Saturday 5th April 2008

Tim and I were up the plot extra early this morning. It was around 9:15am when I went to HSS and hired the one-man hole borer. This would hopefully make our lives much much easier. I met Tim up the plot and we had a look around the place. The seedlings had grown quite a lot since they'd been sown. Because we were doing so much preparation work, we hadn't had time to plant things out. The strange thing is that we have been doing so much work on the plot that you'd think we'd neglected it with the amount of vegetable plants that had been left in the greenhouse. The asparagus were growing... not the ones we'd only just planted but the ones that we planted last year. The plum tree was in full bloom and the Chinese artichokes were in need of chomping. I'd made Tim promise that he'd eat an uncooked Chinese artichoke after they had grown. He made good on his promise, much to the churning of my stomach.

We thought that the best thing we could do would be measure everything out. As long as the posts we'd concrete into the ground were in exactly the right place, so that we could create a grid of posts.

                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
 
                                             
If everything was uniform, this would make a much stronger structure. Armed with a tape measure, string and little posts, we set about lining everything out. We had originally planned to make a 6m x 6m fruit cage, but this soon turned into 7m x 8 m. I had also come up with the ingenious plan to have a poly-corridor, so that we'd have a ploytunnel, of sorts, as an extension to the fruit cage. It would be really cool to be able to plant stuff into a large indoor area and it would save us a lot of money in the long run as a polytunnel costs around £600 for the one we want.
                                             
 
                                             
 
                                             
  As soon as the measurements were set and we were happy with the overall size, Tim grabbed the hole borer and pulled the cord to rev the puppy up. The corkscrew auger started to spin round and round and we made sure that the huge drill was in the right place as it drew the earth out of the ground. It was quite amazing to watch as the earth was drawn up out of the spiral grooves. It just displaced the soil and every so often you'd have to yank the borer out of the ground because as soon as it hit the clay around 2 foot down it got really tough to dig deeper.

Because the clay was so solid, this would make a great foundation for us to concrete the post into. The posts shouldn't move once they are set into the ground. For each hole we bored the entire length of the auger and then cleared any loose soil that had fallen into the hole. For each hole we dug, we stuck a post loose into it. After drilling around 8 holes, we took a few steps back and looked at the structure it would eventually be. It looked fantastic even with the posts all lop-sided.

Some of the posts were more difficult to dig than others because we'd sometimes hit a stone, which would stop everything. We then have to dig the stone out by hand before we could drill into the ground further.
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
  Two of the holes were troublesome because there was an asbestos sheet exactly where we needed to drill them. Steve from the neighbouring plot helped me dig this out while Tim's lovely lady, Michelle and her mother and brother turned up. One hole in particular was even more trouble than any of the other because there seemed to be a load of stones two foot down. We ended up digging this without the use of the borer because we'd never have got it down otherwise.

By around 3pm we had managed to get all 20 holes drilled. It was mental and Tim's shin was knackered from the kick-back from the post borer. My head had been smacked in by Sam carrying a post directly into head. It knocked me for six. It was so unexpected and I know he didn't mean to do it but my God it hurt. After a tea break and some food, we got on with the concrete mixing, which we did in both wheelbarrows. We had ballast and normal cement rather than Postcrete because it's a lot cheaper! We made sure it was all mixed up properly. We'd make a mix too sloppy occasionally but ultimately it was fine. The real hard work was getting the first few posts perfectly vertical, level and in line with each other. After that the rest of the posts were easy.

                       
 
                                             
Well, I say easy but three post holes had been drilled a few inches out, which meant that a row of posts would be completely out of alignment. The weather had been sunny all day and it was starting to turn cold and windy, so we thought it best to try and sort it out as soon as possible. We used the post borer to re-drill/redress the balance.
                                             
 
                                             
 
                                             
 

Each hole needed around one bag of ballast-worth of concrete. We had estimated the correct amount of ballast and cement. It's lucky the holes were so narrow otherwise we wouldn't have had enough, though. The narrow holes made things a lot easier as well because the posts had less space to move around in the elements.

By 6pm, all posts were in the ground. We soon realised, however, that we needed to get two more posts drilled out in order to make a door frame. We put one post where the poly-corridor was towards the top end of the framework, near the central pathway. The other post was drilled towards the bottom end of the framework, again, near the central pathway. We needed two more posts, so we just put ballast bags on top of the holes so that no-one fell in and nothing filled the holes up.

The hole borer had been an invaluable piece of machinery. We really couldn't have dug 20 post holes in a day and concreted them all without it. We looked from the top of the plot and felt very proud of our work. In three months, the bottom section of our second plot had been completely transformed. We know it's not finished but even now it looks just amazing.
                       
