By Stephie, on Friday 4th March, 2011 at 13:27 pm
 Double dug border on the left (currently empty, but the plan is that this will be for cutting flowers) I’m feeling daunted. Time is moving on, there are seeds to sow, onion sets to plant, dreams of a bumper harvest – and an allotment plot covered in weeds. A plot that needs some serious digging. A plot that’s covered in deep troughs; furrows made by the plough. It needs some serious levelling. And if I want that bumper harvest I have a small window of opportunity to get the ground sorted. What was I thinking with all that double digging last year?! The double dug strip is still my pride and joy (yes, I know it just looks like a pile of dirt!), but somehow I don’t think it’ll be big enough to grow a year’s supply of food! I need help: mechanical help.
I didn’t want to go down this route. I’m worried a cultivator will just chop up any perennial weeds and make hundreds more weeds in the process. And if I can’t plant it up quickly enough there’ll be even more! The cost of hiring one is something else on my mind. A local branch of Brandon Tool Hire charges over £100 a day, which seems like a vast sum to me (but I can’t find anywhere else locally). It’s a big expense, but I’m beginning to feel that needs must.
I really want to see some results for my efforts so far and quite frankly they’re a bit thin on the ground (no pun intended). I’d hoped that by now I would at least have the plot laid out and marked out the paths and beds. You can see my feeble attempt at a start in the picture below: that circle of bamboo canes is the beginning of a circular herb bed in the centre of the plot. But because the ground is so uneven where it’s been ploughed I’m finding it difficult to do. It’s heavy clay soil too, which is weighs a ton in the wet weather we’ve had lately!
 Spot the circle! I want this plot to be a potager. It sounds so romantic. Purely practical just isn’t enough, it has to be aesthetically pleasing too. Maybe that last requirement is actually at the top of my list! I have visions of arches made from apple trees, roses around my shed door (which is painted robin’s egg blue by the way), stacks of terracotta pots, wood piles for insects, flowers amongst the vegetables that are grown in neat raised beds… On a warm sunny day I’ll be sitting in my deckchair outside the shed eating the fat strawberries and juicy raspberries I’ve just picked and collected in a wooden trough, only minutes before. My hands will be stained red with the juice. Its a perfect image. It’s probably been in Country Living a thousand times. And I want it. But not overnight. I want to enjoy the pleasures of building it and adding to it over the years, but I still want to feel like I’ve made a start!
 Pulling out the docks Seeing a new neighbour set to with a cultivator and get his whole plot levelled and sorted in a day was all it took to be convince me I need a machine. He said it was the best money he’d ever spent. But before I go charging off to the tool hire place, I’m going to pull out as much dock as I can (they look like short sticks in these photos). It’s not such a bad job at this time of year, the tap root seems to come out easily enough, but I know that there’s no chance in hell of getting them all out, so I guess I’ll have to resign myself to weeding dock for years to come. Still, the fewer there are the less there’ll be that are chopped up and spread about by the cultivator. I’m really itching to get on with it now, but there’s the small matter of saving the cash for the hire first…
 All covered up So in the mean time I can be found pulling up dock, mulching my raspberry canes and hoeing and covering my prized double dug border!
How’s your garden coming along? Hope you’re making the most of this splendidly sunny weather!
