At last the shorts come out

Once again May arrived on time this year and it was time to slap on the shorts and drag the trusty old rotavator kicking and screaming out of it's winter hide away. A swift tankful of petrol later and it was a much happier bunny and almost looking forward to playing in the soil. We had a lot to do in a very short space of time this year as everything was running a tad behind schedule due to one thing and another. This basically meant that we had 8 afternoons to rotavate and stake out both greenhouses so that we could slap 600+ plants in the ground. So, without further delay, I fired up the rotavator and started meandering along flower beds.

This year we'd once again sterilised the beds to keep the weeds at bay, something that we didn't do last year, and regretted when the rains came ... and stayed for a while ... it ended up being to wet to pull the weeds out, without dragging out huge clods of soil, and the blanket of weeds kept the beds wet and stopped them drying out ... rock and a hard place springs to mind ... so this year we decided to kill the buggers before they got beyond the "I'm a seed" stage ... unfortunately this meant that all the beds needed an extra rotavation to make sure that the soil was turned over and the sterilising agent dispersed, we don't want to kill the plants before we even get going

A few days later

After several days and a few passes of the rotavator the beds are pretty much ready for staking out so that we can plant up. A few years ago Barry decided that he should knock all the stakes in as I'm incapable of knocking in any of the 600+ stakes in an upright manner ... I've done my best to make sure he continues with that decision ... so a tad later, with a knackered Barry stood beside me, we're looking at 12 beds fully staked up and ready for the plants ... it's a good moment ... especially since I'm not the knackered muppet

The next day started early ... 11^am is very early for me to be dragged off a pc huh? ... and was basically a production line involving Barry wheeling barrow loads of plants from the small greenhouse, where they'd been waiting patiently, and putting one by every stake. I got the job of shuffling along on my arse, in just my shorts, planting each one in it's new home, you should see how fast they'll grow now that they're in the soil. Eventually all the plants had been brought in and slapped by the stake that was gonna be their support for the next few months, so Barry started to help me plant up the last couple of beds. I gave Barry the glory of planting the last plant in the large greenhouse ... not because I'm generous, but because he finished his side of the row slower than me, he's getting on a tad huh?

From nothing to planted in 1 day

After the large greenhouse the small greenhouse is a doddle, it only holds about 120 plants so with a tad of effort it can be prepped up, rotavated and planted all in the same day ... unfortunately this time I'm the muppet that has to make the effort. The rotavator lept through the beds happily, knowing that it was one of the last times it would be used and could soon go back to it's winter home and sleep for the rest of the year. In next to no time the 3 beds were ready for the stakes to go in ... time to go remind Barry how crap I am at knocking them in straight ... thankfully he once again agrees with me.

It wasn't long before we were standing back and looking at a fully planted up small greenhouse. It's a good job really because he was off for a weeks holiday in a couple of hours time and Wendy would have killed him if it had been delayed. Now all that was left was for me to rescue our veg patch so that the rotavator could head off for its much needed rest until next year, but that's another story and another post ... for now we were just happy to finally see all of the plants in the ground as they're far happier when they get out of their pots and everything is much easier to water ... made even easier by the fact that we have an irrigation system in both greenhouses, although you still need to hand water to ensure that each plant gets enough without drowning them all.

With all that done I meandered off to console a lonely looking crate of beer. It seemed to cheer up when I offered to take it out to sit in the sun for a quiet evening

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I'm blonde, not stupid Here's me pretending to have dug the trenches

It's bloody cold in January

Our season began bloody early this year, I'd just about recovered from celebrating the new year when we started! After last years problems with the weather, when we almost lost a hundred or so plants due to the fact that it pissed it down for so long that people started buying plans for wooden boats and searching for pairs of animals that they liked. This year we were taking no chances and decided that we'd slap in a spanking new drainage system for the top beds. When I say "we" I mean the royal we, Barry just sat on his arse in a nice warm room playing with google Did I mention it was cold? Seriously, I had to wear a jumper that was thicker than a redneck convention.

