How Green is My Valley?

I can't comment on any valleys but the allotment is very green. 

Unbelievable to see how much work has gone on. The remaining compost bins are done, the last of the raised beds are constructed and in and one of the final acts (at least for now) of construction about to take place - the fruit cage.

But before that, a quick recap. The bees came on 17 May - and they seem to have settled in well. They are certainly very active. Hopefully the honey will help cure my hay fever!!

So now that the plants are well and truly growing, the emphasis is on making sure the crops are watered regularly to avoid drying out and also that produce is picked and eaten before it runs to seed. The strawberries have certainly gone down well.

As mentioned earlier, the final construction job this year is the fruit cage. We've had the plants for some time now and we need to get them in so the cage has to be built.

Not quite finished but it will be next week.


The wildflower area we sowed in April is growing well and although it won't be as impressive this year, it certainly will in years to come.

More updates to follow so keep tuned in and watch on Twitter.


As always, photographs can be found on Picasa Web Albums

One final thing - Sefton Green Gym has been added to Google+, definitely a work in progress.


See you next time.

Late? Nearly as late as summer!!

Yes, I know it's been a couple of weeks. I'm afraid other events have taken over and I haven't kept on top of things. Still, I'm here now so I'll update the last 3 gyms


26 April 2012


A busy day of planting, building and numbering. Parsnips, spring onions planted in the raised beds and poly tunnel along with seedlings being planted on was the main planting on a very wet day. 

Parsnips

Busy poly tunnel

Spring onion planting

Outside, it was more compost bin building. Not the best day for it with the rain (did I mention the rain already?)

We also removed a sunken bath pond to make space for the seating area. The water was carefully checked for any frogs and one was found and relocated. The remaining water was transferred to another pond.

Nearly forgot about the numbering - all the beds have been numbered now so that it's easy to identify what's in each bed - at least that's the theory!!

3 May 2012


Another week of building and planting thankfully without the rain.


This week the focus was on new raised beds. This involved building them from scratch, relocating existing beds and then planting in the new ones. 

From this

To these

Roy was also back doing some more carving - what a bloke.

I also took the opportunity to do some macro photography - can't wait till summer comes and I can get close up with the bugs.

Another successful day with lots of progress made. We have a great team of volunteers at Sefton Green Gym.

10 May 2012

Water and bees - do they mix? Well, if anyone wanted to do a thesis on that subject today would be a good day. After the seemingly non-stop rain we've had this week it was no surprise to find out that pretty much everywhere was waterlogged.

Inside the polytunnel

This is where I spent most of the morning making space for a compost bin

As for the bees, we are having a beehive managed by another allotment holder, John Moran, and so a bee cage was built. The purpose of a bee cage is to guide the bees in and out of the hive without risk of them flying into a bunch of unsuspecting humans who might not have noticed them!!

Yes, he did walk into the netting but sadly I missed it!!

The manuka bushes are in flower now, if not as tall as we expect them to be. These will provide the main food source for the bees and will provide some very nice honey I'm told.

And so that's it for another week. Forecast for the week is more rain but we need it on the allotment, I just hope it stays off on Thursday.  BBC Weather

More pictures available here as usual and follow the green gym on Twitter

See you next week and happy allotmenteering (I think I invented a word!!)