Are you winning? [Yes.]
That's what The Bee Lady asks me whenever she passes by my allotment. I usually tell her I'm playing a draw, but now, maybe, I could reply in the affirmative. The NW bed is almost level: less than a dozen more barrow-fulls of earth should do it. On the NE side, I've started into levelling the ancient bank where the fruit bushes once stood, (lovely, loamy soil). The area edging the pond to the far NE boundary, I'm thinking of smothering in white clover, and leaving for now.
The priority is to get the NE and NW beds ready for cultivation - which I should do in the next week or so. I spent 3 1/2 hours digging and levelling yesterday. It's not quite done, but I felt like Alexander as I looked at the almost plumped up NW bed. Well, that's an exaggeration, the whole Southern end still needs an awful lot of work. And the middle of the West bed is filled with stones and bits of glass and God knows what else, in the region of the Frogs' Winter Palace, I can't remember where all that stuff came from now. There's a big wire grid or two going spare, and I'm going to rig up one of them by the fence to use as a heavy duty riddle.
The pond was very low the last few days. In fact, the most northerly of the three deep bits was down to sludge, and I had to get down in amongst it to excavate another foot or so. It filled with water quite soon after. See, I'm more than happy for the pond to shrink and refill, but I want a foot or so of water in each of the three deep bits at all times for the frogspawn and tadpoles. Time will tell if that works out, if we get (in Glasgow!) a dry spell. A few hours rain seems to fill it right up again.
One of my two wheelbarrows gave up the ghost yesterday, the body keeps collapsing down onto the wheel, and no amount of turning it upside down and hitting it with the hammer will persuade it to stay up. It's rusted and full of holes, too. I might use it to grow mint in? Mind, I had a contemptuous attitude to the whole business of wheelbarrow-as-planter back in July, but apparently I have since mellowed in that regard.
This morning I had a quick shufty at the seeds which have now been stratifying in the fridge since early January. I think their time has come. I'll sow (the hawthorn, anyway) tonight.
The priority is to get the NE and NW beds ready for cultivation - which I should do in the next week or so. I spent 3 1/2 hours digging and levelling yesterday. It's not quite done, but I felt like Alexander as I looked at the almost plumped up NW bed. Well, that's an exaggeration, the whole Southern end still needs an awful lot of work. And the middle of the West bed is filled with stones and bits of glass and God knows what else, in the region of the Frogs' Winter Palace, I can't remember where all that stuff came from now. There's a big wire grid or two going spare, and I'm going to rig up one of them by the fence to use as a heavy duty riddle.
The pond was very low the last few days. In fact, the most northerly of the three deep bits was down to sludge, and I had to get down in amongst it to excavate another foot or so. It filled with water quite soon after. See, I'm more than happy for the pond to shrink and refill, but I want a foot or so of water in each of the three deep bits at all times for the frogspawn and tadpoles. Time will tell if that works out, if we get (in Glasgow!) a dry spell. A few hours rain seems to fill it right up again.
One of my two wheelbarrows gave up the ghost yesterday, the body keeps collapsing down onto the wheel, and no amount of turning it upside down and hitting it with the hammer will persuade it to stay up. It's rusted and full of holes, too. I might use it to grow mint in? Mind, I had a contemptuous attitude to the whole business of wheelbarrow-as-planter back in July, but apparently I have since mellowed in that regard.
This morning I had a quick shufty at the seeds which have now been stratifying in the fridge since early January. I think their time has come. I'll sow (the hawthorn, anyway) tonight.
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