Water Butts Everywhere!

Another early morning visit to my plot between 7:30 - 9:00 to water and get one job done before returning home to get on with some work. As I'm now visiting nearly every morning for a couple of hours,  I get to say "good morning" and have a chat with the mobile crane driver from Liverpool that is working on the conversion of offices to residential behind my plot.  

It's amazing watching this thing unfold and fold back up and how he manages to turn it around in there and not take the wall out is quite amazing. He jumps in the seat at the back of the cab, opens the window in the cab, then in no time at all he is up above the building and moving stuff around. There is no air conditioning in that cab and I have felt quite sorry for him being in what could be considered a mini greenhouse up a pole the last couple of weeks with 30C temperatures 

Today the focus was on clearing the paved area at the bottom of plot 1A and re installing the Nettle Water Butt that came back from Spencer Road a few weeks ago.

With the deep watering system it easy to drip feed the watering points and move the hose around from bed to bed and point to point and in between moves get on with another task, who say men can't multi process.

So rubbish cleared and another sack load going home today and the water butt stand re built and the Nettle Water Butt has just been filled up with water ready for the hose pipe ban that I think will come shortly.

I have two large water butts for the new greenhouse, but neither of them have lids or taps. I have purchased taps but need to find them as they are tucked away in a safe place somewhere and I need to find some lids for the water butts. If I can do that sooner than later I will be able to set up another two water butts ready for the hosepipe ban. 

My little Triffid (the wife) received a telephone call from her sister around 7pm informing her that they had cut the grass again. She has a huge garden and I normally get two huge mail type sacks of grass from them each time they cut. 

Wife: Are you interested ?
Me: Yes tell them I will come round and pick it up now.

So there I was up to 9:00pm watering in layers of grass, coffee grounds, shredded paper into composting Daleks 2 & 3 the grass was already decomposing and creating heat as I placed it in the Daleks.

I also had a food bucket full of cooking apples that have jumped off the trees at home to add to my acidic composting Dalek 5 this compost will be used to feed my raspberries and fruit next year.

Cucumbers Planted

Here is a short update on how things are growing 

Burpless Cucumbers making their way up the framework

Market More Framework extended with Fire Guard

5 extra Marketmore cucumbers planted
Spuds In Buckets can be harvested now

Tomato & Radish Bed fed 

Sweetcorn finally growing and looking stronger

Spuds Nearly Ready To Harvest from the looks of things

The last 1.2m x 1.2m Pop Bottle Greenhouse panel has finally been taken apart. I cut the  tops and bottoms off and split the middle and put the middles inside a bottle to take up as little space as possible to go into the plastic recycle bin at home. 

If you are ever thinking of making a pop bottle greenhouse forget it, its a pain in the arse to take apart and get rid off especially when the council only collect a small crate load once a fortnight.

    

Rain !

Looking at the weather forecast for the next 14 days, there is no indication that we are likely to even get a quick shower, so it looks like I will be on watering duty in the mornings for at least the next 14 days. I have one last remaining water butt to set up and fill up whilst we can still use hoses so that I'm ready to start using watering cans when the hose pipes get banned in SE London area, which has got to happen soon. 

I think I have found my allotment job for tomorrows visit. 

Composting Corner

An early start to the day and on the allotment by 7:30 whilst the top half, Plot 1A was in the shade of the trees and the rising sun. First job of the day watering whilst everything is in the shade. I installed two deep watering points in the beetroot bed and filled in the gaps with beetroots grown in loo rolls.

Three more parsnips started in loo rolls were added to those already there. The cucumber  mesh was extended in height to on both beds with cucumbers and the Marketmore cucumbers from the Space Saver at home were planted and watered in.

I harvest a Cucumber and Radishes today and I should have harvested some courgettes as they will be turning into marrows shortly if I don't. 

