I have been scouring the local freecycle and freegle groups for weeks now on the lookout for anything that I could use at the allotment, and recently I put up a wanted ad for paving slabs. I had just about given up waiting for a response when out of the blue I had an email with a phone number saying 'I have paving slabs - give me a call.' So I did, and I am now the happy recipient of 12.5 60cmx60cmx5cm paving slabs.
Having built all three of my raised beds, now was time to put them in their final positions and put the slabs between them to make a stable pathway. Five hours of back-breaking work later and the raised bed area is finished (apart from filling with soil), and in general the allotment looks much neater.
 |
| Raised beds in their final positions. |
 |
| Plot 6 looking good! |
The hard work I put in at the start is now beginning to pay dividends in the form of vegetables - potatoes, leeks, salad onions, courgettes and beetroot are all mid harvest and the last of the carrots were great.
 |
| Another bumper harvest |
Last week my order from
the garlic farm arrived, and I am now just about to prepare the beds for planting elephant and early purple wight garlic varieties. These will go in where the potatoes and beans were, so I will soon be digging in some pelletised chicken manure and some leaf compost. The early varieties need to be planted towards the end of september, and to make sure that they don't get waterlogged I will put a little bit of sand in the bottom of each hole before I put the garlic clove in. In the past I have had great success with elephant garlic in raised beds, but this year it is going straight into the ground.
No comments:
Post a Comment