At Home - The Vegetable Plot - Finished and Planting

I finished off trimming away the plastic. I painted the stakes and added boarding to the front of the paths to keep the mulch away from the grass. All finished. Well unless I changes something... oh and the little seedbed isn't finished. Damn!

Anyway, I decided to sink four pots into the ground and plant four Raspberry canes into them. I've done this so that they won't sprout everywhere as they had a tendency to do this up at the lottie. I've no idea if they are Summer or Autumn fruiting because I had both and they got mixed up, so we'll have to wait and see on that score.

I hope to get all or most of my strawberry plants that are dotted around the garden in this area as well as planting up my one and only Gooseberry plant. I would like to get one more to plant next to it at a future date. So this will be my fruit corner! Exciting stuff.

I've won a mixture of red and white onions on eBay, 20x Red Electric and 30x Senshyu. I think this will be plenty in a small space. I'm also going to buy Garlic Cristo. Apparently a French variety with a strong flavour that does well in the UK. I am a bit late I think but if I can get them quickly and plant them out asap I should do ok. Now to decide which bed they will go it. Decisions, decisions!!

At Home - The Vegetable Plot - Bark Mulch Paths (Updated)

Well I zoomed over to B&Q yesterday and bought 4 bags of Bark Mulch for the price of 3. Can never resist a bargain! Started to lay it down as paths and did the rest today. I had to fill in a few gaps with more weed suppressant membrane and then filled it all in with the bark. I am quite pleased with it, its just what I wanted. A bit of a woodland look about it. The very back path has been left at the moment with only membrane and a few slabs on top as I'm not too sure what I'll do there as this will be where I'll sort out my compost and I didn't have enough mulch to cover it anyway.

All that's left to do is trim off that awful plastic and make it look neat and tidy, and paint the stakes and little raised bed all the same colour, oh and add some boarding to the front of the paths to try to help keep the mulch back from the lawn. Apart from that. Job done!

Now I'm looking for Garlic and Onion sets, already bidding for some on eBay!

I went back out later today and made a start on trimming off the excess plastic and I have to say I think it looks so much neater. I only have two to do now. It was getting dark!

At Work - Time To Know When To Quit

Where to start. As some of you are aware I've had a bit of a horrendous year as Head Gardener with my gardening assistant and all the discplinaries he had right up to his last warning, with me having to report to them about everything he did or did not do. They still kept him on.

We only work Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He got himself on to a course which is every Friday, yes one of the three working days. It has nothing to do with the company and he went ahead and did it without there say so. My boss made a fuss to me saying that he wouldn't let him have an extra day elsewhere blah blah blah. Now he has given him an extra day on a Thursday.

Well with this and other staff doing such outrageous things from swearing and screaming at the boss and punching in doors, to thieving. My company has got me down, and I am not alone in feeling that way. Morale is low. I haven't attended work as much as I should have and now I have had a warning. Not verbally, of course, but by email. Not just about the days missed but that the High Standards have not been kept up like years past.

So all the hard work I have done over the past 4 years has totally been missed. I kind of guessed that something would be said about my not being in, I have grown ever increasingly miserable about having to go in and dreading it. But to say that my work isn't up to standard is just one more thing just too unbearable to take. I have finally decided that enough is enough. "About time too" my partner said to me.

The sad fact is it that I will not be able to get another gardening job, not in the near future anyway as I have little in the way of qualifications is this field and there is sweet fanny adams out there in that line of work. At this moment in time I'd be happy to be a cleaner, I'd get paid more for a start. £6.50 per hour isn't exactly a Head Gardener's wage. The fact that there are now only two of us instead of five gardeners seems to have gone by the wayside too. We're supposed to keep up all the standards.

I feel sad, I feel upset and I feel angry. But to be honest I think it really is time for me to go. The job was beginning to turn stale anyway and the morale is at an all time low not just in gardening but all over the Club. Things can only get worse and so its a good time to go.

I would like to think I can get a higher paid job and perhaps get myself on a course whilst waiting for the next dream job. Right now any job will do as where I am has kicked me in the teeth once too many times. If I don't leave they'll try to sack me or make my life a misery.