I topped up the small comfrey pipe again and noted that the liquid is now near the bottom of the handle of the milk bottle and will keep an eye and replace the bottle with a new one once it's 3/4 or more full.  The new bottle replaced yesterday on the large pipe has approx. 10-15mm of pure comfrey juice in it and the bottle is just still visible above the pipe. So as its flowing, I decided not to clear last years plug of comfrey at the bottom of the pipe and will clear the pipe at the end of this year ready for next year.  

I cleared bed 7 of the window fames and was going to plant the rest of the beetroots, however by then the sun had raced up the plot and it was far to hot the sweat was already dripping off my head and onto my glasses so I decided to remain up the top end of the plot and in shade as much as possible for the rest of the morning.

I cleared the store extension to the shed and brushed out all the debris that had gathered over last year and winter, and swept up the patio area. Knowing that I would be working in the shade because of the 32C forecast, that I had taken my brother label maker with me and started to label all the food buckets with lids "Coffee" "Compost" "Coir" "Paper" "Sand" "Hops" etc. and sorted out all of the buckets that have been living under the potting bench, under chairs, around the greenhouse and over the plot. and have stacked as many as possible (27) in what I now regard as Composting Corner. 

There are a few full buckets left over, and a few empty buckets and these have gone back under the potting bench, But at least now I know what's in each bucket and the same material is now stacked together for ease of finding when needed.   

I managed to get the last of the pop bottle cloche frames taken apart and on a future visit the pop bottles will be cut up and brought home to go in the plastic recycle boxes on rubbish day.    

Before leaving at 1pm, I made sure that both bird bathes were filled up again as we have a load of Robins around the site that come and visit when you are working and exposing soil, bugs and potential food for them.

What Water Butt?

I did have a gutter that rested on the extension and went into a water butt, I know you look at the photo and say "What Water Butt", its there honest Gov and I think I'm going to need it shortly so as I arrived at 7:15 and got straight on with watering my plot I decided I would also search for the water butt.

I found it !, and in doing so also managed to clear a lot of the ivy off the back of the felt roof that need replacing or covering and have let some daylight get into the storage area behind the shed that was in total darkness. 

There is still some clearing and tiding to do, and I will remove the remains of the racking system base and sweep out the extension and stack my buckets with lids of composting materials in there

Once I fix the plastic to the roof I will re install the guttering to collect water off the roof in the water butt. It will need a filter because of the amount of dross that comes off the ivy, but for the moment in anticipation of a hose pipe ban and due to recent problems with regards angry plot holders and the use of stand pipes I filled the half full water butt up to within 300mm of the lid and to give clearance to some plastic balls off cisterns ball cocks from the scrap bin of a plumbing company that used to be behind the allotment site to stop the water freezing in the winter. 

Water Wars

Due to the lack of rain I have been visiting the plot either first thing in the morning or in the evening to water and to fill up the comfrey pipes as they appear to be compressing the comfrey at the rate of the length of the pop bottle weight every couple of days.

The comfrey is flowing very well from the short pipe but I think the large pipe is blocked as the comfrey appears to have overflowed from the top! 

Not a job I'm looking forward too and perhaps the last thing to do before I come home on Sunday incase I get it all over me!

Last week I turn off the tap with a splitter on and cut off the water to another plot holder. He has two plots that are at different ends of the site and are so overgrown you can't see him on them when he is and it was an accident, I turned the water on and just turned it off before I went. He had a go at me and I told him I hadn't seen him and to just go and turn the bloody thing back on and to stop making a song and dance about it. 

One evening this week I had an altercation with him as he thought I had turned off his tap on the splitter fixed to the standpipe. The fact of the matter was that the standpipe was not turned on when I got to it and I did turn off the splitter that my hose was not connected too as I wanted a full head of pressure so that I could get the watering over and done with relatively quickly. 

The guy charged onto a fellow plot holders plot that I was on at the time and came toe to toe and nose to nose shouting the odds and tried to intimidate me. I believe he now realises that getting in my face so to speak didn't scare me and I'm not into being intimidated as I put my hand on his chest and held him back saying there was no need to get so close and into my personal space, which did make him bounce up and down for a while and increase the verbal nonsense he was spouting.   

