Day 3 of the great shed build.

Not a lot to write about, the shed is nearly ready to be clad now, so pallet stripping is on the cards next days off.
The high point of today was getting the two windows in place. The low point, Buster has managed to chew a piece of wood and get it stuck across the roof of his mouth, so he is presently at the vets knocked out so it can be removed. Emergency vets bills were not part of this weekends plans !

The shed so far.

The view from the window.

 

Next step is to nail the pallet strip boards to the outside, seal any holes then paint with some blue or green preservative.

I m sure it will be the envy of our neighbours once completed.

We might even get a bit more of the plot dug over next days off, so that we can get the sweetcorn in and maybe some leeks.

I m pleased the fishing has remained rubbish....so much to do on the allotment at least I'm not being tempted away by fishing.

The shed has started to rise from the dust.

Now that we've got the spuds in the ground, time to make a start on the pallet shed.

I ve got the base done and a little of the walls put together so far. ore tomorrow if the rain stays off.....you watch, the one day I want it to stay fine and the drought will break...lol !

First spuds in the ground on the allotment.

I spent one of the last set of days down on the plot , mainly digging, rotovating and moving pallets until I was about broken. Then a day attacking the garage at home, which after a winter of neglect was in a right old state. I was pleased to get back to work for a rest !

With the weather still being too dry but at least sunny, we decided to dash back down to the allotment after work tonight and see if we could get some of the spuds into the ground.

The little Mantis tiller made short work of making the trenches and in about an hour we got 6 rows in. 3 rows of  "Swift" first earlies and 3 rows of  "Pink fir apple" a vintage maincrop.....supposedly producing lovely knobbly pink skinned spuds.

Well that's it tea time now. Just a few snaps of our first efforts at spuds in the ground growing.....last year we only grew them in bags, so a whole new challenge growing on a little larger scale.

 

The boys watched over to make sure everything went to plan........well more like they remained captive to make sure everything went to plan !

This weekend we start on the great pallet mountain and try to turn them into an allotment shed !

Q. " What did you do on your days off ? " A. " Shovel 3 ton of horse muck ! "

That is what we've done, shovel and shovel and shovel....muck,muck...glorious muck ! The allotment muck man Malcolm finally delivered our trailer load of manure.....and boy did he air on the generous side ! We'll have enough manure for the next three years let alone this year.

I ve been begging and scrounging pallets from here there and everywhere, with the plan of building a shed from recycled wood, so we ve used a few pallets to start making the compost bin to house the manure. We only got it half built before we were both completely pooped ! I got the second bed boarded off as well and finally next door have moved the caravan off our side. Mind you they also pilfered most of the paving slabs before we got round the other night...cheeky sods ! Still at least that caravan is now just their problem and not ours.

That is about it as far as the lotty goes.

I've had a good few hours in the veg garden at home today though. Last year we got plagued by rootfly in the turnips. So tis year plans have been laid to hopefully combat them. The answer is an insect busting mesh cover over the bed that the carrots and turnips are going into.

    So a pack of roofing laths and a box of screws later...oh and few blisters on these office hands...and this is the result. The mesh was from ebay and is very fine so it should keep most of the airborne pests at bay.

Now the weather has finally started to break from those howling Easterlies we can finally start to get some crops sown and planted out. Onions and shallots will be the first into the ground in the home garden. Potatoes being the first things into the allotment.

Oh and to try to save a bit of fuel and get my legs working I ve also invested in a trailer for my bike to take the tools and things round to the allotment.

  I ve had one test run up to now and it does the job nicely.

That's all for now.........some more muck  moving is on the cards next visit to the plot so I ll probably post an update when we ve got a bit more done.

Clearing is coming along.

We ve spent a good bit of time on our days off clearing the rubbish and have made a start on the digging.....back knows that alright !

The neighbours have a rotten caravan that we think would be better off cremated and so do the other old hands nearby, but our neighbours think that it is a great shed ! It's not.....its part rotten no doubt mouse riddled and generally in very poor order. The worst part though is that it is encrouching on our plot by about 6-7ft.......so it needs to be moved.
We all tried to pull and push it across the other day to no avail....hopefully they'll see sense and it will be given a decent send off soon !

Not a lot else to add only a quick picture of the plot slowly starting to something like, the path has been mowed (lawnmower now dead though !) and the first bed has been turned over. Hopefully we'll have the first part ready for planting out this week and then bit by bit it will come together.

This is looking from the back to the front before any clearing.

The second pic shows that we've removed the gorse bush, all the old rotten sprouts are gone, the compost bins at the front are no more....we did 6 van loads to the tip but at least now we've a reasonably clear plot to dig over.

The white poles mark the boundry between our plot and the neighbours.....next up is a low fence just to mark it out and keep any weeds at bay from next door.
We ve got a caravan on order so next door will have to get their finger out and move the heap of a van out of the way soon. God forbid a bonfire spreading and burning it down !

Well it s that time of year again.

I can t believe how quickly the first year of the veg garden has flown by ! Nearly to the day we started the veg patch off.....now I ve got the beds all ready to be planted out when the frosts have gone that is.

We not only acquired a new puppy...Buster, well I say new , he's 5 moths old now and an absolute nightmare.....very spirited compared to good old Duke, who is just the perfect pet now, lovely and calm and very soft...bless him. Oh the "not only" referred to the fact that we are now the proud tenants of our first allotment plot. Only a half plot but it is a good size and needs a lot of work....watch this space.

I got the seeds sown into trays and the house window sills are full again....I ve been really looking forward to the garden this year and I m so pleased to be getting things started.

I ll try to put some pics up of the allotment when I can.