We started off with a trench that extended almost the full length of the large greenhouse, thankfully I wasn't the one who had to dig it. It ran from the existing drainage system, which is about a quarter of the way up, all the way to the very top of the greenhouse. Each of the other three top beds also had trenches dug along there full length, we're not taking any chances, and all four were connected by a cross trench. Did I mention that I'm glad that I wasn't the muppet that had to dig them? It looks like a lot of work, although the guy who dug them managed it in a long morning!

You wouldn't believe this was buried a few years ago

Now it's my turn

So, in I bimbled, shivering my poor nuts off, on a very cold January day, to find all our flower beds sitting on the paths and looking in a smidge of a sorry state. It's a tad weird looking at them from the under side. There was also a huge mound of stones and a coil of pipe lurking maliciously in the corner next to the wheel barrow and shovel ... so I went into the office to see Gary and grab a coffee, I'm not a cold weather person .... if it can't be done in shorts then it should be done by someone else huh? .... several coffees later, none with brandy in .. the stingy sod .... I gritted my teeth and stepped out into the cold .... after several days of acclimatising myself to the weather in this manner I started on the task of turning all the pipe, stones and soil into flower beds with a drainage system.

The first thing to do was to slap a thin layer of stones in all the trenches for the pipe to sit on, eventually it'll be wrapped in stones to stop soil clogging it up. It was interesting to see the exposed cross-section of the existing drainage system as you could see just how effective the stones were at keeping the soil away from the pipe, they looked as clean as the day that we ... that'd be the royal "we" again ... put the system in a couple of years ago. With that done I decided that enough was enough and meandered off to find a warm place and a crate of beer ... Eventually I ran out of beer so I had no excuse to not go and play with a hacksaw and some blue pipe.

Take one spade, a huge length of pipe and a bloody big pile of clay and soil

The pie eyed piper

Once the layer of stones was in .... and the beer finished .... it was time to start cutting the pipe to length and joining all the various sections together. The most important joint being the junction between the old and the new as it's pretty pointless draining all the beds and giving the resulting water no place to go ... kinda defeats the object. Although this was a simple task ... I'm blonde, I only do simple ... it's a smidge time consuming and playing with a hacksaw with frozen hands is not my idea of a fun day. Luckily the only arteries I cut we're all to do with drainage system. At this point I called it a day again, I used the excuse that it goes dark early, and once again went to hunt out a warm place and a crate of beer.

The next task involved a wheel barrow, a shovel, a few tons of stone and a lot of man power .... all provided by one man ..... As all of the pipework needed to be surrounded in a cosy coat of stones ... they're cosy to a pipe .... as I mentioned earlier, these act as a kind of filter and stop the soil from clogging the holes in the pipe, if you forget them then you might as well not bother digging the hole in the first place ... not that I dug the hole of course, but you get the point ... It gets pretty boring filling a barrow with stones and meandering it the length of the field, just to empty it into a hole, and then start again ... so once again I blamed the lack of sunshine and went to see if there was any beer left in the crate that was sat in a nice snug room at home.

It's a little weird seeing our irrigation system floating above our drainage system

Putting the beds back

At last the pile of stones was lower than a snakes neck tie and all of the pipes were covered with a good layer, so it was time to start putting the flower beds back where they were expected to be. This was a smidge easier than playing with the stones because at least the soil was beside the holes that it was expected to be in. However, when you're talking tons of soil, I shudder to think of just how many tons, there is no such thing as "an easy day". Once again it was just a matter of grunt work with a shovel and was more boring than watching England play cricket with ... well, just about anybody ... although the end result would be faster. Eventually all the soil was back where it was before we started and I was able to see the paths again for the first time in many a week, so I took my aching and frozen body off to accost a crate of beer.

Was it worth it?

So far the system seems to be performing as expected but until we take the roofs off the greenhouse, and have a bout of torrential rain, it's a bit hard to judge. I do know that the beds were in a far better state when we came to prepping them up ready for planting, but that's another story and another post We're pretty confident that we won't have any problems with them flooding like they did last year, of course this now means that we'll have problems keeping them watered enough for the plants to grow, but it's easier to turn a tap on than it is to turn the weather off huh? ... anyway, I've just spotted a lonely looking crate of beer so I think I'll just go keep it company.

Have fun
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