Friday, May 11, 2012

Potatoes


Despite the distinct lack of sunshine recently, the potatoes are growing really well - they must like the rain!


This is what my Kestrel potatoes were looking like last weekend (5th May), before I did some "earthing up"...


And after the earthing up (on the 6th May)...




They have been growing well all week and are now even further above the soil than last week! 


And the ones growing in bags are doing pretty well too. In the bags, I've put a bottle with the bottom cut off so that I can water to the base more easily, although with all the rain we've had recently I haven't used the watering can in weeks!

5th May
6th May
11th May

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Water butt

Way back in March, we had scorching temperature and wall-to-wall sunshine. With all the talk of a drought and impending hosepipe bans, I thought I'd better invest in a water butt. The downpipes from the house roof are both in the narrow pathway down the side of the house, so unless we invest in a slimline version, that's not going to be very practical. Instead, we figured that we could collect the water from the roof of the shed (this used to just get channelled to the ground and wasted).

Amy volunteered to get up on the roof of the shed and filled a bucket with dead leaves and moss.

I duly ordered the water butt and waited for it to arrive. And waited. And waited.

Somewhat more than 28 days later (of which it rained on every one, making April 2012 the wettest on record!) the water butt was delivered, complete with downpipe converter kit. Guess what? Our downpipe was too small - argh! Yesterday we spent a couple of hours removing the old coal bunker and today we bought new downpipe, and installed the butt! Typically, within minutes of finishing, the sun came out!