Day 45 - Women work 6 times harder than men

I am feeling much like your mobile phone does once you have owned it for a few years, remember when you first charged your phone it would last all day and a bit into the next, possibly two days if not used much. But then you get to the point that you can have your mobile fully charged first thing and it be nearly out of juice just after lunch. This is me just lately, our lass says that I am one of the non duracell bunnies. 

Why do I mention this, well, today I finally got around to doing the job I had been thinking about for a while, which was sorting the compost, moving it from one bin to another whilst adding some from the manure pile to make sure that is rotting down well, as well, once that was done I would make a few trips to add to the manure pile. I only did half a job and that was helped at the end by our lass. The compost though is finally, finely mulched, as the large roots and stalks had still been rotting down so today with loppers available broke them down smaller.

In this time though, our lass had dug over the potato bed, dug over the bed by the front fence, replaced an edging plank (I did bring the plank down though ;o), removed pansies from the front, put some slate down out front and sorted some seeds in her green house.

Before going to the allotment I did sort some seedlings out at home, but as our lass pointed out, I could have waited till in the week, as all I really managed to do was get in the way and the stuff is still set out on the dining room table. I do have a use, it is still to be quantified.

Aubergine and tomato seedlings potted on

The scene of my one job

Potato bed, fence bed dug by our lass and new plank

Last bit of slate sorted

Am sat in the shed looking out, our lass was off doing more jobs.

Day 21 - Annoying items out of the way and my one job.

It must be the same when you move into some ones house, get a used car, or in this case take over an allotment, it is making it yours and removing what was there before. We had some Brussel sprouts, which were covered in white fly, and quite bedraggled. So, they were removed, Also a patch of parsnips, neither of us like parsnips, it now means all previous crops are now gone, and all the planting areas are ours now, we still have a lot to do around the shed, but at least from the greenhouses onwards, it is cleared. 

I had one job, which was to clean the green house glass, that in itself is interesting, because it is not in the best of repair, but we can see clearly now, Having picked up some free buckets on the way up, we now have the starts of a planter arrangement for next years. It is all falling into place.

Day 19 - A new path and no more corn.

When you take on an allotment, you will find that you have growing whatever the person had before, when we took over the half allotment we inherited leeks and chard, we also got raspberries and strawberries which we have brought up to this allotment, unfortunately it wasn't the right time of year to move rhubarb. We ourselves left potatoes and leeks which weren't ready to harvest and some very nice marigolds. On this allotment we did inherit two apple trees and two pear trees which were great, but we also had sweetcorn, parsnips and Brussel sprouts. One thing we had many times before much like on our last allotment was how good the previous tenant was, Our lass said "It's much like they have died and no one wants to speak bad of them" You always being told how fertile the land is, well you still want to make your mark, so removing the old crops does that final removal of the old person which is needed.

In other news, I laid a path to the compost bin number two and three. I laid it, so expect issues in the future.

One of three bunches of marigolds we left at the old plot.

Day 15 - Pond Life and more digging.

Our lass had bought a pond when we still had the half allotment, but for sometime it had spent its days in the garage and then our new shed on the new full size allotment, Today was to be it's day for being put into place, with nearly every choice, and our lass makes the choices, I make suggestions. It can take a eureka moment to go, "that's the location" or "this is what we will do." The pond was no different, Our lass had deliberated with differing locations, but this had been the same for the compost bins, and now everything is slotting into place. You have the before and after photographs, but this was not all, whilst I dug for the pond, our lass dug in front of the new compost bins ready for the new fruit section. Plans are in place, potatoes down one side, with vegetables in the other side, and they will be rotated each year, fruit along the edges and around the compost, and flowers anywhere else we can put them. The pond area under the apple trees will have wild flowers which our lass has since sown. 

After

Before

Before

After

Day 3 at the allotment,

Day 3 sees our lass complete the digging for my potato patch and we starting to fill in some of the holes in the shed, It is a far superior shed to the one we had before, but it needed sorting. Also day 3 was rainy, If I remember correctly, I was moving stuff from our old half plot up the hill to the new allotment.

 And then the rains really came down

Day 2 down at the allotment.

Our lasses digging knows no bounds as more bind weed is taken up, it was something our lass wanted to get on top of before it got out of control. You will see in the second photograph where the path has gone to from the third photograph, we also inherited a couple of apple trees and lots, and lots, and lots, and did I mention lots of carpet.