 
                                             
                                             
Saturday 12th April 2008

What a lazy bones I was. I didn't get up to the plot until around 11:30am. Tim got up there at 10:30am but phoned me up wondering where I was. I had just discovered how to do encode Blu Ray (high definition) discs on my computer and was trying things out to see how well it worked. We film everything in high definition up on the plot and to find something that will make the video quality look better was just fantastic. However, I need to film stuff in order to encode it, so I thought I'd better get up to the plot double-quick before Tim, the committee man, evicts me.

Tim had been measuring things out and wasn't sure where we should put the onions and the potatoes. It was a tricky one. We had decided on six foot beds and I know Geoff Hamilton used to do four foot beds but we can fit lots more in six foot beds and have less pathways. Eventually, despite my opposition to it, we will have raised beds. This will mean that we can lay a plank of wood over the raised beds for us to kneel on to ensure that we don't walk over the earth at all as we sow seeds. We wanted to have the two plots wih parallel beds so that it looks good from the road at the top of our plots and also so that it's practical, in terms of pathways.

  
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
Talking of pathways, we'd noticed that our central pathway had gone completely wonky. This was due to the brambles that had grown on the border of our plot in the first year. They had pushed us further into our plot so that the actual pathway had moved in as well. Some brambles had dictated our walking habits! Nature is such an amazing thing.
                                             

We measured everything out and made sure that everything was perfectly straight and that the beds were virtually the same size.

After a good hour of measuring out, we decided to start digging the sod. The earth was fantastic to dig, with hardly any weeds in the ground at all. This was largely due to the fact that we'd weeded it so thoroughly last year coupled with the fact that we'd covered the earth up with weed suppressant so that no sunlight could get through. The only downside, it would seem, was that the earth was a bit soggy in places where the sun hadn't got access the ground. Also, because we'd measured things out differently to last year, there were some sections which had been a pathway and therefore a lot more difficult to dig because the soil had been compacted so much. There were also sections of grass that we sliced off and stuck on the compost heap. There were even potatoes that we'd missed last year and were trying their very best to grow. Some were just growing from half a potato, or the tiniest little spud.

After 3 hours, we'd managed to dig two beds of around 7m x 2m. Compare this with 3-4 days to dig the piece of ground where the fruit cage is. It just goes to show the sheer difference in soil quality from digging and not digging.

  
                       
 
                                             
Tim had talked to Monier earlier, who had mentioned that he might give up his plot above ours because he has a very large plot elsewhere. This started us off thinking. Tim nd I had discussed the idea of getting a polytunnel of a certain size. However, having Moanier's plot (if we could get it) would mean we could get an even bigger polytunnel. We had also been talking about how difficult it was to keep up with the amount of work on our plots at the moment, but that is largely due to the fact that we have done so much preparation work. The fruit cage, fruit trees, and rhubarb patch won't need to be touched again because they are permanent beds. The rest of the plot just needs digging over again, which doesn't require much effort. The more we do now the less we have to do in the future. There are only two areas on both of our plots that haven't been dug but that's because we never reached the bottom of our first plot and the same goes for the middle section of our second plot. We are fast running out of room, however!
                                             
 
                                             
Anyway, Nigel, Tim and I were talking about maybe getting a huge 7m x 14m polytunnel to go on Monier's plot. If we split that between Nigel, Tim, Katya and myself then it would around the same amount of money per person that Tim and I would have each paid for a polytunnel with a QUARTER of the space. As you can imagine, this is a very tempting thought. I think all four of us have a proven track record for improving our sites. It does take us a while to get thing done but ultimately, I'd say that all of our goals are being reached little by little.  
                                             
I left at around 5pm, thinking about how cool it would be to share a massive 98 square metres of indoor growing space with Tim, Nigel and Katya. It would certainly be very, very productive!
                                             
                                             
  Saturday 19th April 2008

I had good intentions today seeing as Tim had gone for a weekend away to West Wales. I wanted to put some shelves up finally in the shed, lay the water pipe in the ground where the pathway was and also plant up the second early potatoes (Marfonas). Sadly, the weather was very wet and got steadily worse as the day progressed. I had checked the forecast and it has said this would happen but usually they are wrong.