I'm not a violent person, and if there was no option but to retaliate then that's what would happen, I don't like too because when I see red and blood I want to continue seeing it and quite frankly I have scared the shit out of myself as to just how aggressive I can actually be when pushed over the limit, and the worrying thing is last time it happened when in my late teens so 40 odd years ago I enjoyed it far too much, and since then have always tried to be the grownup in these kind of situations and if at all possible the piece maker. 

It appears you can't talk logically or sensibly with a terrorist, a wife with PMT or a plot holder who has his nickers in a twist about a hose that could easily be turned back on even if it had been turned off deliberately which it hadn't.

Discretion being the better part of valour, this morning I extended the watering system I have installed so that I can actually connect to the stand pipes at either end or both ends of my plots. It has been said to me that I'm letting him win and should just continue using the tap at the top end of my plot, but really in the grand scheme of things is it worth getting elevated blood pressure over a tap and hose when the likelihood is that the bloody things are going to be banned shortly anyway. 

So here is how the final system will look once all the beds are in and it just means that there is a hose I can use at every other set of beds. Each one of the offset hoses is long enough to give me coverage over a 3 metre or more strip of the plot from top to bottom along its length. 

The system on the right which is plot 1A has been there more of less since I installed the beds in 2013 and for the moment the main feed pipe and one offset is in on plot 1 until the beds go in and then I will cut the main feed and put in the offset hose and watering head.



Each offset has a watering head on it, for speed and efficiency and with pop bottles installed with pin holes in them in the beds its possible to water at depth on a number of beds at once if it needs it. Less evaporation, roots have to go and look for the water and over all less water used.

Eureka re the Roof

After seeing the split roofing felt on Sunday I have been thinking about the work and effort that will be needed to cut back all that ivy which happens to look quite nice over the shed, to re felt the roof, and then whilst on a watering visit had a brain wave!

I've had a load of sheets of plastic roofing behind the shed waiting for me to use it for some time, so I got and have slid it between the ivy and the roof, just to see what it would look like. 

So I need some cup washers to fix it in place with some screws to resist wind uplift. I will need to trim the sheets for length as they overhand too much especially on the left into the storage area. 

I can overlap and silicon the apex to make it water tight

From the look of things I will have a few weeks to get this done as there is little rain forecast for the rest of the month. 

Planning and Reviewing July in Previous Years

Reviewing the diary over the last five years for July

2013 - Infrastructure works, harvest of first early and cucumbers and the best cabbages I have ever grown ! Beginners luck   

 

2014 - A really good year with plentiful harvests .  

2015 -  Great year for beetroots, Wrens in the bird box .   

2016 - Lots of coffee grounds, drying coffee, Building a replacement door for the outbuilding from decking timber.

Mill Green - Onion White Rot, Runner Beans,     

Spencer Road - Comfrey Bed 2 completed, Four Beds, Butternut squash, Beetroots, spuds and spring onions. Onions, Potatoes, Beetroots and infrastructure works. Burpless Cucumbers go manic  

Home - Tomatoes finally get transplanted into flower buckets.  

2017 - Really behind on growing and keeping the plot weed free, especially the paths on Mill Green as the woodchip had finally rotted down into good growing medium. Absent neighbour meaning weeds encroaching from plot 1.  11th July first red tomato, Meeting with Redrow and Council to agree the formation of the Drop off and Pick Up area, SF60 Potatoes in Buckets experiments, 5 Beds productive at Spencer Road, 30th July harvest of First Early Spuds & Onions 

July is normally the month for harvesting rather than planting, but below is the to do list in no particular order and catching up with what actually happened in June and what has slipped. Way too much has slipped.

Below is the to do list in no particular order and catching up with what actually happened in June and what has slipped

To Do List  

·                     As much infrastructure works as the weather will allow - Not enough over the first three months of the year due to the beast from the East and bad weather. Now the intense Sun is putting me off, so I can't really win until we get some overcast weather.

