Final Post of 2015

That's the NW bed, with its new fence. Remember, all of this, the whole perimeter, will be hedgerow a few years from now, so it needn't be Hadrian's Wall in terms of durability. The bit of actual fence you can on the far left of the photo is the old fence. It's got another year or two in it, just, so it'll just have to do, and it can quietly rot away as the hedgerow grows into it. Next to the old fence, I've got a couple of pallets, wired into place, (the whole structure is held together with bit of wire), topped of with the smaller of the rectangular wire grids, and then a strand of barbed wire. Running down to the big Council fence at the end, the rest is made up of more of those rectangular grids, all sizes, fixed with more wire to both metal and wooden posts hammered into the ground.

Behind the fence you can see the common raised beds area, with apple trees planted just a couple of feet back from the boundary. There's been work going on there, I don't know to what effect. They've taken the wooden sides of the raised beds, great beams about 6x12", and had stacked them along the boundary together with some 12" logs. I don't know why. I had to move them all to work on the new fence, anyway. To the right you can see the winter field beans, which I planted in October.

Most of this bed is still boggy, most especially in the middle. See, what happens is, the raised beds area next door is mostly paved. There's no gardening goes on, nobody seems to use the raised beds at all. As a result, I'm theorising, the water just runs straight over it, and into my plot. I'm planning on paths or French drains to encourage it to run away East, (to the right in the photo) and into the pond.

Also planning on ivy to cover the fence whilst the hedgerow is growing. It'll look better and be good for the wildlife. AND I can get loads of it from a few cuttings: I'll have a scout around in Alexandra Park for some.

I'm off to the allotment now, to check my fence has weathered the latest storms since Monday, and to secure the gate temporarily. (With more wire; need to hammer in a new gate-post and buy a padlock and chain to make it permanent, no time for that today).

And that's it for this year, dear readers. Hope you have a good holiday, wherever you are, whoever you are. I'll be back in the allotment, and updating the blog, very early in 2016. All the best.