The Veg Plot.

[garynortheast]

Well, it dried up by the time I got home so quite a bit of my hedge is now planted. I'll get the rest done tomorrow.

[Sir Trev]

Originally Posted by redtrummy

Put fleece over garlic and shallots today - apparently Alum Leaf Miner is active March - April, its around here.

It helps stop the birds hoiking them out too. I normally use fleece over my onion sets but a year or two ago we had curious foxes that shredded it all - such a mess!

[garynortheast]

The rest of my hedge is now planted. I'm looking forward to seeing it leaf up. I'm trying to decide whether or not to cut the tops off of the whips to encourage them to bush out a bit, or maybe leave them to grow up tall as I will eventually lay the hedge.

All my seeds arrived from Garden Organic over the last couple of days. My Sturon onion sets came yesterday and I realised I have seriously over ordered them. I shall have to find another home for quite a few of them as there are more than I can use. I planted a couple of rows in the unused part of the garlic bed yesterday. Hopefully the birds will leave them alone.

[Sir Trev]

I shall lightly dig in some well cooked compost this weekend to my raised beds and tidy up the dumping ground my greenhouse becomes in the winter ready to start sowing some seeds soon. I do like the sense of kick off time you get at this time of the year.

[garynortheast]

Started on the next bit of the veg garden this morning, the path running straight up the left of the plot to the back fence.

The earth at the back of the garden has been built up so I'm having to move a lot of soil about. The amount of plastic and disintegrating fleece/membrane I have had to pull out is pretty alarming. It's making the job very long as I'm having to go through the soil by the shovelful. After several hours of work I now have a path ready and waiting to be filled with wood chip.

I have a large mound of soil sitting on what will eventually be one of the middle beds, which I am sieving into one of the existing raised beds.

I suspect I'm going to be at this for a couple of days!

Meanwhile, I shall plant several more rows of onion sets into the raised bed next to the garlic bed, and the first of my chitted potatoes can very soon go into the third raised bed. I'll need to get on and prepare another bed or two for my second earlies which will also need planting before too long.

It's all go.....

[Sir Trev]

Originally Posted by garynortheast

I'm trying to decide whether or not to cut the tops off of the whips to encourage them to bush out a bit, or maybe leave them to grow up tall as I will eventually lay the hedge.

Forgot to say that I actually saw a hedge being laid on my way home from work on Wednesday. Will look out for it again when I go in again on Tuesday as it looked very good and so neat. Quite the dying art considering most border hedges are just flailed by tractor these days.

[garynortheast]

I planted another 7 rows of onion sets a couple of days back and the resident blackbird has been yanking them out of the ground, so I put Henry Hawk in place to see if that would deter the little sod. It did - but for all of about 6 hours.



I ended up making a temporary cloche with polyprop pipe and mesh, which has done the job. Wish I could find something other than plasic type pipe and mesh though.

Meanwhile, the guys from the council maintenance department have come to replace my back fence. I'm genuinely impressed by the speed that all these jobs have been done. Folks grumble about "the council" but I have nothing but praise for the departments with which I've dealt.

The new back fence is going to be quite tall, but that's fine by me as I won't have to look at the crap on the bank on the other side. It also means I'll have lots of height up which to grow and train fruit trees and bushes.



The gravel boards are there to hold the soil back, and there will be wooden fence panels dropped in on top. I'll paint the posts and stain the panels a darker colour, partly to help them disappear visually, and also to enable them to soak up heat.

The fence should be finished today, weather permitting, and then there will be a bit longer clearing up all the piles of old, rotting fence panels and vegetation. I have a small amount of rotting wood and crap that needs to go as well so I might see if the lads are happy to take that away with the other stuff. I would save me a trip to the recycling centre.

I'm looking forward to having my garden back!

[garynortheast]

No chance of any work in the garden today, other than removing the snow off my temporary netting cloche over the onion bed. The weight of snow had flattened it.

Into the potting shed instead, and replace all the screws on which my tools are currently hanging, with tool hooks. That should give me some more floor space and then I can see about building a potting bench, and shelves underneath for all the pots and trays.

[Sir Trev]

Finally got round to tidying the greenhouse today. I can see the staging again now, which is useful.

I've now rough dug five of my six raised beds (rain stopped play yesterday as I headed for number six), mixing in plenty of my well cooked/turned compost. Will sow the parsnip seeds and plant out the onion sets in another couple of weeks but I made the most of a tidy greenhouse by sowing some tomato seeds in pots, which are now on a covered seed tray on the utility room draining board, beside the window. So, my year has officially kicked off. Nice.

[garynortheast]

You're ahead of me on most fronts Trevor. I've not started seed sowing just yet, and although I have four of my raised beds ready (and three of them planted) I still have to build and fill another two or three.

I'm also still on the hunt for a serviceable 2nd hand 8' x 6' greenhouse. I shall have to empty the cacti out of my mini greenhouse, clean it and give the woodwork a good douse of linseed oil. I can then get some seed trays in there until I have a full sized greenhouse.

Progress is being made though. I now have a proper back fence, and I'm very happy with it.



It's tall enough that I don't have to look at all the crap on the bank of the neighbouring property to start with, and the height means I can train fruit trees up it too. It gets quite a lot of sun in the first two thirds of the day, even at this time of the year. I'm going to paint the concrete posts and stain the wood panels a darker colour, so that they absorb the warmth. I won't be able to use the two left hand panels as they'll be behind the greenhouse when I get one, but the three right hand panels will get used.

I'm gradually getting my potting/tool shed organised. I've yet to put up another tool rail and clips/hooks for the rest of the tools but a good proportion of them are now hung up.





One of the next jobs in there will be to build a decent potting bench.

I went down to a friends house this afternoon and collected a load of hazel rods for bean poles, from a clump of hazel he's just coppiced. I need to find about this number again though in order to have enough for my runner and climbing French bean crops.



I shall need to get a move on with all of this as the season is marching on and I'm feeling a little under pressure to have the garden ready.