More warmth, more work...

A spell of decent weather and lighter evenings have meant a few extra trips to the plot of late. I have now started digging and preparing for the potatoes to go in, as well adding some manure to other areas where I think I will either grow salads or squashes. I'm deliberately limiting what I grow to things that store well or that I know will be used at home. To accommodate about 40 potato plants this year, I've started to ditch my bed system, that has been in place since I started in 2007. The aim is to reduce the amount of time I spend on maintaining infrastructure and increase the time on the plants. I've also tried to continue with my new found technique of actually doing something when I go to the plot rather than just standing around looking at it. I think I usually get more done when I'm on a short time limit, than when I have all day.

I've now finished pruning the raspberries but the supports for the netting have fallen down so that's another job for the future. I've also had to re-plant some of the onions I put in which have been strewn about by birds, spoiling my neat rows.

I'm fairly relaxed about when my crops will be planted this year. Most stuff can't go out until after the last frosts anyway, and in this part of the world that means the end of May. It's difficult to find the space and time to get seeds going at home so I may well cheat and buy some small plants at the garden centre when they become available. They can then go straight into my new cold frame, which, um, I still haven't begun constructing. But Rome wasn't built in a day, was it?

Plotting changes

I think it is fair to say I'm not the only person who is fed up with the snow. I've been itching to get out on the plot and do something, and have been using the cold snap to do some head-scratching, ably assisted by the commonsense-rich Mrs Moog Keeper.

I had a fairly poor season last year, with swede, radish, peas, potatoes and carrots all doing badly. Mrs Moog Keeper was the first to spot the obvious dividing line, with one half of the plot doing well and the other badly. I think there are two explanations, both equally plausible. These are: (a) it has never really been worked very much at all, the natural soil is poor and everyone who's used it in the past has given up; or (b) it has been over-worked, the soil is exhausted of nutrients and there is a build-up of pests and diseases. I think this second explanation is more likely, and it makes me feel better, because it means it's not my fault.

To combat this poor performance we've decided to have a bit of a shuffle around. The poorest beds will become, variously, a storage area, compost heap, and rough lawn; this will then free up some space on the other side of the plot which I haven't worked before. Time will tell if the soil under there is any good. It will also mean I concentrate my efforts on the more productive side of the plot, with the aim of improving both crop yields and morale in equal measures.

Moog thinks all this is an excellent idea, but then, as we know, Moogs can't think. He's probably a bit spaced out from eating raw potatoes, anyway.

Keeping busy

My friend Tom thought it would be all quiet on the allotment front at this time of year, but allotmentalism is an all-year round sport. He was surprised to find me planting leek and sweet pea seeds on the kitchen table last Sunday. We used a paper potter, which seems to be a good way of using up some of the many free newspapers people keep pushing through our door (much to the annoyance of the Moog). It was a Christmas present from Maria and Cameron, thanks guys. The seeds are already starting to show their little green heads.

Meanwhile, down on plot 29, work continues apace whenever the weather allows. I've started digging over beds and straightening up the paths - my plan is to narrow my paths to gain more growing space and use the woodchips supplied by the local council to cut down on the amount of lawnmowing I have to do in the summer. I wasted considerable effort on mowing and strimming paths in 2008.

The Moog, the Moog's friend and Mrs Moog-Keeper came to the plot yesterday and whilst Moog and his friend played with empty plastic bottles, we broke our backs trying to turn over one of my claggy clay beds. The west side of my plot has quite poor soil, and it really needs improving fast. I am going to have to bite the bullet and buy some horticultural grade grit from the garden centre at some point to break up the clay. Before that, though, I was pleased to use the first of my very own compost. All the stuff I've been chucking on the heap for over a year now has turned into some lovely soft soil conditioner. Let's hope it does the trick.

And So To Bed

As it is fast approaching planting time for most of this year’s crops I urgently need to get my beds sorted out and decide where things are going to go. With this in mind I took Mrs Moog-Keeper and a notepad down to the plot at the weekend. My intention was to make some sort of plan or maybe start marking out.

We decided we needed a clearer view, so with considerable effort from my other half, and manly supervision on my part (I have a bad back this week and can’t bend in the middle that well) we got the carpet removed and exposed the plot to the light of day for the first time since last September. What this has revealed, now the tall grass has nearly rotted away, are the outlines of beds that haven’t been used for years. I knew the ground under the grass was lumpy, because I kept turning my ankle, but seeing it for the first time without weeds was a very pleasant surprise.

The joint decision was that the most economical way of using the space would be to follow the line of the existing beds with paths in between. As the plot hasn’t been worked for years and years, hopefully soil-borne diseases and pests will not be a problem. Also digging should be marginally easier if the soil has been dug before.

We got to work marking out the beds with string until the string got hopelessly tangled after one bed. Then we started using wire until the wire got hopelessly tangled after one more bed. We could have tried the Alexander the Great trick of cutting the knot but that would have left us with lots of tiny useless pieces of wire/string, so we just started digging the first bed instead. I was reminded of Monty Python’s String Sketch - what to do with 122,000 miles of string in 3 inch pieces. "Simpson's Individual Stringettes!"A MILLION HOUSEHOLD USES!" but I digress. One bed down, many to go!

All in all a successful weekend of activity.