24 February - Plotting

Yesterday we went on a whistle-stop tour of the plot with our friends Mr B and L from Suffolk (he who donated the original raspberry bush).

They duly admired and wondered at the amazing Pagoda-like structure that is the cage. And the daffodills are coming out on the bank. And the Elephant garlic is looking good.

We went back today and spent a most useful few hours sorting out bits and bobs. The weather was perfect - mild and sunny, bringing out a rash of allotmenteers and ramblers. It is hard not to feel the sap rising (missus) on a day like this and plant stuff all over the place - but softly, softly gentle reader. First, we have to feel confident that we have defeated Bunny, otherwise we may as well stick with the Ocado deliveries. Second, it is still very early in the outside growing year and we must not get frostbite.

In the last instalment we reported the sowing of seeds thus: French Marigold, Sunflower, Broccoli (Ironman) and Leek (Malabar). Two weeks of tending has resulted in some thriving seedlings, though the leeks are very hard to see at present and one tray of French Marigolds (no not exotic rubber gloves) has not yet sprung. The potatoes are chitting nicely in our conservatory. One thing that is difficult is what temperature seeds need - broccoli and leeks need cold but other things warmer climes. To enable us to be more seed-focussed, we have brought back the cold frame from the plot and installed it in the garden. This morning we sowed our onion seeds - more macho guys - Red Baron and Napoleon. We ponder the merits of planting sets (baby onions) but like the idea of doing it completely from scratch. We also intend to plant some things directly into the ground (cabbage, leek, broccoli) by way of experiment.

Today our priority was to finish securing the fence so that Bunny cannot wriggle through the gap between the top and bottom layers and put wire fencing around the fruit cage so that we can plant things direct. N carried out some slight enhancements - ahem - to the Pagoda. I remark that its unique combination of angles can make a person feel slightly giddy when looking at it.

Due to the loveliness of the weather, we get our deckchairs out and have an allotment lunch and cup of tea. Fantastic. We think of long summer days spent out in the plot, always assuming we have a summer this year of course.

Much chat with various allotment neighbours. The talk is dark and mutinous and we are going to ask Mr G whether an allotment user group can be formed. We (that is, us and Jan and Pat) think we need to have a collective way of lobbying the council to improve site security in a concerted bid to eliminate Bunny. Unfortunately we all spend much more time thinking about rabbitproofing than actually growing and it is expensive - it is also driving plotholders off the allotment. We have had enough. We are revolting. We also think it would be nice and neighbourly to organise an allotment barbie in the summer.

One positive side-effect of the rumoured departure of one of the plotholders is that he has said we can dig up some of his comfrey. This is great news and will save us having to do it from scratch. N and I duly dig up one patch which divides up into 16 or so plantlets. We marvel at the size of the roots which are truly enormous and now understand why comfrey can be a mixed blessing. We have planted it in the very corner of the plot next to the compost pallet thingies. We hope that we can organise first dibs on the netting and possibly fruit trees of the departing plotholder.

We finish laying down bark chips on the paths between the raised beds which now looks right posh and belatedly realise that we could have had chippings for free from the great pile next to the allotment entrance but never mind. At least we bought our chippings from the St Stephens Garden Society Shop (open 2-4 on Saturdays).

Our last task was to identify the area in the Pagoda which will be the seedbed. We duly covered the area with more mushroom compost and black plastic. In a couple of weeks after some dedicated hoeing and raking, it will be ready for seeds. And we will be ready - maybe - to plant our potatoes. Everything to play for, now the plot is secure. We leave in a haze of pleasant anticipation and well-being.

Sorry that some of the photos are not upright - still working on that skill.

10 February 2008 - The ties that bind

After a bit of a blogging break, we can now bring you up to speed on life at the plot. We have been attending its needs (mainly cage construction and remedial fencing - see below), only to find ourselves without the energy to type.

