Size Is Relative

This morning I had a committee meeting on Spencer Road Allotment. I took the opportunity to ship eight kerb edgings and some of the contents of the shed from Spencer Road to Mill Green Allotment.

It makes sense to move stuff with every visit, the thing is I only really need to visit Spencer Road now to move stuff I want to keep, and to undertake minimal work to keep the weed down so that my plot does not become a problem for those around it, I've been there had that one done to me and I really don't want to become a problem neighbour, before I give up the plot. 

The Catawissa Walking Onions are already growing and it will be a shame to leave them on the Spencer Road plot  but I do have the next generation in the Space Saver Greenhouse in the back garden and I need to form the bed for them on plot 1A at Mill Green sooner than later.



I had trimmed up the offcut from the second strip of weed membrane with a soldering iron at home during the week, as it was so shaggy. The trimmed offcut can be seen in the photo above, up against the wall on the right of the photo on the boundary between plot 1 & 1A.

This sheet of weed membrane felt like it was huge whilst I was working on it in the back garden, but out on the allotment it's covers very little ground, and felt so small and really proves that Size Is Relative.

I marked the wall with chalk (highlighted on the photo) and measured the length of the wall at 8 metres. I needed to verify the length, so that I could cut to the required two lengths off the 2m wide rolls I have purchased. These length will be used to cover the area where the shed and greenhouse is planned to go, and the OS map is out a little as I estimated 9m lengths would be required.

Ultimately I need to measure the plot and work out the actual area I have as I have found that most plots are much smaller than what they charge you for, but no one from the council has ever actually measured the plots. .

Due to the shape of the plot of land that forms Mill Green Allotments, every plot is a different size but they are all charged out at the same area, unless you have measured the plot and inform the council / Idverde what the actual size is.

Cucumbers Are Like Children

I've come to the conclusion that Cucumbers are like little children!

Take your eyes off them for a moment and they will get their head caught in the fence.

Sowing Catawissa Walking Onions.

I've sown 15 vending machine cups per module in 5 trays so that's 75 Catawissa Walking Onions.

I planted many the smaller ones in the left container that had already started to sprout and I still have not used them all

I'm going to sow the rest of them over the weekend.

I may just have to eat the larger one in the container on the right

Harvest Time & Fighting Fires

Today was spent harvesting a bed or Sarpo Spuds and I have to say they did really well. I managed to get three buckets of spuds out of a 2.4 x 1.2m bed planted with 18 seed potatoes.

The seed potatoes were egg sized spud that I had saved from last years crop. Saving my own seed potatoes is not something that I will do every year but it was an experiment and it worked fine and dandy.

I did take time to brush off as much soil as I could and as we have not had a great deal of rain recently the soil was moist but not claggy. Bed 9 was decommissioned and covered for the winter months to prevent future weed growth. I need to plan what's going where next year before I start adding manure to the beds.  

The runner beans keep coming but I did notice a lot of snails on the plants, so I'm not expecting a whole lot more, the excess has been distributed to in laws and my eldest daughter.

There are two nice sized marketmore cucumbers on the vine and a number of small slow starters and I'm hoping they will be ready in a week or so when we run out of other allotment holders excess that I have been given as they know I was late getting stuff in because my wife was in hospital twice early in the growing season.

I love the way that when you do have an excess there are always family and friends and those include your plot neighbours who have not been growing that particular vegetable or have had a problem with that vegetable this year. 

Whilst digging up the spuds I noticed that something, mouse, rat or squirrel, yes all three are on and around the allotment had taken a fancy to my sweetcorn. It has not been a very good year for sweetcorn, I don't know what it is but fellow Allotmenteers on Mill Green and Spencer Road have notice that the plants appear shorter and the corns smaller than usual.

I looked what remained of the cob and they were ready for harvesting so I picked the lot. I do have another bed of corn but they have not even developed cobs and I'm doubtful I will get a crop from them. Look like I have been growing compost on that bed.

Wally has more marrows than he can deal with and offered me one of his excess marrows.

My plant died early on and I didn't get any planted this year. I have seed from the Wyevale 50p seed sale ready for next year, and if I do manage to get the half plot next door, these are the kind of things that can be allowed to grow and take over the areas I will not be able to weed and cultivate

A swift visit the Spencer Road plot on the way home resulted in me discovering that the self seeded pumpkins that were green and covered with foliage last visit have nearly turned colour and the vines have died right back.

