That was the week that was...

Well this week has seen some good activity on the lottie. Rich has been busy on the plot digging away...It is looking more like an allotment and less like wasteland..

Beds A,B,C, E are now finished. Bed D & K has been broken in and just need finishing.. View from the shed looks like this:

So you can see it is getting there... Talking about getting there lets look at the fruit bed, it is growing really well with Dwarf French beans..



So you can see we have a lot of beans growing, even if we don't get a big harvest out at least they are conditioning the soil for us.. Looking at one close up

So hopefully we will get some decent beans out :)

Leak Shack...

Hi all,

As you know last week we inherited the leak shack, this week the leak shack was transformed, like the bionic man (or woman) we (Richard and Rachel) had the technology to rebuild it, stronger, quicker, straighter than the old version and maintianing a lot of it's character...So I reveal to you the before (Top) and the after (Bottom) LeakShack make over..
Now looking at the plot it looks like this:

So it is getting there...This week rich is going to dig in the beds along the front here... In 2 weeks time we should recieve our brassica plants which will then fill these beds and start to make it a productive allotment....

Disappearing Plot...

Spent about 4 hours on lottie today, went down and hacked out bed K...Was the hardest one to date and a sign of things to come.. First half of the bed was excellent, dry(ish) soil, good quality.. Got through this quickly then we hit the back half, it was an old nettle bed (See earlier pictures) and had brambles in the back. Digging these out was not easy and took at least an hour.

Compounding the problem was the waterlogged soil at the end of K, extending about 2m (6ft in old speak) from the concrete wall by the culvert. It was very muddy and our feet sank into it. So we are going to need to work this some how perhaps throw some straw in it to soak up the water, I'll do some research... Net result of todays work:

Bed K, weird shape, 3.37 m by the compsot bed, 4.67m on the other side. From this Rachel has redrawn the plot, we've lost 4 beds, we thought the angle was sharper than here. So we expect to keep on re-drawing as we go, I'll put up a new scan later.

In addition to hacking this out we also burned a lot of the rubbish that was on bed K, I also hacked out some of the foilage around where greenhouse will live, found some very large old logs and a massive piece of wood that looked like the back of an old compost bin.
Underneath that pile of brambles I could see a load of aluminum frames, I wonder if someone has left a load of cold frames under there. Also the blackberries are starting to fruit, Rachel and George had a couple and they apparently tasted very nice.

So all in all a tough day.

Onwards...

Not been down the lottie the last week due to work, so sorry readers no recent updates.

Today was a good day to be down there slightly cloudy, took George with me for a couple of hours and hacked out another bed. Bed E. Soil is very good, took a while to dig out some of the nettle roots and some brambles, but got there in the end So back to front looks like this currently:

Front to Back end..

Still need to use rich's claw on bed E to clear out the roots and also edge it a bit better.

So it looks like we are making progress. Tomorrow I will do bed K on the map then the side of the plot is laid out all the way front to back. This will allow us to layout the rest of the plot according to the map..

Tomorrow I will also clear out the greenhouse space.. Speaking of which this is what the leak shack currently looks like...

Richard is going to construct that on monday next week, yes that is a pallet you see there. Basically it was two pallets (Top and Bottom) plus some old sides a piece of asbestos roofing and voila a shed.. We will recycle some old wood from a shed I took down in my back garden earlier in the year.

Finally, the salad is making progress:

Our main problems is not perennials, we did a good job in cleaning that out in Bed A the leek bed we have a grass problem...

Until next time..

Dr in The House

Well, Rachel (The wife) doesn't have a job at the moment so she is busy planning and plotting world Allotment domination.

In other words she has been bored :)

But boy do we appreciate her boredom..

Here is a fully laid out plan of plot 13.

She has also planned out planting times for all the plants we wish to grow in the allotment...



So thank you Rachel :)

Leak Shack..

So this weekend we collected the greenhouse, disassembled it, and transported it almost safely home, well almost safely, lost 3 panes, that'll teach us for transporting glass flat. Tip readers, transport glass on it's edge..Anyhow, greenhouse looks like this currently.


Believe it or not an entire 8x6Crittall Hope Greenhouse.. We have taken lots of photos (Erected) and marked it up..We'll probably have a greenhouse building party once the base is done barbecue, spanner, sausages and burger..

On the subject of buildings, the site supervisor told us someone had a spare shed, yippee! So, we are now the proud owners of the "Leak Shack"..All will become clear in a moment.

Richard is going to break it down and transport it to Plot 13 straighten her up give her a new floor, but hey it's free..

Today richard planted about 50 leeks, did I mention he has welsh heritage? :)


Day 7 on the big brother allotment Fruit bed, the salad leaves poked their greenheads above the soil..


Oh and not to forget the raddishes are coming up in lines....

Oh and richard sowed some peas and beans in the rest of the Fruit plot... So he had a busy day...

Thursday Night..

Been a long week at work involving travel to Spain, missed being at the lottie..

I have not really touched the allotment since last week, but Richard has been very busy. He has dug out bed A (Thats our new designations) and marked out bed B (He is trying the no dig method) with cardboard both 4x1.5 m.

Not only this but he has been busy putting in the first plants, radishes and Salad here under the netting, like I said he has been busy!!
So from the mound of brambles, nettles and other weeds, arise the radishes!! We'll be watching with interest!!

Speaking of weeds.... Remember we cleared this bed just under two weeks ago, richard spent hours digging out roots, tilling the soil and trust me we had a mound of roots a foot high...But, the darn things came back again I looked in the bed saw some greenery, thought ahh its a little thing.. Pulled, no joy, dug my hands into the soil...Felt around, thought hmmm, and pulled..Out came this:


At least a foot long there where about three of these in total..

Nature count this week has been richard seeing Moor Hens going up and down the culvert this week since I cleared it out..Thank goodness I did as yesterday we had all of July's rain in a day... Here are the fruits of the labour, a swift running stream, which is slowly clearing down, note we will probably use the mud on the beds as fertiliser as it is well rotted down Leaves etc..


Finally, the end of the culvert now open, I took about 10-12 old pots a piece of large wood and several branches out of here last week, result, a free flowing, draining culvert that should, fingers crossed, not flood again.. It seemed to regularly flood the bend here due to silt deposits being placed into the corner naturally, have to keep an eye on that over the next months/years..

Still a work in progress down here hence it looks untidy...A lot of work left...

This weekend we go get a greenhouse (ebay bargain 62 quid, 6x8 glass aluminum frame..), start to clear the greenhouse section and lay the base..

Finally, good night plot 13!

First Week

Hard to believe we only got the keys a week ago, and what progress!

Today took a day off from work and carried on clearing back to the culvert, another big section of Nettles gone (Boy do my hands and arms know it). Todays wildlife tally, 2 frogs and a slow worm.

So after one week here is the clearing..


Today I attacked the back left of this picture, and Rachel burned the big heap of grass to the right. Richard deserves a good picture of his masterpiece of handy work the fruit bed:

He spent hours on this and it is an amazing transformation from over grown to perfect bed.. We will be quickly sowing some veggies in here over the next couple of days, peas and french runners, beetroot and some salad.

After attacking the back left of the plot it now is clear and looks like this:

Remember the nettles where about 4ft high here, and yes that is the back of the plot there cleared into the distance..

Finally to get rid of all that rubbish we are burning it, Rachel in charge of this, as you can see (It was still burning down at 21:15 this evening when we checked to make sure we hadn't toasted the Allotment...)

So that was the week, we slashed, raked, dug and burned...We now have to dig out the other beds..Another back breaking task on the road to growing our own veggies...