Tiger Tiger!

Saturday was a rugby day, spent watching the Guinness Premiership Final at Twickenham, not a particularly technical game, but watchable and exciting, well done the Tigers.
Today, up late and did all my mowing, then checked my plots, left just as the rain restarted, so into the greenhouse for a tidy up.
Put all the Banana Shallot seedlings out to harden off and re-organised everything.
Planted out six Red Cherry Tomato's in the beds and six Carribbean Mix Chilli Peppers in two grow bags.
Attacked the Winter Jasmine, cutting out all the dead bits and then un-potted, root-pruned, and re-potted it, just visible to the left in this picture.

A bit seedy.

Tuesday 12th May. Emptied the dog shed, some stuff to the bin, some to the kitchen (ex-caravan plastic bowls and steel cutlery), some to the shed, moved the shed and revived the whirlgig dryer. Had to prise the rusted off stub out of the ground socket, which is in a big lump of concrete, then cut the dodgy end bit off the assembly. Now have a whirligig that can take a T-shirt, but not a sheet.
In the greenhouse, I relocated the germinated Sweetpeas and Crown Prince Squash from the heated propagator to staging and sowed Sweetcorn and Futsu Squash in their place.
Pricked out more Dwarf Green Curly Kale, some Little Gen Lettuce given to me by John and some Cos Lettuce of my own sowing.
Sowed some more Cos Lettuce in a mini-plug module, I had tried some Little Gem earlier in the year without success, but believe that packet, from several years ago, had become "tired".
Did the regular watering, now have my four growbags for the floor, so when the allotment plants get planted out the staging "planks", [ section aluminim resting in an aluminium "angle-iron" frame, get lifted out to leave the frame and the growbags go underneath, using the frame to help hold the canes.
Need to rationalise the greenhouse beds as they are more than half covered with 3" pots in trays and a growbag greenhouse, so this weekend I'm looking to sort out the bit of garden between the path, end fence nd greenhouse.

Ahead of myself but behind my posts

Wooah, just realised I have a whole week, including a Bank Holiday to catch up on.

Saturday 2nd May County did not get out of the pool, Sunday 3rd May Club A's did not get out of the pool, so son rather disappointed, though the B's did make the semi-final for the club.

Monday 4th May slept late and did the garden tidying when I got up, so the only thing left lurking in the garden is the dog shed!

Just don't look at what is between the two sheds.

Tuesday night I planted out my French Beans, one double row of about thirty-six plants.

Saturday 9th May, raked, trod down, re-raked the path end of Plot 18, then planted a short row of Dwarf Curly Green Kale, a full row of Brussels Sprouts and a full row of Savoy Cabbages. Constructed pigeon shields from sheep wire and chicken wire before taking son on Rugby Club social outing at 12:30 to go Zorbing at Westmill Farm , Zorbing or Sphering consists of being strapped inside a plastic sphere with a friend opposite you, the sphere is held within a larger sphere by many many webbing straps and the inter-sphere gap is inflated. Once inside the sphere is pushed down a hill. An alternative is unstrapped, three occupants, five buckets of water and the access hole plugged up. Son managed both.

Returned to the allotments and planted a full row of Purple Sprouting Broccoli and a full row of Calabrese, also constructed further pigeon protection and watered everything. Rejoined adult sociability for a drink or dozen....

Sunday, off to BSAGA allotment shop for four growbags and another bag of Humax MP compost. Then to the tip to dispose of the rubbish from last weekends garden clearance.

Up to the allotments around midday where I did a lot of hoeing, all of Plot 17 bar the fruit terrace, some weeding in the fruit terrace and herb patch, where the Elecampane is beginning to fill its support enclosure. The new Quince top right is looking good.

Finished off by prong hoeing and raking the path end of Plot 17 that was not planted before planting two rows of Kelsae exhibition onion seedlings, about sixty plants, the a single row of Piglet Willie Banana Shallot seedlings.

Daughter brought me a cold drink and stayed to help, she did a lot of stone picking and watering. During a nice sunny break from our labours lying on our backs with the dog in the sunshine and chatting the swifts came wheeling into our view, like bold black scimitars slicing through the pale blue sky as they twisted after insects, daughter counted ten with her young eyes.

This is a close up shot of last years seed crop of Piglet Willie Banana Shallots which survived the winter and are already set to flower.

Smashing, NOT.

