Greenhouse weather

Nasty wet horrid day today & I am definitely feeling grotty, managed to prise myself out of bed, after spending most of the morning browsing the internet, looking at other people's blogs, some of which I have not seen before.

I had eventually had enough of vegetating & went of to the plot planning to build a new compost bin. First I transplanted the final tray of onions into modules and potted up the shallots I bought from poundland.

I am not sure I have potted up the shallots correctly, but some of them were looking a bit iffy, and out of 2 bags of shallots I only got 20 that were ok to plant.

I noticed that something is definitely munching my rhubarb, so I have put mesh round them to prevent them being nibbled. There were 4 plants but one got dug up by an animal. The two neares are the best plants, but I thought I would protect the other one to see if it recovers.

I am planning to put a poly tunnel and fruit at the bottom of my plot, but then my imagination went wild and wandered what I could do with an extra half plot. I am not sure if the half plot next to mine has been taken, but I e-mailed the secretary and am waiting for a reply.

My plan would be to put fruit trees on this plot and keep the poly tunnel and fruit bushes on the bottom of my plot. Fruit is always so expensive to buy, so it makes sense to grow more of it.

The plot is covered in brambles and has not been touched in ages, so will need some clearing, but at least under the brambles there will not be much else.

After using up all that energy sowing & planning, I did not get round to building the compost bin....oh well there will be another day!

January round up part 1 - Major post (internet & computer problems)

Finally received the garlic that I ordered from DT Brown - I think it got stuck in a snowdrift - My husband could not believe that I had sent over 7 pounds on it - he said I could have got from Sainsbury's - Doh...

All the garlic that I have now sown into pots and modules. My plan is that as I did not get them planted out before Christmas, they will get a bit of a head start in the greenhouse, then I can plant them out later.

I have covered up the bed that the garlic is going into - to make it a bit warmer as I am starting the garlic off in the greenhouse and I am assuming that this will help the process of moving it from the slightly warm greenhouse to the decidedly cold open bed.

This is a view of my plot from the right - a view that was previously obscured by the shed & brambles that have now been removed from the neighbouring plot

This is the plot to the right of mine. It was over grown and there was a rickety shed made out of doors just by my manure enclosure which as been taken down. It is amazing how bright & light my plot feels.

I rough dug this bed - it was quite hard going and too wet to get any of the weeds out.

Once I rough dug the bed I covered it in black plastic, hopefully so that it dries out enough to dig again & get out as much of the bindweed & couch grass as I can. I will also put some manure & compost in here as it is where my sweetcorn, courgettes & pumpkins will go.

This is the Bed beyond the one I dug, which I have covered with 2 layers of cardboard ready for a layer of well rotted manure & then a layer of topsoil. I am planning to put potatoes into this bed, planting through weed membrane. As you can see it was almost dark when I finished - time to go home!