Yola's Allotment Thread :-)

angieh · 02-03-2009, 09:19 PM

What a good looking shed Yola. I wanted to paint ours an attractive colour, but it has ended up brown!!!

dinahsmum · 10-03-2009, 12:03 PM

At last I've remembered to post this 'Hil's Handy Tip'

To make a little fleece 'tent' to protect your tender plants from frost.
Take at least 4 plastic bottles, with their tops - use more depending on the size you want.
Fill them with water and bury them upright, maybe a quarter down (maybe more if it's a windy spot) at the corners of your seed bed. If the bed is big enough to need more bottles, space them evenly and maybe put one in the middle.
Throw the fleece over the area, then screw the caps back on the bottles. This will hold the fleece tight. Allow the fleece to drape down to the ground, with a little to spare, and peg down the edges, or secure them well with stones, bricks, planks etc.
Et Voila! Your fleecy tent. It should raise the temperature beneath by at least 3C - usually enough to keep late frosts at bay.

If you want a tall tent use large e.g.water bottles. If you're only warming the soil to allow early seeds to get a good start, then smaller ones, making quite a shallow tent, will be fine.

yola · 10-03-2009, 01:08 PM

Wow - thanks for that Hilary! I never in a million years would have thought of that

When you say fleece, is this some kind of special stuff or just soft fabric by the metre kind?

Also, I was going to ask you about your polytunnel - do you have a large one like a plastic greenhouse or just one of the little ones? I've just been looking and the big ones are really, really expensive - over £200

dinahsmum · 10-03-2009, 01:26 PM

It is a good tip isn't it. I can't remember where I read it but it's so obvious when you think about it. Not widespread yet though.

Fleece is just agricultural fleece - white vaguely translucent stuff you'll get from any DIY or garden supplier. It comes in rolls and is ead cheap

I'm lucky in that the allotment soc. has erected a large polytunnel and rents out bays in it. I think being larger helps it keep temperatures more constant. I don't know whether I would go for greenhouse (glass or plastic) or tunnel if I had to provide my own. There's arguments on both side.

meep · 10-03-2009, 01:52 PM

The shed and allotment are looking great Yola! Sorry for my slow response to all this, seemed to have missed the thread entirely. It's great to see the boys joining in, I had my own wee patch of garden when I was younger, I loved it!

yola · 10-03-2009, 02:34 PM

You seem to have a very 'sorted' allotment there DM - I'm dreading the day when I need a pee - either have to drive out and go to Waitrose down the road or draw the curtains (I've threatened OH with gingham curtains in the shed

) and use a bottle

Anyway - here is the Domster constructing our compost heap and the manure being dug into (by me) the completed artichoke bed with the raspberry and blackberry bed under construction (just managed to finish it before the heavens opened)!

dinahsmum · 10-03-2009, 02:41 PM

Great stuff!

I must say, though we are lucky with the shop and the loos on our site (but remember the people who were on the former site, sold by the council for development, and compensated by the provision of this new site, lost years and years of hard work and started again from scratch) I have only needed to use them once or twice - I think you just sweat and don't produce wee. If you do have to use a bucket, don't waste it! Straight on the compost heap .. all that nitrogen!

How old is Domi now? He looks proper growed up in that pic!

yola · 10-03-2009, 03:39 PM

ON THE COMPOST HEAP???? Ewww

Domi's 5 1/2 now . . . time flies

And yes, he's taking it all very seriously and is loving getting stuck into everything that we're doing. Sebi takes all his diggers down and just builds roads and quarries in the mud. We have to virtually strip him to his vest when we put him into the car he's that mucky

dandysmom · 10-03-2009, 04:24 PM

Lookin' good, Yola! Are you going to give the boys a little patch of their own? Something easy like beans or sunflowers?

yola · 10-03-2009, 04:31 PM

Yes Eileen - as a priority we're busy building beds for the plants we've ordered so they have a home as soon as they arrive, but the plan is for the boys to have a 'patch' . . . certainly Dominik who is very keen to grow his carrots, beans etc.

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