Onions & Garlic

We planted 40 onion sets (radar) and approximately a dozen garlic bulbs (thermidore) in bed 1 today. There's a small bit of the bed left to grow some leeks next year.

I decided to cover the loam/couch grass pile with plastic sheeting. After several hours digging and weeding on beds 2 & 3 I decided the couch grass situation isn't quite so bad after all. Hopefully I can keep on top of it.

I'l need to dig another 2 beds this weekend, if I have time, for the spuds and lettuce and spinach.

The Good, The Bad and The Evil...

GOOD NEWS

The base of the greenhouse went down last Saturday and the frame erected on Sunday (pictures soon).

Yesterday I took delivery of a small bag of garlic and onion sets :). This is great news as now me and the kids can get started on planting.

BAD NEWS

The bad news is I found out just how bad couch grass can be:(

Apparently it is relentless despite all efforts to pull out the weeds. My plan of attack is to dig a trench, spade depth, around the edge of the plot and place wooden planks in the trench to hold back any couch grass roots around the borders.

I've cleared 95% of the surface weeds from all the area I've dug but some green shoots are already springing up. Hopefully the plastic sheeting and carpets in the top half of the plot will supress any further weed growth until next year when we're ready to expand into that area.

This evening I spent an hour working on plot 1, weeding, fertilising and raking the soil to get it ready to plant the onion and garlic.

Trish (town clerk) turned up with a prospective new allotmenteer and we discussed our progress. I'm glad we've made as much progress as we have because she's already talking about evictions for those who've neglected their plots.

Black Hawk Down

Decoded that means Greenhouse has been dismantled. Glass safely stored behing garage. I managed to keep the sides intact. Need to buy some replacement bolts and glass springs. But apart from that a very successful job.

The large box in the hallway turned out to be the organic fertilizer, no garlic or onions. So looks like I'm working on the greenhouse this weekend. My man at the timberyard showed me some alternatives to railway sleepers. At £17 each these would work out a bit expensive for a greenhouse base. I think I'll go for the 7x3"x 4.8m at £16. They're thinner than the sleepers but twice as long so the final cost should be halved. I'll concentrate on dismantling the greenhouse first then work on the base later.

Delays

Disaster - I won't be able to collect the pick-up from work on Friday as I have to travel to Dewsbury so not much chance of picking the railway sleepers up. On the bright-side I just arrived home from Band Practice and found a box of garlic and onion sets in the hall. So plans for this weekend have changed to some honest planting out instead of greenhouse construction.

Greenhouse Freebie

Our neighbour has kindly said we can have his old greenhouse. He even cleared a patch through his overgrown garden so we can safely reach it.

I've cleared al the old pots and trestle tables and spiders out. Marked up the panes of glass with my cunning designed code. Hopefully that will make it easier to put the correct pane in the right hole when it comes to re-assembly.

Spoke to a guy at Tansley timberyard yesterday who can let me have some railway sleepers for a base. Measured up the greenhouse for the base so now I can get it cut to the correct size and get some 180mm coach bolts to hold it all together.

This weekend will see the first pane of glass come out I hope. And I might be able to get the railway sleeper base down too.

Just placed an order for our first set of potential crops. Some garlic and some onion sets from Chase Organics.

1 x GARLIC Thermidrome 150g October Delivery (GARL1) = £3.95
1 x ONION SETS Autumn Planting Radar FOR SEPTEMBER 2008 (OSRA) = £4.75
1 x CHASE ANIMAL FREE FERTILISER 4kg (OFAF) = £10.25

Both crops can be planted in September/October and are hardy enough to withstand all the Derbyshire winter can throw at them. I thought I'd ordered a fleece to cover the onions too but that didn't appear on my email confirmation. I can get some pretty cheap from my local hardware supplier.