Warm sunshine, strong wind.

Strange but lovely day, wonderful warm sunshine with a cold strong easterly wind.
Two T-shirts and a fleece tied round the waist needed to keep my back happy.

The dog forced me to construct her a sheltered sunny spot using garden trolley plus coat, then she settled down to supervise my work.

I hoed out three 18' harvesting ridges from last years spuds. Leaving the soil in ridges over the winter really lets the weather work on it, this nicely weathered soil went straight to seedbed tilth. After raking in a light dusting of pelleted chicken manure I planted 120 Sturon onion sets and one 18' row of Early Nantes pelleted carrot seed, 300 seeds. Gave the carrot row one 11L rainstorm.

Then I set to work weeding my fruit terrace,. I started at the western end amoungst the "new" currant bushes where grass tufts and seed drift from my herb patch were the main offenders. As I moved east into and through the raspberries the weeds shifted to being strawberry runners, 90% strawberry runners. I have no need for more strawberries and thus nearly filled a 300L compost bin with strawberry runners plus other weeds. Towards the end of this stint I was working in the shade and my tiny hand wos frozen.

To finish my afternoons gardening I did the noisy stuff, strimmed and mowed the site drive and my plot side paths. Using the strimmer with my back to the wind was funny as I kept getting nice gusts of warmth across my arms from the exhaust.

As always my gardening is paced and I make full allowance for my bad back, half an hour of squatting to weed leads to quarter of an hour back stretching break lying straight and stretched out in the sunshine with my furry supervisor standing watch, or using me as a centrally heated windbreak.

Intentions versus reality.

I had intended to plant my onion sets on plot seventeen, but my back insisted it did not want to get exposed to cold drizzle and biting wind.

So I went and bought ten bags of postcrete for continusing witht the northern fence replacement, as I had run out of it, so was unable to pop a post in when I had the time.

On returning home I retreated to the unheated, but sheltered greenhouse and pricked out my "Piglet Willies" aka banana shallots supplied by Pigletwillie from GYO.
From one hurried sowing in a single tray on 23rd Jan, I now have ninety-seven pots, ninety three with single seedlings and four each having an additional little sprout.

The rest of the contents of the inner sanctum (growbag house with single-tray heated propagator in) to the main bench also got reorganised.

Moved the Climbing French Bean seedlings straight onto the main bench.

Pricked out the nine best seedling Cayenne Chilli Peppers, discarded the rest and a whole mini-tray that had dried out , sowed another tray of sweet peppers. The whole lot staying in the sanctum. Pricked out the eight nice little Butternut Squash seedlings and replaced them in the sanctum. Turned the fifty nicely growing sweetcorn seedlings round, as they had a slight lean.

Watered everything, then did some site agent stuff to agree with Michelle how much of the available five rods she wanted.

The finer weather means I need to be more disciplined about watering my seedlings, the max-min thermometer shows that the inner sanctum is regularly exceeding 40 degrees and as a result I lost a tray of pepper seedlings that just plain dried out.

At last a nice day when I can garden.

Sunday 11th.
Rhino bruised his elbow at school during the week, suspected break, but just bruising, anyway, he only lasted at rugby training up to the first tackle he made on someone in the practice game.

So I got an extra hour at the allotment.
However had to be careful as I carried a bit of kit at work from one building to another, it was well within my lifting limits, however my back objected and ten minutes after sitting down at my desk it started to "squirm".

Dug off the neolithic barrow from last post I set up on the fence to the position for the next one, dug the hole and set it using the very last bag of postcrete. Need to get some more, plus reciept.
Attempted to tidy the sunniest strawberry bed, oh dear oh dear.
Note to self, this year I must cut back the plants hard once they finish fruiting to prevent runners. The furthest I found was six feet outside the bed. I ended up weeding out a good hundred plants along the edges, then raked the dead stuff and oak leaves off the rest of the bed, dug out some weeds and left the higgledy-piggledy plants as they were.
Took a rest with my supervisor, the dog, nearly went to sleep lying on my plastic bag and old scourer underlay bed in the sun, noisy kids made me look up and there was my furry little guard keeping watch. About five other people there all the time, though different ones at any given time.
Removed the last of the carrots from the raised bed, why is it commercial carrots have so little flavour? It can't be like commercial tomatoes, where hendling qualities outweigh flavour and texture, carrots are hard and resilient veggies.
Weeded about half the plot used by last years early potatoes, then decided discretion was the better part of valour and went home to a beer, a hot bath and a roast pork dinner.

