Growing in Capel St. Mary
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Clear plots and weed infested gardens by applying Weedol or Bio Glyphosate. Rotovate cleared areas (a new Cultivator is available on site @ £10 for up to two hours). Hoe beds and borders then mulch with peat or chipped bark. Kill weeds on paths, patios and drives. Scatter slug pellets. Protect your hands with gloves.
Water plants thoroughly with an open ended watering can, do not waste time & water by indiscriminate spraying by using a rose once seedlings have emerged. Seed potatoes will not need watering until June at the earliest.
THE VEG PLOT: - Rake 4 oz. sq. yd. Growmore, Blood, Fish & Bone or 6x Cock’a’doodledo poo into soil prior to sowing or planting. Plant seed potatoes, cover emerging shoots with soil if frost is forecast. Plant onion sets. Use fleece as frost protection or to warm the soil. Sow salad crops, leek, peas, winter cabbage, late summer cauliflower, purple-sprouting and spring heading broccoli and broad beans. Plant late summer cabbage. Remove rhubarb flowers and start picking asparagus. Sow fennel, parsley, dill, marjoram & thyme. Thin seeds sown in March. Lift & divide chives, take mint cuttings & dig up old woody clumps.
FRUIT: - Plant strawberries. Spray fruit trees with Bordeaux mixture or Copper Fungicide or Winter Tree Wash (before bud break) and an insecticide if infected with mildew, apple scab, aphids or codling moth. Check for caterpillars, black fly and red spider mites and spray with an insecticide or dust with Py powder. Protect buds with fleece. Feed Blueberries with an ericaceous feed or Iron Sulphate.
GREENHOUSE: - Minimise heating costs by lining with bubble plastic. Sow French & runner beans, tomatoes, melons, cucumber & sweet corn. Protect seedlings from damping off & foot rot by treating with Copper Mixture. Prick out half-hardy annuals into module tray liners when large enough to handle and sow some more. Feed geraniums, fuchsias and established plants every ten days with Maxicrop liquid feed or Phostrogen. Support plants with 2' split green canes. Control insect pests with a ready to use Insecticide Gun, Sprayday or Agralan natural whitefly killer. Plant tomatoes in greenhouse border or grow bags. Sow peas in a length of old guttering filled with compost and slide into shallow trench when plants are 1 ½” high. Sow broad beans in plugs and stand outside when 1 ½” high for a week or so and then plant out. Sow a few seeds in 10 or 12 plug strips of Spring Onions and Beetroot, do not thin out. Sow a few seeds in 10 plug strips of Lettuce, thin to one plant. Repeat fortnightly for the rest of the season. Plant outside when large enough. Sow Dwarf French beans direct into a grow bag – punch 20 holes in the top of the bag using a cane, drop in the seed and water. Also 12 Climbing French bean Hunter - pick beans a whole month ahead of outside plants then discard when the plants get mildew or covered in white fly.
FLOWERS: - Remove dead flower heads of daffodils and feed with Growmore. Lift and divide overgrown clumps of perennials. Prune and feed established rose bushes with rose food. Sow hardy annuals. Plant sweet peas to grow up a frame of 6' canes. Plant heather's. Cut back all heather's that have finished flowering and mulch with peat.
LAWNS: - Re-seed worn areas. For ease and to fill in larger holes premix grass seed with John Innis seed or number 1 and then spread & water. Aerate with a wire rake. On a fine, dry, day cut grass with the blades set high. Apply a lawn feed, a selective weed killer and lawn sand, to control moss or spray with an Iron Sulphate solution of 30g per litre of water per 5sqm of lawn. Or Weed, Feed & Moss Killer for your single application solution
The Hut will be closed till further notice. This will be reviewed as government advice changes.
Toilets will remain closed
Allotment Site remains open.
Please continue to keep at least 2 metres away from other people – more is better! Remember the virus can be spread by contact from surfaces so if you touch something like a gate, padlock or tools touched by someone else, wash your hands with soap and water, stations are located near The Hut & the BBQ area, or use a proper hand sanitiser.
‘THE HUT’ Although Closed we expect Freshly picked Rhubarb and Lettuce & Early Bedding plants to be available from mid-April for plot holders to purchase & grow on from our Honesty table when they visit the site for their daily exercise. Also the last of our seed potatoes.
PLOT HOLDER’S MEETING & AGM is POSTPONED
SPRING WORK IN - CANCELLED
MEMBERS PICNIC on the PLOT Planned for Saturday 25th July. With ‘The Scarecrow Tavern’ serving Real Ales and Wine.
ANNUAL SHOW Planned for 5/6th SEPTEMBER – The Show Schedule is on our web site.
The "PHOTOGRAPHY TROPHY" Subjects for 2020:- A Church Tower or Spire, Colourful, Through a Window, Texture, A picture of your choice.
All photographs to be colour, minimum size 150x100mm/6" x 4" and maximum size 190 x 130mm/7.5" x 5" and mounted and taken within the last eighteen months.
‘THE BONFIRE’
Plot holders please compost as much material as possible including annual weeds, soil, grass cuttings, brassica tops, rhubarb leaves and waste crops. Other material including brassica roots, perennial weeds, pruning’s, diseased crops, sweetcorn stems and roots and other woody material may go on the bonfire. Metals and plastics can go in the blue or black wheelie bin, stones from your plot on the planings heap. Please help by putting your waste material ON TOP of the bonfire NOT BESIDE IT. Thank you for helping to keep the site tidy.
SITE MOWERS
Plot holders are reminded that they will need to have training to use the mowers. Please DO NOT use the Harrier 48 (With the roller) when the grass is wet or too long, the other mower will cope with these conditions much better. Please DO clear out the exit port & roller periodically when using and when you have finished using the machine.
CULTIVATOR HIRE.
A NEW cultivator is available for hire for on-site use only. The fee is £10 for up to 2 hours. To hire this equipment please give Dennis advance notification or for any matters relating to the site please contact Dennis.
STAY SAFE – EXERCISE DAILY – EAT FRESH HEALTHY FOOD - PRACTICE SOCIAL DISTANCING
