Grass Cutting

This morning I cut the grass on the main path in front of my boundary beds and the path between plots 1 & 1A and 2 & 2A. I watered everything in the potting shed as it was very hot in there yesterday only 25C in there today.

I re arranged everything on the staging as the parsnip corner has now gone into a bed and I now have a bottom shelf to the staging I built to go along the back gable wall of the potting shed.

This afternoon I charged the batteries to the lawn mower back up and cut the grass in the back garden as there is a couple of hours of rain due in the early hours of tomorrow morning/

Ram Rod Spring Onions showing. and more seedings pocking their heads up in the self watering pop bottle propagators.

96 Parsnips Planted

Emma and I had a good morning on the allotment, I finished building the staging in the potting shed and she planted 96 parsnips in 105 hole planting membrane.

Later in the day I returned and had a tidy up of the spoil from the bulb planter and sprinkle of coffee grounds on the bed and then covered with hoops and debris netting to protect from the foxes.

I also set up the watering system again and tried a direct line rather than the buried pipe.

Radish covered with hoops and netting.

Grapevines watered.

Germinating Sweetcorn & Sowing Seeds

Rain this morning so a visit to the allotment this afternoon to transplant another 26 parsnip seeds that have root growth.

Place Sweetcorn on wet kitchen roll in Chinese takeaway containers to germinate before transplanting into some CHM Modules.

Suttons Sweetcorn Eden F1 that was supposed to have 20 seeds in had 23

Dobies Sweetcorn Illusion F1 that was supposed to have 25 seeds only had 21 !!! << You need to do better Dobies!

Mr Fothergill's Courgette Summer Holiday that was supposed to have Average 10 seeds only had 8 that's 20% missing Mr Fothergill's it's not as if they are small for Christ sake.

At £3.35 for 10 seeds that's 33.5p per seeds and 67p worth missing from the packet.

Weeding Bed 16

Nearly finished weeding the mares tail out of Bed 16 which is supposed to be for Beetroots, but the soil is so good I may put the parsnips in it once its clear of the mares tail as I can get it.

Rain stopped play and I came home.

Lots of new life showing in the Self Watering Pop Bottle Propagators which are all sown with 6 seeds.

More Free Paving Slabs

Today I collected the Paving Slabs I went after that were advertised on Freecycle and were only 6 minutes away from the allotment.

It took me three trips to ferry the slabs from the property to the allotment, and I laid out the first batch in front of the potting shed, extending the width of the path, and I will have some plants in pots in front of the potting shed or perhaps a cold frame, to harden off plants.

Like The Cast Of Last Of The Summer Wine

Six more Parsnips germinated and transplanted into loo rolls, that's 3 trays worth now so I need to find my bulb planter and get them in the ground this week.

16 Organdi Dwarf French Beans sown in root trainers

16 Lazy Housewife Climbing Beans Sown in root trainers

Tray of Cos Lettuce sown.

Coffee grounds in tug with Radish & some slug and snail small blue pellets of death added as they are feasting on my Radish leaf's

Onions all types growing, but whites are a little slower.

Suttons KA1985 Grapevine (Vitis) Lakemore White (Seedless) needs to spread out a bit more this year. It got damaged by wild life last year so is not as advanced or has the wall coverage the red grape vine has

Signs of life on both grape vines which made me smile.

Suttons KC5383 Grapevine Plant - Flame Red (Seedless) showing signs of life

Blossom on the apple trees, also made me smile.

Mares Tail removed along with the root system 

Mares Tail removed from half of Bed 16

Mares tail showing in uncovered beds, (which made me frown) and I removed from half of Bed 16 before coming home as I need to sow Beetroots into Bed 16 this week according to my sowing master plan.

Coffee and biscuits break with John and Wally. The three of us remind me of the cast of Last Of The Summer Wine, not sure which of us is Compo, I think it's Wally.

When the sun came out we could feel it burning our skins, it was not out that long and when the clouds came over it was time to put the fleece back on.

Sowing More Parsnips & Fleece

The weather forecast is that there is a real possibility of frost and although the potting shed is warmer than the outside temperature on a sunny day I was not taking any risks as I now have so many seed sown and seedlings showing.

The fleece covering the top of the staging's along the windowed walls. 
 

The fleece covering the top of the staging's along the windowed walls. 

More germinated parsnip seeds transplanted into the toilet roll cardboard tubes  

Parsnip seedlings & transplanted germinated seed about to be planted into the toilet roll cardboard tubes

Parsnip seedlings & transplanted germinated seed about to be planted into the toilet roll cardboard tubes

To keep track of what's happening or being stored in the Daleks and having picked some nice light grey paving blocks that I use to weigh down the lids which have been known to fly like freebies, and painted a description on the block.  

Basically where I store shredded paper and cut up cardboard for adding to the Daleks when making compost. 

More Paving Slabs Off Freecycle

 

Another great find on Freecycle, picked up and taken to the allotment. One day all my paths will be paved.  

Making The Third Staging - Part 2

So with yesterdays build and proof of concept and test fit for the third staging, today I went about the task of building the bottom shelf of the third staging for the Forest Garden Potting Shed 

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I took the test fit down and more or less repeated the process to make the top shelf to make the bottom shelf with a minor modification and assembled and fixed it all together.    

This photo is from a few days in the future as I didn't take a lot of photos today and I was concentrating on getting the third staging completed but as you can see I've made the bottom shelf the same width as the top by notching out the boards around the legs, whereas the two Forest Garden ones supplied with the shed are within the legs and the bottom shelf is not as wide as the top. 

With to potting tray now in the third staging up against the gable wall, I have more growing space on the staging's along the windows, plus more than ample room for me and perhaps others to work or shelter in the potting shed.   

I installed and inside and outside thermometer from Lidl today adding to the collection of thermometers in the potting shed, so I can see the difference between the inside and outside temperatures. 

I love that the blue bells give some colour and some early food for the bees, but its nice to see that the comfrey is coming up now.

Potting Shed & Climbing Frame Greenhouse

I spent some time sowing in the Forest Garden Potting Shed as it had been raining yesterday and over night.        

I was bitterly disappointed with the Westland Multi-purpose Compost with John Innes.  

The pound coin was not found in the compost it's there so you can judge the size of the stones that I was finding as I used the compost. I'm usually very pro Westland's compost but the state of these bags was appalling. 

I took many photos of what I have been sowing as I wanted an up to date list. I had created the labels over Winter as normal.   

Bunches of Spring Onions in vending machine cups with two drainage holes formed in the bottom with a soldering iron. These cups get washed and reused each year.

Bunches I then started in digging out the beds in the Greenhouse Climbing Frame to the depth of the spade, and bottom out the trench.  

Once bottomed out I placed two of the 30 Litre Square Flower Buckets into the end of the trench to infill and enable me to pull out once I had finished filling the trench with the cuttings from my daughters property. 

The hedging was placed in the trench and watered for some time.

Buckets that are holding the excavated topsoil where then placed on the hedge cutting in the trench and watering continued, and settlement of the cuttings could take place.