Sinéad Finn Landscapes

Sinead was on Dublins City Channel and got in a wee plug for the allotment.

 

Thanks to the magic of zip-ties and bamboo, we’ve constructed a nice light weight frame to protect the sweetcorn for a while. It’s a fairly simple design but flexible. We used:

• 6 pieces of 90cm bamboo
• 6 pieces of 120mm bamboo
• 4.5mm wide zip ties
• 2mm wide zip ties
• U shaped nails, also called fence staples
• Timber for the base frame/lid – 2 x 2.4m d-rail and 2x 1.2m d-rail.
• 3 hinges

The 4 pieces of timber are attached together using screws into a rectangle which can fit on top of the bed. The 90cm bamboo canes were attached to each corner of the lid and then two in the middle of the lid. They are attached using the U shaped nails. Here’s the one of the middle canes.

With those in place, the 120cm canes can be attached horizontally at the top. Two of the larger zip ties will keep them secure. A corner section and middle section are below.

 

 

 

When these are all attached, the netting can then be hung over the frame. The smaller zip ties secure and tension it against the struts. Thumb tacks then secure it against the wooden frame. Finally, three hinges are stuck to the back.

The lid whole cage is nice and light, easy to open and access the veg for weeding or harvesting.

A good bit of progress in the past week. With  help from Conor  (Thanks!) we took delivery of more wood and built three of the 2.4m x 1.2m beds. Next step was to get three tons of soil to fill those beds. The guy drove it right up, held the bag over the bed, we cut it open and it just poured in. A minimum of shoveling, brilliant !

The plot is now as below. (Our section is bordered by the potato bed. The unkempt weedy plot does not belong to us!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bed Sinead is watering has our dwarf peas, onions and runner beans. The onion went down a bit late, but what the hell, may as well risk it for a biscuit. The other bed over to the right has sweetcorn we grew at home, beetroot and parsnips. The far bed, on the left at the front, has pumpkin, borage, spinach and courgettes.

Some more photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From top left, dwarf pea seeds. They are fat little things. The rocket is to the right, covered in netting. It’s doing great, we picked some and will have it with dinner today. The next bed is the sweetcorn one. We had to put on a temporary cover as the birds are rampant. When the sweetcorn starts to grow we’ll have to build a higher netted enclosure for them. Then we have the potatos which are doing really great. We mound up the dirt over them every week or so.

Next step is probably more building, need to sort out the netting for the taller beds, the beans, peas and sweetcorn. Don’t think there’s much time left for more planting!

 

Success on the first crop! Our radishes are shooting up, so we whipped a few of them out of the soil. They don’t have a very strong flavour, but nonetheless, it’s pretty cool!

We’ve also been growing some strawberries onthe patio and they are starting to ripen.

 

Unfortunately we’ve had a few setbacks on the patio. We are under assault from greenfly, and this evening we discovered the dreaded Vine Weevil has infested the plants. The strawberries were manually inspected and cleaned. The remaining ornamentals are under going chemical warfare to eradicate the filthy parasites.

 

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!