Construction again!

With all my seedlings looking so fine at home crammed onto their various perches, it’ll soon be time to start planting them out – & not a moment to soon as far at the bulging mini greenhouse & windowsills are concerned.

I’ve been hardening off the BROAD BEANS (h barry plot 19) & PARSNIPS (hsl Guernsey) – I’ve given up on the parsnip seed that I saved from last year (they had about 5 weeks in which to do something, & didn’t) – & yet it is the PEAS (hsl gladstone & hsl newick) that are ready for planting out first.

This made making pea supports quite pressing, so I’ve been giving the layout of beds c1 & c2 some thought. The 4’ long bamboo stick ‘tent’ structures were ok last year, but they did get increasing rickety as the season progressed & the autumn winds increased, so if I can do something a little more sturdy, that would be a lot better.

Much pondering later, I set off to the Hill yesterday with my carpenter’s hat on to turn my plans into reality, & here’s what I came up with. The wooden uprights & cross piece are made of the same 2” by 1” battens that I’ve been using as stakes for the raised beds, & these are screwed into the sides of the beds & braced, then the strings pass through holes drilled in the cross piece & are held taut by green fleece pegs. They look pretty tidy if I say so myself – how sturdy they prove to be, we shall see in due course.

I put the second one up today, with encouragement from Julie (2nd best plot) & Pottager Chrissie. That’s if you count shouting across ‘give us a tune’ encouragement – although I do concede that the pea frames have a passing harp-like resemblance...

I think that this week must be ‘good deed’ week – Reg-next-plot’s barrowed his excess strawberry bed soil to beef up my potato beds, novice-neighbour-Jody asked if I’d like their old bench seat which they are replacing, Jason (behind retired Maureen) let me raid his string when I’d run out & Julie dropped in some details from her planting-by-the-moon book. These I examined closely whilst having a sandwich at the club house, & can only say that it requires further study.

And before I came home I planted out another few POTATOES (international kidney, & four that I bought back from holiday in Tenerife) to remind myself that I’m a gardener.