Well as most of you will know I gave up my allotments at the end of last year and have been quite busy this last few months altering my garden at home to make it a "bit more edible"
I can't get on as well as I would like with the outdoor aspects of the garden until such times as my spring bulbs die back when I can then move a few bulbs to incorporate the veg I plan to grow, so I will put that down to " work in progress" for now!
I have made a start on the 8x6 Greenhouse which I brought up from the allotment last year.
Last year was a bit of a learning curve due to the exceptionally hot weather we had!
I found out my stuff was drying out too rapidly causing blossom end rot on my tomatoes and vine weevil & whitefly on my peppers. I put this partially down to the paved floor I had in place as you can see in Pic 0.
To counteract that I have formed a kerbed area and filled this with timber chippings which I hope once dampened will create a higher humidity in the greenhouse as you can see in Pic1.
In Pic 1 I have laid out 19 number 10" diam x 8" high rings!
In Pic 2 I have placed a 1" deep drainage layer at the bottom of the rings, this layer consists of the lumpy pieces of compost I found after riddling the new and old compost I prepared for the remainder of the filling.
In Pic 3 You can see that I have placed approximately 3"-4" of homemade compost to save on cost!.
The mixture consists of a mixture of well-rotted horse manure and compost from the various containers I used last season. To this, I added 4oz of FB&B + 2oz Hydrated Lime + 2oz Slow release fertiliser pellets to 2 gallons (10 litres) of mixed compost.
In Pic 4 I have topped up the rings with new multi-purpose compost to which I have added half the quantity of fertiliser as used with my own mixed compost (Pic3)
I also inserted a bottomless vending cup into the compost to facilitate watering & liquid feeding.
Pic 5 shows all the rings prepared and ready for planting up!
In Pic 6 is an added feature I might try and that is to use additional pots to perhaps grow some quick growing salad crops or similar!
Pic 7 shows the inside of my heated 10' x 8' greenhouse jammed to the rafters with stuff awaiting planting out.
In the past, I would normally plant out my tomatoes sometime during the last two weeks in May but I am toying with the idea of perhaps planting out within the next couple of days as I need the space in my 10' x 8'.
My thoughts are; now that my planting area is so close to the house I will be at hand to cover stuff up if frost is forecast, where before I would have had to travel, around 4miles to my allotment to do this!
To do this I am thinking of just tying up my plants to short supports rather than the eventual long ones I will use, meaning I can throw a 'fleece' covering over the plants after tea and remove it again after breakfast! Then when all fear of frost is passed I will replace the short supports with long one!
What do you think?