Random Stuff

Allotment plot reserved

Saturday, March 20th, 2010 | Allotment | No Comments

Finally after waiting all this time, well it was  the 24th November 2008 that I applied. I have been offered a reserved plot, number 38a. I got the letter this morning and I got so excited!

I’m going to go down to the council office on Monday with my Mum & Dad to get the key, £5 deposit needed! and go and have a look at the plot… I’ve already google mapped it, but you can’t really tell as the maps are fairly old.. and in that time a jungle could have grown! watch this space!

Tags: Allotment, self sufficient, vegetables

In the garden

Sunday, February 15th, 2009 | Gardening, Money Saving | No Comments

So today saw the wall being almost finished. I just need a couple of the bricks chopped in half to finally finish it off. But that didn’t stop me piling in the compost and planting! The best deal was indeed B&Q’s own brand grow bags at £1.48 for 33l however, they currently have an offer on “4 bags for £5″ making it an even better 3.7p a litre

I finally decide that I would plant my old gooseberry bush and my new gooseberry bush in the newly created bed. I’ve had the old gooseberry bush for a few years but never got any fruit from it as it just kept getting eaten by the sawfly, It was in a pot so I thought it might like a new home. The new bush I got from homebase some weeks ago.. which I shamefully left by the washing machine… only to find that it has loads of new green shots with leaves on it so that’s looking hopeful. I just need to find out the best way of protecting them from the sawfly to give them half a chance!

Almost finished compete with two gooseberry bushes

News from the first planting

There is activity in the galvanised trough where I planted the garlic… Shoots are appearing. No sign of life from the shallots or onions yet.

The peppers have sprouted and have become fine seedings, so I have replanted them in a trough to give them more room. I managed to save 3 of the tomato seedings the little monster pulled and have replanted them as well. The herbs were doing ok, I had one oregano seedling and I planted millions of the little seeds! The parsley didn’t survive the monster. These were all replanted in a square self watering pot, more seeds sown along side them. As well as a supermarket bought thyme plant. Top left is the thyme plant, top right is the basil. Bottom left are the chives and bottom right is the oregano.. not much too see at the moment

Herbs and Peppers

There is also a small area (approx 3ft wide) nearer the house that was half shingle (afformentioned bag that has been sitting around for years now) and half paving slabbed when Imoved in. Today that got worked over. The shingle had been lifted some time ago and a muddy patch was left, then just before new year the paving slabs were taken away by a fellow from freecycle that wanted them as a base for his new alotment shed. A couple of years ago my Dad put up a new shed and layed some decking over an area of grass at the end of the garden that didn’t really grow due to lack of water from tree roots and shade. I lost about 6ft of garden to the decking so I decided that the 3ft area nearer the house would be ideal to grass over… It does look like it would be an ideal veg patch but it’s in constant shade. I think towards the end of March begining of April I will get some turf layed down there… seeding takes too long and is very much hit and miss. You will also notice a patch near the fence that hasn’t been dug over.. I plan to site a compost bin of sorts there so didn’t think it was worth digging it over.

I’m still no further forward for where to put my raspberries, but I did soak the roots and temporarily planted them in pots.

Before

After

Tags: compost, Gooseberry, Grow your own, planting, vegetables

First Plantings

Monday, January 19th, 2009 | Environment, Gardening, Money Saving | No Comments

Well not strictly the first as I have planted some herbs, Basil, Chives, Parsley & Tomato, Cayennne Pepper, Oregano the I got as little kits from Woolworths cheap before they closed. They are in a little wooden box, the Basil, Chives, Parsley are in a little Mediterranean Garden wooden box and the Tomato, Cayennne Pepper, Oregano are in a little Mexican Garden box. The Basil and Chives are growing quite well, the Parsley is starting to sprout and the Tomatoes were doing good too until and little monster pulled them up… I was extremely upset about it all.. No sign of the Peppers or Oregano yet!

Anyway after being upset about the Tomatoes I went out into the garden and decided I’d get the bulbs I purchased a couple of weeks ago from Homebase into the black galvanised steel troughs I got at the same time. So I set about putting for packing chips in the bottom of the two troughs, It helps with drainage and it much lighter than stones or broken pottery. I had some wood shavings that were in a Christmas Hamper that I then layered in – not sure why really, but I guess they will decompose down and then filled with some special compost for growing veg.

With the troughs filled I set about planting up the Garlic Bulbs, Now I was supposed to give 22cm (I think) between rows and and 10cm between cloves I don’t have room for 22cm between rows so just did two rows evenly spaced. Unfortunately my garlic bulb was going rotten, but I managed to get nine healthy looking cloves out of it, so planted them up and then got a clove from the kitchen (supermarket garlic) and planted that too. It was much bigger than the ones I had got especially for growing, so will be interesting to see how they grow!

In the other pot I planted a row of Shallots and then two white onion bulbs and two red onion bulbs. I’m excited to see what happens.

I still have a Gooseberry bush to plant out and I’m waiting on 5 Raspberry canes that I purchased from ebay, my previous attempts to grow these have failed… so fingers crossed for this year!

Tags: Gardening, Garlic, Grow your own, onions, shallots, vegetables