Wet start to winter

Driest autumn since 1972 (apparently) followed by a wet start to winter.

Moved 4th rasied bed in to position and dug over. Probably do carrots in here next year as not composted at all.

Started to dig over the first bed on left; probably do potatoes in here next year as very heavilly composted, being left overs from the squashes growing in near raw compost which by now has nicely broken down.

More composting...

Weekend, dry and warmer than average, with occaisional sunshine.

Started to fill another of the large skip bags, next to central beds. Got both boys wheel-barrowing straw/menure mix to my plot - had to be paid of course - and they soon got fed up and started playing in the stream.
Apparently a council truck is going to deliver tons of their composted waste this week; and it will reverese down the path to dum pit at end by stream, past these two new skip bags; not sure if there will be room, but we'll see.

Planted over-wintering onions and garlic

Planted 3 rows of onions and 2 of garlic in the central box that had potatoes this year. Added a couple of barrowfulls of the straw/menure compost. Covered loosely with netting, but already some fox has walked right into the centre of the box and poo'd.

A spot of chilly weather and a little rain

Very cold couple of nights and the odd bit of rain, but the ground is still quite dry if you dig down.

Picked all the remaining squashes - some are starting to split, maybe brought on by the little bit of rain. Total of about 14 in all.



Also digging up remaining potatoes and carrots. The potatoes are not great -- about half have some brown marks or are a bit eaten or otherwise no use. The carrots are quite big but none of them straight. These are 2 of the best.

Planted and netted brassicas; harvesting potatoes and squashes

Planted up a variery of brassicas (cauliflower, cabbage and purple flowering stuff) into previous onion and potatoe beds in centre 'aisle'. Netted them over with some plastic mesh mum bought.

Continuing to get planty of potatoes from the back bed ... should be enough to last until Christmas I think ... also planted some potatoe offcuts that had started to shoot, they may come to something or nothing, doesn't matter.

Loads of butternut squashes coming on, probably 16 in total, picked 5 quite large ones already.



Emptied one of the skip bags of compost into various beds and refilled with raw menure mix already. This time, not much added soil or other compost stuff. Also, added more to the raised bed at the back and covered that with black plastic -- hopefully to keep it warm and compositing.

Plenty of potatoes, raspberries.

Dug up most of the raised bed of early potatoes -- more than enough to keep us going until we leave.
Butternut squashes are taking over -- spreading well beyond the confines of their box, and plenty of small squashes BUT many look like the might go rotten, with the lack of hot, non-rainy weather. As an experiment covered a few with plastic fruit trays -- mini-greenhouses to see if that helps.
Latest box, still from loft extension left over wood, placed to right of photo, next to carrot bed. Plan to move rhubard here, or get something orinmental to sand by itself.
Plenty of raspberries coming on -- in fact many of the stalks are falling over due to weight of friut, which means they are hanging in long grass and gettign eaten by slugs.

Plumbing and more composting

Bought grafted cucumber and aubergine (£3.50, £2.50 respectively) and planted in the double height "mega compost" box. Uncovered the squashes and built a "fleece tent" over the cucumber/aubergine end.

Installed some blue mdpe 25mm pipe, with connectors to 22mm speedfit and valves to fill both the buried barrel and the water tank saved from the loft extension. From that tank am running a hose pipe and just letting it empty onto one of the plots at the back. The entire pipe is now watertight and thus siphoning is much easier, not requiring to refill the entire pipe each time, plus the flow is much greater than previous attempts with siphoning.

Salvaged 3 skip bags from some work in the street. Placed 2 by the black compost bin, and one at end of the double height box at the front. Filled all three now with alternating layers of the raw straw/menure mix, soil, compost and any bits of vegetation going spare. Takes a whole evening to fill each one, but it's done and they should make very good compost some time next year.

Some progress on the next box -- using the purlins (3"x10") construcuted a single square 5'x5'. Now "bolted" onto the side a smaller piece using just 3 lengths of the purlins...basically using up all that size wood I have. thats about 5'x3'4". That should nicely cover the two beds at back right. Been digging soil out of those to fill the skip bags.

Wet weather bringing out the slugs!

 
Potatoes getting eaten - I think by slugs or maybe pigeons; so finally got some blue pellets and srepad them about. Highly non-organic. Likewise most things in fact -- beetroot all gone, original carrots about half eaten.

Creosoted (creosote substitute in fact) some of the newly cut bits of wood in prearation for making some new boxes.

Not much else happening!

End of dry April with a very wet May

 
Covered the squashes with a fleece layer rather than the plastic polytunnels things. Should let a bit of water through and not be as hot if it's sunny. However it hasn't been sunny -- lots of rain this week, especially this weekend. The photo is from last weekend.

Had covered up my "piles" of composting menure-straw mix, but removed some covers so the forecast rain can soak in a bit rather than just run off.

Started cutting up remaining wood from last years work on the house - will make some more boxes, probably to go at back, at about 5' by 5'.

Continuing hot and dry weather

 

Ground is quite dry and have been digging over and covering with straw/menure mix. Finished the back bed (previously sweetcorn) and one of the middle strips ready for more potatoes.

More work on my super-heap of compost mix in the large double-height box. The previous mix had sunk by about 9 inches, so added more menure/straw mix and two bags of pigeon poo from Brian. Watered well and re-covered.

End of the cold spell

Last week saw about 4 inches of snow; but its all gone now and back to mild damp waether.

The ground is very wet with pools forming easilly in any low spot, particularly around the shed.

Dug in 3 bags of Homebase compost (2 peat free and 1 non-peat free as they'd run out of the peat free stuff) into the far box, which will be for carrots and beet. Also started to dig out the middle box - the technique is to dig a trench around the outer edges inside the box and then drop the plastic liners into the trech and fill back in with the menu/straw mix and then cover back with the soil. the plastic liner, a small attempt to keep the crouch grass out.

First post of 2007

Very warm start to the year -- temperatures around 10 centigrade and higher. Ground is rather wet -- planted out some garlic, I think it may be too heavy soil but we'll see.
Made a large box by stacking two of my frames together. Fill the space with the straw/menure mix delivered to the site and added a bit of compost to help it rot down.