Plot 12A Raised beds

Everything looks great on Plot Number 12 A.

Well done Balcony and Gerry ...
you've made great use of the recycled boards :o)

well worth all the effort & the produce will speak for itself Balcony. Took me a while to get my raised beds constructed & filled before planting but Im getting so much from them now plus the ease of maintenance is less back breaking. Win Win !! Enjoyed the sequence of photo's.

Looking great there, got some seed potatoes yesterday : )

Get some Picasso seed potatoes Balcony. They produce huge tubers, very rewarding to grow, but dont keep after January. I had 2 weighing 2.5 lbs each. Lovely flavour.

You are doing jolly well working with the wet soil.

Lots of work there, but it will all become easier after your hard work. Good Luck with it all! :o)

@TT: Thank you for your comment & we have indeed made good use of the boards. Need a few more yet so will have to break down some pallets, but they are terribly difficult to break up, it takes quite a while to break them down.

@Bampy: It does take a while & the extra depth will also be a great advantage as there are places where the soil is not even one complete spit deep! All the manure I've put in has helped to bulk up the soil as well but once it is incorporated into the soil it will subside quite a bit. I'll probably spread the compost on top of the beds but I'd rather wait till I get the wooden stakes in that Gerry is making for me. Then I can nail the planks in place & it will make for a much stronger framework. At present the thin, white tubes are only there to hold up the planks till I can put the stakes in. So there is still some work to here yet.

@Stevie: Thanks, what potatoes did you get? Have you put them out to chit yet?

@ Diane: Is Picasso a main crop potato? Your spuds were HUGE! I got a few that came in at exactly 1lb each & I thought they were big!!! Were their hearts OK? Sometimes such big potatoes tend to make a hollow in the very centre of the tuber. To make such big potatoes they must need a very long growing season & lots of manure in the soil as well!

The soil tends to dry out quite quickly which can be a blessing or a curse - depending on how you look at it! It's terribly sticky. We have a sand & gravel subsoil as the field it seems was once upon a time a gravel pit till it became uneconomical & closed. I've been told they brought the land extracted from the widening of the A1 to fill in the pit & then they put a little topsoil over it & rented the land out for allotments. It can't be used for house building because of the nature of the land. Though that doesn't stop it from being converted into a cemetery! A few years ago the council changed the land use from allotments to cemetery use. Somebody asked how much time did we have left before half the remaining field is wanted for burial use & we were told we had 10 years before our land would be needed for burial sites! My half allotment is on the side that is earmarked for the extension of the cemetery! ;-(( Gerry's is on the other side so his is safe for another 20+ years!

@Nariz: Thanks for your good wishes! :-)) Yes, it is a lot of hard work but should give some good crops later in the year. All these beds have had horse manure dug in a spit's depth down. In places this means the manure is sitting between the soil & subsoil as in some places the soil is not even one spit deep!

I got a bag of early charlottes, like those with/in a salad and for some spring summer potatoe salad. They are out to chit now (see last but 1 pic on last blog). Will put those in in say 3 weeks times or after the cold spells and will then chit my bag of king edwards for the main crop. Have quite fertile soil on the veg patch and a slop getting more moisture towards the bottom so can stagger for a long period, well thats the aim : )

It's all go at 12a isn't it? Great job Balcony! I made my raised beds with railway sleepers but of course, they are a bit pricey, unlike your recycled crates! Well 'cadged'!

Thanks for that, Stevie. Hope your Charlottes do well for you. I've got 'Rocket' for my earlies. Haven't thought about what to put in for maincrop yet.

Hi Karen, yes, you are right, it is all go! If I had a garden of my own I might want to have railway sleepers but not on the allotment. As you rightfully say they are expensive & being unemployed I can't afford to spend much money. I had been waiting about 5 or 6 months for these crates & I count myself very fortunate to have been able to get hold of two crates at the same time. :-))They are much sought after my daughter tells me! Demand for them always exceeds supply!