Kerb Edgings Picked Up and Dropped off

A thank you to Andy for donating 6 full and one broken 900mm long kerb edgings, which he can't take with him when he moved next month.

These were collected and laid roughly along the edge of the paved area where the greenhouse will go and along the next two beds.

More than likely some may find there way into the greenhouse frame to weight it down when the greenhouse finally gets erected.

Drying Coffee Grounds And A Soldering Iron

Not a lot of news about it, but Natwest bank is closing branches and reducing their staff as they promote on line banking. My sister is likely to be moved from the branch she is at if she is not made redundant in this wave or the next wave which is rumoured to be aimed at around Christmas, isn't that going to be a nice Christmas present for the staff affected?

Each day she treats herself to a coffee from the coffee shop opposite her branch, and once a week she comes round to my house for a drink and evening meal. I pick her up behind the coffee shop and she arranges for me to collect a sack or two of coffee, as I need it.

As she may not be there for much longer I have taken to collecting every week and I'm building up stocks of coffee. The problem is drying and storage. The large gravel trays below were moved around the garden following the sun and the grounds moved around every half an hour for a couple, of days. 

 

I have small trays of coffee in the Spacesaver greenhouse at home. I have bought some metal loaf backing trays as metal trays dry the coffee out faster as they metal warms up.

I also have some coffee drying in the greenhouse on plot 1A and the blow-a-way grow house on plot 23B is full of drying coffee.

I was thinking about perhaps having a dalek just filled with coffee ground but coffee grounds goes mouldy if left damp and in the sacks for very long so I'm not sure that is a viable solution to the storage problem

Hamid the owner of our local Pizza Shop provides me with 10L Heinz Mayonnaise Buckets with Lids when he has them which I use for storage of seed sowing compost as well as coffee grounds but I need more than he can supply.


So I have had to become a little inventive, my first thought was to use the dried coffee to fill plastic milk bottles. As you will know if you have read my blog I use these full of sand or stones as soft bricks to weigh down nets and the weed membrane on the allotment. I use the top of a plastic bottle as a funnel as the neck if the bottle fits nicely into the milk bottle   

Again if you read my blog you will also know that I have a thing about re purposing pop bottles and attacking plastic items with the soldering iron. I've made shed loads of slug traps and pop bottle propagators and at the moment I'm just crashing and putting in the recycle bin. 

Suddenly a light bulb lit up above my head !.

I placed two caps top to top and melted a hole in them and in the process sealed them together so that I could join two pop bottles cap to cap, so now I have a pop bottle funnel that can be screwed to the top of a pop bottle and the excess coffee can be stored in the 2 Litre pop bottles.







I have left the caps off and placed a couple of coffee filled pop bottle in the greenhouse as the coffee is dry but not bone dry and there is bound to be some condensation and moisture that is going to want to get out of the bottle. But until I can get some more 10 Litre buckets with lids, I have a storage solution. 

New Potatoes

Up early and potted up two tumberling toms from vending machine cups into tall pots to go on the top shelf of the space saver greenhouse, also potted up one in a hanging basket for Emma to take to work for the kids in the nursery.

A swift visit to Plot 1A to water the tomatoes and harvested New Potatoes grown in buckets and plant the Poached Egg Plants around the base of the runner beans.

Potted on some more Tomatoes and added them to the extension to the little shed On the Allotment

Comfrey Bed 2

I loaded up the car with most of the stuff that needed to go down the allotment plot 23B the night before with the exception of the two bags of grass clippings. Up dressed, breakfasted and on the plot at 7:55. I love these mornings when I'm first and the only one around. Just me and nature until the other plot holders start to slowly drift in.

I unloaded the timber and stacked it on the plot in an area that does not look to flood or puddle. Next I treated the weeds around the beds in the path with weed killer as it looked like the treatment the other day was not effective because of the rain later in the day.

