Cut the grass at last

Mini-heatwave and not much rain. The ground is getting very dry and starting to crack.

Finally bought a petrol lawn mover (Ryobi, £150 with B&Q discount) and cut down the grass on the paths. Richard down on Sunday with Jack, so he was helping out with that. What to do with the old one though?



Got a few leek seedlings from Mum and planted them in the central box next to courgettes.

Only one of the french bean seedlings came up, so planted that amougst the runner beans, but I suspect it will get swamped.

Got some tomatoes from Mum and a few more from Steve O'Toole. Two largest planted at home. At the allotment planted one in tub, one in the pot that had carrots (which all got slugged) and one in a new pot which I'll leave in a tray on a pallette.

A spell of bad weather

Mum planted out some sweetcorn on Thursday (8x3 in bed, centre left). However they look a little small and that was followed by some bad spring weather ... rather gusty with short sharp showers and they dont look too good. Plus Michael was helping out and fell over and sat on a couple.

Also planted out butternut squashes in the fresher compost box at the back and made up a make-shift coldframe from the shower screen to protect them (although worried the wind will knock the screen over and it'll flatten the plants).

Courgettes planted at one end of the centre bed and closhed to try protect them also. Again worried the wind will simply blow the closh away. Plus one courgette in a large pot.

Continuing to dig our the far right box and resorted to filling up a skip bag as nowhere to dump the soil on the other beds. Tom helped alot on Sunday.

Bought a £25 strimmer from B&Q -- absolutleyl rubbish -- from a 5 hour charge, it only lasts 10 minutes and doesn't seem to hack down the grass well either.

Warm and sunny and no rain

A dry and sunny spell of a few weeks...although rain forecast for later this week.

Continuing to dig out the far right box and earth up soil around all the potatoes which are growing nicely -- about 12" high. Just over half the box is dug out...not sure what to do with rest of soil to empty it. Also set up one of the skip bags and filled that up with straw/menu mix, some green compost and grass and a few layers of soil.



The grass is getting rather too long. Unfortunately the lawn mover seems to have a petrol leak so need to find an alternative.

Planting out carrots, beetroot, leeks.

Mum down with carrot, beet and leek seedlings. Planted in various places - mostly in near row central box, and long thin box in middle row.

Dotted left over seedlings all over the place. Plus loads of onions in any odd gap. Plus planted up a couple of large pots with Pink Fir Apple potatoes, and one with carrots that couldn't go anywhere else. Even tried some carrots, potatoes and cabages in the very poor soil of the non-boxes beds. Nothing to loose as this was left over stuff anyway.

Earthed up the larger potatoes that were coming through (Michael helping out there) by digging out soil from last year's carrot box (first row, furthest right box).

Raspberries all coming through nicely -- shoots a few inches high.

A bit of effort to fix the plumbing to sphypon fill the water tanks -- the valve had split over winter so new fittings required; managed to reuse some bits from my plumbing junk collection.

More preparing the ground

A bit of rain at last. Generally preparing the ground -- digging over, digging in more chicken manure pelets, leveling off and tidying up.

Started on planting

Very nice Sunday afternoon. Started on the planting to get stuff in before the holiday.



Potatoes in the 3 back and right boxes -- 4 different varieties and about 10 of each. International under plastic cloche in thin box on right ... quite spaced out aswell so lets see if that gives a good early yield.

Onions and 2 rows of leeks in the bottom-left box, next too the little patch of late garlic that was already there.

Some more leeks, and a few parsnips in the newest box, centre-left. The leeks are a little small, hopefully they'll survive.

Dug over the last two beds in the centre -- possibly for carrots and beetroot -- although the soil is very solid and un-friable.

Sunny and warm

Finally cleared everything from last year. The remaining 8 or so of the leeks picked and eaten Saturday night ...very nice. All the boxes are dug over and I'm adding some b&q composted chicken menu all over. Tom down on Sunday helping with the digging.

Also clearing around the back of the plot and trying to direct the blackberry shoots away from my bit and toward the stream to try and build up some sort of barrier along that side.

Nice spring day

Nice spring morning, so went down to site, for only second time this year. However a major storms seemed to come out of nowhere (apparantly it was forecast) and soak me.

Managed to plant out a few more garlic (very late ... but lets see what they do) and clear some of the boxes of the last few red caggages, which are a rather worm-eaten but still worth having.

Digging over the compost box at the back, made from pallets, and adding remainder of compost bin to that. That box will be for squashes this year.

Planted garlic. Getting towards end of veggies.

Got some mild garlic, as that was all that was left in the shop, cloves looking well past their best. Planted anyway next to onions, in box at back that had sweetcorn last year.

Getting to the end of carrots, leeks and beetroot but still enough for dinner. Parsnips and red cabbage too.

Digging over as much as can, and digging in last years rotted straw/menure mix to improve the soil. Very wet boggy ground; hardly supprising considering amount of rain on Saturday.

Not much else happening; very quiet down at the site.

The latest box

Completed the latest box. I think it can have leeks next year.



From left to right, top to bottom the sequence is...
1) dig out completely;
2) line with plastic bags stapled to inside of box;
3) fill a layer of straw / menure mix;
4) add a layer of green waste, household waste and some very wormy stuff from the compost heap;
5) add a layer of part composted straw menuure;
6) and another layer of new straw menure;
7) and finally a layer of soil and a layer of part used compost (from the tomoatoes this year) which was 1 year old rotted down straw / menure.

Also, throw over a couple of handfulls of bone meal.