Coco Grow, SFG & Odd Jobs

A Saturday visit to the allotment as my Daughters are helping me decorate the bedroom on Sunday. Nice warm and sunny morning so no madness just plodding today as way too warm. 

I trimmed the grass from the main path to my allotment entrance as there was a think dew this morning the long grass made my trainers/shoes wet. I did start the day by digging and weeding the path that will be going between Square Foot Gardening (SFG) Bed 2 and Bed 3.

I obtained some wood chips from the drop-off and pick-up area (aka the car park) and filled in the margin with the path along the side of SFG Bed 2 

Site inspections this Wednesday so I removed the staging and hoops from the bed in front of the greenhouse that had been growing green manure, pulled the weeds that had popped up in the last two weeks. turned the green manure into the soil and have covered so the critters in the soil can process the green manure. I also had the three paving slabs up on the main path as there was a dip there and leveled off the path and filled the margins either side. 

I could not find the green greenhouse gutter stop end and down pipe so I used silicone to put in a short length of garden hose from the gutter to the top of the water butt.  

Next was to remove the packaging from the Coco Grow coir block and boil a 1 litre kettle to get the re-hydration process going. I had been bringing 2 litre pop bottle of water down and storing them in the greenhouse as I was intending to do this before the water was turned back on. It did help that the water was warmed being in the greenhouse as I needed a number of boiled kettles of water and a total of around 22 litres in all to re-hydrate the block.    

There is about I kettle and 2 litres of water between each photo above and I scrapped off the hydrated coir until I had no choice but to empty the contents into the bed as the wheelbarrow was full and carry on re-hydrating what was left of the block in the wheelbarrow. 

So one can see how much one Coco Grow coir block will re-hydrate too. On a future visit I will add more cardboard, the vermiculite and the compost and mix. I have modules with some plants in the Space Saving greenhouse that can go straight into the bed(s). 

I think my ambition of having 2 or 3 beds ready for this season and comparing the results just isn't going to happen this year.