Went to the inlaws for lunch today in sunny Hutton, Essex, and already their large garden is full of spring life! The flowering currant is full of red buds, there are bulbs poking through the soil all over and the buds on the rhodies and camelias are huge! Talked to them nicely and they are taking the kids off our hands on Sunday, all day so Ava and I can spend the day at the allotment. We don't often have the oppurtunity to get up there together and I want him to do some construction on the new plot. I want him to make some sort of structure to grow my squashes up, and also a shelter for my tomato plants. There is an article in Kitchen Garden mag that has inspired me. An italian chap, who's lottie is immaculate, grows his toms with a polythene roof over, keeping the toms warmer, and preventing rainfall reaching them, so less humidity, less chance of blight! I figure it will be worth ago, I normally have plenty of tom plants, and figured it might work as well with peppers. Anyhow, means I will have some strong labour for the day so I need to have a list of jobs at the ready...no slacking! Just prey for good weather.
you must get KG on subscription EJ? as not in shops until Thursday, tempting me to buy it with all this talk of spring planning!
bob flowerdew has done a similar structure to the one you talk about for beating tomato blight, it'll be interesting to see how you get on with it. kind of like a tent with one open side, but the roof slanted over to make sure plants don't get dripped on. what a bad description! but hope you get the picture!
you are lucky to have a diy handyman! jon's eternal cry is 'i hate diy', usually after throwing down the hammer/whatever, and after 10 minutes frustration/work!
jon has however, for 2 years running now made me a pumpkin tunnel, made of canes and tied together with the best scout knots known to man. this is not diy, of course, this is scout stuff, and therefore is tackled with gusto and speed! (i am lucky to have him, i know!) :)
EJ I also read the article in KG about the Itallian man, wow his stuff looked wonderful, quite inspirational. Kerry get a subscription if you can, my Feb issue of KG arrived new year's eve!
We are also going to be busy with construction type things over the next few weeks. I've got to get some sort of fruit cage built around my soft fruit so we are planning to use copper piping and butterfly netting. My OH is a plumber so that's where we got the idea from, look at www.screwfix.com (or maybe it's .co.uk), copper works out cheaper than bamboo canes, it lasts forever and apparently chases away slugs, you will need a pipe slicer to cut the pipes but they're ideal for constructing things, use the plumbing elbow joints so you can build all sorts of shapes. We've got a few home made trellis in the garden from copper and they look great once they weather.
Have fun on Sunday EJ, you'll be amazed how much you can get done without little people around to "help". :)
I used an old frame tent for my fruit cage Jesseveve and then tie wrapped the netting to that. Very effective it is too. It is that squash 'cathedral' that the italian chap has that got me thinking, and upward growing means more ground space for roots and shoots!
I have 30 broadbean plants to plant on Sunday, and we must sort out some guttering on the shed into the water butt....right..need to do me a list.