Vinny's Allotment Plot

Not sure whether this thread is supposed to be used as an allotment diary? but that's what I am doing with it!

Visited plot today mainly to pick up some pots so I could sow a few more seeds at home as the propagator is now empty.

While I was there I took down a rotten path edging and after measuring decided to make my beds on the other side of the plot the same size (2 foot beds/14 inch paths), but square to the central path rather than the 45 degree angle of the other beds. The reason is that I have too much already planted and will work around it.
I think it will add a bit of interest to the visual side of the plot anyway.

I hammered pegs in at the required distances and after squaring up from the path will string out the narrow beds. I also dropped off three 40 litres of supposed compost that looks like sawdust to me, but will be fine as a mulch.

Once again I was the only one on site and when the sun came out I would have liked to stop longer but had promised OH I wouldn't be long.
Hopefully I will get a few more piccies on next visit.

Not sure whether this thread is supposed to be used as an allotment diary? but that's what I am doing with it!

Visited plot today mainly to pick up some pots so I could sow a few more seeds at home as the propagator is now empty.

While I was there I took down a rotten path edging and after measuring decided to make my beds on the other side of the plot the same size (2 foot beds/14 inch paths), but square to the central path rather than the 45 degree angle of the other beds. The reason is that I have too much already planted and will work around it.
I think it will add a bit of interest to the visual side of the plot anyway.

I hammered pegs in at the required distances and after squaring up from the path will string out the narrow beds. I also dropped off three 40 litres of supposed compost that looks like sawdust to me, but will be fine as a mulch.

Once again I was the only one on site and when the sun came out I would have liked to stop longer but had promised OH I wouldn't be long.
Hopefully I will get a few more piccies on next visit.

I'm using mine as a diary, ish

I thought I had posted this on this thread but I can't seem to find it.

Apologies if I have posted it earlier, but this is the logic behind my bed width. The cock-eyed direction of beds is down to my inherent quirkiness!

https://youtu.be/j-SA8uSSuk0

You mean this completely different thread   
https://gardenandgossip.org/showthread.p...=Bed+sizes

You mean this completely different thread   
https://gardenandgossip.org/showthread.p...=Bed+sizes

Thanks SC. I tend to forget thing you know. I couldn't even remember starting that thread. Brain cells deffo on self destruct just now.

I'll be looking for my slippers in the microwave next!

Anyway, the reasoning behind my crazy allotment plan is all in one place now. TVM

    It was bright and sunny this afternoon so decided to spend a couple of hours at the plot.

Managed to get the beds sorted at the left hand side of the plot. The beds an paths are the same size as the ones on the other side only they are square to central path, rather than on diagonal. I now have a bucket of displaced growing Japanese onions as where a row was planted fell on one of my path areas. Next time I am at plot I will get them re-planted in a more suitable position.

The soil was very 'claggy' so I left preparing the beds until it is drier.All I did was ease some soil up with the spade along the stringlines to fall inside beds.
To keep it the same as other side of plot I left a two foot bed down the fenceline with a 14 inch path joining the cross paths.

Priority next is to get those onions re-planted, dig up strawberries and replant in another area allowing the bed they were in to be moved.

Here's a piccie of today's work.

I thought I had took a piccie of today's progress, but looking through my phone album, apparently I didn't so you will just have to take my word for it.

I tickled over the soil on the centre to beds of the last photo. They both had Japanese onions in them, one was 3/4 full and the other was less than half full. They now both have two rows of onions made up of existing plants, re-planted plants taken out because they were in a pathway, and newly planted sets I had left over when planting out initially in October. We shall see whether these newly planted sets come to anything? I still have Sturon sets to plant but thought I would keep them all Japanese as an experiment.

Once tilled and planted up I gave the two beds a light dressing of Aldi's  peat free potting compost. The amount added won't do much good but it tidies the beds up.

Next dilemma is where best to plant the remaining late fruiting strawberries once I strip that bed and move it. The early fruiters are already in one of the diagonal beds.

A problem I didn't envisage with 2 foot wide beds are pumpkins, squash and cucumbers which all like to spread out. With that in mind the present strawberry bed which is quite large could accommodate these if need be.

I have 2 foot wide beds on either side of the plot and it may be an idea to plant the strawberries under the  half standard soft fruit bushes. they could give a bit of ground cover there and keep the soft fruit together. If I decide to do that I will have to prepare that area next to accommodate them

I got permission off the Secretary today to get a pickup on site with a load of woodchip for my paths once we hit April

I have been saving cardboard and will try and have paths ready for it.

Back at the plot for a couple of hours this afternoon. I need to strip out a bed of late strawberries , but I need somewhere to re-plant them.
I have decided I will plant them around my soft fruit bushes on the edge of the plot. Today I started the arduous task of de-weeding and de-stoning this two foot wide bed. it was slow progress but in the couple of hours I had I managed to get quite a bit of it turned over.

It seems the logical place to put the strawberries and I don't know why I didn't think of it before.

Because I have another two foot wide border on the other edge of the plot with nothing growing in it, and I have quite a few spuds chitting at home, I may plant this up with spuds? Not sure yet, but whatever is going in it will need de-stoneing so I may as well de-weed it at the same time.

The piccies will hopefully be  The bed I was working on, the heap of weeds I got from it, the heap of stones I got from it and the other side of the plot with the two prepared and planted beds in the middle and the others roughed out......Oh, and the existing bed of strawberries that need moving.

Back at plot again today. Dropped off scrounged cardboard and household veg waste for Dalek. Asked next door neighbour if they wanted rid of there old fence and they were pleased to get rid. I will now take chainsaw to plot sometime and chop it all up for my woodburner.

Dug up all the strawberries from the ramshackle bed and transplanted quite a few into the border I had prepared lat time at plot.

Smashed the raised bed to pieces and will probably move the next raised bed down into this position as it has no soil/compost added whereas this one has.

Strung out a new path along the edge of my raspberry plants.

Next time I am there I will uproot a bed and place it over the bed where the strawberries were. I also uncovered my rhubarb and put a kitchen waste bin over half of it to blanch it. Put a large rock on top to stop it blowing away.

Piccies are of newly planted up strawberry plants and mound left by removing raised bed sides.

    First plan today was to get my greenhouse bench cleared of stuff and add it to cold frame. 

Next job was to move wooden sided bed back onto area of previously rotten bed. I had to lever up as the four corners had a post set into ground. Once shifted i used the back of the shovel to bash the four corners down. I smashed the shovel, so now I have a hand shove and a dibber!  This bed is a true no-dig bed as I covered soil with cardboard and then used 1.5 bags of Aldi's peat free potting compost to cover cardboard. Because the bed is bigger it should accomodate some of the cucurbit family.

   

The plot is starting to look a bit like a woodyard as I have been chainsawing next doors fence for firewood. The area to the front of the woodpile is where the newly moved bed was previously sited.
   

Bagged up some of the wood and will take it home four bags at a time.

   


No, this is not the start of a Hugelkulture bed, its just the remains of the wood once I had bagged some up. The idea is to carry on with 2 foot beds/14 inch paths and the 'moved' bed has been sited accordingly and the position pegs hammered in.

    [

Last but not least is the other knackered bed which needs to come out and be replaced by the one in front. All cardboard in it will be moved to the new position.