Wednesday.
When I said some mindless little oick I did not think it would look eight years old.
But if the one Steve has seen chucking stones and following a dog walker round the park yelling abuse at the chap, is the one responsible for stoning my coldframe, then that is what it looks like.
Anyway the last pane of glass was smashed Wednesday night and the grass path and the front of Carl's plot were both strewn with stones up to mug size. Picked up all the glass and used all available plastic sheeting for the sides, with the three leftovers and some plastic netting to cover the roof, together with some strategically placed chickenwire. The best bit is a sheet from a BT phonebox which got slung, or blown, over the fence a few years ago, it is incredibly strong and barring the etched BT logo is clear.
Planted pea seeds on the rest of the pea frame to come after the early seedlings.
Friday.
Had the day off work as I was helping with a Rugby festival tomorrow and son is playing for his club in a Tens Festival on Sunday. Found out during the day, poor timing and communication, that son is actually playing for the County on Saturday, looks like he was second choice and first couldn't make it, so my schedule has changed.
So being an opportunist, I buttonholed John as he walked past my door, to check if he was actually going to do anything with his plot or just give it up, he says he is going to work it, I'll reserve judgement as he has done nothing at all to date this year.
Dog and I went and looked at the allotments and decided that they were damp enough for me to end up wearing them on my boots if we did anything, so one of us chased a ball that the other threw a number of times before I did some shed stuff while the sun dried the surface.
It's relevant, in my workshop shed I built an open fronted cupboard in the back right corner, sized so some plastic storage boxes I have fit neatly on top, two, one on t'other. Painted the chipboard in the area before building the cupboard, and afterwards completely tidied and re-arranged the contents of the entire shed, including Slicen-dice who now attempts to poke entrants with his handlebars.
Went up the allotment before school out time, planted out all twentyfive sweetcorn, then lurked for a bit as school out was prime suspect for stone throwing, but no chuckers.
Came home and cut all the yellow Winter Jasmine that was shading the front of the greenhouse, ruddy stuff had grown behind the glazing clips and I lost two removing it. So had to burrow in the garage to find the box of spare clips. One day I'll have all my "stuff" organised and available without having to move any of it to reach any other bits.
The tidier shed made room for more "stuff" including the spare greenhouse glass which was on the path leaning against the "dog-shed" on the lawn.
Just a pile of construction timber and some oddments to remove from the path and a few slabs to lay before I can walk on paving from the back door into the greenhouse.

Mundane meanderings.

Well on Monday evening I did what I threatened to do and got some free space in the greenhouse, by moving some of the Brassica seedlings and French Bean seedlings up into the roofless coldframe on Plot 17 with a bit of anti-pidgeon netting across the front half of the top and some clear plastic sheets across the back half.
Then I spent an hour or two pricking out "Pigletwilly" Banana Shallots, so I now have about 150 of them to plant out in a few weeks.
Tonight I planted peas directly into Plot 17 as a successional sowing and to fill up the support structure I had built, checked the cold frame and neither pesky pidgeons nor cold air had got at anything, yet.
Back to the greenhouse, where I sowed Squash, Crown Prince (six seeds to the packet) and mixed Sweet Peas (20 seeds to the packet) and popped their little 3" pots in the heated propagator, watered them, then balanced the lid on the pots as they wouldn't fit inside it.
Having an early night tonight as I spent the day trawling IT trade shows at Earls Court.

Can't decide weather....

Friday evening.
Loaded the shredder I inherited from Mother into the trailer, added all the logs from the tree I felled a few weeks ago and took the whole lot to Robert, who had accumulated fifteen bin bags of horse manure for me. Had a pleasant chat with Robert over a cup of tea before taking my leave and going home via the allotment where I offloaded the bags onto the bottom end of Plot 18.
Saturday.
The weather took a while to make up its mind about what it was going to do and finally settled on "mostly sunny". Intended to mow the main path and the carpark in order to put loads of grass cuttings in the very bas of my bean trench, but it was not to be. I started the self-propelled grass collecting Hayter and it ran very well for ten minutes, allowing me to cut the grass near the shed, the path just outside the garden and one stripe of the new terrace before it died and would not restart. Took all the plastic housing, incorporating the fuel tank and air filter, off and inspected and cleaned the carburettor, no joy. So tried my Suffolk Punch, which refused to start at all and the the starter cord snapped. Fixed that and it still refused to start and to add insult to injury the brass eyelet in the plastic housing came adrift and the next pull of the cord cut a nice 1cm groove up through the housing.
Gave it all away and used the Hayterette and rake on the lawn instead, then mowed the car park.
Put six bags of fresh horse manure in the bottom narrower section of the bean trench, covered it wit a layer of soil, trod it down a bit and ran Sliecen-dice up and down the trench. Then added another six bags, evenly distributed and a bigger layer of soil and re-introduced Slicen-dice to the trench.
Left that to settle and slung my geometrically arranged molehills of well rotted horse manure on Plot 18 evenly across the surface and rotovated it in with Slicen-dice.
Sunday.
Went to the BSAGA allotment shop and bought fifty eight foot canes, ten four foot canes and another two hundred three inch square pots.
Put the rest of the decent soil back on top of the bean trench, I'm leaving the clay from the bottom spit for the moment, watered it with half a dozen cans of water to get it to settle and weather a bit quicker.
In order to do that I had to put out my membrane and carpet cover on my squash bed, so I could shovel properly, but to do the carpet etc, meant three different piles of "stuff to move, lay out, weigh down, change the arrangement....... you get the idea?
Got the Hayterette out again and mowed the main path and my side paths, planted out half a dozen more peas, but had to put up another length of pitch-roof steel mesh for them to climb, plenty of room for another sowing now.
Finished the day at the site by strimming the edges of the main path and both my plots.
Came home for tea via the greenhouse, where I potted up about forty Dahlia seedlings, forty Aster seedlings, re-potted half a dozen squash seedlings which were a bit big for their current pots and potted up ready for the terrace the Honeysuckle into a nice green glazed pot.

