Polytunnel palaver #2

Getting the woodwork sorted didn't prove quite as painful as trying to get the hoops put in square/straight/anchored down, diagonal measurements within 5cms tolerance etc.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to give them a couple of coats of preservative, then get the rest of it ready for slapping the cover on some time soon when that isn't so windy.

Chit hits the fan

Them new taters are kicking off in the greenhouse, with the first sprouts - or chits as they're known - starting to shoot.

While main crops probably aren't worth a punt when you weigh up how cheap they are to buy in the supermarkets, the amount of ground they take up for months and the risk of the dreaded blight; the earlies are a different story.

Last year, we had the first spuds in the ground in mid-February. It might have been mild enough to get them going, but frosts had us reaching for the fleece a few weeks later.

This time around, we're going to leave them in the greenhouse to chit for a bit longer - covering them with newspaper at night to fend off Jack.

The best we grew last year were Sharpe's Express. They came on tasty, with a decent yield. We liked the sound of Swift, but its low-growing haulm doesn't flower, meaning it was hard to tell when they were ready to dig.

Cara - a second early, strictly-speaking - cropped well into early summer before the blight got to them. We tried a main crop, Sarpo Mera, with mediocre results both crop and taste-wise.

We're pinning our faith in Red Duke of York and International Kidney (aka Jersey Royal...) this year, to see how they get on.

Crafty carrots

One thing which didn't do very well last year was carrots. The jury's still out on what went wrong, but several other plot-holders have said the same thing.

Hiding away from the rain in the greenhouse the other day, I found a packet of Nantes carrot seed. So instead of waiting to risk another £1.75 in the great outdoors, I decided to wang 'em in a bed that was going spare under glass.

They not only came up fast, a much higher percentage seemed to germinate than my last al fresco sowing. In fact looking at all the little seedlings that have popped up, I thinned one row straight away and found the roots already went down more than an inch.

Lucky packet..? Or are we onto something.?

Kicking off the cuttings

It's still a bit cold to plant most of the seeds I hope to get going in the greenhouse, but I've kicked off a few cuttings of mint - which is pretty bomb-proof - and rosemary, which I haven't tried growing before.

I'm hoping to grow a lot more herbs this year, having built a special bed for them out of some old scaffolding boards.

I've also started off a few rows of raddishes and carrots in the greenhouse, to see how they fare. Day time temps are hitting the 50 - 60C mark in there on a sunny day, but the nights are below freezing and forecast to stay cold for the next week or so.

Polytunnel palaver

Well, I've got to admit this isn't turning out to be the easiest thing I've ever built - probably because I tried to take a short cut or two when it came to setting it out and ended up paying for it later by having to dig some of the anchor posts out and re-site them to get the base straight and level because I hadn't measured the diagonals right.

I haven't finished this yet, but hope to get the cover on in a week or two when the wind drops, in time to start planting this season's crops in it. Leaving aside the initial hiccups, it looks strong and well-made now it's starting to come together.

After weeks of window shopping online, I opted to put a 12 x 15ft PT from First Tunnels on an extra bit of ground we were given by the allotment club last spring. While it set me back more than £500, I'm convinced it's going to pay for itself in terms of extra produce long before the five years they reckon the cover should last.

I went for First because their website is packed with tips, articles and videos on how to put them up, how to grow veg in them and bits of polytunnel bling you can buy to customise your new pride and joy. For some reason, you can get some sizes cheaper by ordering from Screwfix, so worth checking before you splash your cash.

+++I'll do a proper review when it's finished...

Cor blast, th'ass frosty

Well that was this morning, wasn't it. While I felt the chill when I went to uncover the tater chits in the greenhouse, it probably wasn't any colder than it's meant to be this time of year, but my neighbour's plots were thick with frost.

This time last year, I had my first seed potatoes in. Then I was up there every evening to tuck them in with fleece to keep Jack frost off and back each morning to uncover them, so I decided I'd plant the first earlies a little bit later this year to save some shoe leather.

While it might be less worry on the spud front, that's not looking so cracky where the garlic and onions are concerned. I know they reckon it likes a frost, because that makes it divide into cloves properly, but my fear's the wet. The soil's been saturated for yonks and - worse still - the medium-range forecast gives it quite a bit more rain. So I worry it's all going to go to rot.

Mind you the rhubarb looks like it's making a better fist of it this year - the second since I divided the clumps and moved it, so we'll hopefully be in for a few stalks in the spring.

How it all began

September 2014 seems so long ago. It was like a glimpse into another world, as the chairman of the allotment society drove me through the gates and past the rows of beautifully-cultivated plots.

There were fruit trees weighed down with fat, ripe apples and pears. Brambles thick with blackberries. Onions laid out in regimented rows. Greenhouses blushing with tomatoes.

Then we came to an overgrown strip, bordered by a riot of weeds and nettles. "This one's yours if you want it," he said. "Just needs a bit of work."

"We'll take it," I said, with no idea what those three simple words would lead to.

This rite of passage came for the sum of just £16.50 a year. It was a no-brainer, I thought. We easily spend that on bland, tasteless produce in a single trip to the supermarket. I was in clover, as I surveyed the docks and nettles. Dig it over and we'll be quids in.

Saying this just needs a bit of work to get right turned out to be an understatement. It's taken days, weeks and months to turn the neglected strip into something productive, the beating heart of our new healthy, cheaper lifestyle.

But it's all been worth it. And between you and me, it's been fun most of time. If you can laugh off the lows as well as the highs, see the funny side of the odd infestation of sap sucking nasties and learn to tell your pH from your NPK without taking it all too seriously, you might just enjoy it too.

And so to bed

Taking shape - the first two beds we built

Other than getting rid of the weeds and giving it a good dig over, the first job was planning what we were going to grow where on the plot once we'd cleared it. Sketching out different layouts, we decided to incorporate beds to plant in, because it seemed easier to tend and manage our crops once they were in the ground.

Eighteen months on, I'm glad we did. They allow you to cultivate soil without walking on and compacting it. Perhaps, in hindsight, we made the paths between them, which were mulched with woodchip, a little too wide at the expense of a few square yards of growing space when you add it all up.

But for the sake of another row or two of onions, the beds allowed us to embark on simple crop rotation, and make the most of the limited time we can devote to weeding during the week, ie five beds on the main plot means hoe one each evening from Monday to Friday.

There are downsides - buying new treated timber set me back around £15 a bed when I built them, but they should last a few years. Some opponents reckon they harbour pests like slugs, but since slugs are endemic on most allotments, you're still going to have to control them whether you build beds or not.

Looking ahead to this year's growing season, we've got three beds planted with a mixture of different varieties of autumn-sown garlic and onions (above), one manured ready for the early potatoes and one which has been limed ready for brassicas, carrots and parsnips.