterday afternoon just before it got dark. The men have cut all of the branches off the trees right to the end behind the wood shed, but there are still trunks about 3ft high which I assume they will cut down today. They have cut the big branch off the ash tree as I asked and they haven't moved the shed . It looks like they have taken all of the rubbish along the hedge line at the bottom of the neighbouring plot and then up his path to the gate, which means that the mess is restricted to the grass area near the hedge.

Interestingly, now that the hedge has all but gone the plot looks a good deal smaller. This must be some sort of optical illusion, the difference between looking at a dark background (hedge) and a lighter one (garden) behind. No doubt it will change again when the fence goes up, which may well take them another week to complete.

[geepee]

The main job today was to add 6 more raised bed layers, which will enable me to have 2 3-layer hotbeds and 6 beds with 2 layers each. This required considerable help from Geepee, for which I am very grateful.

With absolute inevitability the day we chose to do this was the day the tree men brought their lorry a lot nearer to my end of the allotments. Fortunately they left enough space between their lorry and the bus stop to park a car and we were able to get the job done without any problems.

The tree men were making good progress by lunchtime and looked like they might reach my plot by the end of the day. I had things to do at home in the afternoon, but walked down at about 4pm to see how they were getting on. They were cutting all the branches off and had got about half way down my plot, where they were struggling with a wire fence that was embedded in the trees. They had moved the neighbour's shed forward and I was concerned that they may need to move mine, which I was not expecting - there isn't room to pull it forward much and there is absolutely no way I could put it back myself. It is also full of stuff that I have nowhere else to put. They agreed to try to get the trees down without moving the shed. They also agreed to take off a large branch of an ash tree which is overhanging the shed and could fall on it.

I'm not able to get down there today until late afternoon (when it may or may not be dark) so I am just going to have to leave them to it and hope that all is ok when I next see it. Fingers crossed.

Your Very welcome M'Lady , pleased to be of assistance.
Everything was looking 'Spik and Span' as per usual
A Very different and much improved plot to that of last year this time.
Congratulations on your achievement.
Gp

[Penellype]

Today did not go to plan.

I woke up to a white frost, which was not particularly unexpected. However, by 11am it was still only about 5 degrees and really chilly, so I decided to walk to the plot, check everything and harvest a beetroot, and then go back when things had warmed up in the afternoon, to dig some horsetail from the area near the rhubarb, which I reckoned should be dry enough. It was a gorgeous sunny day and without the hedge the whole plot was sunny. A 6ft fence will block some of it out, but nowhere near as much as that hedge. The men were busy knocking in fence posts at the other end of the allotments.

All was going well until I was just about to leave for the plot, when I got a call from a colleague regarding work. By the time the issue was resolved well over an hour had disappeared without trace and there was no longer time to get started on something as time consuming as digging. it will have to wait.

I did go back to the plot with my camera once the sun had gone behind the west hedge, and took a few photos of progress:



This shows the new raised beds as well as the lack of hedge.



Much more light in the area near the shed now that the big overhanging branch has gone.



The view across the other allotments, with the new fence posts visible in the distance.



Germinated spinach and lettuce in the hotbed.

[Penellype]

Busy as usual for a Saturday but I managed to pinch an hour for the plot. I took some spare lettuce seedlings down with me and planted them in one of the mushroom trays in the tunnel as I had run out of space for them at home. I have a feeling I am going to have a glut of lettuce in about a month's time!

The next job was to give the bed between the hotbed and the road a final dig over and remove any horsetail (there was a bit). I then put up a 2m long piece of mesh for the first lot of peas. Having dug the bed fairly deeply it was not easy to get the stakes in firmly enough to hold the mesh, but I managed in the end.

Finally I watered the hotbed which was starting to look a bit dry round the edges and harvested a few PSB shoots from the tunnel.

[Penellype]

A reasonably leisurely visit to the plot today. I dug over part of the bit near the rhubarb, removing horsetail, and weeded around the hedges again (lots more speedwell seedlings). Some of the bits of horsetail that came up were definitely showing signs of growing, so it may not be too long before it starts showing me where I have missed it, particularly with this warm weather.

The urge to tidy up the hedge end of the plot was strong - there are bits of leylandii everywhere and piles of logs in places, but I resisted on the grounds that the men have not finished yet and will only make more mess. I contented myself with taking a couple of decent sized pieces of the large branch they have cut down to use as better weights on the tarpaulin.