Looks Like my daughters will not have to buy carving pumpkins this year for Halloween if they last that long their was a small one but it appears to have imploded and just melted away

The Burpless cucumbers are doing well, and I have the obligatory cucumber that has decided to grow through the mesh netting meaning it will have to be cut in order to harvest, I may get 3-4 cucumbers if the weather holds and we don't have an early frost.

I harvested the last of the spring onions and bagged up the last of the red and white onions off the growing rack and made my way home for lunch

After Sunday lunch I wash and trimmed the spring onions. Skinned and cut up the sweet corn and put in the freezer, the beans can wait until tomorrow.

I also had the excitement of trying the help the neighbour put out a fire that was consuming his boundary fence and hedging whilst we waited for the fire brigade to come and finish the job. Silly sod had decided to burn his hedge cuttings next too the fence and the wind took some burning embers and the fence went up as if it had been covered in petrol. 

Clearing a New Allotment

The question of how to clear a new allotment comes up on forums all the time and I normally chip in on the threads, but I thought it’s about time I produced a comprehensive answer and some personal guidance based on my experience that I can just put a link to it in the future so here it is!

Hurray I have an Allotment, now what do I do?

Normally if you have acquired a new plot the likelihood is that it’s going to be covered in crap and weeds up to four feet tall or if you are really unlucky eight feet of brambles that are hiding a six by eight foot shed at the back of the plot that you didn’t know was there! Yes true story that happened to a plot neighbour who took a plot on I had rejected because it looked like too much work.

The condition of the plot really depends how long it has not been used and if there has been an active waiting list or not. Go back five years 2012 and there were long waiting lists for most allotments due to all the grow it and cook it programs that were on the television. Recently 2017 however in some areas there are less people enthusiastic about taking on an overgrown monstrosity, however if it’s that bad ask you can always ask if you can have it rent free for the first year, I didn’t get my first allotment plot rent free for the first year, but I did the second plot. 

In 2020 due to the pandemic the waiting list have sored on my site we had a waiting list of 6 in March 2020 and by October it was 24. there are only 14 full plots most have been divided into half plots and there are five of us that still have full plots so there are only 23 plots, 2 are not in use because they have Japanese Knotweed. So the people on the waiting list have some time to wait because we only tend to loose 1 or 2 people per year.  

So where do you begin? First thing to remember is that Rome was not built in a day, and neither will your allotment be formed within in a few hours or a couple of days, it takes a lot of work and work takes time and effort.

Working on the plot little and often is the key and make sure that you enjoy the process and experience, don’t let it ever become a chore otherwise you will be one of those that give up within the first 3 months of ownership

First Day

Before you touch the plot, I suggest that you get the camera out and photograph the plot all around from locations you can go back to so that you can take regular photos of your progress and look back and see what progress you have made, because I guarantee you will get to a point where you “hit the wall” as runners say and you will feel like you aren’t making the progress you should be and may feel a little down and despondent, that’s the time to look at the photographs to remind yourself just how much you have actually done.

Plot 1A on Plan

Here was my first plot when I took it over in October 2012 

This was the view from the West Looking East

Take a walk around the plot and look in and see what you’re going to have to deal with if you can, you may be very surprised at what is actually lurking under all the weeds somethings may be useful others will just need to be bagged up and taken to the dump.

Health & Safety

It’s about now you should really be thinking about if your tetanus jabs are up to date, especially with bramble covered plots, as you will get scratched, pricked and cut doing this work no matter how careful you are.

Wearing gloves also keeps the grime out of your fingers because if you get an infection then fingers like to have a bit of a puss party and the solution is lancing and washing out, wrapping up and a couple of courses of anti-biotics. I managed to do this the same week I got my second allotment.

Getting Started

Put on a pair of sturdy gloves and clear an area in one corner of the plot and lay a plastic sheet or tarp down, then start retrieving the debris and sort it into two piles one of stuff that may be useful to keep and the other stuff to go to the dump.

You may be able to do this straight away if the plot is not too weedy or covered in brambles, but if the plot is really overgrown then you may have to start eating your way into the plot and build the piles as you expose the ground and discover what lies beneath.

I kept the terracotta pots in the photo above but all the glass and there was a lot of it some sheets buried under carpet was boxed up and taken to the dump.

