Kitchen Garden Forum

Interested to see how this turns out.
My rainwater harvesting improvement to my site agent shed.
Councillors want allotments to be greener,, surprisingly allotments use more water than anything else the town council does.

Some rather sweetly thought everyone had a shed and space for multiple waterbutts. Guttering is rare on sheds, most on my site don't have a shed and 2.5 rod plots don't have space for that and crops.

I have guttering on quite a big shed and it is linked to my greenhouse shed. When we have rain it fills my IBC tank pretty efficiently in rainy times. Lets' see how you get on Peter.....

Councillors want allotments to be greener,, surprisingly allotments use more water than anything else the town council does.

UNsurprisingly.
One plot holder on our site waters for an hour with a hose pretty much every single day.

My shed doesn't have guttering but with very dry leaves on the roof, I know it doesn't get wet.

Our sites are supplied with water by horse troughs.
Four on my long narrow site. Ten rod plots running from main path to boundary on the left, thirty foot along the path, ninety to boundary, five rod plots on the right about twenty foot from path to boundary. Numbered from 1 to 2y but most subdivided so sixty-five plots rented out, some, like me, rent more than one plot.

Sounds like water is at a premium Peter. I bet the troughs are busyi n warm weather.

Cropping red currants.
Also sacrificing next year's crop just to get the bushes under control! (They didn't get pruned last year).

I put a similar tank on the end of my 5 compost bays to collect the water.

Used to carry couple of watering cans from the tape to the plot then had idea...

Now use large plastic rubbish bin in wheel barrow which I fill up from tap using bucket, the wheel it onto the plot and decant it using watering cans.

The first year using a greenhouse has been a very satisfying and succesful experiment so far! It has two varieties of cucumber, two varieties of melons and two watermelon plants on one side. The other side is all 8 different tomato plants. The sweet pointy peppers are outdoors as they seem better resistant against aphids on the outside of the greenhouse. No idea why that is...

Oh and don't forget 20 passion fruit plants in the middle! How would you overwinter them at the end of the season?

Finally I have a cucumber doing well in the greenhouse at home. I thought they would love the tunnel but they were not happy at all! They are not dead & as I have a crop from home I can play the wait game from them! What's the bet I am moaning about an overload in a few weeks?

Elmigo, I think you could have squeezed a few more in there.....I can see bare soil at the end!

retropants wrote:Elmigo, I think you could have squeezed a few more in there.....I can see bare soil at the end!

Hehehe I could have done that. Maybe next year, or a great place for some kale during the winter season...

Westi wrote:Finally I have a cucumber doing well in the greenhouse at home. I thought they would love the tunnel but they were not happy at all! They are not dead & as I have a crop from home I can play the wait game from them! What's the bet I am moaning about an overload in a few weeks?

Good to read your cucumbers are finally thriving! Do you really expect an overload of cukes? I wouldn't consider this a problem

Elmigo - that greenhouse was definitely a good investment,

All 4 cucumber plants looking healthy outdoors. Heavens only knows what I'll do with all the fruit if they start cropping copiously but didn,t expect them all to germinate !
My kohl rabi are doing nicely so for the first time I,m cropping some of their leaves to eat as cooking greens, just taking a couple of leaves from each plant. Seems a shame to waste them.

Pity You can,t eat Courgette plant leaves. Plants are spreading copiously and starting To cover my growing leeks in my tightly planted plot. Will it hurt the cropping results if I snip off a few spreading leaves?

I chop the leaves off mine when they interfere with other crops & it does not seem to do any harm. I also do it with the squash and pumpkins as they also have no manners or concept of social distancing!

Primrose wrote:Will it hurt the cropping results if I snip off a few spreading leaves?

I don't think this will do any harm, I did the same with my cucumbers to let some more light through. I also cut off a lot of tomato leaves to allow sunlight to hit the ripening fruits!