Today saw the completion of Fruit Cage Stage One, plus considerable progress on the plot as a whole. The Fruit Cage front door is in place, constructed using bits and bobs around the plot. Thanks to our lady neighbours, whose drill bits stood in for my own, which have become whatever the equivalent of 'threaded' (as in screws) is. No bite in my bits. It nags, it swings, it closes, and it already has its mesh attached.

So, what's left to do is some roof-level strengthening, net over the top and mesh around the sides. We are pondering what fruit trees to install. Plums, some say. Can you grow peaches in England? Grapevine? Much to think about during the week.

Also thanks to the ladies for the kind loan of their wheelbarrow - used to transport the following from our car in the lane (ground's still to wet to allow vehicles in): four bags of bark (now filling some of the paths between our beds, to suppress weeds and mud); two bags of compost (kitchen and garden waste - waste no more - from the rotating composter in the garden); and two and a half jugs of the liquid that oozes from the rotating composter in the container below. This liquid gold - more like liquid poo - is a very concentrated fertilizer and will bring much joy to our hungry plants. This was a great revelation to us. We had feared that the resulting product would be gooey, gunkey, rancid stuff but it looks like cold tea, or indeed, beer.

We are keeping it in former cider jugs, so, should young tearaways break into our shed, they will drink it and come to regret their jolly japes.

In one of the weekends when we failed to blog, we had purchased some additional fenceposts and some fine wire mesh. We used these to raise the fence to a good four feet above ground, a height over which even the most determined rabbit is unlikely to be able to jump. (Our lady neighbours are doing similar work, though regretting the growing look of compound rather than garden. I think in due course we will see right through the fencing.) Today, K has been doing a second inspection on the join between the original mesh and the upper layer, and twist-tying any leaky-looking bits.

We also increased the level of order around the shed. The long and good wood is tucked behind the pallet-bordered compost heaps. Our compost bin has been moved behind (to the east of) the shed, along with the bulk of our miscellaneous wood supplies.

Arguably most exciting of all - feel free to comment - on our recent trip to the recycling depot, we scored two more pallets and some sort of industrial-sized bobbin (most likely used for electrical wires). It has been united as a table base with one of the paletts forming a tabletop. Although a bit low, it's a good surface and will benefit from having a couple of chairs on which we can eat our picnic lunches.

I think we had mentioned that the model plotters two doors down had started clearing one of the overgrown plots. He uncovered a brickwork oven, which works and produces tremendous heat. I believe I must construct one for the plot, so that we can enjoy bbq drumsticks away from home.

Here's a bark-covered path.

Bankside daffodils emerging. Much birdlife. Glorious spring weather - bringing out noticeably more allotment keepers and ramblers - must not plant anything yet into the ground. Giant garlic grows apace snug in its Environmesh and in a handy wooden portable frame for protection. One or two of the strawberry plants appear to be surviving after their ordeal.

We already have potatoes a-chittin in the upstairs office (Arran Pilot, first earlies, and Sarpona Axona maincrop).

Home in time to plant seeds: leeks (Malabar), broccoli (Ironman), sunflowers and marigolds (for crop protection), which will have the early days inside and then be hardened off for outdoor planting. We will also plant broccoli and leek seeds straight into the beds when it gets warmer - we thought we'd try it both ways to see which works better.

20 January 2008 - A game of two halves

Today's blog is a two part story of dashed hopes and happy serendipity. To start us off, here is a picture of our home-made cold frame - not quite sure what to do with it yet.

The various seeds we have ordered have come through the post. Now we await the early potatoes (Arran Pilot). We have put all our seeds into order (really) and have disinfected the seed trays and various pots in readiness. It is with some trepidation that we now begin to face the reality of sowing, growing and tending crops. It is also with some stern realisations of the challenges we face.

Today, after a bit of a staggered start in a none-too-welcome climate, we discover that the tops of our five strawberry plants have been nibbled/partially destroyed. This is vexing. Our neighbours also, who helped us with the shed, have had an incursion and their cabbage seedlings have been ravaged. Admittedly, we had not put any particular protection around the strawberries, but still - very worryingly, our neighbours are much better organised in that department.