The strip door curtain was slowly unwound and the old one that was in the process of loosing strips each time I visited was taken down. It was old but still in its packaging and was something I had saved from clearing my mothers house when she passed away some years ago.Next was decanting the coffee from the sack in the blowaway into small gravel trays, followed by trimming the vegetation that was encroaching onto my plot and the rear access path. I strimmed the grass on the path and the battery ran out just as I was finished because I had not fully charged it.

The Dalek received the two sacks of grass a sprinkle of coffee ground the vegetation I had trimmed and the lower leafs from the comfrey in bed one which you can see in the picture at the top of the page. Bearing in mind I took root cuttings from the top of the plants on plot 1A these comfrey plants are doing exceedingly well and I don't want to trim them until the end of the season as it's their first year of growth.

The root cuttings that I placed in loo rolls were showing leafs and I wanted to crack on and get Comfrey Bed 2 established. I turned over and weeded the area again and dug out the couch grass that had regrown/ That particular area has now been cleared three times and I want to make sure I have removed as much couch grass as possible as three compost bins will be taking up residence in this area and I don't want them riddles with couch grass and bind weed.

I finished with giving Comfrey Bed 2 a dressing of sawdust and well rotted manure as a mulch to hold off the weeds until the comfrey has chance to establish and cover the area like it has in Comfrey Bed 2

Next visit I will plant the Narcissus Tete-a-Tete bulbs that I bought from the Benhill-Crescent Horticultural Society Trading Hut like I did for Comfrey Bed 1  back in April.

End of Season Sales & Reductions

A quick trip to Wilko's this morning following notification of the start of the end of season sale reductions on the Grow Your Own Grapevine resulted in a purchase of:-

5 x Deep 52cm Gravel Trays ~ For the new greenhouse on Plot 23B.
8 x 22cm Gravel Trays ~ As 25p each a must have for coffee drying in the greenhouse.
2 x Unheated Windowsill Propagator Sets ~ Last two! I would have got 4 as they fit perfectly in the Space Saver Greenhouse.
5 x 850g containers of Slug Killer ~ 2 for Plot 1A, 2 for Plot 23B and 1 for home.
1 x Plastic garden sieve ~ For Plot 23B as I don't have one there.
3 x Packs of 3 seed tray insert with 15 cell modules each ~ Top up for next year as so cheap and stocks are dwindling.
1 x Pack of 5 x10cm Saucers (Black) ~ I wanted one for an end cap to the comfrey pipe.
1 x stripped door curtain ~ To replace the one that is falling apart on Plot 23B

There was so much I needed 2 trips to shop and car to get it all and carry it back to the car.

A visit to Wicks to get a hacksaw and picked up 4 more decking boards as they are £3.99 and by 4 for the price of 3 at the moment.

Working in the back garden in between rain showers, managed to get the garden gate re hung and the roof rack disassembled as the aluminium tubes will be useful as stakes.

Storing Coffee Grounds

I picked up two more 10L HEINZ Mayonnaise buckets and lids from Hamid at our local Pizza shop last night.

This morning the rest of the two sacks of coffee were decanted from the sacks into the buckets to wait their turn to dry out in the trays in the greenhouse.

These buckets are so useful, I used the Brother P-Touch to make labels for the lids so I know if they have shredded paper, coffee or compost in  

Drying Coffee Grounds

Got dressed to drop of eldest DD to work as it was raining, then a yellow ball in the sky was trying to make an appearance and the wet stuff has stopped, straight out to decant one sack of coffee grounds into trays that will fit on the wooden shelves I added to the space saver greenhouse and around the first row of toms in the flower buckets as a fertiliser and a barrier to wondering slugs who have damaged a couple of low leafs already.

Natural CoCo Coir and Coffee Grounds

Diabetic Eye screening first thing so I popped to the £1 shop and they have in their CoCo Coir so I picked up six blocks to replenish my stocks and a few packets of tent pegs and cable ties. Then later in the day my sister rang to say she had arranged some coffee grounds for me, and there were two sack loads waiting for me when I picked her up at the rear of the coffee shop.