Soon to no longer be a Head Gardener. Tina

At Home - The Vegetable Plot - Soil Shifting Down Steps

Well I went to collect some soil from a lady off of Freecycle. This is the lady who lives up a number of steps. As it turned out the soil was lovely and it was the bagging up that tired me out first (knackered my back almost straightaway) and not the steps. Still, a lot of steps though.

The paths are nearly all lined with weed suppressant membrane and the raised beds are filled to where I want them, a little space left at the top so I can top up with compost/manure.

I was going to go and get bark mulch today to finish it of, but the soil shifting finished me off today instead. Nevermind at least it was dry and I've done it.

At Home - The Vegetable Garden - Nearly There

Today I lined both the middle raised beds with old compost bags and finally got to fill them in with the remainder of the soil. I used everything I had from everything left in the ton bag and two more small bags of soil. I kept going until there was nothing left to put in. I also ran out of steam by this time too. I was sweating in place ladies don't sweat!

The heavy work is all done now, unless I happen to get more soil to fill them all up a bit as they are a bit low.

All that is really left to do is just decorative really. Levelling out the paths a bit and hopefully gaining a little more soil from this. Laying down weed suppressant membrane and bark mulch on the top. I have to wait for pay day before I get the mulch. Also I want to just tidy up the plastic on the raised beds a bit so it all looks neat and tidy. Then well its all more or less done and I'll be ready to plant. I'll need a long sleep after all this!

At Home - The Vegetable Garden - Light At The End Of The Tunnel then Rain!

I went out with the intention of getting near to or actually finishing all I had to do in the vegetable garden today. I levelled out the front middle raised bed and lined it apart from one small piece in a corner.

I then went on to start levelling out the back one and then it began to rain, and rain, and rain a bit heavier. In the end I had to stop. Very frustrating.

I went out a little later and managed to finish levelling off this bed. I could do no more as the wood was wet so I couldn't line it until it dries out, and I could do any digging because the ground was too wet and so there was nothing left to do.

I do feel, however, that the light at the end of the tunnel is now in view and getting closer. I'm starting to think where I'll get my bark mulch and getting the willow lawn edging, so I am confident that it will all be finished this week. Weather permitting of course.

At Home The Vegetable Garden - Ups and Downs

On my journey into creating my vegetable garden there have certainly been ups and downs with regards to how I feel about the different events that have taken place. Finishing parts of the project have given me big highs and finding out I don't have enough materials or having to wait for different things have given me the lows.

I lined the bed by the wall the other day and tidied up the path, which is the first time its been clear in a while. Today I staked the bed by the wall and then started the process of filling it with soil. Firstly, I had some sand hanging about and spread this and dug it into the very bottom of beds, both the one by the wall and the one by the path. I've dug these well. Then started carting around the bags of soil from the front garden to the back, emptying them into the bed and raking it out level. I used up all the bags on this one bed.

I then started on the bed by the path. This was far easier. All I had to do was fill my wheelbarrow with soil from the ton bag and tip it into the bed. Easy! The doubts started to arise as I started to use up the soil in this big bag. Am I going to have enough to fill the two middle beds. So I have only used so much and stopped. I fill disappointed not to have been able to use more and fill it up more.

My thoughts and hopes on this are I still have to level up these beds, I have to dig over the now compacted ground, the paths need levelling and there is always more soil in those ton bags than you think. All this may bring me just enough soil not to look silly.

Here's hoping!

At Home - The Vegetable Plot - The Raised Beds Complete....... well almost

Today I was in a determined and surprisingly energetic mood considering I hadn't slept at all the night before. I did see the first couple of miners come up though out of the San Jose Mine. Glad they are well.

First of all I picked up all the turf and binned it, the pile of plant debris and binned it, and moved everything that didn't need to be there.

I then got to work making the raised beds. I semi made the middle front bed just so that I could make sure that the wall side raised bed would be level with the one by the path on the right.

The long piece of wood was made up of three bits which I had to attach together, then I levelled underneath this wood and attached the two ends. I need to stake this in to press it against the wall and line it with compost bags.