We seek counsel from Nettle Guy who says it is rabbits. Our fence is simply not high enough and the bank at the back gives the little sods additional leverage (like pole vaulting). They are cunning. We never find any "evidence" - other than destruction. We decide to get some tall fence posts and supplement our fence vertically by more chickenwire. Admittedly, it is cold and winter and the critters are desperate for any greenery, but what will happen in the midst of summer? We take on board the lesson that unless we get serious about protecting our crops, there is no point in putting anything into our soil.

N has made another compost shack with the pallets and has manfully and on his own cut up the carpet we freecycled yesterday into good paths and a "sitting room" bit.

The second part of today was rather different and inspiring. Readers will recall that the cage project is half-complete due to lack of wood (admittedly we had changed the dimensions from the original plan). We ponder how to get wood. We look at freecycle - no wood. We go to a local building supply place just to see where it is. Then we remember our original freecycle wood donors (cf. the second Trailer Incident) and we think why not just pop in? They are only just down the road.

And hallelujah! There is wood aplenty of exactly the right sort, enough to finish the cage and guttering and pallets - and a couple of fence panels to fetch another time. Our freecycle friends are graciously pleased to see us and even saw up the wood to the right length. There are jovial comments about the "poor car". It only occurs to us later that we pitched up unexpectedly at lunch time. They are pleased we took the wood, we are pleased that we had the chutzpah to arrive on their doorsteps with muddy boots and wild allotment eyes.

We have invited them and their kids to visit in the spring. We will contemplate some sort of plaque on the Cage to commemorate their contribution to our project. (What is referred to, in the fundraising game, as a 'naming opportunity'.)

It is now safely delivered to our plot (heavy lifting as we could not take the car up to the plot due to mud). And the chicken wire has been ordered and we will get tall fence posts. All will be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

12-13 January 2008 - Already used the best Cage heading

A Saturday morning meeting with our neighbours, who valiantly volunteered to help us shift our shed.

In the end we decide simply (hah!) to pivot the shed, so that its door faces the compost container, rather than - as originally planned - shift it toward the rasberries to form one end of The Cage. This is partly because the ground between the shed and the raspberries is alright - good enough to grow things in, unlike the soil (stones) parallel to it, but closer to the potatoes.

This led us to contemplate extending (in the future) The Cage still further toward where the shed is now, forming a cage of around 230cm x 550cm, but also leaving us a Social Section between The Cage and the shed. Even i'm bored by this amount of detail.

The ladies were a tremendous help. While P and I got on with the labour, K and J provided much-needed commentary (when K was between international calls). The shed now sits proudly (and solidly) on two pallets, and we have retrieved the several rubber mats on which it used to sit for use on paths. Many thanks to our kind and supportive neighbours.

We then borrowed five very heavy bags of hearty mushroom compost (smelling of mushroom) from Mr G's plot, and spread this and some chicken manure (smelling of a chicken's behind) over our four raised beds as well as the area on which will sit The Cage.

Then we covered each bed (aside from where the elephant garlic is growing) with black plastic. Our friends the worms will spend the next couple of months dragging this delicious goodness into the soil in readiness for planting.

Sunday, we return to build The Cage. A basic framework is developed, using the Freecycle boards and leftover shelf brackets. We have enough wood to make the first of our cage modules 230cm x 230 cm. My keenness on headroom, plus our limited ability to countersink the posts, left us with a framework rising, I would guess, 250cm high. Well, that high in some corners, less (and more) high in other corners.

So, the frame stands It's not the most square of structures, nor the sturdiest - there were some high-anxiety moments in construction and erection - but it was still standing as we left the allotment. We have a fond hope that we will be able to see it in the morning from the train station platform.

I had developed a doorway, the frame of which has had to be removed for the moment (until we secure wood for the other modules). I now wish to redeployed our conservatory venetian blinds to act as a cool door. K is pictured within the doorframe.