Monday 12th
Great days these as the daylight zone starts to extend into the evening.
Got home early enough to go up the allotment and spray the resurgent couch grass on plot 18.
About four other people up there enjoying the warm sunlight.

I've started, hopefully I'll finish.

On Monday February 5th my mother passed away, the old peoples friend pneumonia took her quickly, after a long illness. I have therefore been a little busy with non-gardening matters. To compound things when I have had time the weather has removed my inclination as the plot has been way too soggy.

However, last friday 23rd feb, I had some spare time after dealing with some legal paperwork, so I ran an extension lead, off an RCD, down to the greenhouse and initiated plan "Frost-free".
Inside the greenhouse is a complete plastic covered "growbag" greenhouse, inside that is a single tray electric propagator.
I sowed last years seed : butternut squash, peppers, tomatoes, climbing french bean and sweetcorn and this years seed; some banana shallot seed from the most excellent Pigletwillie, a good KG and GYO forum friend.
Today I took these pictures.
The growbag house in the greenhouse.




















The butternut seedlings, cover removed for photographic purposes, the peppers and tomatoes not yet showing clearly, but on the way.















This slightly fuzzy phot is of Pigletwillies banana shallots.
















Just outside the greenhouse door I have this lovely display of lenten roses.














Inside on the bench various flowering bulbs, which were repotted last friday 23rd Feb.
Just visible in the foreground are my lettuce seedlings

Sunny Day

Due to the weather I have had to mow and strim the main path of the allotment site today. The grass was over six inches in places.
The dug about thirty square yards of plot 18. Damm bindweed is still in there.

Hope this nice weather holds and I'll do some more Sunday.

It certainly brought out the plot holders, had six up there most of the afternoon.

Dig that!

Great day today, son's rugby went well.

Showed Simon the bit of plot 1 that will become vacant soon, he wants it, so I need to drop a note through Peter's door so they can get in touch and arrange takeover.

Started digging on plot 18 and got through about 20 sq yd.
Had to clean the spade every five uses, I have a "cheapie" dutch hoe head (handle went years ago) and that is perfect for spade cleaning as it is thin pressed sheetmetal.

Gaynor & OH appeared while I was digging, so was able to explain the soil heaps and show where I am heading with the fence, they said they would clear the odds & sods blocking the next section when they are next down on site.

Moved on to cut down all the dead stuff on my herb patch, while I was doing that "D" appeared, I had offered him my blackcurrant bushes as I want to get rid of them. I have a row across the plot which are in the way of rotovating etc, so I want them out. Anyway "D" dug up three and barrowed them off ot his plot, he may come back for the rest. Now that is a result, someone else does the hard work for a change! Cleared all the dead stuff and piled it up.

It has dried out alot since I last posted, I no longer have seepage running across my plots, but it is still pure grease just by my shed door.

Yesterday I made major progress on getting all the bits needed to be able to use my Howard rotovator as a plough, now I just need the one bit I'll probably never find.
The wheel axle extension that allows the wheels to straddle the plugh cut and earth roll.

Free plot - taken plot.

Had a phone call from the landlord during the week.
Diane was giving up plot 12a as they had never managed to get to grips with it and they had a prospective tenant already off the waiting list.
Phoned him yesterday, he pottered down in sensible hobby-nobby boots within half an hour of being rung, showed him round and he took it.
100% occupancy again.

Earth moving posting.

After Thursday's transportation debacle it was my good fortune to have previously booked Friday off, so I have had a nice day.

It took five minutes to walk home from the allotment site.

Dog and I took darling daughter to school, then dog and I walked to the bakers where I got some fresh ginger danish, macaroons and a freshly baked loaf, while the dog had a dump en-route. We went home where I had a cup of tea and a ginger danish, while the dog drooled a bit and then had a lump off the end of my danish. Then we both went gardening.

The soil on my plots is as axle grease, this is due to their location. Not to put too fine a point on it my two plots are a disgrace, as each has a stream running through it, To the south a primary school lies at the top of the hill, then its playing field slopes down to a wooded bank, where a public footpath lies between the school fence and allotment site fence. Inside the site fence a bank drop roughly two to three foot to the top of my plots.All the rain, runoff and soak-in comes down the slope and into my plots. On plot eighteen it is oozing out of the bank and down through the herbs into the cultivated area. On plot seventeen it oozes out behind the shed, runs under and leaves it standing in a pool. The shed is up on bricks so is ok, but the water then trickles through the fruit terrace and on ito the cultivated area.

So not really up to doing much beyond a quick inspection, plants transplanted from mothers garden are OK, bluebells up, primroses flowering. Bought in daffodils are up, leaves are anyway.

