Allotment update 9 Jun 14

Plot 26 7 June 2014

Thistles, dock and other stuff

It's been a while since I posted but that's not meant we have not been working. OK, we did have a week by the pool in Malta and when we got back the space for my brassicas had vanished :(

I'd already cleared a space for 10 celeriac seedlings (and finished the row off with some radish seed)

But the rest of it looked like this:

From my footsteps on the left up to the broccoli (with the bottles and DVDs) is 15 feet.

But after an hour or so with the trowel 9 foot of that looked like this:

I suppose it always looks worse than it is :)

View from the front fence:

We are due to have a lot of rain tomorrow, if not then I'll post a video.

How plot 26 looks in May 2014

April Fool and a Blueberry

We bought a blueberry bush. Naively, I had no idea they needed acid soil...our soil is bang on neutral. After a few Googles, it was thought that a raised bed may work.

This looks like a great site for the Blueberry Bush:

 

So, I dug a hole and partially buried an old tyre. Filled it with ericaceous compost, planted the bush and topped of with beech chippings. I dont know if this will work but we have to try these things:

Finish the front fence

Another pallet and abracadabra we have a gate! I've also strengthened the chicken wire fence with some galvanised wire supports at the top and middle. Lets see how that works. 

I have some fine wire mesh to go on the gate and a couple of paving slabs to stop the rabbits burrowing underneath and we shuld be sorted.

There is no water feed to these plots, we have to get our own water on there. We have no shed nor greenhouse so collecting is a problem at the moment. But we just got these boys for varous downpipes at home...happy days :)

Soon be time to get some stuff in the ground!

We got that Rotovator working big style!

Saturday 22 March and work started in earnest. A bit of rotovating and some fencing and you would not recognise the place. We shifted more than a dozen wheelbarrow-full weed-loads and the plot loots so much cleaner. I know we have not got everything out but when what's left comes back it will be manageable...well I hope so.

The weeds were not as bad as I thought, the usual nettles and dock and grass. Unfortunately loads of dandelions but no mares tail nor bindweed so that is something for which we can be thankful.

The fence is up too.

So, this is after a once over with the Norlett, this is looking west from the front...the orange netting is a temporary fence put up by our neighbour:

And this is looking north, the main path to the right:

A little more work to do on the fence and, of course, we need a gate :)
I'll get on that this week, weather permitting.

First Day Of Spring 2014

Finally, the dry weather is here and most of the local flood waters have subsided. There are no pools of standing water on the allotment and it looks like we are "Gung Ho!" from here!

So, our first major purchase...this bad boy:

 

Its a Norlett Rotovator powered by a Briggs and Stratton 3HP engine. On the downside, it doesnt work, there is no bracket for the clutch nor is there a throttle coupling. But the upside is that it was cheap at £103!

Now, before I get comments about the worst thing we can do is to rotovate a new plot because of the weed problem...let me explain the thought process here. We are not sitting on an overgrown plot in October or November with a few months before planting anything. We are mid-March, way behind any digging timescales, especially when we all have full time jobs. So, maybe a rotovator is not the best way to start but we are short on options at this stage.

Update to follow...

My mate Neil is the man...he's come up with a clutch bracket. We've changed the cable and added a throttle for good measure. Oil change, petrol top up and we are good to go! Plan is to get this beastie working for a living next weekend...watch this space!

What a winter!

So, it's been, what, almost six months since the last post. During which the UK has experienced the wettest winter since records began! And Cambridge has suffered, not as much as some areas, but worse than others...

 

So, there has been very little we could do over the winter expect wait for drier weather...and that is forecast for March...fingers crossed that we can get some work done!

Compost Bins

A week later, and I have cleared a far corner (south west). We got a few pallets and I knocked up a couple of compost bins. I have a couple of "gates" to go on the front and the obligatory strips of carpet to keep the compost warm and snug :)

The dog, Ollie, seems unfazed with goings-on! 

And I took the strimmer to the path at the front and this makes it look a lot more tidy, this view is looking north:

We are going on holiday soon so progress will be slow for a month or so...watch this space...

Getting a Plot!

We acquired an allotment on 17 September 2013 just outside Cambridge:

 

The gate from the road:

 

 
This is the front of the allotments, our plot is right at the back, this is looking approximately east south east. 

It's aproximately 250 square metres so quite a nice size for our first plot. 

It was previously a meadow that was ploughed in 2012 but never used so it's completely overgrown and the ground is quite compacted. This is a view looking from front to back, almost looking west:

This is looking southerly down the main path that fronts the plot:

There is not much to see at the moment apart from acres of weeds...so here's another pic of more weeds! This view is looking north long the front again.

So, the plan is to clear as many weeds at first without digging, just see what we can get out with a fork, get some pallets transformed into a couple compost bins and then get the fences in place, apparently we are plagued by rabbits.