If you’ve a lot of tall weeds, then it may be worth borrowing or hiring a petrol strimmer with a brush-cutter blade and taking them down to about 15cm above the ground, leave brambles a little longer – anything up to 60cm.

To clear the plot below I used a combination of normal shears and long handle shears, Secateurs, long handles Secateurs, and a hand scythe

Clearance Progress from October 2012 – January 2013

Clearing & Covering

Some books suggest composting weeds, but not all weeds are suitable for cold composting.

A lot of council run allotments will not allow fires between April and September, but if you are going to stack weeds to let them dry then stack them on pallets to keep them off the ground and allow air flow under the pile, and cover them to keep them dry, but take the covers off when you are working on the plot to allow the heap to breath and dry out more.

I burnt all the weeds using a couple if metal incinerators but if dry enough you could just have a bonfire, making sure there are no hedgehogs or slow worms in residence.

View from the South East corner looking North West Before & After

The carpet in the photo above was there already but has been covered with bindweed; most allotments will no longer allow the use of carpet to be used on allotments due to the risk of chemicals/glues leaching into the soil.

Now that you have been on the allotment for a while you will have looked at other plots and seen how they are managed, these loosely fall into two groups

• Dig the whole thing over including paths every year
• Formal structure with an infrastructure of beds and paths

I fall into the formal structure with beds and paths group, and my reasons are, I could not do with clearing the whole plot of weeds every year, battling nature on taking over a plot is quite enough for me thank you very much.

Mentally I can deal with the management of a 1.2m x 2.4m area of land and once cleared I can manure it. Breaking the plot up into areas helps me with crop rotation, I just move everything on four beds each year. I can grow green manure or just cover the beds over with a sheet of weed membrane to deny the weed seed light so they don't grow once they have finished for their year.  

By putting in paths in you effectively reduce the area that will need weeding if your paths are weed membrane, cardboard, covered with gravel, paving slabs or woodchips.

Make beds just wide enough 1.0 to 1.2m so they can be worked on from both sides without the need to stand on and compress and consolidate the soil so that digging in the future becomes easier. I adopt a no dig approach as much as possible, you still need to dig spuds but that means that the hard pan is dug in four beds each year as I rotate the crops.

Make the paths wide enough between the beds so that you can get the bottoms of your legs (knee to foot) in comfort for planting and hand weeding, I originally planned for 450mm wide but rethought and made them 600mm wide which for me is just enough. 

 

Once the weeds are cleared it’s a good idea to cover the ground so that the weeds die off. You can do this with cardboard and tarps, just tarps, or damp proof membrane, or weed membrane. The objective is to cut off light to the weeds so they die and you are not fighting on all fronts to keep the weeds at bay.

You will soon learn that if there is a drop of rain in the summer and you come back after two weeks you will have a lot of weeding to do in your growing beds.

Damp-Proof Membrane 1200ga Black 4m x 25m (47163) from Screwfix is around £60
Recently I managed to purchase 2m x 50m of Heavy Duty weed membrane off ebay for £24.99 a roll and 5% if you bought a second roll.

The key to making headway on a plot is to not to try and get it all done at once, give yourself a small goal and then you feel a sense of achievement when you've reached it, then set the next goal etc.  Also when you are digging start from a corner and work your way back and get in your infrastructure and beds, it may sound silly but work so that when you look up you see what you have done not what’s still to be done.

Before you know it (six to seven months in from getting the plot) the first six beds and the paths around them are in and you have planted your first crops. In my case I went for potatoes in the first four beds, one bed of earlies. One of seconds and two of main crop potatoes, as the timing was right and they are great at helping in breaking up the soil, and you have to dig those beds again in the same year to harvest them. The other two beds were cabbages and sprouts.

You may recall that the North East end of the plot had been covered in carpet and had been overgrown with weeds.  When the carpet was removed the clay was shiny and looked polished and was set like concrete. It could not be dug with a fork; in fact I broke a fork and had to buy a better and stronger one. I had to take a pickaxe to it in the first instance just to break it up so that I could dig it.

Do Not Rotavate

Whatever you do Do Not Rotavate, yes you can hire a machine and cut all the roots of the existing couch grass into two to three inch lengths, but each one of those cut roots is going to want to continue to live and grow and within a month the whole plot is coved with more weeds than you started with.

