Lots To Do & No Time To Do It……
Life near the beach, too many distractions.!?

Now that we have our allotment we found out that it meant more work than just digging and planting. The maintenance that is required by the allotment association has meant the purchase of some sort of grass cutter. As we are both busy people it was decided that it had to be mechanical and serve more than one purpose.

This led us to looking at petrol strimmers. These come in various sizes and prices, so when we looked at them we were bemused and confused to say the least. Then we saw the Ryobi Expand-it range. This range covers most jobs that we may require an engine for including a few that we will not use. So it was decided that we would purchase the Brush cutter/Trimmer RBC30SESA.

So how have we got on with it?

This is the first two stroke engine I have used so after getting a can of petrol and adding the oil that comes in the box and giving it a shake all was good to go. Filling the small tank under the engine was a bit fiddly and it is easy to get fuel everywhere! Next time I’ll take note to pour really slowly and not to fill it right up.

The first outing was with the bump feed line head attached to get the grass down to a manageable length. The instructions on the side of the motor are good and clear on how to start the motor. This took quite a few pulls for the first start but I expected that as the fuel needed to get through. Once it had started and I’d waited the 10 seconds and moved the lever as per instructions, this settled the revs. I then enthusiastically tried to start trimming and didn’t understand why it wasn’t working, a minute later it had warmed up a bit and off I went. Having only used electric strimmers in the past I found it very noisy but very effective. The thicker strimming line takes a lot more of a bashing before it needed extending. This is done by bashing the head on the ground, very disconcerting the first time. I found the best way to do this was to let the throttle go then bash it on the ground this meant it didn’t ‘kick’ and feel as though the motor was overloaded.

In all we are very pleased with our first large purchase for the allotment and I have a feeling it will be getting a lot of use in the summer months until we have cleared and dug out all the grass.

I have yet to try the other two attachments, the Brush Cutter blade and the Pro Cut head as it was only grass I was cutting.

We thought we’d experiment with our own paper pots, rather than using the standard plastic pots or buying biodegradable ones. We did have to buy a newspaper – not a common occurrence in our house, but it did get read – just some would argue it wasn’t news by the time we got round to it!

I ripped the sheets down the fold and then folded long ways. I then took a wine bottle (I wanted 3″ pots for the squash plants) and rolled the paper around the base. Then crushed the base, filled with compost and planted the seeds. The pots have worked really well, transplanting the squashes into the allotment worked really well, I just wish we’d worked out how to stop the slugs – out of the 18 plants that germinated 5 are surviving on the allotment….

Resources sourced, tools on the ready, we had the first steps to make our raised beds down the allotment. The first quest was to get the wood to the allotment. With wood strapped to the top of the car we drove to the parking bay outside the allotment gate. Our allotment is at the bottom of the site, as far from the gate as you can get! We’d bought enough wood to make 8 beds, that’s 48 pieces of 4″ x 1″ by 3 to 3.4m lengths. That’s at least 6 journey’s up and down the allotment for each of our family. Do we try and drive the car down… what the heck! Yes, job done in half the time.

Constructing the beds was quite simple really, the 3.4m lengths were already cut by the very nice man at Oxford Wood Recyclers . The 1.5m lengths had to be cut from our 3m lengths (it was decided it would be easily to transport and unload these longer lengths). We then made 16 ends, then built the side. Time ran out, but our next job is to stick the copper tape round the tops.

Unfortunately siting the beds is proving slightly difficult as we have already started to grow potatoes, sweetcorn, green beans, beetroot , parsnips and turnips, but in time they will be sited, filled and full of yummy veg, that we’ll enjoy and not the slugs. We always said this year was going to be a very experimental year – each problem solved – with another just over the horizon no doubt!

I don’t like slugs. They make me angry, we spend lots of time ‘doing’ and the slugs just mozzy on past leaving a slimy trail of devastation. We planted out our squash plants a couple of weeks ago, our first really serious allotment venture and the slugs have had 3 of every 4 plants. It’s time for retaliation!

Slugs don’t like salt. Slugs really like beer. Slugs will avoid crossing copper. There is plenty of advice out there on how to rid yourself of slugs and just as many products to use. We’d had a similar problem with slugs last year in a formal flower garden. To keep the slugs out we made a raised bed and trimmed it with some waste copper pipe: this was very successful and we will be using this technique down the allotment. Our first task is to source the materials…

Timber – we’ve decided using reclaimed wood was the way to go, not just environmentally – using other peoples waste but also on our purse strings. We went to the Oxford Wood Recycling and purchased a lot of 4″ x 1″ timber at 50p a metre. Our beds are going to be 1.5m by 3.4m to suit the size of our allotment. We will also need 4 arris rail posts for each corner.

Copper – we’ve decided to use stick on tape – purely due to cost as pipe will be very expensive and we don’t have that much waste! Bought off ebay.

Screws – 2″ long purchased for a previous job from screwfix

Hubby has sent me an excellent link to KULER. The site enables you to upload images like the one above and create a colour palette. I made this one.

This is a great tool. I have posted it on the college VLE site for my fashion students to use when they create their own mood boards.

I thought the Christmas holidays were supposed to bring snow and snowman building, but no we’ve snow in the Easter holidays instead! The weather forecasters really do have their jobs cut out. We turned the heating off a few weeks ago, adamant that Spring had sprung. The snow drops have been and gone, as have the daffodils, yet we now have snow. We planted out our potatoes yesterday thinking we were late but maybe we’re a bit early. I don’t think we have to be concerned that the raspberries would be planted out late