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Tigger's Mum asked me when I was telling you my Blighty tales if she could have a look in my office/man cave aka polytunnel.
'Algarve' is my new metal tubed plastic pal.
So what can we see dear readers? Well on the right there is our old kitchen table that is now my potting bench.
The black pots on the left are now filled with shrubs and Griselina hedging cuttings and perennials that I divided with my trusty kitchen knife.
There's kale and Brussel Sprouts growing in the ground. I forked this over with the pike and found lots of pig muck that last years pigs 🐖 left us when they grazed and resided here last year.
There's raised beds made from old decking and two back tyres off Anna Ford my Ford 3000 tractor. These are planted with cabbages, kale, Chinese salads and beetroots and there's Swedes.
I cut off the leafy tops of these vegetables and feed them to the pigs, rabbits, hens and ducks which they devour. There's also rogue nasturtiums which also get fed to the livestock.
Even on a rainy day there's somewhere to escape from the not soft dulcet tones of the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner.
This polytunnel is a nuclear and vacuum cleaner free zone!
Here's my Prog hero Steve Hackett with some suitable background music. I listen to this all the time when I'm watering and making new plant friends:
Memories of the polytunnel my late partner the Mountain Man had across two of his allotment plots. No raised beds, but yes, a kitchen table, and a grapevine each end
ReplyDeleteGreat memories GZ. I served my allotment apprenticeship and got a lot of similar ideas from them: supermarket trolleys used for drying onions, from doors for gates, concrete lumps to hold shed roofs down, plastic polytunnels made out of plastic water pipes and builders plastic. I have my own smallholding now and think I was far happier when I rented my allotments and met like minded veg growers and "how" to grow vegetables allotment folk. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteNow Tigger's Mum wants an office like that...
ReplyDeleteI love it TM. I just hope it last a few years.
ReplyDeleteVery impressive and fortunately your Algarve has survived Nigel's efforts to blow it across here.
ReplyDeleteThanks JayCee. I must get some timber and make some kind of windbreak doors on the front. The sun breaks the plastic down after a few years and the Atlantic gales gives the polytunnel a right old buffeting. Even Northsider Towers feels like a ship on a stormy sea at times. I don't need to tell you about the joys of living next to the sea.
ReplyDeletePretty polytunnel but I cannot see a single parrot in there Dave.
ReplyDeleteThanks YP. We do get other bird visitors in the polytunnel like Jenny wrens, Robins, sparrows and a dragon fly and even 🐈. Oh not forgetting slugs and snails.
ReplyDeleteAlgarve looks to be three or four times the size of my tiny patch which only grows succulents and pelargoniums. And the plum trees which were here when I moved in. At least it is low maintenance for me.
ReplyDeleteThanks River. It's good to have an inside place to potter and garden especially in a very wet climate like Ireland. It's also a lot warmer so plants grow quicker and strong.
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