Philosophising…

The big dude got up this morning went to the allotment plot to slap another quick coat of preserver onto the wood shed platform.  It’s all coming together.

This is the side view, taken from the top terrace level.  

All the lattice was free, and found on the side of the street.  We had to buy the support posts (£10 each) and also the paving slabs that comprise the steps to the set of stairs up to the upper level.  (This was a second set of stairs, as there are paving slab stairs at the far end of the bed).

I’m hoping to level-out underneath the shed  on the side (facing down the paving slab stairs) and put a few more paving stones to have some tidy hidden-away storage: we can add some lattice on hinges to the side to provide cover and easy access.. Entry to the shed will be from the front side as shown facing, above.

This next picture is taken from the bottom corner of our plot, looking upwards.  All levels are shown – the bottom raised bed level, edged at the side with the black metal rose arbour.

In front of the rose is a small patch of garlic chives – they get the prettiest white flowers!   You can also see the oriental greens growing in front of the rose arbour on the bottom level.  Then there’s a path and then the brick-edged raspberry patch.  There are a few kale plants that overwintered in that bed (which turned into sprouting broccoli plants by late March!  No wonder they were kind of feeble kale plants, but even so we had a few meals of the leaves….  Go figure! )  

Then there’s another path edged by sloped beds and stairs to the upper level, edged with terra cotta pots.  Our two white folding chairs are just visible behind the veil of blackberry canes that will create a privacy shield for the top level. 

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It’s relatively awful outside these days – high winds, chilly, with leaden grey skies and the constant threat of rain.  Despite it all we set out en bicyclette and paid the rose cuttings a visit.  They’re doing fine so far as we can tell.

Shed sub-frame and platform painted Saturday 16 March 2019

Despite the yucky weather and almost-rain with beads of water in the air, we decided to stay on.  The Mr painted the green wood stain preserver onto the under-frame and then the boards of the eventual shed.  The wood is already showing signs of wet.  We’ll just keep slapping it on and try to get a roof up as soon as we can.  We’ve decided on a wood frame of 2×4 beams.  We think that’s easiest to fill in and finally frame and cover.

And he tied back the woven barrier that we’d strung at the back to keep the back neighbour’s dogs calm, which had come loose on one corner as a result of the heavy winds lately.  (As for the barrier, it seems to have worked more or less, and even when the dogs do bark I somehow feel safer – illusory though that may be.)

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Work on the shack continues apace.  On Saturday afternoon (9 March 2019) Mick helped us by driving to B&Q to buy the plywood.  We had it cut in the store, which is a fantastic service, but otherwise the shop was a big disappointment.  No paving slabs, not a great selection of plants, pretty poor selection of tools….  We need a new narrow-tined garden fork, but the ones at B&Q were huge, heavy and just too big in all respects.   But I did find some square cut garden timber posts with pointed ends – so we picked up 6 of those.

Super-G built the sub-frame (supported below by the re-claimed scaffold piping & fittings).  And now we have the plywood to cover it and create the floor of our shack.  It was hell bringing the board to the actual plot as the allotment path is too narrow for the trolley to bring them up.  All carried in by hand – laboriously!  Moral of the story?  No more plywood!  Planks only – easier to handle.  It was getting dark by the time we headed home, so decided to indulge in buying Chinese food for dinner.  We were exhausted and it was definitely a great idea! 

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So much has changed in our little plot of paradise.  It is now spring and almost all of our growing spaces have been tamed and reclaimed.  Behind me (in the photograph below) is the long raspberry bed (now dormant) and black wire arbour which last summer was absolutely dripping in small red roses.

Clearing and preparation for the shack continue – slow and steady wins the race!  The overhanging branches of the hazel tree at the back of the plot were trimmed, and on Saturday 2 March super-G cleared and levelled more ground from the scaffold pole base which will form the floating frame for our eventual ‘raft’ of a deck and found-object shed.  I kept busy preparing the far growing bed by removing the black fabric, turning over the manure we had spread in the autumn, and mixing in some bone meal and another bag of manure.  This will sit for a week before I plant the whole bed with early direct sown broad beans.

Allotment with early spring colour – 2 March 2019.

Pots were filled in autumn with a selection of spring flowering bulbs.  Crocus are up, as too are some very early tulip!   Amazing for very early March.

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Here is what the upper level of the allotment looked like in the late autumn.  All the matching trellis frames were found, so all we had to do was buy the wooden posts to support and presto! We have an elegant boundary to the next allotment.  The trellis is very useful and provides vertical storage – butcher hooks are handy for hanging hand garden tools, as well as bigger ones like the garden fork and spade.

This was before the strawberry patch was planted.  We also planted onion into the ‘Alberta’ bed.

This view shows it face-on.   The middle section of this area remains ‘wild.’  We think it’s self-seeded and full of wildflowers – especially ‘love in a mist’ which has pretty blue flowers.  I’ll let them flower before I start to reclaim this last growing area.  A plastic pot sunk into the soil grew a zucchini, which did well at the start but eventually succumbed to powdery mildew.   I will enrich with fresh compost and grow something there again this coming summer.