DIY strawberry planter

Its about this time of year when I start looking at planters for my strawberries, trailing plants and tomatoes. I have seen drain pipes or plumbing pipes used as vertical planters, and came across blooming marvelous yesterday. However all these things require me to part with my hard earned cash. So whilst looking around this morning, like a bolt out of the blue, inspiration found me, in the form of black flower buckets (you know, the ones they use in supermarkets), that have been sitting in the garden for years. A stack of 20 of them cost me £1.00 from the recycling centre a few years ago and they have been useful planters in various ways. Last year I cut them in half and sunk each half in rows into grow bags and planted them with tomatoes.
This year they will become strawberry planters.
First I emptied the puddle of water out of 2 of the buckets. I hunted out the drill and the large hole maker drill bit.

Then I put the bucket on its side and drilled holes at regular intervals all around. (be careful if you are doing this, because the drill bit slips)

Then I fed the strawberry runners from last year through the holes, stacked one bucket on top of the other. Planted strawberry plants around the edge of the top of the bottom bucket and in the top of the top bucket. Voila.......1 complete strawberry planter tower. Cost...ummmm 10 pence :)

Folia

Ive just found folia a social gardening and tracker website. It looks interesting. I can put in my planting dates, harvesting dates and quantities. I have put in my gardening zone, frost dates and plantings so far. You can also put in seed swaps and requests. You can also update your garden with first sproutings, transplanting etc. Check it out and sign up. No subscription needed for the lite version.

Preparations for planting

I have my potatoes chitting in the conservatory, and boy will I have alot of potatoes this year. I ordered enough potatoes for the spud break and then stupidly forgot and ordered a whole load more. Imagine my suprise when they all arrived and Im suddenly wondering where I will put them all! Closely planted spuds this year then. I have also saved a bag of earlies and have them chilling in the fridge, to start later in the year in time for Christmas.

Ive also picked up a handy little tip and have stated my onion sets off, indoors, in peat pots. When the wether is a bit warmer I'll plant them out, pot and all. That will give me a head start. I only had enough pots for about half the onions, so I'll plant the rest out directly in the soil and then will have onions ready at different times, hopefully.

I have also started some spanish onions from seed. I tried seed a few years ago, with not much luck as I only got tiny onions amd have been using sets ever since. Anyway I thought Id give it a go again this year and see what happens. They have been in about a week now, but no signs of growth yet.

It's nearly spring and I'm back

Snowdrops and crocuses (crocus', croci?) and daffodils are poking thier heads up out of the ground, heralding the coming of spring. I love spring as it means the end of the winter and the start of a new years planting and growing.
So Daniel bought me a copy of The Self-sufficiency Manualfor Christmas. It has been living on my desk ever since, with me waiting and planning.
So after reading the section on Winter (page 180), I have made some slight modifications to my original allotment plan for the year.
I have 4 main beds (called breaks), only small, about 1.5m x 6m. These are beds A, B, C and D. I also have made a hot bed and have a space as a holding bed as well as the raspberries, strawberries and flowers.
Break A will have peas and beans and later on I will transfer brassicas from the holding bed here when the peas have finished.
Break B  is the mixed bed. It will have onions, sweetcorn, squash, courgette, cucumber.
Break C is for carrots, parsnips, beetroot and celery.
and break D is for spuds. When the new potatoes come out the leeks will go in.
Using the ground in this way will use the space more effectivly and hopefully allow me to grow much more. Im also planning on using the square foot gardening method in a typical Sue adaption. The adaption being, I am not using raised beds and each space will be aproc 2ft wide. Really all im going to do is closely plant my crops rather than plant in rows. I will have a small walk way between each crop to allow me to hand weed and inspect.

I have also learnt that I can 2 crops from my leeks (I love leeks!), by digging them up, complete with the root ball, cutting off the tops and replanting! I shall be giving this a go this year, just to see if it works.

Yay, I've started work on the hot bed.
First I dug a trench and sieved all the soil through a supermarket shopping basket to remove the rocks!
Then I had farm manure delivered and spread it along the length of the trench.

I trampled the manure down and then covered it in soil.

I put in plastic hoops and covered with plastic, polytunnel style!

I also moved the cold frame over a part of it and will cover that in plastic.

The plastic Im using is just some stuff I found lying around at home. I think it will break down and wont be so good on the allotment. So I have 2 choices, I can either get some UV plastic sheeting (like green house plastic) or I could use fleece. Now Im thinking fleece will let in the light, keep in the warmth and let in moisture, so am def swaying that way. Maybe I could use it over the cold frame too.

Allotment harvest

I'm still gathering goodies from the allotment. Following a 2 hour digging and weeding session today I gathered a few bits including 5 leeks, a few pototoes I found whilst turning the potato patch, 1 celery plant, 3 parsnips (I know its too early to pull them up, I couldn't resist), some french beans and the remainder of the beetroot......totalling around a dozen plants the largest of which weighes nearly 500g (and they are nearly all that size).

I'm in the process of making a hearty filling winter soup with some of it and whilst looking for some beetroot recipes found these......

beetroot cake 1
beetroot cake 2

so I guess I'll be making beetroot cake tomorrow then :)

More apples

My good mate Kim (hi Kim) kindly let me raid her apple tree. She just lets them
fall and then throws them away :( So I came away yesterday with 5 carrier bags full and that was from the branches I could reach from standing.

I've sorted the apples into 'use now' and 'store for later' and put the 'store for later' ones in trays in the garage wrapped in sheets of newspaper.

Then I have set about starting to use the 'use now' ones. I've made iced apple souffle and apple snow, 3 apple cakes (now frozen) had pork chops with apple for dinner, along with boiled potatoes from the allotment. I peeled and chopped some using my new apple corer and slicer tool. Anybody with alot of apples to process needs one of these handy little gagets, they save hours of chopping. The apple slices are in the freezer waiting to be turned into apple pie on Sunday.

On the allotment front, I covered part of the plot with black platic today in preparation for winter. I put it over the green manure I had sown a few weeks ago. It was raining and I just did not have the time to dig it all in. I'll pull up the plastic in the spring and turn the soil when its all rotted down.

I also dug up the last of the potatoes, although I always manage to leave some which pop up as new plants the following year. Trouble if I can't bear to chop them down, so I end up with random poato plants in weird places.

I bought some manure a few days ago, so will cover the bases of the fruit trees with newspaper and cover that in manure sometime soon. I bought some garlic bulbs too and must remember to get them in the ground soon, rather than forget and plant them in spring, like I did this year, which resulted in a poor crop suitable only for making bug spray.

Tomato soup

2 1/2 lb of tomatoes later and Ive just sat and enjoyed my first bowl of home made cream of tomato soup. Mmmmmmmm

I also found another apple tree and spent the afternoon peeling apples to make apple cake, apple sauce with lumps in and just cut up the rest of the apples to make smooth apple sauce (cooked and put through a sieve). I peeled and cut up the rest of the pears but still need to process and bottle them and still have a crate of apples to wade my way through along with the rest of the carrots..............I guess I wont be going to bed any time soon.