love Stephie x
By Stephie, on Monday 4th October, 2010 at 23:40 pm
 Stringing something together... I’m about to say a word you’re not likely to hear me say very often. If you have sensitive ears cover them up now. Because here comes the P-word…Pythagoras. Sorry, but there I said it. As you know (because I’m always on about it) I’m rubbish at maths. Numbers are nasty things that jump around on the page, evil little buggers they are. But geometry, now that’s a different matter. I do like something I can ‘see’. Shapes don’t move about like numbers do they? They have a sort of solidity that I can relate to, and I’m good at seeing patterns too. But who knew that one day I’d be using Pythagoras’ theorem on my allotment? Not me for sure, but Mrs Macleod, well she might have had an inkling. Mrs Macleod knew that one day I’d been needing to magic a right-angled triangle out of thin air just so that I could lay a network of paths perpendicular to each other. Obviously she knew that me and my wheelbarrow would have no truck with paths that weren’t right. Mrs Macleod, my maths teacher, the one with the patience of a saint. Seriously, she would have me standing at her desk for hours whilst she tried to explain something to me, something the rest of the class ‘got’ in 5 seconds. And she always did it with grace and a smile, never once making me feel like an idiot (I’ve always been pretty good at doing that for myself). And some things, geometry mostly, have stuck. Not that I can ever remember needing to call upon ‘the sum of the square, bla, bla, bla is equal to some other bla called the hypotenuse on the other side, bla, bla’ before now. But Mrs Macleod, she must’ve thought ‘well, you never know’. But it’s thanks to her, and probably Pythagoras too, that I’m laying out the allotment paths with more precision that I otherwise would…
 A bit of border straightening going on I constructed my first right-angled triangle in the flower border from where I want to take a path going down the centre of the plot, which is where you can see a bit of string limply hanging after a windy night. Luckily I thought to mark the position of the original line with pegs, while the string was still taught. Good thinking that! In the centre of the plot I’m planning a circular bed,
 Going round and round which you can see me marking out here. I hadn’t got very far yesterday before I had to give up because I somehow managed to smash my right palm down on top of a very firmly planted stick (and I still can’t really work out how). It was throbbing and I could hardly move my fingers. And today I’ve got a large bruise spreading from my thumb knuckle to a couple of inches down past my wrist – it’s very tender, but I can at least use it a bit better today; no my excuse for leaving the allotment early today was that I thought I’d buried my car keys, but that’s another story!
 Stake out I’ve begun tentatively driving in a few stakes to mark the path width, but whilst I can always manage to get them in square on two planes, I always seem to fail on the third because however hard I try to drive them in they seem to hit a stone or something to knock them out of line with the string. The only solution to this, I think, is to dig a hole and cement them in, that way of course they’re easy to move about until they’re square in all directions. But really is it worth it? Maybe it will be for the stakes on the corners of the raised beds I’m planning, but at the moment, for the paths, it seems a bit like using a hammer to crack a nut.
It’s great seeing the plot taking shape and amazing what you can do in just a couple of hours. I love visualising it – it’s really exciting imagining how it will look in 6 months time, hopefully all laid out by then and ready for some planting. In the mean time I’m going to keep on digging and doing some more research into potagers, ‘cos that dear friends, is the way I want to go. And of course, I’ll be doing it all with Mrs Macleod in mind.
love Stephie x
6 days and counting…
By Stephie, on Thursday 16th September, 2010 at 08:23 am
Last week I needed some therapy. Physical Therapy, otherwise known as digging the allotment. At the first glimpse of sunshine and the promise of dry weather for a few hours out came my mattock and spade. I’m rather proud of my mattock swinging, double digging efforts. I’m making gradual and slow progress, but looking back along the border I can see it stretching out before me. Each 18″ trench takes me about 45 minutes to dig (the ground is really compacted and quite ‘clayey’) so this strip of border represents a lot of hours work. Granted, it doesn’t look like it. In fact it looks like I’ve done very little compared to some of my neighbours.
 Getting there Especially when you see the rest of my plot. It could be some time before that lot’s dug.
 Green manure? No, just a load of weeds. What’s the best way to deal with all those weeds do you think? Obviously I haven’t managed to pull them up before they set seed, which is a bit of a bummer. I really don’t want to cover the soil in chemicals and I gather that rotivating them will actually cause more problems by digging the seeds in, giving them somewhere nice and cosy to germinate. I’ve also noticed some bindweed in there, climbing its way around my neighbour’s plants – and who wants to exponentially increase the number of these evil little things by chopping up the roots into thousands of pieces? Not me. So, any suggestions welcome, or do you think I just have to bite the bullet and dig it all out? I’m too full of cold to think straight about it now.
Being up at my plot has given me a good opportunity to spy on other people’s progress. Several more plots have been taken since I was away in Norfolk for a week, but I’ve still not met anyone up there. It’s odd seeing things slowly changing, but not seeing anyone doing it. One neighbour has put up fence posts around his boundary, a lot of work and I didn’t see one post go in. I’m rather grateful for his efforts though, it means I’ve got an instant support for the apple trees I plan to fan train along that border.