This coming week I need to get some free space in the greenhouse and the only way is to move some of the Brassica seedlings and French Bean seedlings up into the roofless coldframe on Plot 17 with a bit of anti-pidgeon netting across the top. Some mindless littl oick has been bunging stones and one of the last sheets of glass iin the coldframe is smashed, so I need to look around for vandal discarded estate agent boards, the plastic signs fit perfectly and the posts are very useful. Our local vandals tend to nick the whole thing and bung it into bushes in the park. With the liberated space in the greenhouse I can then resume potting up seedlings

Teenage raider.

Paid my teenager for his assistance on Sunday, so was surprised on Monday to get a Multi-Media-Message from him on my mobile in the afternoon (school re-started today) with this photo of a weeded portion of plot and text intimating that he had been extra helpful, un-requested, and some money would be nice.

Now to be fair I had said it needed weeding, but it had my galdioli bulbs under some wretched creeping cross between couch and a pineapple and he nearly:

• got all of this weed out.


• turned over every spadeful of the "dug" area.


• missed all of the gladioli bulbs.


• didn't disassemble the Emperor of the Daleks while putting the weeds in.


• did all of the area before getting bored.


• didn't use all of my chicken manure pellets on a 6'x3' area.


• took off his muddy shoes and shorts before scurrying back into his bedroom.

Aww Bless.

So I tidied up after him and re-turned the soil, getting the bits he missed etc, not a bad job for an unsupervised fifteen year old, especially as he must have spent half the time there texting his mates. I was told, at length, several times, by my other half that he had carried out a similar exercise in baking, but had eaten most of the evidence.

Tonight I planted out eighteen pots of pea plants after retrieving my steel mesh panels from the hedge, then dug stage two of the bean trench
ready for some mowings to be forked into the bottom of the thinner bit.

Wired!

EDF Cup Final all day Saturday, sons side played Bedford this morning.
Decided to take advantage of son wanting to earn some extra pocket money. so, we cleared 60' of old fence where I had already set new posts and un-rolled a new roll of 6' chainlink.
The, with extra help from the four other plotholders we carried the unrolled wire into place.
Then it took me several hours to put up the straining wires and attach the chainlink to it.

God, grave, digging.

Talked to God quite a bit on Sunday using the big white telephone.
Damm painful stomach bug, kicked in with a vengance around noon, after I'd been to the BSAGA shpo and bought 200 3" pots and 150L of Humax, MP compost.
Completely washed out on Monday, off work Tuesday.
Trouble is prolapsed lumbar discs really do not like it when their owner lies around alot and start to grumble, so late Tuesday I went and mowed the allotment path both to stetch my back and as a test to see if my bug "followed through" with exercise, it didn't, so back to work today.
Came home, changed and dug stage one of my bean trench, 30'x3' x one spit deep, cleanly shovelled out. Any potters out there want some good clay, I've got loads to dig tomorrow. Robert is collecting fresh sackfuls of horse doings from his neighbouring farm for me and I'll take some logs to him in payment. Finished the evening nicely in the greenhouse, potting up Butternut squash seedlings into 3" pots and my supervisor disgraced herself by sitting on the peas, which seem ok, offended, but OK.

Shovelling s**t!

Today I are mostly bin shovelling manure.
Great delivery combination, Defender 110 crewcab with a twin axle electrically tipping trailer. Their terrier did what terriers do and flew around the back of the cab barking at my supervisor, who blithely ignored him.

Rough dug the inter row gap after the last planted raspberry row and liberally manured it.

Likewise all around the bush fruits, gooseberries, red and black currents.

The Elecampane is poking its leaves out on the herb patch.

Finished by distributing all the remaining manure across plot 18 in wheelbarrow load piles.

Notice the cunning use of an old length of corrugated iron to keep me down to a single footprint, used twice for each pair of heaps in the middle two rows.

On / off drizzle the whole time, I'm now out of stuff I can do in the wet on the allotment, so here's hoping for some dry weather in the next couple of days.