Renovating the hedge

It's been in the back of my mind that I'd prefer a hawthorn hedge to the mixed cotoneaster and privet I've got at the moment (though there is one small bit of hawthorn right by the gate). I was leaving the other day and thought, "Maybe I'll just cut back that bit of privet to give the hawthorn a chance to expand into the gap so I get a bit more hawthorn in the hedge."

I began hacking away at it and it turns out that under all the other hedge plants, there were quite a few hawthorns. I kept going and uncovered an 80% hawthorn hedge.

There's one privet plant left at the far right, with no hawthorn to replace it, so I'm on the lookout for a replacement hawthorn for that wee section. When I was done, there was a lot of debris, which just replaced what I'd burnt the other day. Here's half of what I cut away.

Moving herbs

I've dug over the third bed, which took me a while because I kept finding bulbs. This meant that I had to move the bulbs out of this bed and put them into the flower bed. A place for everything and all that. Actually, this bed must have been a wee garden, becasue of the shrubs and bulbs I'm finding. It also has a few planks and boardwalks under the grass, as well as a tiny pond in one corner. I'd like to keep the pond so I've got frogs to eat all the slugs.

I moved the lavender and buried it as I said in my last post. Here's what it looks like.

There is a bit more sticking out elsewhere in the bed because it was so bushy at the top. Fingers crossed. I may even make a lavender hedge.

I also moved some fennel into the middle of the herb bed. There's another one to come when I excavate the next path.

Plants

There are signs of life in some of the beds. For example, some young rhubarb shoots have poked through.

There are plenty of bulb shoots appearing, though I messed up the photo of this one (or maybe the camera did, who knows?). I've got some pots with bulbs coming as well, which I'm going to plonk around the place come spring.

The next bed I'm going to dig over has a small shrubery in it, containing mostly scabby plants that would be better in a garden. There's quite a small euphorbia that I'm going to get rid of and a fuchsia that I'll put in a pot by the gate come summer (assuming it'll survive the transfer). The green blur in the middle of the photo below is the euphorbia.

There's a very leggy lavender that has got very woody. It has some greenery on it, but it's too far gone to renovate because lavender rarely shoots from older wood.

However, I'm going to drop it into the ground and bury it up to the bottom of those shoots with leaves, which should encourage roots to form high up the plant, so I can then detach portions of leaves plus roots and use them as new plants. This is an extreme form of layering called dropping.

You can see the scabiness clearly in this photo.

Adding a roof

I've finished the roof, though it looks a bit bendy close up at the right-hand side. The shed seems to rise at that end. Here's the long view.

You can see the bend when closer in. The storm also smashed the middle pane of glass and a load of windows I was keeping for a cold frame.

I actually took these photos a couple of days after finishing the roof, which was half blown off after I'd put it on. Luckily I had a spare sheet of plastic and odds and ends I could use to reinforce the damaged sections. Here's the bit I'm most proud of.

There's still a bit to be done. For example, the two sections of roof don't quite meet at the top, so I need a cover to go across the ridge.

The roof and the storms

The shed roof was shredded in the wind and rain of the last few weeks (or months as it probably was). It finally gave in last week sometime. The blue plastic wasn't up to it, especially as I had strapped it down so strongly.

So, this forced my hand and I'm putting on a corrugated plastic roof. Here's the work in progress. As you can see, the next plot has a fantastic greenhouse which would withstand a neutron bomb and outlive the cockroach, but let's not worry about that. Mine will not be as good.

Apart from that, I've finished two of the borders. The nearest one is the flower plot, which has some bulbs poking through already. More on them next time.

The farthest one is going to be vegetables. The paths will hopefully have bark chippings in. That is easier on the knees and better for the world than gravel, I reckon.

Door latch

We finished off the wall and put up the door. It's not on a slider any more; we attached it with hinges.

My first photo of the door contained a schoolboy error.

After realising how shiny the window is, I tried again.

The latch is a Suffolk latch, which in true bodge style is slightly too wide for the main door frame. It'll do for me anyway.

The inside is a bit improvised too.

The catch was sealed at the top and bottom, so it needed to be attached right at the end of the cross bar. This seemed a bit of a fiddle, so I took the hacksaw to it and cut the top so that the cross bar would just drop into the catch. I'm pretty pleased with it, though. The next stage is to seal the windows at the side and replace the tarpaulin with corrugated plastic.

I've also cleared the rest of the patio, including most of another sort of compost heap, which was actually more of a lump of nettles. Lots of nitrogen, etc. There's a mini pond next to it too, full of weeds.

Another path

To bring a bit more order to the completed section of the allotment, I've started on the path dividing the rhubarb patch from the flower bed. Trouble is, there aren't enough decent bricks so I'm going to have to use lots of scrappy half-bricks or go scrounging. I know a few building sites that have them scattered around on the pavement, so I'll maybe look there.

There are a few new shoots coming up from the rhubarb, which I'm slightly concerned about. Hopefully they'll stay under the mulch until the frosts have past. Maybe I applied the mulch too early and have stimulated growth.

I also cleared more of the patio, which is pretty wide as well. It'll be excellent to sit out here in the summer.

I got some more pallets from around the area and have dismembered them, ready to build the other side of the shed wall. They're drying now in preparation for the preservative.