Burpless Cucumbers & Celery Seedlings

Celery seeding potted on into vending machine cups, compost taken to plot 23B along with 3 more Burpless cucumber plants. One added in the side with the others and two more added to the back of the climbing frame. two flowers but the cucumbers are not really climbing very fast at the moment.

Weeded and broke the surface of the bed in front of the shed.

The spring onions and beetroots are not growing very fast at all this year.

Decanted some coffee into containers for more drying out in the grow house fixed to the shed.

Foxes have been at my comfrey seedlings.

Cucino Cucumbers and Butternut Squash

A swift visit to plant the Cucino Cucumbers that appear to want to grow at a mile a minute in the space saver greenhouse and had started attaching themselves to the shelving. Two Butter Nut Squash plants have been planted either end of Bed 10.

The comfrey pipe has been loaded and the weight installed. 

Cucumbers & Tomatoes

Little house (Shed) on the prairie (Plot 1A) extension cleared out and the Tomato doubles plotted up and put under the canopy to keep the dreaded blighty rainwater off the foliage.

Kiwano Cucumbers climbing frame erected in Bed 15 and they are now in and have somewhere to climb as they were growing so fast in the space saver greenhouse. I have never seen beetroots so slow to grow, it is really a strange year.

Some different cucumbers and butternut squash are hardening off a little until I can get them in a bed.

The Parsnip had grown so tall it could not hold itself up, so a post driven into the ground and a some cable ties joint together and we once again have a vertical plant







Meanwhile in the back garden......

The remaining flower buckets now have tomatoes and wigwams, the empty one at the end is holding the place for the pot with mint in. I'm so glad that the slabs have been levelled this year before the toms were ready to go in, it looks much neater than last year.

Fathers Day Treat - Quad Bike Adventure

Sings "Quad biking across the universe.." to the Star Trek song, yep another visit to True Grip Off Road this time for the three hour Quad Adventure with Emma & Kelly

To say that the course was wet and muddy following the recent weather would be an understatement, and what you really don't want to do is stall the quad halfway through a puddle that at it's deepest already comes over the foot rest and over the cut down Welly Boots you are wearing.

A big Thank you to Chris our instructor and guide for a smashing morning, that's him in the photograph above if you want a really enjoyable couple of hours then contact TRUE GRIP  OFF ROAD

Telephone 01233 662251
Email operations@truegripoffroad.co.uk
Website http://truegrip-offroad.co.uk
Twitter @truegrip

Tomatoes Finally in Flower Pots

Well finally a respite from the rain and a day before flash floods in the South East and I managed to pot on 12 different types of tomato into flower buckets until time and running out of coir blocks stopped play. Six of the remaining toms in the greenhouse will make their way to the lower step and the rest will be going to the allotment greenhouse and covered extension to the shed at Plot 1A.

Now they just need to grow and hopefully develop fruit before blight hits them.

Fathers Day & Foxes Den

As it's fathers day I only did a swift visit to the allotment, I dropped off some compost and harvest some of the cut grass that the council had cut for the dalek.

I planted out some Ramrod and Purplette Spring Onions filling the bed directly in front of the shed.

. I added eye bolts and bungee straps to the blow away so that it doesn't
There is a sack of coffee ground drying out inside.  

 

 

Then as I was about to leave, I noticed that something had been digging a den under Adam's shed at the rear of the plot. Too large for rats, my plot neighbour wondered if it could be a badger, not that anyone has ever seen a badger around these parts!. It's also not going to be the slow worms, so we concluded it was likely a fox as there are plenty of them around here.

The decision was to flood the hole to drive out anything inside before filling it, the hole has appeared in the last couple of days so the likelihood of any young cubs being in there was highly remote. The hole was filled and flower buckets full of manure were put in front to stop another attempt until I can get down to the plot and install the next metal shelf into the ground.      

