Garden Project 2011 - PolyTunnel, Fence, Guttering, everything...

26th Jan - Another year and the Garden slowly comes through another stern test in Winter were it spent many weeks under snow

As you can see the garden is looking a little rough around the edges so may have a look @ re-turfing some of the lawn where the Winter Weather and the dog have scrubbed some of the grass away.  From the picture right you can also see I've looked into the poor results of 2010, so looked @ ways of reducing the clay in the soil.  In the Autumn I emptied the content of the Compost Bin and let that rot over the Winter. In early January, I went to a local Farm to get some bags of manure to help supplement the soil to aid better growing in 2011. So this as you can see rotting away in the Polytunnel as I type,  I intend to in the next few weeks start to turn the soil over and of course as the weather gets better start sowing the seeds.  Another job I need to do is to extend the water feeding hoses within the Polytunnel so the water distribution covers the shelves along with the main floor area.

Will update the page more as we look to improving the yield for 2011, I'm also looking to bringing back some of the lawn I extended in 2009 back to a veggie plot by adding a raised bed as I found some plants don't work within a Polytunnel.

February - So all I've really been doing is turning the soil over, the automatic watering system has been switched off to see if I can dry out the soil to avoid the issues I had last year.  I have added some more shredded paper to the soil to increase it ability to drain the water.  The soil is looking better than last year but it should take a few more weeks for the results to show in a better quality soil as the manure, stones & paper break up the clayey soil.

27th March - Confidence is growing with the soil in the PolyTunnel now becoming darker & more coarse, I've added a few more stones to the soil & just continued to turn it over with the Hoe.  With the confidence growing that I won't need to take it down, I've extended the Automatic watering system to the shelves so that as the new plants and existing plans are grown through the year, watering can definitely reach there.

17th April - Well I've planted all the seeds for this year, have gone for the salad which did so well last year, but also added the usual Potatoes, Tomatoes, Sweetcorn, Peppers, Carrots, etc.  With the weather being so hot & sunny I am manually watering the seeds twice a day, the spuds are in the ground & I planted these a few weeks earlier and their shoots are already coming through. 

2nd May - Shoots are now showing for almost everything except for the illusive Peppers, the soil in the PolyTunnel is really coarse and dry now, when it is turned over with the hoe it is now very black and there is little clay.  Just hoping as I add the shoots from the seeds to the ground they find the soil better irrigated and grow better.  Will add some pictures to show the progress.

29th May - Some of the shoots for the Lettuce & Sweetcorn have now been moved.  The Lettuce has been planted into the Poly Tunnel floor along with some of the sweetcorn.  The remainder of the sweetcorn I've planted outside to see which fairs the best?

Other planned Projects for 2011

We did say back in 2009 that we'd look at other Garden Projects for the following years, so here's the list pasted in from the previous Garden Projects, will add the details here as we progress the others:

Paint the fence, if I want it to last after all that hard work, it looks like I'll need a good few pots to get it all covered, unfortunately I've counted the panels and there are 42, I'll need a good brush & MP3 player. Just need to choose a colour?