With a bramble patch, it’s tough work digging out the roots. Leaving some cane above ground level enough to give you something to pull at!

I don’t recommend digging the plot over in the first instance with a spade or mattock, especially if you have couch grass and brambles. Its best to dig using a fork if possible and easing the couch grass up through the ground like an alien beast being exposed and easing the tentacles that extend in all directions, lifting and vibrating the earth on the fork so that the roots loosen their grip and what’s on top of the fork gets easier to handle, and starts coming to the surface faster, until the mat of weeds that resembles an alien is there for you to lift and you can hold it high in the air like a conquered alien.

OK it all sounds a bit dramatic but that the feeling you experience, when you finally ease a large network of couch grass, or bramble roots out of the ground.

Remember the objective is to remove all the couch grass and brambles that you find whilst digging, there is going to be some you have missed and it will come back but when it does dig around it expose the root system and extract as much as you can.

Digging The Paths

There are books that suggest that you don’t have to dig the paths and that it’s a waste of effort. I can’t agree with that as how can you expect to keep beds weed free when there are weeds in the paths that surround them?  Paths deserve to be cleared the same as the beds to help give you a fighting chance at keeping the weeds under control.

What Kind Of Paths To Use?

The options are down to personal taste and may also depend on what you can lay your hands on and are Soil, Cardboard Grass, Weed Membrane, Timber, Woodchip, Paving Slabs, Pea Shingle.

Bed Edging

The material and form of bed edging is down to personal choice and dependent upon how much you want to spend and what materials you have on hand. You may decide that you want grass paths with an edge and dug bed with no difference in level or you may want to define and maintain an edge, all well and good if you have a way of cutting the grass.

I knew that I wanted to use woodchip for the paths but I needed an edging, so initially I bought some plastic lawn edging and the path and beds were level. I used a portable hoop frame that I had made to use as a jig when using a spade to form the slot to push the edging into. Surrounded the bed with weed membrane and covered in wood chip

I recall a great sense of achievement when the first bed was completed, which spurred me on to get the following ones installed. The plastic lawn edging lasted about two years before it became brittle and I found other materials to take its place.

The industrial estate behind the allotment was being sold off and a window replacement company had loads of plastic trim they were going to skip so I saved it and used it to replace the green corrugated lawn edging.

Next I acquired some timber joist from a demolition job and started replacing the plastic with timber which helps keep the soil in the bed and you can add compost and raise the level slightly.

In the photo above I also acquired some paving slabs which I used on the central main path down the plot. Freecycle is a great resource for all manner of materials and items that are useful on an allotment i.e. Sheds, Greenhouses, You normally have to dismantle and take away,. Compost Bins (Daleks), Water Butts, Blow Away Growhouses, Seed Trays, Module liners, pots and containers, Fruit bushes etc.

On my second plot I went straight in for decking to define the beds and it also allows for me to gradually improve the soil and add compost to the beds. The path in the bottom right corner is for disabled access to my neighbours plot. The slabs for the area next to the shed and the path down the middle were all obtained off freecycle. Weed membrane is cut with a soldering iron to stop it fraying (See Here) and used under the slabs and to keep the weeds down.

I have seen roof tiles come up on Freecycle in the past but had never thought of them for creating bed edging.

The photo on the left is from a thread called Scrapheap Challenge written by Snadger which is a diary or journal about his scrapheap plot that he took over and is developing which I enjoy following on the Grow Your Own forum Grapevine.

I  trust that this article give you enough to get going with your new plot, I will try to expand upon it and flesh it out a little more but for the mean time you can read my dairy from 2012 and work your way through my changing plans and development of my allotment and hopefully learn from some of my mistakes.

Vandalism or Another Plot Holder ?

Either we have little darlings that are getting over the fence and committing random acts of vandalism or another plot holder wanted some rope and decided to cut the new one on my comfrey pipe and took it complete with the plant pot saucer.  

It has been suggested that kids brought onto the site and not controlled by their parents could be responsible as kids have been seen wondering around plots.

I'm not amused, and have asked if any other plot holder has had any problems.

 The Burpless cucumbers are in at the end of the Onion Bed 3, I'm hoping there is enough good weather to get a harvest, they do grow very quickly.

The self seeded butternut squash or marrow in potato Bed 4 looks like it's going for world domination.

