Jamie’s Little Allotment: Gayton based gardener talks seaonsal gardening tasks and bigger outdoor jobs

In his weekly column, Gayton gardener Jamie Marsh discusses his favourite and least favourite gardening jobs…

Have you ever started a gardening job, and regretted it almost straight away?

Well, I have. Last weekend when I made the original Jamie’s little allotment, getting on almost six years ago now, I built myself a lean-too greenhouse out of reclaimed and repurposed timber which I scavenged from skips on building sites I was working on.

The only things I had to buy were screws and the poly-tunnel polythene to cover it.

It has done me well, but last year I noticed some of the timber at ground level was starting to rot. I had to repair the polythene in a few places, so when I saw a fantastic deal on polycarbonate polytunnels I had to treat myself to one.

I actually bought myself two smaller ones, which have been sitting beside the house for nearly a year now, waiting for me to pluck up the courage to dismantle my handmade wooden greenhouse.

That’s what I started to do this weekend. I regretted it around 15 minutes into the job, it was a formidable task.

A few hours into the demolition, I was still feeling pretty down about it. Not just because it was a huge physical job but also because it was my homemade greenhouse which was going to be no more.

I decided I needed a break, not for lunch, or a drink but to do something I love to try and lift my mood. I needed to do some gardening.

Just about any form of gardening relaxes and resets me. I had just the perfect two little jobs which needed doing.

On the southwest-facing wall of my garage, I have a peach tree which I have been fan training for the last few years.

Peaches flower quite early, it’s covered in beautiful pink blossom right now.

For your peach tree to give you fruit, the flowers need to be pollinated. In normal situations, pollination would be carried out by bees and other flying insects, hopping from flower to flower and spreading the pollen. There aren’t many bees at the moment to do this and insect numbers have declined massively.

To help the bees out I give them a little hand. It’s quite easy to hand-pollinate flowers, just take a tiny paintbrush and tickle the inside of the flower then move it to the next one, and the next one and so on.

It’s a very therapeutic process and a quite necessary one. Another little job which I needed to get done this weekend, and which is another chill-out job is potting on my Kohlrabi.

The seedlings have got at least their first set of true leaves and are getting chockablock in the seed tray.

If my beds in the allotment were ready to go, I would have waited another week or so and just planted them straight out - but because I haven’t topped up my beds with compost yet, I will prick them out and pot them on.

I chose some cardboard cell trays to move them into. 40mm x 40mm cells will be fine to home them for another few weeks.

Vermiculite and peat-free multi-purpose compost mix will be fine for these babies and will also give them a feed.

Using a two-pronged seedling lifter I loosened the compost in the seed tray. Holding the seedling by its cotyledon, or first leaves, I lifted it carefully and lowered it into the pre-dibbed hole in the cell tray.

It’s much safer to lift the seedlings with the leaves than the stem, just in case you are a little heavy-handed, the baby plant has a much higher chance of surviving if you damage a leaf because it can grow more of those.

I just topped up the cell with some more compost. Once topped up, very very gently firmed the compost around the seedlings, then gave them a good watering.

I always find gardening, whether it’s potting on seedlings or even pruning an apple tree, to be amazing for your mental health.

Putting your hands in the soil and getting close to nature is always a great way to relax the mind and put those stresses out of the way, even if it’s only for a short while.

I’ll let you know how it goes next week, Feel free to contact me and let me know what you're up to in the garden by emailing me at Jamieslittleallotment@gmail.com