Waiting on the Sunshine
Well, it’s officially summer according to the Celtic calender, but where is the sun? Spring has been so wet and sunny days have been far and few between, but despite that there has been so many changes up at The Old Farm community garden in the last few weeks. It’s actually amazing to look around and remind myself it was empty field only 3 weeks ago. There’s been a great uptake of allotments and new garden beds are popping up every day.
I find myself popping out to my allotment at all different times during the week, sometimes with kids, sometimes of an evening after they’ve gone to bed. I’m rarely alone out there as so many others are busy setting up their plots too. This week we met one of our new plot neighbours and my 3-year-old son made firm friends with him, even scoring a wheelbarrow ride to the manure heap. The manure and mulch heaps have easily halved in size over the last few weeks by the way, a testament to how hard everyone is working.
My windowsill at home is full of seedlings just waiting for the risk of frost to pass so they can be planted out. There are sunflowers, garden peas, courgettes, butternut pumpkins, button squash, broccolini, nasturtium and carraway seedlings. Also, I actually got my garden beds to a stage where I could sow some random seeds. So, I threw in a bunch of flowers, cover crops and herbs in the hope that something will take off and help stabilise my beds while I’m waiting to plant veggies.
I have a mix of garden beds at the moment. Some are made with heat treated pallets, and others are intended to be no-dig beds down the track, though to make them I did actually dig out my pathways and use the overturned sod and soil as a base for the garden bed. I got a little carried away when digging my paths, which came to my attention when someone asked if I was building a pond, and I might not use that method on the rest of the plot. I guess I will wait and see how well the current beds go before building more.
I scored a free compost bin this week which made its way out to the plot along with my water tank. But I’m still pondering how to create a greater surface area to capture run off from, without also creating an eye saw. A future functional art installation may be what’s required when I have time to make it. We also put up some of our fence this week and have some big posts up for the entry gate which I’m going to try and turn into an archway. I also found some forsythia branches growing in my pile of old prunings (is that a word? Probably not…) at home. So, I planted some along the front fence of my plot with the intention of creating a low hedge that may act as a wind break to my front garden beds down the track. Plus, it’ll grow plenty of whips I can use for cute fencing around my garden beds down the track.
This week at home we pulled up our 30-year-old paisley brown woollen carpet, and it occurred to me that it would be perfect for use on the back half of my allotment to smother the weeds in preparation for future garden beds. Apparently its also great for covering carrot seeds while they germinate, so that might be next on the to-do list.
It’s supposed to warm up a bit next week and actually reach 20C, so hopefully the sun comes out and the seeds start sprouting.
Skye
