The Harvest Begins (and a raised bed is built)

On the 19th of July a milestone was reached when I harvested the first produce from Plot 6! Or to be more precise, due to the stoney ground, it harvested itself. I was very proud of my first carrot, even if it was quite deformed and greatly derided on facebook when I posted a picture of it. At least I grew it and it tasted great.

It's a carrot!

A few days later and I had my first real harvest of carrots, green beans and a courgette.

Now that's more like it :-)

I am now regularly digging up carrots, and the beans and courgettes are really coming along well. Hopefully in a month or so I will dig the first potatoes.

One thing that has become apparent is that the small stones are not conducive to growing root vegetables such as carrots and parsnips - I was under no illusions when I took over the plot as I had noticed the stones and thought I would have an issue. There are two obvious solutions to this - the first one is to sieve all the ground and get rid of the stones which could take a very long time and to be blunt is not going to happen this year or next - the second is to build a few raised beds and make sure that the soil/compost in them is suitable for root veg. Several people had said "I've made them out of old planks" and "pallets can make great raised beds" but I would like my raised beds to last a few years and builders planks/pallets are not pressure treated so they could rot very quickly.

With the plan in my mind I drove to the local DIY store with a shopping list - I was planning to make one raised bed 2.4m x 1.2m and about 20cm high. Wickes have an economy range of decking timber which is 25mm x 120mm x 2.4m at £3.99 a board. A quick calculation indicated that I would need 6 boards and a few 36mm x 36mm deck spindles to create my raised bed - at a cost of around £30. 2.4m boards just fit in the car, so after dropping all the tools and timber at the allotment I took the car home and walked back down with a few cans of liquid refreshment.

An hour later and my handy work had resulted in a raised bed that just needed a location.

My first raised bed - 2.4m x 1.2m x 24cm

After a quick refreshment break I moved the temporary compost heap, dug the ground a little, placed the raised bed in its new location and put the compost heap back inside it. My plan is to dig the compost in to the bed next spring, top up with some manure / top soil and plant with Asparagus crowns...

When I find the time and spare cash I will make two more raised beds of roughly the same dimensions to give me the space for my root vegetables and salad leaves etc. But for now, I have one bed in place and a plot that is beginning to look a lot like it is loved. Eventually it would be nice to edge all the paths with decking boards, held in place with steel reinforcing bar pins - but that can wait until next year!

Raised bed in place and the ever growing vegetables in front