·                     Weed & Level the Shed and Greenhouse Area - Started but need to be completed

·                     Remove the Trees from along the wall  - TBD too late to burn now

·                     Lay weed membrane over the whole plot - Completed

·                     Collect the last of the slabs from Spencer Road - Done

·                     Lay the slabs for the shed and Greenhouse - TBD 

·                     Erect the greenhouse - TBD

·                     Move Comfrey Pipe from Spencer Road to Mill Green - Completed

·                     Rhubarb Bed to be created - TBD

·                     Stockpile timber and keep dry ready to burn next year - Ongoing

Home 

·                     Cut more path weed membrane - Ongoing 

·                     Make a Spring Green planting membrane sheet - New 

Reminders

·                     Purchase vent opener for new greenhouse.- TBD

JULY
Week 2	Potatoes - plant sets for autumn harvest
Week 3	Cucumber (ridge) - begin to harvest
Week 3	Kale - transplant to final position
Week 3	Onions - stop watering
Week 4	Beetroot - begin to harvest
Week 4	Cabbage (spring) - sow (pots / temporary bed)
Week 4	Sweetcorn - begin to harvest

Too Bloody Sunny!

Another early Sunday morning start on the allotment, I watered as much as I could that was still in the shade and then got into weeding the Onions and The Cucumber beds as the sun tore across the sky and worked it's way up the plot.

I'm English so the idea day for anything never really exists, but I love the fact that it takes to around 12noon for the sun to get to the point where its actually up and on the shed, it means I have somewhere to work or although I don't take many breaks to sit and have a cup of coffee from the flask or a cold drink and cool down before starting again.

I have an awful lot of  digging and weeding to do on plot 1, but that's in full sun all day, so there is no way I'm knocking myself out in the sun to do it. If you are listening up there Great White Spirit some warm overcast days would be appreciated so that I can get on with digging and weeding plot 1.

I cut up a load of comfrey and filled both pipes up to the top again, the comfrey in the new shorter pipe had compacted by more than a length of the 2 litre pop bottle filled with sand and bring used as a weight.

I installed the new solar powered pond oxygenator in the comfrey water butt so as to keep the stink to a minimum and prevent mosquitoes laying their eggs on the surface.

Once the watering, weeding comfrey pipe filling and Oxygenator installing was complete and because the sweat was dripping on my glasses, I decided to go and work in the shade.

I took it upon myself to fill up as many milk bottles with sand as possible in the manufacture of soft bricks to hold down planting and weed membrane as I'm going to need a load of them once the weather changes and I can get into digging and weeding plot 1.

More sand has been decanted from old soft bricks where the bottle has finally degraded and become brittle to dry off together with the remainder of the last of the sacks stored outside. I have two more sacks to empty out in the bottom of the greenhouse on another sunny day when I want to work in the shade and I still have ample empty bottles on the potting bench. 

Looking for more things to do in the shade and as I had replaced the broken board on the shed and looking at the front of it where the colour had weathered off along the bottom of the slats I decided I would give the blank areas a paint over prior to painting the whole shed. 

So during the last half an hour and just as the sun was working its way around the trees I touched up the white areas of the shed.As you can see the ivy is now coming completely over the shed again. 

What I didn't realise is that the felt has worn, split and torn on the apex and down the slope of the shed, that explains the water staining on the inside of the roof. Now it looks as if I'm going to have to cut the ivy back in order to re roof the shed. The shed is now six years old and that's about all one can expect from the original cheap felt that they supply with timber sheds.

The stupid thing is two year ago I thought I was going to have to give up the Mill Green plot and had not kept the maintenance of the ivy tree up to keep it off the shed as I thought I would be leaving.  

As promised here is a monthly update video for those of you that like to be nosy and see what other people are doing on their plots. I know I like to watch them for inspiration and some good ideas of things to try and to build.