Freecycling success and brag….. October 2, 2007

In the prev post, we cleared the strips which included taking out some of the marigolds that had bloomed so well and continued to look and smell fantastic.  Actually what we did was to re-plant some to firm up each end of the first ’strip’ as we thought it might be quite a nice boundary.

 but the process rendered about 10 plants – 5 or 6 really bushy sets now homeless and up-rooted.  Dear lady partner was quite callous saying to just leave them.  But after considering it for about 20 mins I decided it was a waste of beauty and greenish-nigey-ness and decided to pot the best 5 up.  You can see them to the right of the pic in the prev post.

>> One went to a local friend

>> One went to a visiting couple of my uni friends that I bored about my greenish-antics-talk.

>> Three went at the end of the drive on the road with a sign saying ‘FREE’ french marigolds, help yourself.  Two went within 10 mins and the final one went within the hour!!! It was amazingly fast and I felt/feel great about it.  I hope my anonymous benefactors/benficiaries? are fairing well with them.

Dare I say I should have asked for a couple of quid donation….???? Well maybe not, we have done well out of freecycle.

The next plan begins….. October 2, 2007

As some beds became redundant as we ate lovely veg over the last month or so, we have been v keen to get something started towards next year’s growing. 

 

(there’s nothing in the polytunnels yet – thinking about playing with putting in over-winter onions and garlic??)

 The main plan was to increase the plot size from the basic three strips this year (plus the kids one) to a whole area rather than strips.  So we have now lightly dug over the path sections between strips 1 and 2 and between strips 2 and 3.   Not sure whether we will double dig these sections (see bastard trenching) or try a ‘no dig’ approach if I can decide on a mulch? (Neighbours have horses so may be option there).

Weed control fabric is currently killing off all grass and plants at the back and extreme sides of the strips so hopefully we’ll be able to expand that way too.

Another next step would then be to expand back onto where our main path is through that part of the garden as it currently has a wall with a bank about half a meter across which is long uneven grass with a small plant/tree in it.  Next to this is our main path which about half to a metre and is unneccessary really when I could just clear the first bank next to the wall.  So another half to a meter to gain there as well if I get chance.

Then next big step would be to cultivate an entirely different section of the garden which would likely require a rotavator, bastard trenching or heavy mulch/double-dig. That will be harder work and the area currently has the wood and fencing intended for the chicken housing…… methinks a more important job to tackle soon.

Prize winners October 2, 2007

Well the season is pretty much over now, but we had some monster cucumbers especially at the end.  Managed to get about 3 green peppers as well in the end, so yay for easy cucumbers and poor show for the green ones.  Please note absolutly no success with three propogator trays of the spanish peppers though…..