So continued my fencing, over on the other side of the site, plot 1, which is next to the old main gate. Where as it is under the hedge next to the ditch, it was quite dry, - for a given value of dry at least.

To be able to remove the old fence, (not yet, but ready to) and to insert my day's target of three new posts, I had to clear 30' x 2' x 10" of lovely crumbly moistly dry soil, this was the result of the previous plot tenants weed and rubbish disposal policy, "pile it against the fence". I guestimate I moved somewhere between two and three tons, in half barrow loads nicely balanced for my back.

The weather was a complete contrast to the stormy winds of Thursday, bright sunshine, light breeze, in fact so warm I was able to work in boots, trousers and T-shirt.

Once the target was reached I packed up and as the dog had behaved so well we went for a walk . I lay out an large old plastic compost sack and a piece of "pan scourer" carpet underlay doubled over on top of that, dog sits or lies on it depending on what is going on around us. Today she resisted the lure of looking for squirrels and did not come and stick her nose in the way of the spade.

To tell how wet it is generally round here, the noise of her running in the public green spaces we walk in was akin to someone playing the bongos with an inch of thickset custard on them. Much to her disgust she got bathed when we got home.

Finished the day by doing the weekly shop, then went to an allotment society committee meeting, but that is a whole different story.

Stuck in trains, rather than gardening, a rant.

Thursday was "interesting" as in I wish it had not been so.
Started around late morning when the cafe facia opposite work exploded out of its frame, leaving the flourescent tubes undamaged, the plastic sheet shattered as it went across the pavement and some of the largest bits whacked into the rear quarter of a passing doubledecker bus. How the passing pedestrians and bu passengers avoided injury amazes me. The plastic whilst translucent was quite thick and sturdy, must have been fairly rigid as it snapped rather than bent.
We were all advised around four to leave work early if we used trains, sadly that advice came too late for me. Went at five, via the usual two tube lines to Tottenham to find the One station shut with no relief buses and no prospect of trains running again that day. Bit hard to fix overhead power cables while the wind that brought them down is still blowing. So I took a cooks tour of the underground, extended by Liverpool Street being shut due to a fire alert, to Monument where I walked to Bank and then took two Central Line trains to Debden and finally to Epping. At Epping eventually got a one-man-operated singledecker bus, poor chap took nigh on twenty minutes to process some of the queue into a stuffed to the gills bus and off our bus groaned to Harlow, where a deserted and windy bus station awaited us. After a longer wait a bus heading for the general vicinity of Stortford. Got dropped off half a mile from home, on my normal route to walk down to the station, so walked home.

What takes somewhere between an hour on a good day and an hour and a half normally, took four hours.

A dry day at last.

Rhino had a rugby match this morning, a hard fought and honourable 5 - 5 draw against Harpenden.
Light wind, compared to yesterday, no rain, even reasonable light 1/10th cloud with nice sunlight.
When I came home decided to set out for the allotment site to fence, as my plots are both still too greasy to permit any useful work.

Just took the tools in the trolley to start with as I was unsure how greasy the ground might be. Decided the best thing to do would be the next braced, or straining, post. This turned out to be the worst post of the whole fence, could not do it inside the old fence as Cath & Colin have a raised mound in front of the old fence, so had to work outside the old fence, which was tricky as I had no flat ground to start with. What I had to work with was a six to seven foot deep ditch, with a foot wide ledge just outside the fence, which until I got to work with the spade was a slope down into the side of the ditch. Not as bad as it sounds because there were some field maple and blackthorn up to 2" diameter to give me some footholds.

Once I'd made a platform to work on progress was rapid, barring the ditch negotiation each time I needed to fetch stuff or get back to work. I had the upright's hole done within half an hour, went and got the upright on my shoulder and it slotted in just right. The brace holes preparation was done within another half hour, then back home with the empty trolley to get the braces and three bags of ready-mix concrete. As per usual the brace holes needed more taking out to fit and as per usual the old posts reinforcing concrete intruded, meaning I should really have been a foot further to the left, but it was managable.

Once all that lot was bolted together and concreted in I still has enough daylight left to finish off the fifteen foot length. Planted two dog-roses in the gap between the new fence and the deliberately left length of old fence, then sewed both fences together at each end of the old length. All the gale force wind of recent weeks had taken the bramble and pushed it over, so what I'd trimmed to vertical was leaning away into the ditch at fortyfive degrees.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable afternoons exercise with some concrete results.
Now there is the small matter of the eleven upright posts needed to fill in between the two bits of work described above.