When I got home my girls bought me three gardening related signs.

I don't remember planting this! ~ Destined for the greenhouse
Grow Dammit ~ also destined for the greenhouse
Trespassers will be composted ~ which I intend to put up on the entrance to my plot.

They also did a great roast dinner for me, with all the trimmings, and a lazy afternoon all watching Deadpool

Next Saturday Emma, Kelly and I are off for a three hour Quad bike expectance, they took me for a two hour experience for my birthday Alans Allotment: Quadbikes Vs Allotment and we had such a great time we all said we would do it again.

That's what I call Father Daughters bonding time!

10 Day update as rain stops most play

8th - 11th June - Rain stops play feeding the plants on the greenhouse with comfrey tea 

Sunday 12th June 2016 - Rain Stops play, and it's rain that has basically stopped any real progress at either allotments.

Monday 13th June - I did manage a quick visit between rain showers to plant some of the Crimson Crush experimental toms grown from the plants supplied last year. half have tomato looking leafs and the other have potato looking leafs. I know it's an F1, I know it will not run true and what I will get is the parents, but my logic is they must have some blight resistance in their own right so it's got to be worth a go and what have I go to loose.-

Tuesday 14th - More rain

Wednesday 15th June - My sister managed to get me a sack of coffee grounds which I took to plot 23B and I erected a blow away up against the shed and put the sack upon inside so that if we do get any sun it will dry out the grounds. The idea is to use eye bolts and a bungee cord to fix to the shed but I ran out of time as it was a flying visit before work.  
 
Thursday 16th June 2016 -  This morning I met Bill Wyatt - Assistant Parks Manager from the Parks Service on site to assist him in undertaking the plot inspections for this year, by identifying the plot numbers. I refused to take the photos on the site this year as historically I have taken photos and submitted to the council for their determination on who they send improvement notices to and I have also swapped with another site rep and we have taken the photographs of each others plots.

Unfortunately some people on the plots, and it's usually those that take exception to receiving the improvement notice, get very angry with the site reps when this happens.

One plot holder stopped talking to me and when I asked him what was wrong and what I had done to upset him, he Informed me that he though I was just a (four lettered expletive) there is no point in taking offence, I asked him to explain why he thought that, he declined and said I'm just not worth talking too, so I said he was entitled to his opinion. I always still acknowledge him and say hello and goodbye, but have yet to get a response.

Another wanted to take me out side for a punch up, as I'm guessing he saw the allotment as some kind of pub. No speaking for about 6 months, but now at least we are back on speaking terms

It's not always easy being the site rep, you can't please all of the people all of the time. I'm trying to get a drop off and pick up area arranged especially as parking is now a problem due to the developments on two sides of the allotment. Mencap are one plot holder and they come with a mini bus so somewhere to park for them and the rest of us not so local is important.

I digress on Thursday I turned up early at 8:00 with two trays of beetroots and planted them into bed 15 and was in the process of making space in the greenhouse for tomatoes when at around 8:30 Bill arrived. We were halfway through the inspections when the heavens opened up and saturated us both.

Friday 17th June - A quick visit to recover the weed membrane off bed 15 that I forgot to put away because of the rain and the rush to get home yesterday, I put down a coffee grounds barrier around the beetroots and placed a couple of slug traps in the bed.

 

Plot 1A - Runner Beans and Apples

 

 

Plot 1A Bed 15 - Beetroots (Coffee Grounds & Growmore)

 

 

Plot 1 - Bed 16 Over Wintered Cabbage

Potting Up, Sealing the Greenhouse & Comfrey Pipe Cap Plate

Potted up 3 Kibitz Tomatoes, 6 Kiwano Cucumbers and 2 Cucina Cucumbers from the pop bottle propagators into vending machine cups, square pots and round pots respectively. Continued to give everything in the greenhouse that growing and needs it an infusion in the comfrey gravel tray carrying on from yesterday.