I took up some tools so that I could work inside rather than get soaked. However, due to the length of the shelf frames I would have to do the sawing outside. I had aleady made two shelf frames at home, based on measurements I had taken of the shed. Unfortunately, the shelf depth would have to be reduced because the bits of melamine I had decided to use was smaller than the frame. In proper allotment fashion, I was recycling an old wardrobe that I no longer used. I'd rather re-size the frame and spend less money on the actual shelf than go out and buy a new bit of melamine or plywood.
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
  I emptied the shed out, which was an absolute state. There were bits of wood everywhere, a big pile of sand to dry up the green paint that had spilled on the floor, chitting potatoes, suncream, a bag of cement, black plastic, hessian sacks, loads of gloves... it was just so dis-organised. I gave it all a good sweep out and cut the frames down to size. I screwed the frames in and made sure everything was level. I put the melamine shelves on top and screwed them onto the top of the frame. I also thought it best to put a support in at the front so that the shelves don't dip in the middle from the weight we put on them.

Once the shelves were up, I started putting everything back in. It was looking a lot better because you could actually get into the shed for a start and there was some kind of order for a change. I took some plant pots out of the greenhouse along with the plastic pipes and tops of squash bottles and put them on the second shelf. I put the paint underneath out of the way. We now had a proper shed where we could store things and a greenhouse with extra space for growing seedlings. The rain was beginning to get heavier and it meant that I kept trampling the soggy mud into the shed. It was becoming a pretty messy place to work. I couldn't get the other stuff done, unfortunately. I would have just got myself and plot itno a big boggy mess.
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
                                             
Saturday 26th April 2008

It was a much nicer day today with warm and dry weather. Tim had got up to the plot at 10 and I was a little bit behind. I was on sandwich and tea duties! The bees were really enjoying the borage flowers as we looked around the plot. There was lots of activity from honey bees and bumble bees on the flowers and birds at the feeders. In-keeping with nature's beautiful bounty, we had received an ICB from Roger. What a kind fellow! Well, he'd dropped it off on Nigel's plot but Nigel didn't have enough room for it at the moment. Roger was going to get an ICB for us, Nigel and himself so we were the first recipients. For those not in the know, an ICB is a massive container that holds 1000 litres (around 200 gallons) of liquid. Once we get the poly-corridor built we are going to hook it up to a drainpipe so that we can harvest all of the water from the roof. Judging by the amount of water that lands on the shed roof we are going to fill the ICB no problem!

After transporting the ICB on to the second plot, we covered up all the ground further up from the poly-corridor with weed-supressant material, which made it look like we'd wrapped the big pile of rubbish up in a rather large robe.

 
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
A little further up was a patch filled with onion sets. Tim and I had come up on the last two Thursdays to plant these and we managed to fill the entire patch with onions and shallots. Suey had also come up and sowed some sweetcorn seeds (approximately 120 seeds).

We dug one of the beds on our first plot. It was going to be used for Mafona, Mayan Gold, Mayan Twilight and Mayan Queen potatoes. It took a little while to get our forks through the earth because it had been walked on and compacted down as a result. However, because we'd left weed suppressant material down throughout the winter, the ground was releatively weed-free. We measured and set the potatoes out on top of the bed and then started to dig little holes for them and planted them around 7-8 inches down. We wanted to make sure they were fairly deep so that they don't need too much earthing up. The Mayan Twilight potatoes were a very attractive looking spud, with two tone skin colours.

The next bed down needed to be dug over for the Desirees. Oh, how wonderful the Desirees are. For the past two years they have been our one reliable main crop potato.

  
                       
 
                                             
 
                                             
They even appear to be relatively blight-tolerant and the keel slugs avoid them because they don't seem to like red potatoes. This bed was a little harder to dig because it had been trodden down and we'd also moved the boundaries of the beds since last year. I was digging last years compacted pathway up and it was really hard work. Tim had done this last week and I didn't appreciate just how difficult it was to fork over.
                                             
 
                                             
As soon as we had managed to turn the soil over we measured the potatoes out again, lay them out as clearly as we could and then dug them into the ground. It was all very exciting, not only because we were finally planting things up again but also how short an amount of time things were taking to fork over. Two years ago it had been an absolute nightmare to dig our first plot over. This year it had taken us a day to dig two beds over and plant up what should be around 4 bags of potatoes. We just can't wait to get the rest of our vegetables out!  
                                             
Our final experiment of the day was to see if we could get some avocado trees growing. I'd saved the stones from some Spanish avocadoes that my boss had given to me and also some supermarket varieties. I'd left them in the windowsill so that the shell would crack, as this would help the tree germinate. I planted them into pots and didn't know which way round I was supposed to put them, point up or point down? I'd planted some monkey puzzle tree seeds once and they went point down. Ugh! I put them point down but would later find out that they needed to go point up. Silly boy!