Sinéad Finn Landscapes

A bit more activity this weekend. We took the shallots which we’d germinated in a window box at home down to the allotment. They were then planted in one of the 1.2m squared beds. We also finished off the potatoe bed,  put the potatoes down and put radish seeds into the other bed.

One of the other allotment folk told us to watch out for all the birds and advised us to cover everything. We came up with a rather nifty solution which covers the shallots but still gives us access to them easily.

Some eye hooks are screwed into each corner. Underneath each hook a screw is put into the side. When the bamboo cane is slid through the hook, it rests on the screw. This is done on each corner, the 7ft bamboo cane bent over. We didn’t get the canes to exactly line up, but I think I have a solution for that. Both canes are the same length so of course won’t fit over each other perfectly. The trick should be to shorten one of them by an inch or two and they’ll line up nicely.

Where they cross over is then secured with zip ties on either side. To make the shallots actually accessible though, we needed something more. Hinges! We built an additional layer, rested it on top and attached it to the bed with two hinges. The netting frame was attached to this lid, not to the bed. And so, access is a doddle..

Some twine attached to screws on either side keeps the lid from falling back into the ground. We did this for the other bed as well, but there was no need for the bamboo supports too. When the seeds start to gain some height, we can put in the bamboo and raise up the netting. We also put some copper tape around the bed. This is to prevent slugs, we’ll see how effective it is.

 

Next up is the two 2.4 metre beds at the back of the plot which face onto the potatoe bed!

We got enough wood for two of the 1.2m x 1.2m beds and built them up. They are down now and we are about to take delivery of two tons of topsoil to fill them and the potato bed. The rest of the photos are on Sinead’s camera, I’ll update with those when I get em.

A few weeks have past, lots of planning and some activity. We went out and inspected the site, had a look at the soil and such. All is good, there are lockers, good access with the car and the dirt, or soil if you will, appears to be good shit.

Here’s Sinead turning the sod on plot number 25.

So after out inspect we got planning. We are going with raised beds as they seem to be a good way of growing veg. I spent a good while thinking about how to build them, and the overall design. The design has been settled and is as below. The beds themselves are being constructed from 1.2m lengths of 9cm high d-rail. Tanalised E pressure treated. The beds will be 3 pieces high, so around 27cm in height. There are beds of size 1.2msq, 1.2mx2.4m, 1.2mx3.6m and a nice long thin 8mx.6m which will be used for taters.

I did up a spreadsheet which helped us calculate how much wood, soil, screws, washers etc we will need. The total is around 15 tons of soil,  240 pieces of 1.2m wood, 960 screws and 960 screw cup washers!  I’ve made two of the 1.2mx1.2 beds, no photos yet, I’ll get some on Saturday. These are out on the allotment now, waiting for 2 tons of soil on Saturday. The build is going to be slow process, as it will cost a bit of time and money. These ain’t going to be cheap veggies, but they should be nice !

We’ve got going on chiting our taters and also put out some shallots, all ready to get planted on Saturday.

Next up is to build the potato bed for the chited taters. The strawberry wall might be after that! Here’s some more pictures of the site as a whole.