Help has arrived

The Tiny Human is now just big enough to help out on the plot. She enjoys carrying the empty watering can down to the tap and watching it being filled up. She also wanted to carry the full can back to the plot, which was very sweet but it was too heavy for her to lift. I should add, I'm not enforcing child labour here, she volunteers by taking the watering can out of my hands, in fact it's hard to stop her!

My little helper

Her reward is a go on the new swing.

Reward after all that hard work

Roll up, roll up

Gather round ladies and gentlemen, can I interest any of you in some of the things that have been left on my plot for me by a previous tenant?

A sample of some of the unearthed treasures

First up, who likes plastic? I've got plastic bottles, plastic cups, plastic plant pots; plastic bags, plastic mesh, green tinted plastic, clear plastic, plastic string. Plastic not your thing? What about metal then? I've got metal nails, metal bars, metal scissors, metal penknife (rusted solid, sorry), metal wire? Glass (hurry, only small pieces left); gloves (two, not the same)? a single very long woolly sock? What about a tub of slug killer - vintage circa 1980s at a guess. What's that? have I got any stones? well yes but sorry, you can't have the full bucket of great big stones, I've decided to use them in my drainage channel.

Don't worry if you miss this opportunity, there'll be more. ALL the above items have come out of one patch of ground about 8ft by 4ft in the last week...

Talking poo

I wanted to have some compost delivered to the plot again this year, but the council have banned anything bigger than a car from the site due to damage to the ridings. They said I could still have it delivered to the gate, but I don't fancy wheelbarrowing a tonne of compost from the top of the site to my plot, so it's back to the drawing board. According to the council, the ridings are too wet, but I think they're talking poo.

My wife then started talking poo. let me clarify; she was talking poo with a lady who owns a horse. An unlimited free supply was promised, so I got all excited and went to have a look.

The pile was located about two miles from home. There was a huge amount of material, about 10 metres by 5, and nearly 2 metres tall. Unfortunately most of it was straw and woodchips. The decent rotted manure was right at the bottom, the owner of the farm told me, and would need digging out. Hmm, two metres deep of heavily packed straw? Well, I bravely dug into the pile, heaving straw out of the way and eventually getting down to some decent rotted stuff. With lots of huffing and puffing, I managed to extract two car loads before I lost the will to carry on. I don't think I'll rush back; it's useable stuff, but needs further rotting down on my own heap.

Some poo

Hopefully someone else will want to talk poo soon.

Soil



Some soil



Alliums

Varying degrees of success so far with my allium crops.

Garlic is doing well and has now received a dose of organic (blood, fish and bone) fertilizer to get it going. I've been able to keep the bed weed-free so far, but I know that won't last long once it gets a bit warmer. This year I've only grown one bed of garlic, the last two years I got carried away and had too much.

Leeks are looking healthy at home in a propagator. nice strong green seedlings are now all pricked out into individual paper pots. I've had patchy results getting decent sized leeks over the last few years, let's hope we get some big ones this year.

Onions started well but are now looking very sickly, after potting on they didn't really get going and haven't adapted very well to life in the cold frame. Not all are completely dead yet, but for the effort that is going to be required, for the production of about 10 onions, I think I will write them off shortly and reclaim the cold frame for something else.


Rather sorry looking onion seedlings



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

Garlic progress

Garlic is making good progress down at the plot.