Strawberry Cage and French Beans

Over the past few weeks I've been working on building a fruit cage for the strawberry bed at the allotment. Using various pieces of timber found in the garage and loft at home, and with a roll of chicken wire I built the cage at home and finally transported it to the allotment on Saturday where I reassembled it (see above). It measures about 2.2 meters by 1.4 meters and is about 0.5 meters tall. It has two hinged lids on the top which can be opened to get inside and pick the strawberrys and weed when necessary. I also painted it with some fence paint to protect it a bit. Other than a packet of screws and a roll of chicken wire, it didn't cost a thing and hopefully it should stop any birds eating the fruit this year.


Next up I sowed 5 rows of French Beans (Maxi) in an area that had been manured and covered with weed fabric. I dug it over to mix the manure in and found a huge amount of really big worms. I've used about three quarters of the width of the plot for the French Beans, with a square of space next to them which will be for the sweetcorn which is still growing at home in the mini greenhouse. The photo above shows where the French Beans are sown, beyond that you can also see Broad Beans and Garlic growing.


I removed the fleece that was covering the potatoes to discover a huge amount of fooliage showing through the surface. I've earthed them up as best I can (see above), although they're not completely covered. Hopefully there won't be any late frosts to harm them though.

Some of the Broadbeans that were sown in the Autumn have recovered despite looking fairly dead a few months ago. Unfortunately they're suffering with black fly quite a lot, but there are some pods forming (see right) so hopefully I will still get something from them. The crop of BroadBeans I sowed in the Spring are still coming through very slowly, but hopefully they will still provide the main crop of Broadbeans.

General progress, plus carrots and leeks

Had a day off on Friday, so spent a good few hours at the allotment. The potatoes that I planted three weeks previously have just started to show through the surface (see above left). They're covered with fleece at the moment so I haven't earthed them up yet - but I'll probably do that on my next visit once a few more of them have appeared. The first row of peas that were sown two weeks ago have also just broken the surface (see above right).
My first job of the day was to replace the canes that I had used to hold up the chicken-wire fences I use as support for the peas. They were all old, broken and too short for the job. So I visited our local hardware store and bought some 4 foot canes - being sold for £1.20 for a bundle of 10, which seemed like a very good price so I bought two bundles. The pea fences are now much stronger with these new canes (see right). So I then sowed another row and a half of peas.


I then sowed a row of carrots (Sytan) and two rows of leeks (Autumn Mammoth), which will be spaced out a lot more later on when they've grown to a decent size. Then I did some weeding around the onions, shallots and garlic which are all doing very well (see above). Below are photos of my original plot, taken from mid way along the plot looking in one direction and then the other. A lot of the plot is still covered over, either by black polythene where nothing is growing yet (to stop the weeds growing and keep the soil warm) or by fleece (currently being used to cover the potatoes, parsnips, carrots and broad beans). This plot is currently in pretty good shape. The fruit area at the far end (top of the left picture, just before the compost bins) needs some serious weeding (probably my job for next time), but other than that it's looking good.


Over on the second plot (see below) I'm still making progress on getting it dug over for the first time, and spreading the manure as I go. I have a few black sheets down over areas that were particularly weedy and that I haven't yet started digging. Then there are a few exposed areas still to be dug - but there is also an ever growing area which is nicely dug and manured. Well over half way with the digging. I try and do a little bit more of it each time I visit the allotment. The plan is mainly to use this plot for all the squashes and pumpkins that I'm planning to grow (and that are currently at home in the plastic mini green house - yet to emerge from their pots) since they all spread themselves out quite a bit and need lots of space. They were a bit cramped on the first plot last year, which is why I've taken on this second plot this year. Back home - the brocoli and cabbage seedlings have all started appearing in the mini greenhouse - no sign of anything else sown in there yet though.