Not posted about this subject in a while. At the end of November 2023 I decided to give one of my plots (the first one I had taken on some eight years ago) as I was finding that time does not now seem to let me cover the work required for two plots.
October 2015December 2023
It has not been used for over three years and after a lot of work, became a very productive plot, which I hope the new tenant will enjoy it as much as I did.
So, over the winter-2023/2024 it was a matter of moving stuff over to the plot I decided to keep. In the end that was just two Blueberry plants as the fruits tree that I had planted 4 years ago had really taken hold and were too big to move. The same was true to be said for the small poly-tunnel that I had for 6 years. I had managed to anchor that down so well it would not budge! I will look at investing in a new one when I have cleared more of my current plot.
Work on the ‘new’ plot continues, I took this over in 2019, again this one had been abandoned for over three years – I do like a challenge! But good progress has been made and it’s become a productive plot.
There had to be some major changes to the plot, one of which was to build a new shed as there was no life left in the old one. I also decided to put some water tanks inside to collect rainwater, which was a very good idea with the recent hot summers we have had. I nearly emptied them a couple of years ago when the on-site water tanks were running low.
Pleased with the progress and looking forward to 2024 season, which I hope is as good as 2023 was.
We first of all it seems that other stuff catching my eye has kept me away from this blog again for two long!! Where does time go?
A combination of more work on the Allotment; with the very strange weather over the last few months so there has been a lot of catching up to do. Including finishing off my new shed (a lockdown project) albeit the roof is still to on – shortage of roofing materials – and of course lots of planting.
So what has caught my ‘eye’ over the past few months…
World Wide Micro-Chip Shortage – Integrated Circuits or ‘Micro-Chips’ are in everything today from Toasters and Doorbells to the latest Games Consoles, Washing Machines, Smartphones and many other devices. Without ‘Micro-Chips’ the world as we know it today could and probably would not exist. So it is concerning that there is now a world-wide shortage of them.
The reasons vary from the COVID Pandemic slowing down demand in sectors such as Motor Vehicles and yet from a surge in demand for Games Consoles over the last 18 months. Unfortunately the manufacture of Micro-Chips can’t be switched on an off quickly, factories need to bring their production lines, costing hundreds of millions of dollar up speed as and when demands require and that takes time. These issues along with the fires at Renesas in March this year and at AKM late last year will put a big strain on the market and of course increase prices. Let’s hope were not going to see a shortage for too long.
What’s happen to the weather? – Clearly there is much more emerging proof that the climate/weather is changing and speed of it is gathering pace. Looking at the some of the weather over the last three months here in the UK, I am not surprised.
No we are told that the stratosphere is shrinking!! In a very worrying report, and contains some very stark comments that we all need to be very concerned about.
The UK Building Cladding Issue – How can a UK government utterly abandon a sector of society who through no fault of their own are placed in a situation not of their making that will leave them completely financially ruined. Does the government seem to care about ordinary people wanting to have a safe roof over their head, it would seem not!
In a recent decision by the government, an amount of money has been provided that falls far short of what is required to basically fix an issue that is completely the responsibility of the builders of high-rise properties. Clearly the current UK government is more interested in helping their business ‘buddies’ than the ordinary folk of the country.
The Royal Navy Ventures East – As part of Boris Johnson boastful Global Britain the UK’s Carrier Strike Group has begun an overseas deployment scheduled to last some seven months. With a number of nations making up the task group and a number of stops envisaged along the way, this will be a first for the UK in so much as the size of the fleet and massive logistics support involved.
With a proposed transit of the South China Sea, it will be a diplomatically tricky road that the Royal Navy has to tread showing China that the South China Seas are still considered ‘International Waters’ by the west. Of course, it has always been that way in the past, until China has grown to be the international power that it is today. I suspect that UK Task force may meet up with the latest USA Task Force transiting the waters.
I remember my very first trip with the Royal Navy on board HMS Devonshire as we spent just over a year on a journey that took us from Portsmouth to Tokyo and back, however, that’s a story for another post!!
WordPress.com UI Changes – It appears that there have been some changes to the way that the WordPress editor displays and edits it’s posts this last week. Maybe that explains my problems in last post!
I wondered why they have changed it without a general information broadcast which might have saved me having to look up across various sites including WordPress support to discover the changes.
