Building up the garden
I'm keeping a logbook of what I do in the garden, and stuff has been progressively growing larger. Mostly stuff that we acquire (buy, get donated, assemble) and things that need to be moved to the garden.
Short recap.
Sown (21-3): radishes, lettuce, spinach, Spring onions, carrot. Transplanted the two spinach plants I had started in the windowsill, the blueberry and garlic and celery we had on the balcony as well.
This cleared the balcony right up, and I swept all the old tree seeds and leaves into our little composting bucket and took it to the allotment for composting. This is a strategy that will keep happening for all time. The sole reason we got the worm bin last year is because for the apartments there is no green bin, so the worm bin was the only way to compost. Now the composting will happen on the allotment and I have secured four buckets of various sizes with a lid for easy transportation. All but the largest one of 10 liters fit into my bike saddlebags.
A week later on the 27th I sowed beets and started to dig a trench for the pallets I had procured. Eisirt was visiting his parents and would meet me there.
The inlaws gifted me with some tools left over from Tante Bas her inheritance. She passed away last year, and his parents were considerate enough to save some of her tools for my allotment. They had no idea that would be happening this soon, but it was very welcome!
They got me a spade as well, a very sturdy one, and a hoe and rake -- a swapping out system of Gardena where you can bolt various ends onto a very long handle. Very nice!
Kwibus Kwaliteits Kontrole!
March 31st was the start of the garden plants at Aldi, and because I figured they would not have everything set up in the morning, I went in after work. For € 16,93 I bought:
4 yellow bell pepper plants
4 red bell pepper plants
6 broccoli plants
6 cauliflower plants
6 lettuce plants
6 celery plants
6 parsley plants
The fruit trees were nowhere to be seen at my Aldi though, and I sent Marjolinda a message warning her the plants were going fast at my Aldi.
She called me a few minutes later. "They have plenty of fruit trees still left at mine. Want me to pick some up for you?"
She borrowed a car from her flatmate, picked up the fruit trees, and came to drop them off at my door! Quite the service. For € 25,- she got me:
1 Jonagold apple tree
1 Golden delicious apple tree
1 prune tree
1 pear tree
1 cherry tree
The fruit trees had basically no roots at all on them. The cards said to plant them asap and water every other day. I hope that will be well. I moved the trees to the allotment the next day (the rest will have to wait a bit longer) and dug them into the soil, relishing my new spiffy spade. I read on the internet to place them at least a meter and a half apart, so I tried to do so. This is when I noticed my radishes and spinach had pushed their heads above the ground already!
I'm a little overwhelmed -- FIVE fruit trees! -- but looking forward to them. I planted them on the south-west side of the garden, so they will provide the evening shade on my allotment alone (Trix told me to keep them under 2.5 meters tall) which will be welcome if the weather keeps going as it has the last few years, with temperatures over 30 degrees most summers. It will be a few years before they bear fruit, and looking at the absolute lack of roots, I really hope they will survive.
And then last Friday I had ordered no-mix concrete to secure the greenhouse into the ground with. I picked a time slot at the end of the afternoon to pick up my order, and picked up the car at home after Eisirt came home from work. One of the neighbours on te Bouvigne was putting new tiles into his garden, and a couple of pallets with tiles were stacked on the sidewalk, so I asked him if he needed the pallets as the tiles were used.
"Can I take them off your hands?"
He happily agreed, it would save him a trip to the munipal dump after all, and I managed to stash all four pallets into the Fiesta. They were a little smaller and thinner than the ones I had procured earlier, but it means with the seven pallets I now have on the allotment I can build two bays for my compost! More on that later, building the compost bays is a job for this afternoon.
Yesterday we moved the flat packs for the greenhouse to the allotment, and we took 20 liters of clean tap water in the buckets with lid and a jerrycan as well. We managed to screw the foundation pieces together and dug holes and a bit of a trench to hold the base of the greenhouse in place. It allowed the small legs of the foundation to sink a little more into the holes.
A neighbouring garden had the same greenhouse, and they had recently (or so Trix, another gardener, said) placed large supports on the inside of the greenhouse so it had even more support. I told Eisirt if we wanted to do this as well, we had to get some poles now, before we would mix the concrete. Eisirt rode back home to pick up a large parasol pole he had found a few years back ("Die had ik nou net nodig" indeed!) and I proceeded to shorten a long pole I had scrounged from a waste container on the Bouvigne a week earlier. Once the supports were shortened sufficiently, we poured the concrete around the foundation's legs (it went "bloep!") and waited a whole 15 minutes for it to harden.
The flat packs were wrapped in some plastic sheeting I had saved (My rolls of fabric are shipped in humongous amounts of strong, green plastic sheets) and we cleared away our tools. Actually building the greenhouse is a job for another day. We were exhausted.