Made the drainage cap end to my comfrey pipe using my trusty soldering iron, an end from a silicon tube, a plug hole filter and some mesh from a wire calendar. 

Managed to seal the spacesaver this morning before the thunder and lightening and accompanying rain this afternoon.

Wallington High Street this afternoon not quite as bad as 2007 see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPm-SwGCxKE

Butternut Squash, Beetroot & Coffee Grounds

A swift visit to plot 23B to plant Four Butternut squash, a tray of beetroot and put up coffee ground barriers around the cucumbers and new beets. Shredded paper added to Dalek 1.

Drop off at Plot 1A to pick up Comfrey. During the day the tomatoes in vending machine cups have been topped up with compost to the brim of the cups and they have all been given a comfrey bath, along with some of the older onions that need a boost.

Standpipe Tomatoes have finally been potted up into vending machine cups, and the spacesaver greenhouse has been re arranged such that all the toms are now on the top shelf and the spring onions on the second shelf. 

The experimental Crimson Crush from last years seed save (yes I know they are F1 etc. but it's an experiment) are now doing really well and I have a 50:50 split of tomato leaf and potato leaf plants which will go down to both allotments for growing comparison.

I went to wicks to pick up a few items, some of which they didn't have. Its got to be said the one local to me is bloody useless. They have solvent weld pipe in stock but no elbow fittings and I found the last two tees. The assistance suggestion after coming back with white elbows for black pipe from a store somewhere, was visit a larger Wicks in Merton - Doh!  
Then I wanted a stop end for my black 4" 100mm pipe that I'm going to make a short comfrey pipe for plot 23B and they only had it in terracotta colour. No coping stones for the brick wall in the garden. I used to think B&Q were bad but this new small Wicks is useless.

Sweetcorn Sprouts and Cucumbers

The weather has done a full 180 and this Sunday 24th June 2016, it's sunny and very warm 24 degrees C. The car was loaded up with the plants and I was out of the door by 7:30 and on the site with all the plants and equipment on the plot by 8:00 and set about working straight away.

The foxes who had been clambering all over the portable hoop fames as they were covered on muddy paw prints, had finally managed to bust the smaller one. I've seen them on other peoples plots using the hoop frames as trampolines.  

I took the strimmer to exhaust the battery and see how much more I could strim which was mainly the entrance and the path to the water butt. Beautiful my robin kept me company whilst I cleared beds 11 and 12 and prepped them for the sweetcorn.

Many slugs were dispatched to sluggy heaven and I wished I had brought a lid with breathing holes for one of the food storage buckets then I could have had a go at created my own DIY Nematodes

Below is a video of the progress made during the day on plot 1A and 23B

Cucumber Climbing Frame

Ready for a change in the weather and the cucumbers going in.

Made from solvent weld pipe and fittings and plastic mesh cable tied to the frame

View From The Greenhouse Door

Flaming June is Flaming Cold

It's been raining for the last two days, today is overcast and cold. Flaming June it feels more like flaming Autumn or early Winter out there. The temperature gauge is telling me it's 10.3 decrees C but with the wind chill factor it feels much colder and even I could only last out there without a coat for 5 minutes.

Lettuce don't normally like it too hot, and so far I have not grown any lettuce. NOTE to Self:- Get some lettuce in during March next year and sow at 3 to 4 week intervals. 

So now that the cold frame is back in play and as it's lunch time and not raining, I have filled 20 small pots that stand in a capillary matting tray with some Tantan Crisp 'romaine' lettuce with three seeds per pot. according to the back of the pack they are; "A slightly larger Little Gem with its similarly renowned taste. The leaves are more 'bubbled' giving it a distinctive appearance, Matures about 11 weeks from sowing, with delicious , crisp, 'romaine' hearts which stand well and withstand hot summer weather"

Here's hoping we do get some hot Summer weather soon for them to withstand!