Beetroots from the space saver not used on Mill Green on Friday fill in the gaps in Bed 6, it look like some of the parsnips at the right of the bed may have taken, I will have to wait and see what happens.

The bags of crushed glass paving sand had started to weather & perish so I spread them and laid as much paving as I could. look like I need another four bags to complete the paving then I can erect the greenhouse ready for next year.

I had never seen these guys before they are Cinnabar Moth Caterpillars and they normally feed on the leaves and flowers of Common Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea). Occasionally found on other ragworts and groundsels.

Thanks to Veggie Chicken on the Grow Your Own Grapevine for identifying them for me.

I then saw some ants attacking and chasing and riding one along the bed edging

Gardening Sunday

I spent the morning clearing up around the garden, I had a bucket from my neighbour who was keeping chickens and saved the sawdust and poo for me. I've collected all the fallen apples and had nearly a bucket worth of them. A bucket of spent compost, and a bucket of shredded paper plus the last few tiles left over from the wet room conversion.

In the afternoon I picked up a sack load of warm cooking grass from my sister and took the lot to Mill Green to feed Dalek 6 which was once again down to half way full and ended up two thirds full by the time I had finished applying in layers and wetting down.

The SoilFixer Potatoes in Buckets looked a little thirsty so I tried as best as possible to ensure they all received the same amount of water. With the Redrow building site next door the biggest problem is access and parking so the usual mid week visits just have not been happening since they started work. These are 7 weeks into a 13 week growing period so harvesting should take place around the 21st or end of August blight permitting.

I watered everything and replaced a sweetcorn that something had pulled out of the ground, the French Beans planted last week are just showing.

I have two craters that I can fill using spent compost where the Cherry Trees were, as I donated them to my bother-in-law Keith as they are cookers and his wife Pauline likes to make jams and preserves where as my wife isn't into that kind of thing. Keith & Pauline were also in the plot and I went to look at the trees in there new home, on Keith's second plot which is dedicated to fruit. Somehow they looked a lot larger on his plot that they did on mine.  

I then made my way to Spencer Road Allotment to water and drop off the wall tiles and watered the beds there.

The beetroots in Bed 6 which was the over wintered Japanese onions are starting to bulk up a bit which is good, so between Mill Green and Spencer Road I should be ok for Beetroots this year. We pickle and distribute so many jars around the family each year. 

I harvested some red spring onions, but I only have one air onion with bulbs which is disappointing, I'm glad the Catawissa Walking Onions at the back of the plot aare doing so well and hopefully I will have enough bulbs to create two beds worth next year. 

A butternut squash or marrow has decided to self seed in the potatoes in Bed 4, for the moment I'm not going to remove it I will try and work around it.

  

Bed 1 needs clearing, it was supposed to be for Parsnips, but I have not got around to clearing or sowing. I must see if I can squeeze in some parsnips they may not be large but it would be nice to have some. 

Bed 2 the potato foliage has wilted, so I've pruned the plants down to ground level, about an 1 inch above the soil surface. Don’t cut them any lower than this, as you may expose the tips of shallow potatoes. I will now wait at least two weeks two weeks before digging out the tubers out to allow the potato skin to thicken.

So much infrastructure works is required on this plot, I really need to get onto it once the harvests are in and the existing beds are put to sleep for the winter.

Comfrey Pipe Repair

During my last visit to plot 23B I attempted to pull the weight out of the comfrey pipe to re fill it as I had another milk bottle of comfrey concentrate but the rope broke as I got the weight to the top of the pipe.

Lesson learnt, don't use cheap £1 shop nylon rope, it's crap! so having picked up some quality Nylon rope from a hardware shop I popped down to replace the rope having already made an appropriate hole in a cap and fed the rope through it and knotted it.

It was easy to unhook the straps and tip the pipe up and get the weight out of the pipe, unscrew the old cap complete with about six inches of rope and replace it with a nice new bright blue one, complete with a flowerpot saucer as a cap.

The comfrey that has gone nuts was cut back and the pipe soon refilled and the extra chopped comfrey going into Dalek 2

Beetroot Onions Rhubarb & Raspberries

Saturday morning visit to Spencer Road as there is a committee meeting so whilst waiting for the members of the committee to show up I planted up four trays or 60 beetroots into bed 6

The rest of the Red Onions were harvested and put in the drying rack, half a dozen dry ones were taken home for my eldest daughter.

