| Plot 17 – The Earthly Comforts Garden Season One – Recovering Plot 17 September – December 2022 |
| The Allotment Plotters Directory |
| Better to be a Tad Proud! |
| Raised Beds – 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 14 and 15 benefited from soil depth increases on Thursday. Also managed to lay up the R.A.I.S.E.D but not B.E.D unless stacking counts – but 6 small single beds will prove more than ample. |
| This started the day as a ton of sieved vermipost – compost and vermicast – however now it is distributed to eight beds. |
| Better to be a Tad Proud! Following on from the last episode of The Allotment Plotters last Wednesday, Suze and l managed to get our wish, and we were indeed granted one more fine day, which was yesterday. Today, however, as l look out the window and type this post, l am grateful that we finally managed to finish the year off as well, as this is the last post for this season of series one, so all is well. In the last couple of days of this week, we managed to empty off and spread into the raised beds two tons of vermipost and compost soils which increased the depths of the beds to much more excellent levels. As Suze would say and did many times, “It’s a bit proud”, referring to the soil level, to which l responded with “, Better to be a tad proud than lower than required, plus whilst it sits, the soils will settle and drop down a bit as they become weathered.” We had seven beds left to do yesterday, all single-tiered, and we also managed to top the soil off one of the double beds behind the shed. Unlike Boxing Day, when we increased the depth with the aged and mature compost filler already on the allotment, we used our homegrown vermicast and compost mixtures yesterday. The other beauty of using our vermicast was that it was filled with worms, eggs and assorted worms and instantly improved the microbial activity in each bed. We have an idea to implement in the springtime on the raised beds, which will further encourage worm activity. The nice thing about using our sieved mixture was that it was much easier to distribute out with fewer clumps, unlike the wetter aged compost from Monday. Once Suze and l got into a routine, we could fill the raised beds very quickly, which allowed us a little additional time to work on other smaller projects. For Suze, it was the back entrance to the allotment, which is overgrown with an aggressive blackberry bush, and for me, it was to set up the Backyard Farming concept. I could comfortably fit six beds into the old chicken location, with another three stacked beds to be utilised as a new bokashi storage system. We have twenty-four small raised bed sleeves and have plans to also use six in the polytunnel. We will still have some launching beds if the business concept proves fruitful and sufficient for our uses. One of the questions on Question Time was which five vegetables you use most often? And some of the answers that came back were sufficient to start the project with as an idea as they lined up with research l had undertaken myself early this year. There are sufficient surplus soils around the allotment to fill our six project beds, and there will be top-up compost. With the primary raised beds now out of the way as far as soil work goes. Season One is finished, and Season Two can kick off in January. The tasks we have to achieve and complete are minimal in many ways in consideration of what we have achieved over the last four months, but they are still necessary. They are just more practical and look at convenience and increased efficiency. Things like water harvesting, storage sheds, tidying up the shed, establishing the polytunnel, moving the compost bins into their new location. Setting up the business projects and the bathtub wormery, as well as some other smaller gardening maintenance tasks like relocating the raspberry and blackcurrant bushes, fixing the front gates and repairing the back entrance, shoring up and redressing the fencing and not forgetting to endeavour to bark chip the entire plot and of course not forgetting to plan what we intend to grow and where and starting the seedlings off during February. January to April 2023 will be just as busy as September to December, and Suze and l are stoked to get cracking. We also have the Butchery Garden to crack on with. For that, like the allotment, we need drier days. A far-off request looking outside the window now! |
| Slowly we finished off all the remaining raised beds and increased their depths ready for next season as well as laying up the backyard gardening concept. |
| Looking from the shed over the allotment prior to leaving we congratulated ourselves on getting stage one completed before the end of 2022. The soils and the beds can now rest till early to mid April when we will start to hoe the tops, add some fresher composts and make ready for planting. |
| Thanks for reading Season One See you next year. |
| Season Two – January – April 2023 |
| Earthly Comfort Designs available on my Redbubble Store. Collections – Earthen Wurmin, Inspired By Nature and The Autistic Composter Please Pop Along and Check Them Out. |
Earthly Comforts 
Impressive! You should be proud
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks – we are 🙂
LikeLike
Very impressive Rory and Suze. Bravo.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Sadje, stage one now done – all good fun 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cool. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
LikeLiked by 1 person
Congrats on your progress, Rory and Suze! You should be proud!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey Eugenia, we are very pleased 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Woot Woot 🥳 🎉 and a big Thank You to Mother Nature for giving you the day you needed.
One less thing on the List to stress about.
You & Suze should treat yourselves for a job well done! A take-away meal probably isn’t possible with both of your diets, but maybe a coffee/tea in a Cafe?? A few hours of something relaxing and fun! You both deserve it, and you’ve more than earned it !!
💌💌💌💌
LikeLiked by 1 person
We have said once we get through Stage 2 and ready for the Spring we can take a short break – it’s the usual ‘you know the score’, crack on 🙂
LikeLike
You should both be so proud of all you’ve done. Great job.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Lauren, we got it all done by the skin of our teeth – so yes stage one done and dusted makes us happier 🙂
Wishing you a healthier 2023 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person