[Penellype]

it was windy and relatively cold on Monday so I decided to spend my gardening time at home. Yesterday was better and I went down in the morning and spent about half an hour digging horsetail near the rhubarb. I also pulled out some more speedwell seedlings near the hedge. The beetroot (both yellow and red) in the hotbed is now germinating.

The men are making progress with the fence but it is very slow. The reason for this is that they are not using panels as I first thought, but putting up individual vertical planks of wood to make a solid fence. The man in charge said they had to do it this way as they couldn't get the fence posts in at the correct distances for panels because of the tree trunks and roots. It still looks likely that they won't finish before the end of the week, and will possibly spill over into next week. Its a pain as I want to get on with clearing up and planning what to do with any extra space, and I can't until they have gone.

[Penellype]

Went down to check the allotment today with the vague idea of doing some weeding or possibly digging some horsetail. The men have been concreting in the fence posts at my end today (they haven't quite finished) and they have made a horrendous mess. The grass that I was carefully cultivating along the hedge end has completely disappeared under a mixture of soil, leylandii debris and lumps of concrete and there are piles of tree trunks and wood everywhere. They have used about 1/2 a dustbin full of my precious water to mix their concrete. If I'd known they were going to do that I would have put out trays and left my wheelbarrow out to catch last night's rain, which is the last for the foreseeable future

I came straight back home and wrote the men a note asking them to use as little water as possible as I have to collect all of it myself. I also took my camera down with me:









The photos make it look a lot tidier than it actually is.

I find it far too upsetting to be down there now. I will have to garden at home and go down and check again on Friday and hope that they have not done any further damage.

[Penellype]

Yesterday morning I nipped down quickly to open the hotbed cover a little as I didn't want it to get too hot in there. When I went back to close it in the afternoon I found the men had emptied and moved the wood store. This wasn't a complete surprise as there was only a narrow gap between the wood store and the fence line. There were bits of wood and netting everywhere and the shed was completely inaccessible. I decided to leave it as it was for the night. They had got as far as the edge of my plot with the fence.

This morning I went down at about 9.30 and found that they had already done half of the fence along my plot. I said I would put everything back in the wood store when they had finished, if they put it back in position for me. This will give me a chance to sort out anything I really don't want and take it to the tip. They said they would be finished today, which is a relief.

I opened the hotbed cover again as it is sunny and warm, and sorted some of the wood into piles so that I could get into the shed. I then spent some time picking up slugs in the tunnel - they seemed to be enjoying the heavy dew. I picked some spinach leaves for lunch and went home.

Hopefully when I go back this afternoon to shut the hotbed cover the men will have finished and I can assess properly what sort of a mess I have to clear up!

[Penellype]

Went back around 3pm yesterday and found the men just finishing off. They have raked up most of the mess to be fair. They have put the wood store back slightly further from the fence than it was which gives me an area behind it to store things. I spent a couple of hours sorting out various things and putting away most of the wood. My nice, tidy piles of different sized sticks have all been muddled up and will need sorting (I use loads of these for marking rows of seeds, putting cotton round to stop the birds, pea sticks etc) and there is still a fair amount of leylandii mess.

The thing I really don't know what to do about is a large gap under the fence. It really does look most odd as it is, and in places its big enough for a small dog to get underneath. If I just pile earth up against it I'm sure it will wash away with the first fall of rain. The reason for it is quite clear - the men have kept the top of the fence level, and the ground is not level at all. Anyone got any ideas?

[Penellype]

Most of the weekend gardening time was spent clearing up the mess and trying to decide what will go where. The weather was gorgeous, which was a definite plus.

I sorted out the sticks into sizes and put the big ones out of the way behind the shed. These things always take up a lot of space, but I guarantee if I get rid of them I will want them. There are 2 trugfuls of chunky bits to go to the tip along with some other rubbish that has come out from under the hedge. that is a job for a weekday as there is always a queue to get into the tip at a weekend.

I raked the grass area, and found there was a thick layer of soil in places, presumably where they had dug the holes for the posts. I raked this back towards the fence, which went some way towards filling the gap, although whether it will stay put remains to be seen. The area available isn't really big enough to plant much, particularly as it faces north, but I may try some fruit bushes in buckets - there is a blackcurrant and a gooseberry that won't mind shade too much, and a wider area at the shed end where I may put some rhubarb.