Then I made up the two middle beds. I unfortunately spent a bit of money on not the best wood no doubt as it did tend to split a bit. This wood was used on the backs of the beds so it won't notice too much that they are different.

I had a bit of the wood left enough to make one small bed by the shed. My thoughts are that perhaps this could be used for fruit.

The middle beds need to be levelled as they are way out, paint the bits not painted and then I have to line them both with compost bags as well. Then the fun really begins in earnest. Filling them all up with the soil that I have. I also have paths to make with the black membrane that I have and I would like to get some nice bark mulch to lay over the top quite thickly.

Once all of this is done, and if I have enough funds by then I would like to get some of that lovely woven willow lawn edging to go along the very front of these beds just to set it off and make it look more attractive.

The first thing I will plant will be the garlic and onion sets that I haven't bought yet!

At Home - The Vegetable Plot - The First Raised Bed!

Well I have made my first raised bed yippee! Put all the wood together, made sure it was level and lined it as suggested by VeggiemanPaul with old compost bags to try to help prevent rotting. I've put three stakes in to keep it pushed towards my path and have started to dig the bottom of what will be my raised bed.

All that is left to do with this bed is to fill it with soil and trim the edges of the compost bags so it looks nice and neat.

I feel like I might actually be getting somewhere! Only three beds, of which one is very large to go! I am shattered just doing one! Pictures to follow if my camera isn't broken!

At Home - The Vegetable Plot - Not Enough Wood

Well I moved the plants that I needed to move including the comfrey although I'm sure I'll see a return visit in the wrong place.

I managed to get the planks dry and have nearly finished painting them, although its taking an age to get them to dry so I can do the other side of some of them. I'm getting impatient to get going with the building of the raised beds now.

I've been measuring up again and again and have now come to the terrible conclusion that I don't have enough wood. I do have some thin bits of wood, something like skirting boards at work that I can bring home and make some sort of reinforced planks with. They don't need to be too long, it is to make the ends of some of the beds. Very frustrating though.

I've also finished digging up the rest of the grass and hope to get that in the wheelie bin this week along with all the other debris.

Well that's really all I've done. I would really have liked to have gotten started on the raised beds by now. I'm very annoyed. My patience is wearing a little thing with one thing and another at the moment, can you tell?

At Allotment - No I haven't returned but I have caused a stink!

Well went up to get my money for the shed today. Had a beer with my friend and have found out that people on the committee were upset about me leaving and those that have been on my plot spraying will be getting a bollocking (excuse my French)! Here was me trying to leave quietly and I still went out with a bang ha ha

Nobody but the Committee Secretary seems to have realised I've actually left which is quite funny too. I thought it was obvious but there you go.

Well the money for my shed and the money I would have paid for rent will now be used at home in my garden.

At Home - The Vegetable Plot - Moving

Well there has been a quiet period of no rain and wind after a miserable morning, so I've briefly been out in the garden this afternoon. I've moved two Cyclamen, an ornamental poppy and some Echinacea. Still haven't dug out the Comfrey just yet. I have to muster up some more energy. That will be the last thing to move away from the vegetable plot.

I tidied up a bit of the border, but its a bit wet so I haven't done much. Could do with several days of dry weather now, but as Autumn has arrived that's probably unlikely.

At Home - The Vegetable Plot - Almost Flat

I managed to get rid of that great big mound of grass today and whilst I was doing it managed to shaked out quite a lot of valuable soil. The wheelie bin is full to the top and weighs a ton again and I've filled 4 bags ready to take to work to go on the compost heap. I am starting to level it all out now as I feel its a bit easier with an even surface.

I've also gone a bit mad and dug up a Holly bush root which will be in the way. It took quite a bit of effort and me breaking my fork to get the bugger out, but I did it and its one less thing to worry about.

All that's left to take out is the Comfrey and move that to elsewhere, and the rest of the grass which is now a small patch. I've a few plants to shift along the border a bit and then I'm ready to get the wood out. I need to dry it out and paint it first so that could be a while off as it seems to be continually raining at the moment.

I am pretty shattered now but happy that I am making progress even if it is a little slow.