When Eisirt goes to work this afternoon, I'll go screw some pallets together for the compost bin. But work is proceeding!
Short recap.
Sown (21-3): radishes, lettuce, spinach, Spring onions, carrot. Transplanted the two spinach plants I had started in the windowsill, the blueberry and garlic and celery we had on the balcony as well.
This cleared the balcony right up, and I swept all the old tree seeds and leaves into our little composting bucket and took it to the allotment for composting. This is a strategy that will keep happening for all time. The sole reason we got the worm bin last year is because for the apartments there is no green bin, so the worm bin was the only way to compost. Now the composting will happen on the allotment and I have secured four buckets of various sizes with a lid for easy transportation. All but the largest one of 10 liters fit into my bike saddlebags.
A week later on the 27th I sowed beets and started to dig a trench for the pallets I had procured. Eisirt was visiting his parents and would meet me there.
The inlaws gifted me with some tools left over from Tante Bas her inheritance. She passed away last year, and his parents were considerate enough to save some of her tools for my allotment. They had no idea that would be happening this soon, but it was very welcome!
They got me a spade as well, a very sturdy one, and a hoe and rake -- a swapping out system of Gardena where you can bolt various ends onto a very long handle. Very nice!
Kwibus Kwaliteits Kontrole!
March 31st was the start of the garden plants at Aldi, and because I figured they would not have everything set up in the morning, I went in after work. For € 16,93 I bought:
4 yellow bell pepper plants
4 red bell pepper plants
6 broccoli plants
6 cauliflower plants
6 lettuce plants
6 celery plants
6 parsley plants
The fruit trees were nowhere to be seen at my Aldi though, and I sent Marjolinda a message warning her the plants were going fast at my Aldi.
She called me a few minutes later. "They have plenty of fruit trees still left at mine. Want me to pick some up for you?"
She borrowed a car from her flatmate, picked up the fruit trees, and came to drop them off at my door! Quite the service. For € 25,- she got me:
1 Jonagold apple tree
1 Golden delicious apple tree
1 prune tree
1 pear tree
1 cherry tree
The fruit trees had basically no roots at all on them. The cards said to plant them asap and water every other day. I hope that will be well. I moved the trees to the allotment the next day (the rest will have to wait a bit longer) and dug them into the soil, relishing my new spiffy spade. I read on the internet to place them at least a meter and a half apart, so I tried to do so. This is when I noticed my radishes and spinach had pushed their heads above the ground already!
I'm a little overwhelmed -- FIVE fruit trees! -- but looking forward to them. I planted them on the south-west side of the garden, so they will provide the evening shade on my allotment alone (Trix told me to keep them under 2.5 meters tall) which will be welcome if the weather keeps going as it has the last few years, with temperatures over 30 degrees most summers. It will be a few years before they bear fruit, and looking at the absolute lack of roots, I really hope they will survive.
And then last Friday I had ordered no-mix concrete to secure the greenhouse into the ground with. I picked a time slot at the end of the afternoon to pick up my order, and picked up the car at home after Eisirt came home from work. One of the neighbours on te Bouvigne was putting new tiles into his garden, and a couple of pallets with tiles were stacked on the sidewalk, so I asked him if he needed the pallets as the tiles were used.
"Can I take them off your hands?"
He happily agreed, it would save him a trip to the munipal dump after all, and I managed to stash all four pallets into the Fiesta. They were a little smaller and thinner than the ones I had procured earlier, but it means with the seven pallets I now have on the allotment I can build two bays for my compost! More on that later, building the compost bays is a job for this afternoon.
Yesterday we moved the flat packs for the greenhouse to the allotment, and we took 20 liters of clean tap water in the buckets with lid and a jerrycan as well. We managed to screw the foundation pieces together and dug holes and a bit of a trench to hold the base of the greenhouse in place. It allowed the small legs of the foundation to sink a little more into the holes.
A neighbouring garden had the same greenhouse, and they had recently (or so Trix, another gardener, said) placed large supports on the inside of the greenhouse so it had even more support. I told Eisirt if we wanted to do this as well, we had to get some poles now, before we would mix the concrete. Eisirt rode back home to pick up a large parasol pole he had found a few years back ("Die had ik nou net nodig" indeed!) and I proceeded to shorten a long pole I had scrounged from a waste container on the Bouvigne a week earlier. Once the supports were shortened sufficiently, we poured the concrete around the foundation's legs (it went "bloep!") and waited a whole 15 minutes for it to harden.
The flat packs were wrapped in some plastic sheeting I had saved (My rolls of fabric are shipped in humongous amounts of strong, green plastic sheets) and we cleared away our tools. Actually building the greenhouse is a job for another day. We were exhausted.
When Eisirt goes to work this afternoon, I'll go screw some pallets together for the compost bin. But work is proceeding!