Well the weather is certainly turning colder now. There was even a flurry of sleet and snow Friday and the car has been a ice cube in the mornings. These things however are not going to deter me from my quest to get the allotment in order. It’s Sunday 18th December 2011. Having dropped my “Little Monkey” at work I headed on down the plot to carry on with the work started the previous weekend. It was cold and damp but there wasn’t the lingering frost like we had the weekend before. I remembered to bring the rake this time. Should make things a little easier once the ground has been turned over. It wasn’t as hard as I was expecting. A bonus there. Want to try and get as much done as possible before the real cold weather sets it and ground freezes solid.
I arrived approx 10:30 unlocked the gate and parked the car. There was no one else here again when I arrived and I started to think that maybe I’m the only one who’s got this type of work to do to there plot. Knowing that I missed the first few weeks since taking it over. I thought less about it, put on my boots and gathered my tools from the boot of the car. Not being able to face a whole morning of digging I decided to start with pruning the bushes in the fruit cage. There are three bushes in side and all I know is that one of them is white currents. I’m not sure what the other two are and will have to wait now until they fruit again next year.
Secateurs in hand I proceeded to prune in what in my head was a quite a surgical like manner. Looking for signs of new growth and ensuring the lowest bud was left on the stem/branch before making the cut. The process was repeated until each of the three bushes was a no longer a mass of tangled twigs but a neatly cropped stump.
I removed all the trimmings to an area at the bottom of the plot that is being used as a rubbish pile. This reminded me that one of the most important things that still needs to be done is to build a proper set of compost bins. Ideally a row of three that will enable me to turn the contents easily from one to the other. I’ve bookmarked a short video on gardeners world website (http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/projects/basics/how-to-build-a-compost-bin/87.html) where they make them out of wooden pallets which seems ideal as I’ve noticed a lot lying around the industrial estate near where I live.
With the pruning done it was time to get on with the digging. After all this was the main reason for coming down today. Following the same principles as before I started with a trench at one end and then followed the line of the trench with the fork lifting and turning as I went until I had dug over a small patch approx 2 metres x 4 metres. Covered this with weed suppression fabric and weighed that down with some bricks and concrete blocks found lying around at the bottom end of the plot.
Just going to finish off to days entry by saying that I met another tenant today. I think he said his name was Dave. We have the plot one over from myself on the other side of Pete’s. Older fella. Swears by the use of seaweed for his brassicas. We chatted for about 10 minutes until it stared to hail and he headed for the shed while i went to get my coat from the car. As I was returning he showed me a book he kept in his shed called “Adams Garden” which looked like it had a picture of some Amish farmer on it and Dave made a passing comment about how it could be me saying that i had the beard and all. He seemed like a nice guy and obviously knowledgeable so one to keep in with I think for tips.