On our way out, we have a brief chat with plotters near the gate. They are constructing a very orderly set of prefab plastic raised beds, interspersed with bark-covered paths. We agree - despite ramshackle construction, splinters, backache and the likelihood that our efforts will become a pile of pick-up-sticks when exposed to a stiff wind - that homemade is our prefered method.

Even (especially) when it looks like this.

Joyous news from Freecycle on the carpet front. This will help turn our paths into paths rather than mudbaths.

Weather: overcast, windy but mild.

Compost corner: We left the stalk of the sprout plant sticking up out of the compost heap. Something has been nibbling.

Sheep nearby.

5/6 January 2008 - La Cage aux Folles

Much of our final days of holiday were spent in plot.

We picked up some raspberry canes and strawberry plants at a new (to us) garden centre, Aylett's Nursery, and commenced digging the area (230cm x 460 cm) which will form the base of the fruit cage. This involved clearing bits of turf around the edges, digging in some well-rotted horse manure and, finally, digging the whole thing over.

The next day we constructed the makings of our pallet-walled composter, affixing wire mesh inside it and adding the new turf plus our old friend the remains of the Brussel Sprout plant. In due course, a companion composter will join it, to better facilitate the turning over of the compost.

To our existing three or four (it's a little hard to tell because they procreated) raspberry plants, we added two Autumn Bliss variety and five canes of Malling Admiral. The new plants won't be allowed to fruit this year, in order that they build up their strength for Summer 2009. It's good, in these instant-gratification times, for our patience and sense of perspective.

Then, at what will be on the left side as you will one day enter the fruit cage, we planted five strawberry plants (Elsanta), leaves snugly sticking out of black plastic.

I counted and measured our remaining wood - much of it from the Freecycling floorboard guy who broke our trailer (now, hurrah, rivetted back to working order) - and think we have exactly the right amount for the cage. I want to be able to stand comfortably inside, so it will be about two metres high. We will also move the shed to form one wall of the cage. To achieve this, our neighbours promised us help next weekend.

Sadly - or, rather, disturbingly and infuriatingly - our neighbours suffered some loss of spring onions to rabbits because someone (some toerag) had assaulted their fence. Someone had also damaged our other neighbour's fence and left thier shed door open. No damage to ours, but someone smoked a cigarette in our plot and left the butt. K spoke with Mr G earlier, who had already had several complaints about intruders. We suspect that Mr Fox has been sniffing about too, judging from the pawprints in one of the beds. As long as he gets rabbits we don't mind.

When that's done, we need to give some thought to what to do with the space where the shed and palettes are now. And we need to acquire some more carpeting; parts of the plot are a bit of a mudbath at the moment.

Meant to note the other day that as we worked in the afternoon, several sheep were just ten yards away from us in their pasture. And Mr Robin was keeping a sharp eye on us meddling with his property. This is all far better than urban allotment-keeping.

Weather note: cold, crisp, sunny (occasional rain).

30 December 2007/1 January 2008 - New Year Revolutions

And a Happy New Year to all our readers!

We have been very busy planning for our growing year. In the midst of internet searching, seed packet reading, spreadsheet construction and chasing of mushroom compost, we had an unexpected visit from Mr B, our friend from Suffolk and the donor of the raspberry bushes. He was, we think, impressed with the size of the plot and commented on how much work we had put in. Seeing as his original gifts are doing so well, he has kindly offered to bring us some more on his next visit. Woo hoo!

After a less than sober New Year's Eve celebration with The Neighbours, we eventually staggered to the plot and made two exciting discoveries - (a) that digging in the fresh air is an effective hangover cure and (b) the carefully piled up piles of grass upon which the pumpkin had grown and which had to be distributed from the final raised bed had formed the most fabulous loamy topsoil stuff - the definition of friable. This is exactly what they said would happen in the book, but it was a revelation - on how soil could be improved and on the easy patient natural process which produced it. We finished that bed thinking that this may well be the seed bed due to its superior quality.