Other than clearing up, I noticed one of the leeks had collapsed and when I investigated it had gone soft and brown in places in the middle. I don't know what has caused this, but I probably need to get on with eating these before others follow suit.

[Snoop Puss]

Could you put up some netting or metal mesh to fill the gap at the bottom of the fence? It won't look that great, but it will at least stop animals getting in.

Edited to add: I've just looked at the photo. It looks to be a decent fence, at least. If you put up some kind of mesh, might it make a support for growing a climbing plant up?

[Penellype]

Could you put up some netting or metal mesh to fill the gap at the bottom of the fence? It won't look that great, but it will at least stop animals getting in.

Edited to add: I've just looked at the photo. It looks to be a decent fence, at least. If you put up some kind of mesh, might it make a support for growing a climbing plant up?

Thanks Snoop Puss - mesh is a possibility. The difficulty might be anchoring it as all of the posts and rails supporting the fence are on the far side, and the front face is uniform vertical slats which probably wouldn't support much weight. If it was a panel fence I could use the posts as support, but I'm not sure with this. I'm reluctant to damage it. Some mesh along the bottom might work, although I could run into problems with the concrete areas the posts are in. It needs thinking about so I am not going to do anything permanent in a hurry.

[Penellype]

Another day spent clearing up and trying to decide what to put where. The first job once the thick fog had cleared was to go to the tip and get rid of the rubbish. I then went to the shopping centre and got a waterproof storage box, which I have been wanting for some time to put bulky items like bubble wrap, nets, spare compost bags etc in. It took me a while to put it together but I was pleased with the result.

Deciding where to put it was the next job. There are 3 possibilities - my original choice between the shed and wood store, next to the fence the other side of the shed and next to the compost bins at the shed end. The box is 4ft long and 18 inches wide. I rejected the area between the shed and wood store for 2 reasons - the ground is not flat enough (it is bumpy with tree roots and slopes towards the shed) and because the wood store has been moved there is no room to get at things behind the shed if the box is there unless I move the box every time.

The box looks "right" on the other side of the shed. Its mostly hidden from the road behind the tunnel and easy to get at. But I wanted to plant rhubarb there (possibly) as this is quite a wide area - although I am far from decided about this. A decent sized, reasonably flat clear area is useful, eg for harvesting buckets of potatoes - this is one of the main reasons I have kept a lawn in the back garden at home. I have left the box here for now. It fits in the area between the compost bins and the shed, but I wanted to move the daleks down here to make room for fruit trees at the other (sunny) end. Whether I actually need the daleks at all is debatable - one is half full of shredded leylandii clippings, which would store in something smaller. There won't be any more (at least nowhere near as much) now that the hedge has gone. The other dalek is currently empty and being used to force rhubarb. One of the 2 green compost bins contains filling from the raised beds that have been emptied and dug - this will soon go back in the beds. The big compost bin appears to have infinite capacity as every time I think it is full it takes about a week to rot down and give me more space. I will be using the bottom half of the compost soon to grow potatoes in. So do I need 2 large daleks (which I dislike intensely as they have a large footprint and are extremely awkward to empty)? The green one also has no proper lid.

The stakes, sticks, particularly the forked ones which can be useful, and spare piping are also teasing me (these are all too long to fit in the wood store) - if I put them behind the wood store where they are at the moment, they are out of the way but awkward to get at if I need them, and the space there is big enough to store spare bins of water, although the ground is not very flat. It does go back quite a long way though, and if I put bins of water in there I won't be able to get at anything behind them. I'm inclined to move the sticks etc out of there in favour of more bulky items - I wonder if a dalek would fit behind there... But then what do I do with the sticks and stakes? Lots more decisions to make.

I watered the hotbed, which was getting dry again, and noticed the lettuce and spinach probably need thinning. Then I harvested the last large leek (there are a few smaller ones) and a parsnip and called it a day.

[Mr H]

So do I need 2 large daleks (which I dislike intensely as they have a large footprint and are extremely awkward to empty)? The green one also has no proper lid.

But then what do I do with the sticks and stakes? Lots more decisions to make.

Hi Penellype. I love reading your plot diary. I read this post and wondered if you could use the dalek without a proper lid to store your long sticks in? They would stand upright and it would then be easy to see which were short and which longer when you needed one. Hope that makes sense.

Anyway just a thought.

Mr H