Plot Notes

A personal journal, open for the world to read, recording the progress of a novice allotmenteer on his allotment.



Weed it and reap.


Wednesday 31 March 2010

Gone with the wind

This is the greenhouse frame which I erected on Sunday afternoon:-

This is what I found when I came home from work tonight:-

It looks like we have had a bit of a storm blow through today. The allotment is like a swamp and, as you can see my, pride and joy, greenhouse frame is now a tangled mess of aluminium sections. I did notice as I put it up on Sunday that there was one cross member missing from the back of the frame and a couple of the nuts could not be tightened up as they just spun around on the bolts when I tried to tighten them up. I had planned to fit a cross member this weekend and replace the faulty nuts and bolts and then fix it to a base frame. The greenhouse seemed quite secure when I left it but I can only assume that the structural integrity was compromised by the missing strut and the loose nuts and the wind today took advantage of that. 

I was a bit pressed for time before it went dark tonight so I haven't been able to examine the full extent of the damage but hopefully it will be salvageable.

My 10 Grapevines arrived last night and I need to get them planted this weekend so I went up to the plot after work today to dig holes ready for planting. I put a dollop of manure and a scoop of slow release plant food into each hole and then covered it lightly with soil. I will stand the vines in a bucket of water for 24 hours and then plant them in the holes this weekend. However I am a little bit concerned that the site does not seem to be very well draining. It is like quicksand in some parts. In the picture below it is not easy to distinguish my planting holes from my deep sunken welly prints. I will just have to wait and see if the vines take to it.
Hopefully the swampy conditions and greenhouse damage will prove to be only minor set-backs. Everything seemed to be going so well last weekend. The composting boxes arrived;  I collected a nice pile of well rotted pony poo with assistance from Lucy; I also planted three rows of first early Duke of York potatoes.

5 comments:

  1. Sorry to see your greenhouse in such a state but you're making great progress, only a minor setback I'm sure.

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  2. That second shot of the greenhouse looks like one I've put up! Just remember; the strength is in cross members, the stength is in cross members...

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  3. Oh no, I hope it isn't damaged. My allotment was really boggy and my hubby has just installed a drainage pipe under the soil which drains excess water into the beck we have running at the side. I'm hoping that this is going to make a huge difference, as it seems to do so on the other plots which already have this installed. I still haven't got my spuds in yet though, the ground is just too wet with all this rain.

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  4. I recently came across an old diary, which read March 26 - Erected greenhouse
    March 29 - Greenhouse blew away
    Luckily it was in next door's garden and was a baby 4'x6', so I just lifted the whole thing back to mine and piled loads of soil around it.
    By the way, B&Q often have slightly damaged clear plastic sheets for a reasonable price, or you could get polythene from Northern Polytunnels by the metre. Cheers for coming to Tattie Bogle.

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  5. No-one likes to come home to a sight like that! Hope all is well now. I have a very old allotment and was amazed to read that yours is on a brand new plot. How exciting! Mine is full of couch grass and bindweed. I longed for a clean slate to start on....

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