Plotting Up

After some rather on and off weather lately and my epic failure to get down the plot last weekend I decided to make the most of an early finish from work today. Having driven to Coulsdon in Surrey for a job that took all of 15 mins I was rather pissed off to say the least. But the sun was shining and so we musn’t grumble. Got back into Canterbury around 4pm and decided fuck it. I can’t be bothered to go back tot he office now (Apologies if you read this guys) the sun is out and i need to get down on with my plotting up.

Like so many visits so far I was a solitary figure at the allotment upon arrival at around 4:30. nice and quiet. Just how i like it. There was plan. I needed to finish off the work i had started last time out. This was the erection of the various netted structures and supports canes. I was delighted to see that the brassicas that were left with out shelter were still there. I think they are my white sprouting broccoli but could be cabbage as i couldn’t remember which were which. Now the bad news. the ones that i had gone to the trouble to construct a netted cage over looked like they had been decimated by some hungry predator. Poor show.

Being an allotmenteer has made me a scavenger of epic proportions which i must say is not a bad thing as I like to think of it more as recycling than scavenging. Working in construction has its benefits when it comes to this as there are always odds and sods going spare. The Boss has pointed out to me that there is a pile of quadrant now sitting up the top of our yard that is waste that I can help myself to and as an allotmenteer himself; has pointed out its use as a flexible material for forming cages and poly tunnels. Nice one Dean. I’ll have some of that.

So with the netting on the second of my structures was complete. 2 more jobs left. Next I wanted to get a structure of canes up and in place ready for the planting of my runner beans. Following a present from mum I now have 2 different varieties to try so I’m going to grown them both on the same support system.

This was constructed using the longest of the old bamboo canes that I had collected up from around the plot previously. These enabled me to erect a structure approx 7 ft tall and 9 ft long. The canes have been arranged quite simply in pairs along a single row approx 2ft apart and tied together at the top with blue nylon string. 2 further canes have been placed where the canes cross and are tied together to add stability and join the whole frame together.

So with the bean support done and the netted cages sorted i had one last job to do today at that was to add a bit of randomness to the whole plot by way of bird scarers. The obligatory bottles and cans on the top of canes look OK but they are everywhere on every plot. I have seen a couple of small mirror balls dangling away on a plot nearby and I remember reading somewhere about using CD’s as they reflect the light so i attached a bunch of old CD’s and DVD’s to some string and tied them to some canes. Plus it gave me the excuse to get a bit of tit on display.