Friday 29th March 2013 (Good Friday)

Volunteers - Katie, Liz, Austin & Angharad

The poly tunnel had arrived at the Fareshare depo, so we used the van to transport all the bits down to the site. The tunnel is a beastly 30ft long x 14ft wide x 7ft tall and consists of many confusing parts. We had been told that if you can put together a peice of Ikea furniture then you can put this together too......

Poly Tunnel being unloaded from the van.........

.........Even that was enough to warrant a sit down and a cuppa!

Our first method of construction was to follow the instructions to the letter. It recommended measuring out the positions of the foundation tubes using Pythagorus' theorem!!

 It wasn't long before we got frustrated with the fact that each time we checked our measurements they seemed to have changed by as much as 5 inches! 

After 3 hours of agonizing measuring, digging and leveling we arrived at the decision that we would just lay out all the pieces, put the frame together and use the extremely precise method of just plonking it in the holes and adjusting the foundation tubes to fit. 

The moment of truth as the frame went up..........

By Jove! We did it! 

We had taken the advice of another plot holder and gone to Homebase to get some ready mix concrete to hold the foundation tubes in position. This will ensure that the structure wont blow away in any strong winds. 

The frame was up just in time to watch the sunset over the plot. Although it was still a chilly 4 degrees, today you could smell spring in the air!

This was todays plan.....and we achieved it! 

Saturday 30th March 2013

Volunteers - Katie & John

Today was a beautiful sunny day, I almost felt warm at one point! John and I made some path edges for the main path - which we plan to do to all our paths in time. This is to stop the woodchippings on the path blending into the main growing space. 

To make a path edge we got a length of wood and nailed to steak pieces to each end to anchor the plank into the ground

John sawing the steaks at a right angle so the wood can be easily malleted into the ground. 

Coldest Day - but the most volunteers!

Saturday 23rd March

Volunteers - Liz, Liz's grandad, Liz's mum, Liz's brother Michael, Katie, Katie's mum Sue, Bill, Dwayne, Angharad, Ben, Conor & John.....and Gerry popped by to deliver the poly tunnel instructions and some quality street tins!

Today was probably the coldest on record for our visits to the allotment, but somehow it is also the most volunteers we have had in one day! 

Dwayne has invented a new technique of spreading the weight whilst weeding - interesting method!

Ben and Connor get their priorities right as they arrive on site!

It was Baltic on site today and the ground was extremely saturated from all the rain in the week. We decided to huddle near the shed and drink as much tea as possible. We flattened the area outside the shed, laid mesh and covered with woodchipings. 

This is conner - our youngest, but by no means laziest, volunteer! 

Liz's Grandad has kindly donated two large water butts. We have mounted them on concrete slabs so we can get a watering can under the taps at the bottom. 

Introducing our beautiful new lavatory!! The shed is now a kitchen/bathroom/lounge/garage - all we need is a camp bed and Dwyane will be ready to move in.

Sunday 24th March 

Volunteers - Liz, Dwayne, Katie & Michael

Again....another freezing day. We laid the path on the left hand side of the plot and did some general tidying up and drank some tea!

The seedlings which were planted on the 19/02/13 were ready to plant out into bigger pots. The ones you can see here are Beef Tomatoes! 

I made mini green houses from old plastic bottles. Everything we have used to grow these seeds is either recycled or has been sourced for free. 

You can see the seed is still hanging on to this Pepper seedling! Its amazing how something can grow from a tiny seed! 

My house is rapidly getting taken over by seedlings. 

Odd Jobs

Saturday 16th & Sunday 17th March 

Volunteers - Liz, Dwayne & Katie

This weekend was spent De-Weeding and tidying the plot up. Although the sun is out, it is still bitterly cold and the ground is still quite saturated........come on spring!!

In the week we spent some time (in the comfort of my house) making a large stencil of the Fareshare allotment logo. We are going to spray paint on the side of the shed. 

We have also made stencils for all the different Veg we are going to plant. We are going to spray paint the names of the Veg on the wooden struts we have used on the corners of the raised beds. 

Potatoes Are In

Saturday & Sunday
09/10 March

due to the rugby being played in the afternoon, an earlier start was taken, this was the view at eight am saturday morning, no noise except birdsong and my grumbling

Volunteers today were Dwayne  & John who were briefly joined by Dean
the main aim for this weekend was to get all the potatoes in the ground, which probably doesnt sounds that difficult but after counting up the seed potatoes there were around two hundred to plant!!
Here they are all the different varieties early and main crop.

Planning out the holes

In the end we plotted out twenty rows with ten seed potatos in each row,

Hello you two planting away.

It was bitterly cold this weekend and the ground is still heavy and wet so it was hard work doing all this work with so few people turning up to help 

So we had the odd break sat in the shed warming up with a brew

Super Busy Weekend

02/03 of March

We had a good turn out this weekend, with new volunteers who responded to the advert we put up on Gumtree. This week it was Jo and John.

Here they are working hard

We also moved the shed with the help of our group and some local plot holders it took a few minutes and a few breaks to shift it the 30 odd meters to our plot, but this is now our HQ and has been a big moral boost as we now have somewhere dry and cosy to brew tea, keep out tools, seeds and to plan out what we are doing. Hooray!

This is the view from the shed

(Don't worry I'll photoshop in some crops later)

We began to turn back over the land to help the largely clay soil to break down more and to carry on with root removal to prepare for rotovating and the imminent planting of the onions, potatoes, parsnips and shallots,

 Oh hello! There is Jo and another recruit Michelle getting the raised beds super nice and ready to plant in.

On the Sunday,
We planted out some of the garlic with instructions to place it 6 inches apart so we used the broken rake head as a guide to spacing.

We planted out 12  and the raised beds are starting to look pretty