As I took these photos on a weekday, I was burning some of the junk wood (you can't burn at the weekend so as not to bother the tenements around the allotments). Previous tenants left a tea urn that was used as a water butt (I think it may have also supplied the sink with running water). I'm using it as a brazier just now.

Half a shed wall

I'm not sure whether this is a shed or a greenhouse any more, but we built half the end wall yesterday, using bits of old pallets from local shops. It was a bit soggy to start with, so it took a little while to get to the halfway point.

The bits of wood are slightly green because I'd given them a coat of wood preservative before I put them on. The second coat went on once they were attached to the shed.

Things brightened up and it got finished. Here's what it looks like. It's a lot greener now and I'm not sure if I should give it one more coat. Laura has mentioned that she'd like to paint it green, but has changed her mind slightly after seeing the preservative. We'll decide in the spring anyway.

We went down to the allotment today with some more pallets and the temperature inside the shed was 19 degrees C. That bodes well for the finished article.

The next stage is the other side, once the new pallets are dry enough for the preservative.

Plan

Here is the rough plan for the allotment.

The flowers are going to be more or less permanent, as part of the conditions of letting the allotment (there's a reason the site is called New Victoria Gardens). The strawberries probably won't occupy that whole bed either. Raspberries might also go in there.

I'm planning to train the apples and pears in cordons. It's more of an experiment than anything else, but one that will result in lots of fruit. Cordons are the best choice for allotments really. There are a few apple trees around the site, but they are quite small and I'm wondering what will happen when they start to grow too tall for convenient picking. I did have grand schemes for an espalier or even an palmette verrier, but the back wall turned out to be a rickety collection of wire and old doors cobbled together into a barrier, not a wall after all. One day I may have a more substantial wall to practise on.

The Hidden Gardens has a plot where they bring volunteers for gardening lessons and the like once a week. They are attempting espaliers there, using big posts and wires. I'll maybe take a photo of that to show the progress too.

New path and patio

We finished off the compost bin, though I buggered up the photo. Best viewed by shaking your head from side to side vigorously.

During my excavations I discovered that there was an extensive patio under the vegetation in front of the shed. I've cleared a bit of it, but there's plenty more of it in both directions. All it needs now is a seat and not an old crate.

Check out the strawberry plants that were growing along the side of the greenshouse. I salvaged them in the clearout and put them in the weed troughs that had been left. I've placed the smaller runners in pots to establish them before putting them into the plot in the spring.

John (my neighbour) has built a new gate, complete with numbers given to him by his daughters. Much better than the ramshackle affair we inherited.

It was pretty wet yesterday, though there was a bit of sunshine later. I did some hard lanscaping and dug out a new side path.

I didn't want to waste the great soil that was already there, so I dug a trench and threw the soil onto the borders either side. No use getting rid of a hundred years' of fertility.

I did an edge onto the main path too, though the wetness made the main path soft. Laura slipped and gouged the bit of the path next to the edging, knocking a half brick out. I had a sneaking suspicion that they weren't too stable, so I took them all out for the moment. I'll secure them better when filling the path in. Bark chippings looks like the best option.

I've drawn up a plan for the allotment. I'll post that tomorrow.

Compost Bin

Laura and I built the compost bin at the back of the shed, so that there's somewhere to put the miscellaneous piles of vegetation that are building up around the place. Here's Laura drilling the spacers that allow us to remove the front panel.

With the spacers on, we could attached the front planks. The design is similar to the one here, but using pallets instead of wood. It took me half an hour to put the three sides together to form the main part. The removable panels took a bit longer.

We left in the autumn gloaming.

Shed Cutting

I've got on with cutting up the shed/greenhouse so there's a bit less of it. That bit was pretty easy; it's putting it together in a decent state that might be more of a problem. I've secured it all so that it won't fall down, but it needs a new wall with a door and I'd like to get some light in through the roof too.

Here's the inside with a pallet that will be one side of my first compost bin. I scrounged that from an electrician's supply shop down the road. Their neighbour wasn't so obliging, so I've only got two for the moment. The pallet compost bin is an allotment classic, implemented by a lot of the folks down here, though quite a few of them have got new ones from here. In fact, many of them have a monster one that I tried to order (the soil saver 600), but is now out of stock. As you can see from the link, they don't offer it any more. Probably because every allotment in the UK has at least 40 of them. Cornwall is sold out of them too.

Here's the other side with some bits of the old side wall. I thought I'd save them just in case something falls to bits. My neighbour, who I met for the first time today, tells me that the raspberry canes that were put in the greenhouse (no idea why anyone would do that, and nor does he) are more than 15 years old. He knows this because he's been at NVG that long. That means they are well past their best. They are a bonus find, however, so I'm going to try them out and see. I might intersperse them with fresh canes.

I almost cleared the back of the shed. I didn't get the before shot of this one. I've gained 1.5m extra allotment here and this is where I'm putting my compost bin and random wood.

You can see the remains of the old compost heap. It was surrounded by hard plastic sheeting, which I've taken away to the coup. There's still a strange red plastic basket with some in.

The bricks and rubble are all from behind the shed; they were buried in the ground or scattered under lots of ivy. I'm going to use them for path edging.

Finally, here's what I did with most of the compost from behind the shed. The photos don't do it justice, because it looks great. There's nothing like a good layer of garden compost to enliven an autumn or winter border. I'm hoping for some fine rhubarb next year.