 My weeds are bigger than his! But this strip of land along the boundary is next on my list and those posts are perfect for my apple trees to grow against.  The neighbours' shed. And their glorious sunflower.  All the best laid plans... best laid wood in this case! Raised beds I suspect...  Rotivated and perfect. Well, rotivated and probably about to be overtaken by bindweed   It's a bit weedy now, but this plot had some lovely produce during the summer. Strawberry scrumping anyone? Talking of apple trees have any of you had any experience of planting them? I’m wondering whether I actually need to double dig a whole strip for them and whether I could get away with simply digging the strip but double digging the planting hole and say some area around it? What do you think, am I just being lazy? I could always double dig the hole ready for planting and then double dig the strip when I’ve got more time… Oh I just don’t know what to do! Though I do know that I want to get some Cornish apple varieties, at least they should have a good chance of growing!
I haven’t made it up to the allotment this week due to a heavy cold, but I’m itching to get that border finished. Now there’s a plan for the weekend.
I’m off for a walk and a knit-in today, so I’ll catch you later
love Stephie x
By Stephie, on Tuesday 7th September, 2010 at 16:22 pm
I thought I’d pop into my allotment on the way home from Falmouth today. My jaw dropped when I saw what had been going on in the two weeks since I was last there…
 Look at the size of these!! The largest one is 18″ long! I’d say that’s huge for a courgette. And since I’m the only one in the house that eats them, I’d appreciate any tasty suggestions for preserving them – a courgette chutney perhaps? One of the larger ones was a bit soft, so I thought I’d give the chooks a treat. They demolished it in seconds.
 Gobble gobble gone! I did a bit more digging whilst I was there. There’s so much to do though that I need to get my skates on if I’m going to get it done before the winter weather sets in. I’m not putting any pressure on myself though, I’ll just do as much as I can – I’m not sure I can actually fit much more into the day! I want to plant some fruit trees soon, so that’s the next bit I’m going to focus on. Research into Cornish apple varieties that I can grow as fans is next on the list of things to do, right after finishing a couple of Quilts, sorting out my neglected garden, starting more Christmas presents, oh and running a half marathon I can cope…
See you soon,
love Stephie x
By Stephie, on Friday 30th July, 2010 at 22:59 pm
Oooh, I am proud. A bit of digging on the allotment and look what I’ve been rewarded with already! The netting over the plants obviously stopped the pesky pigeons eating the flowers, which means I get to eat the courgettes What to cook though? Curry perhaps? Although I rather like the sound of this for tomorrow’s lunch. What’s your favourite recipe using courgettes?
 Bounty!
By Stephie, on Wednesday 7th July, 2010 at 00:12 am
I have new neighbours at the allotment. I haven’t met them, but I don’t think I like them.
I didn’t get to the plot this weekend as I’d hoped. Between bouts of being catatonic on the sofa and forcing myself to run, I guess I spent my time sleeping. Last time I was over there though I noticed the rabbits had been at my courgette flowers – and it doesn’t take an RHS certificate in horticulture to work out that with no flowers there’ll be no courgettes. Netting. That’ll probably work. So I reluctantly got on my bike this evening, at dusk, and cycled over there armed with 3 hoops, a few pegs and a length of green net. As I pushed my bike over the miniature hillocks made by the plough I was stopped in my tracks. Plot 17 was no-longer virgin soil. And there was a gate. A new gate, hanging on posts that are both the same size and height. They’d been concreted in too, like mine, but neater. What’s been going on on the other side of the gate is even more astonishing. Half the plot, yes half the plot, was level and very weed free. I suspect machinery. The sort of cultivating machinery you use if you’ve got a bit of cash and don’t want to hurt your back. The sort of cultivating machinery you use if you want to really upset your new neighbour by making her 1.5m double dug patch, sporting 2 courgette plants, look like she’s done no work at all.
Already I feel an allotment war coming on. I resisted the temptation to lob the boulders I’d dug out of my patch over their gate though. I should at least meet the enemy first.
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Narrative Self in pictures
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