Having worked in software most of my life, I simply don’t understand how companies get away with changes to software without telling the user base that changes are on the way- and when. Looking at the number of posts in the various WordPress forums, I seem not to be the only one who is annoyed.
I don’t mind software updates ‘on-the-fly’ – I’m a big user of Adobe products and they seem able to ‘broadcast’ info about upcoming changes much better – as it means that ‘you’ are always using the latest version, but how about a heads-up first.
COVID-19; the Saga Concludes? – It looks like we are coming to the end of Covid restrictions and the easing of Lockdown – I have my second jab (Pfizer) next week so all should be set for a great big Shindig – or perhaps not. With Covid cases increasing on mainland Europe, based on previous government efforts to keep the virus at bay, I will not be surprised to find us back under some sort of restrictions by the summer!
One area of the Covid reported figures that seems strange to me is the levelling out of the news cases, which seem to be hanging around the daily 6k to 6.5k mark. According to the latest UK Gov. figures 38,937 news cases were found in the last 7 days, up 4% from the previous 7 days.
Does this mean that 38,937 people don’t know how to social distance? On the other hand there seems to be increasing evidence of increased cases amongst children, as this article in the New Scientist seem to indicate.
Beached Whale – With the stricken Ever Given Container ship grabbing a lot of the headlines this week, I saw an interesting article about how in the 1960’s the USA was going to help Israel build an alternative canal as a rival to the Suez original. How? By using some 520 Nuclear Bombs to make the trench all the way from the Aqaba to the Mediterranean Sea. Had it gone ahead, it would have brought a whole new meaning to ‘glowing in the dark’, methinks.
On a more serious note, the incident does show how many economies are now so dependant on deliveries of intricate components for their ‘just-in-time’ manufacturing processes via the global supply chain, that incidents like this one can cause serious issues to all sorts of manufactures.
The Allotments – With a new growing season upon us, time to get going on the plots despite the strange spring weather here in the UK – what’s new! My original plot is all tidied up and showing signs of growth on the stuff I planted in the Autumn and ready for early Potatoes, probably next week.
On the other plot, had a good week sorting out and planting some 250 Onion sets! Yes; we like Onions! In fact, we have just finished off the last few from last year, though I did share quite a few around family and neighbours, hence we need more Onions!!! Still have over 120 Reds to plant!!
My new shed is slowing taking shape, there has been a shortage of Cladding, but have now sourced a load and will be doing that over the next few weeks, then the roof and finally I can start to fill the IBC’s.
p.s. Clearly the formatting issues experience with the last post seem to have been cleared up, the update I suppose!
I’ve been moving on with my new allotment shed and finally took delivery of two Black IBC’s which will act as rain water storage. Black because it is said that they let minimum light in and therefore hold back on any development of algae, which is not a good thing methinks.
After a good deal of online research and analysing a multitude of deals from various companies and some ‘interesting’ bargains on eBay, I finally purchased two fully reconditioned and guaranteed Black IBC’s from Direct Water Tanks.
The only drawback was that they could not deliver direct to the allotment site as the site itself does not have it’s own postcode address. So, two days later (pretty quick from Nottinghamshire) they arrived at my driveway!! However, with the help of a fellow allotment tenant who has a pickup, we took one at a time to place them on the raised base inside one end of the emerging shed on my plot.
IBC’s or ‘Totes’ as I have found them called on YouTube have a multitude of connection options – different threads, size of connectors etc. The IBC supplier I used, didn’t seem to have quite the right ones that I though I needed for my requirements and never having used IBC’s before, I suddenly realised I was in another ‘world’; I did even contemplate making my own based on some of the YouTube videos I have been looking at for inspiration.
Then of course Google search came to the rescue and pointed me in the direction of Smiths of the Forest of Dean Ltd and after a couple of emails and telephone conversations, the relevant combination of ‘bits’ arrived today.
Why did I go for a big connection hose between the IBC’s? I am told that this will help with IBC equalization after a heavy downpour, ordinary garden hosepipe might not cope with that.
All I have to do now is to fit them to the IBC’s and I will have the right outlets to give me a standard tap for watering cans and another output for an irrigation system that I will put in for a Poly-tunnel, but that’s another project for later in the year.
What I need next is the roof on and guttering!! Busy! Busy! Busy!
Beasley's Place 