No dig diary, 8th April 2024

Posted on April 8, 2024 by james

I last weeded the big polytunnel and the greenhouses in January and today decided it was time to do them again, removing the Winter salads that are already starting to flower at the same time — the leaves become tough and unpleasant to eat once the plant is flowering so there’s not a lot of point keeping them any more.

Quite how so many weeds have suddenly invaded the beds inside the polytunnel and greenhouse I really don’t know. I don’t imagine they came in with the compost because they’d have grown last year. It took much longer than I expected, but now I have lovely weed-free beds, at least for the moment.

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Memory Lane, 15th November 2022: A new beekeeping tool

Posted on April 8, 2024 by james

Given all the under-floor entrances I have made, there is now a possible need for a tool to clear the entrance slot of rubbish in case it gets blocked up, so today I had a swift visit to the workshop to find some steel rod (which handily already had a right angle bend in) and cut it to length. For a handle I found some wooden dowel and drilled a suitable sized hole in the end to accept the rod. Put the two together and there’s a handy little slot-clearing tool.

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Frankenstein’s greenhouse gets a “strawberry shelf”

Posted on April 8, 2024 by james

I posted about a week ago that I was going to look at making a shelf for Frankenstein’s greenhouse that I could put strawberries on in the hope of getting an early crop. The mess of reclaimed timber leaning against the workshop wall started irritating me, so today’s the day.

I went through all the shorter pieces and cut them into shelf “brackets” that I could screw to the uprights of the greenhouse wall, and fitted them using a level from each to the next, using some reclaimed stainless screws that I’m probably not going to have another use for.

A couple of the longer pieces I cut to length for the shelf itself, and screwed to the brackets so it can’t slip off. Then so the pots aren’t sitting directly on the shelf and holding damp where it can rot the wood, I found some offcuts of EPDM that I used for a roof and lay that on top.

It doesn’t make quite enough space for all the pots of strawberries (I think there was room for twenty-six and I had twenty-nine), but perhaps I can make another shelf for the north-west wall as well as the north-east one.

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Memory Lane, 13th November 2022: Juice, juice baby

Posted on April 6, 2024 by james

It’s that time again. Always seems to come around so soon even though it’s mid-November already. The apple press is on its annual outing…

Looks very appealing (I tried to make that more like appleing, but it just didn’t work 😀

I reckon we can get more out yet.

Apple “cardboard” removed from the hairs after pressing, straight off to the compost heap.

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Something undead is in the workshop

Posted on April 6, 2024 by james

I posted back in February that I had a couple of LED striplights in the workshop that weren’t working and that I was going to try to replace the capacitors in the power supply to see if that would fix them. It took a while to get hold of the capacitors because I had to piggy-back them on someone else’s order (the components weren’t expensive, but delivery was going to quadruple the cost), but they arrived eventually and today was the day.

I have to report mixed success. The first worked perfectly with the new capacitors in place.

The second still didn’t work properly. Only a small section of the LED strips lit up and not a full brightness, so I assume there’s something else wrong with the power supply too. There’s very little else I could replace anyhow, so I think I might have to declare that one dead, or perhaps rig up some alternative sort of supply (perhaps use a wall wart wired straight into the LED strips if I can work out the intended voltage?) and use the light elsewhere.

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No dig diary, 6th April 2024

Posted on April 6, 2024 by james

A third consecutive day of sowing! As much because thanks to “Storm Kathleen” there’s little else can be done today.

Salad onions have not done well so far this year, so I have sown more, as well as peas for shoots, red and green basil and also edible lupins.

For the “cutting garden” I’ve also sown rudbeckia, scabious and larkspur.

There are more that need doing tomorrow, which doesn’t look like it should be a problem given that the weather is allegedly going to be broadly similar to today.

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Memory Lane, 12th November 2022: This really is the last of the peppers

Posted on April 5, 2024 by james

Today I picked everything that was left in the polytunnel, regardless of whether it was ripe or not. Nothing much useful is going to happen from this point on, so leaving them will just mean they start rotting.

Some gorgeous colours of sweet peppers

Cayenne peppers and jalapenos

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No dig diary, 5th April 2024

Posted on April 5, 2024 by james

More sowing today. And more poppies too, though this time for show rather than for seeds that will be eaten. And then some yellow beetroot, four seeds to a cell to be thinned to four plants if more germinate.

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No dig diary, 4th April 2024

Posted on April 5, 2024 by james

I actually sowed some seeds today! That was all I did in the garden, mind. The veggie plot itself is a complete horrorshow because of the mud. So, into module trays went some early calabrese, “normal” calabrese, red cabbage and poppies for seeds for baking bread.

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Sawdust for sprinkling on an open, err, well, you’ll get the idea…

Posted on April 5, 2024 by james

I’ve “made friends” with a local business that does lots of cutting wood. And now they offer me their waste sawdust, which I will use as “cover material” for my compost toilet. There’s plenty of it, too. Today I was given sixty kilos or more.

Should last me a week or two 😀

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