Allotment Vine #1

Here is a little Vine from my allotment this year!

The 'No Dig' bed..

(OK I lied, you have to dig a tiny bit!)

As promised, the lazy 'No Dig' bed for planting vegetables. As planting season is already under way some of you might not find this post very helpful, but I would see it as already getting prepared for the coming autumn. Maybe it's because, for me, time seems to be going so fast that I feel the need to think ahead. Anyhow, hope this post helps for your future gardening adventures.

Start off with a small bit of land. You can mark out the area using string and canes. If there is already soil on the ground grab your gardening fork and turn the soil. For your first layer, add sheets of cardboard, this will smother the weeds and mulch into the soil eventually. The second layer, add seaweed, if you live in Ireland you'll notice we are lacking in seaweed, so the best time to collect it off a beach is after a storm. If that's not possible to do, your local garden centre should have powdered seaweed in large bags. The third layer is straw, again, most people won't have this to hand but it is available from agricultural centers and some large pet stores (used in rabbit and guinea pig hutches) To keep that layer of straw down you should add a layer of soil and/or compost. The fifth layer is shredded newspaper and cardboard. It makes a great mulch for most beds, but make sure there aren't any glossy magazines, they don't break down like newspaper. The sixth layer is optional, but is great for the soil. You would tend to do this part in Autumn. When the leaves finally fall off the trees, get out there with refuse sacks and collect all the leaves you can. These are invaluable! They are great for mulching and a good thick layer on a bed will keep the weeds at bay. I've noticed on a lot of forums gardeners have used cut grass instead but I find it goes into seed and basically ruins the beds. You don't want to spend 90% of your time weeding, right?

And lastly, add another layer of soil or compost. All these layers will break down and will give you lovely soil. I will do another post on soil soon. Let me know if you have attempted a No Dig bed before and if there is anything I can add that might be helpful to my no dig bed!

On top of me head!

I want to say an uber big SORRY to my two followers for not updating in a while. As I'm sure you read back in March that my Mother passed away, it was a terrible heart-breaking time for the family (and still is) and everyone that knew her. My Mother and I were, at the time, attending a night course to get our FETAC 5 cert as Care Assistants. After my Mother passed I found it quite difficult to continue with my study and unfortunately missed the submission date for my work. Since then I've started another module of the care assistant course and I am finally on a roll with my work, so that has been taking up a huge lump of my time. When I'm not studying or at the gym, I am usually working on a community allotment in the local countryside. I love it, it's so good to get the hands into the soil. The Irish weather has been unkind again this year, so our beds are still empty. While we've been waiting to the seeds to sprout, (cat+seed tray=disaster) we've been busy (between showers, hailstones and thunder storms!!) building a No Dig bed. It was our first time this year trying this out. I promise to do a small blog explaining what this is and how easy it is to do! I do have a lot of blogs to post up but I just haven't had the time to sort out the photos and words. Here is an idea of what will be coming soon;

• More crafts with tins
• Layman's danishes
• Recycling 
• An Cuige allotments
• My own allotment
• Knitted tea cosy
• Interiors
• and..fashion.. yes I know, I'm in my wellies and mucky clothes most of the time!

The allotment..

It looks so bleak at this time of year!

As the weather was atrocious last year and we were over run with snails and slugs, the poor allotment was left to over-grow. I did have some small raised beds planted in the back "secret garden" yet the yield was little to nothing. Lets just say the snails were well fed last year. As it's now coming into April, it's about time to start preparing the ground/beds for planting in May. Some say you are ready to plant in April, but I find the last chance/risk of frost is after the second week of May. The climate has changed so much over the last few years that the sowing and pricking out times have been later and later. 2 years ago I was caught out in May, it actually snowed the first week!! A good way to test if your soil is warm enough for planting is by sticking your elbow in it, if it's somewhat warm you are ready. Another way they used to test the soil in ye olden times was to pull the gruds/knickers down and sit on it but you don't want to frighten the neighbours, right? :)

This week, Himself and Meself got busy! (Dirty minds!) On his day off we armed ourselves with all of the gardening tools and some muscle. The raised beds were all over the place last year and I wasn't very happy with the layout. Behind the raised beds we have another 11ft to the back fence and I was hoping that this year we could put a sitting area in there. We've been using that whole area for mulching/compost so that's going to be a huge job to clear out! (I had planned to lay out the allotment like this next picture because it was so quaint, but as always, any plans I make Himself wants to do the opposite.) It gets great sun in the evening as it faces west so it's a sin not to use it!

I was on Pinterest this week looking for inspiration for the back area, I found this..so simple and it doesn't look like it needs alot of up keep.

 

I love the use of the bamboo, it makes a really relaxing rustling sound in a breeze!