A good day's work

I booked a day off work last week and spent most of it at the plot. What a great way to spend my day. I managed to get rid of a lot weeds and rubbish, starting in the morning by setting a good fire which smouldered all day. I also dumped a few wheelbarrow loads of rubbish and weeds and dug up two more massive blocks of concrete (as well as a bucket full of big stones). I dug over some ground and laid several new paths ready for next year. 

Thanks to being out all day I also got chatting to a fellow plot holder who has a huge apple tree on her plot. She had run out of things to do with cooking apples, and with a pleading look in her eyes invited me to gather as many windfalls as I wanted. When I had a look there really were hundreds, so an expedition with the tiny human has been planned for the weekend to collect some.

New tidy paths. the dug strip in the foreground was just weeds  when I started.

More neat and tidiness. Path on the left was overgrown with weeds before I started.

A very satisfying bonfire of weeds

Two nicely prepared beds with a mulch of compost applied by my wife and the tiny human last weekend

Structural jobs

Lengthening days and rising temperatures have meant I've been able to get some gardening done again, at last!

I've been getting on with a few structural tasks around the plot. After the new compost area, I moved my lawnmower storage box up to the top of the plot as well, and began reclaiming the vacated ground for a new bed. I had forgotten what a state my soil was in when I first arrived three years ago; out came bits of plastic, metal mesh, broken glass, concrete, even an old spade head.

The new bed.

I found time to box in another bed with timber to make a raised area and have refreshed all my wood-chip paths. I've also dug up one of the grass paths and replaced it with wood-chip, that's another path that won't need mowing or strimming this year, hopefully leaving me time to tend my crops, or even sit and look at them! I'm pleased to say my plot is starting to look like one of the more tidy examples, although there's a bit of work to go yet. 



New raised beds and paths, and a bonfire on the go

Next on the list is to grub up the rosemary hedge at the front of the plot, sadly this has been killed off by the cold winter. It's just clinging on to life to be fair, but it tends to shade out the edge of the first bed, so it will be coming up soon.

Rosemary, decimated by the cold weather

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.