She also love the Raspberries from the allotment so a Chinese meal container was filled for her. 




The rhubarb appears to have taken to their new temporary homes in the flower buckets 

  
But there are a few weeds that have come along with them that I better weed out soon.

Catawissa Walking Onions

A trip to drop off composting materials on plot 23B and I noticed that The Catawissa Walking Onions are doing really well now with a second level of onions appearing.

I had expected vertical stems but they appear to curl around and go wherever they like and I don't need to put a second layer of wind and fox protection up around them. 

Onion Harvest & Hanging Rack

A two hour visit in which I found another covered area for the cardboard so that I could trim and hang the onions that I harvested yesterday and I pulled the rest of the onions from Bed 5 then covered it over to kill off the weeds as I didn't have time to dug them all out.

The photo above is mainly from Bed 5 with a few red onions from Bed 3, so if I can find a way of growing around the white rot or just grow an excess so that I end up with a reasonable amount it looks like I may need another shelf made up for the extension to the shed.  

Bed 3 was weeded and a few onions had lost their stalks, a few more were harvested to check for signs of white rot, but for the moment thing are looking good in bed 3, so I will leave them to fatten up a little.

The battery on the strimmer died more or less straight away, so I used the push lawn mower to clear the path behind me and my neighbour so I can get to the tap if I need too. The weeds coming up around the perimeter of the site on the boundary path with my neighbour were given a spray with weed killer, just before coming home.

My Comfrey Cup Runneth Over

It's been 16 days since my last visit when there was about 5mm of comfrey in the bottom of my milk bottle under the comfrey pipe, but on my visit this morning I found that my milk bottle of comfrey had literally runneth over!

The weight in the pipe was no longer protruding from the top of the pipe and looking at how much I had to pull it back up the comfrey level was about halfway down the pipe.

The milk bottle was swapped out for an empty one and the full one capped and moved to one side. Then two square flower buckets of comfrey was cut up and thrust down the pipe until once again half of the weight was protruding from the top of the pipe.

The concrete blocks and the paving slab for the comfrey water butt need to be transported from Mill Green Allotment to Spencer Road at the earliest opportunity so I can have comfrey on draft.  

I could wait no longer to put the air onions in, so they have gone into the end of the bed three along with 15 bunches of spring onions as I have not had time to dug the air onion bed 2 or fabricate the raised bed out of the scaffold boards.  

One would not believe that I cleared the weeds from the onion beds 3 & 5 about a fortnight ago, the little rain we've had along with the sunny warm days and the weeds have really gone for it. I didn't have time to weed both the onion beds again, only half of bed 3. I have been promised so mulch from Marshalls to trial that may help keep the weeds at bay.

I did however manage to plant the last 10 Estima potatoes into bed 4 leaving 9 locations for some other potatoes so that's priority next visit.  

Update Comfrey Compost and Onions

Here is an update on the comfrey on Spencer Road allotment Plot 23B










There is only 29 days between the top two photographs









There are 16 more days between the second and third making 45 days between the top and bottom photograph.

Such is the rate of growth of comfrey in its second year






I have cut it back and placed two layers of comfrey in Dalek 2 either side of a layer of grass and watered it in as it was placed.

The 2 litre pop bottle full of sand weight has dropped further into the pipe telling me that the consolidation and rotting process is on its way.

In the bottom of the milk bottle is some nice dark semi pure comfrey, a very small amount of water was added originally to wet the comfrey to assist in kicking off the rotting down process.

Once the weight can no longer be seen the pipe will be topped up with more cut comfrey

The Estima Spuds in bed 2 have recovered from the frost scorching and are starting to find their way through the holes in the weed membrane. Bed 4 in the background was uncovered and due to the lack of rain the leaves have not degraded as much as I hoped for and as I didn't have time to plant the remainder of the spuds I cut the comfrey and covered then added more leaves to the bed and gave it a good drowning.

The Japanese and Radar onions are doing well in bed 6 but were in desperate need of a good drowning.

The spring onions were added to the Red Onion Bed 3 and watered in

I'm a little disappointed in the lack of progress of the tree onions to grow, by now I had thought they would have been much higher than they are.

I started setting up the top half of the watering system around the beds that are already in place basically because it was all so dry and needed watering badly.

Two hours goes much too fast, there is so much still to do and so little time to get it done in