N dug the second of the small parallel beds for the potatoes. We have to prepare the trenches with cardboard and potato fertiliser, exactly as we did at the very beginning - but this time in advance so it can rot down. We anxiously await the mushroom compost. The delay is - mysteriously - attributed to a dodgy gearstick in a white van. Hmmm.

We'd like to share with you our detailed growing list but unfortunately the technology is a bit beyond us at the moment. If we cannot find a way of linking to our planning spreadsheet we will list them in another posting - but it won't be as cool.

Some things we have ordered via the interweb, others we already had and others we bought recently (e.g. raspberries and strawberries). We do not intend to grow everything on the list, for example the raddichio which failed to come up last year, but thought it best to list in case we change our minds. The things we like best there are two varieties of - potatoes (Sarpo Axona - blight resistant!), peas, carrots, broccoli, french beans, onions, garlic. We are rather impressed by the macho names of some of our potential harvest - Ironman F1 broccoli, Napoleon and Red Baron onions - and hope they will get along. Other things will be grown in pots in our garden (tomatoes, salad) and still others as accompaniments on the plot (marigolds, sunflowers). Very pleasingly we managed to find comfrey seed which will be great for the compost; it grows fast and makes perfect green manure.

The process of choosing what to grow is interesting in itself. There is no particular rationale. Some varieties were chosen because we saw them in a gardening magazine; others because we had them already; and still others (internet ones) because we liked the look/description. And we will have to dig and prepare the space for the raspberries and strawberries (the beginning of the fruit cage) purchased this afternoon from the excellent nursery up the road - this weekend! The New Year has begun with a vengeance. Let the growing begin.

26/27 December 2007 - These boots are made for digging

Planning well-advanced, we get down to the dirty business of implementation. N has new boots for the allotment, K has a new Double-Ender Thermos for tea and such. V exciting.

We are alone on the allotment, for the second day in a row, and we suspect that the other plotters are either less dedicated or more organised than us. The garlic has finally made its first appearance. Its sturdy shoots presage the phenomenal plants we anticipate (Elephant Garlic) some time in the summer.

Some Local Youths arrive on their choppers (bicycles), intending to wreak the havoc that only bored and undisciplined kids can do. This reminds me of an episode of vandalism in October (from which I think I shielded you, Gentle Reader) which involved the latch on our gate being broken (probably someone kicking at our swing gate) and a pumpkin (thankfully, not our Halloween highlight pumpkin) being stabbed by our old plot number spike.

I make a stand (sharp spade in hand) and courteously but firmly remind the little bastards that they are on private property. I realise that this will probably result in our shed being burnt down, but if One Man can't make a stand to protect public decency, then the whole country will go to the dogs.

If I sound old and grumpy, bored youth breaking things (or even littering) stands in great contrast to everything our allotment means to us: connection to the land, greater self-sufficiency, productivity over destruction, efficiency over waste. In effect, the allotment system (and its wartime origins in growing on public land for personal and communal survival) means that we have a contract with our local authority to make the most of our patch - which is the public's land - on loan to us. Being public land, it is to some degree vulnerable. These snotty, surly youth would benefit more from compulsory labour on public land than they do from junk food and Wiis. (Blimey - Ed.)

Anyway, we cobble together the remaining spare floorboards and form four walls for our fourth raised bed (note - change of plan from previous post - we have gone for one large rather than two small because of the wood situation). Mushroom compost is on order, chicken manure will be obtained (best you don't ask) - these will be added in a layer over the four beds, which will be covered and left for a couple of months. In that time, worms and such will arise from the soil, drag the good stuff down into lower levels, and by the time we unwrap (March, say), the soil will have been broken up and improved. The worms are, in so many ways, the true heroes of our tale.

Still about ten days left in our holiday, and still much to do. Weather = mild, cloudy, dry.