January 2nd, 2005

Sad start to the year as we all discovered that vandals had got into the site over the past week and have broken every shed´s windows (including the lovely stained glass piece one of the newbies had built in), taken spades, broken canes, frames (including mine) and doors, and trodden on a lot of plots and winter veg.

I hope they get their comeuppance.

Chris and I had left our shed unlocked for this very eventuality, figuring that at least if anything went, we wouldn´t lose the door or hinges. They even got in Tony´s amazing galvanised metal shed by hitting it repeatedly with the plot number signpost. I found our chair in the middle of my leeks (luckily not too squashed) and the bucket of bindweed roots, which had been drying nicely, stuck in the old potato plot. Had to collect them up pretty fast! Lee´s shed door had been ripped open and some stuff removed, and I think they broke one of his newly-replaced pieces of glass. They finished off Maggie´s poor shed completely.

As coincidence would have it, I was intending to break up the carrot frame today anyway as it was mostly collapsed. I don´t think they touched it, since it was already in bits. Spent a fair bit of time removing tacks and the enviromesh, so I can reuse the majority of it. The side panels were perfect - it´s the crosspieces that have been the weak point - so I left it all as it was. I must shorten the sides though, preferably by about a foot. The leek frame, which had been mostly ok to use again, is now flattened and all my netting torn. Again took all the net off and left it as two side pieces and the crosspieces. Repaired the giant frame´s wood but the netting needs repairing badly or the flying vandals will finish off the tiddly cabbages.

Shored up another couple of downhill bed sides, so now, looking from the side, the terraces are starting to look rather nice. Then went to sort out the summer raspberries, cutting out the old canes, re-tautening the wires and then attaching the new canes. Nearly have a couple reaching the top wire this time, and a couple of canes have populated the side of the row. Need a spade to sort them out! Used the hacksaw to remove nearly all the old wood from the middle of one of the dessert gooseberries, which makes it look a lot neater and less likely to poke me, but also provided a lot of very prickly prunings which have gone on the dug beds. If the vandals return and try walking across, then they´ll have inch-long thorns in their ankles. It works with stopping cats, after all!

Picked some more leeks and carrots, and split them with Chris who gave me some of her parsnips and scorzonera. Still can´t quite believe how many carrots grew. Left it all a bit tidier than I´d found it, and still didn´t manage to start digging plot two! Well, there´s always tomorrow...

My poor frames - the small one had been in good condition (see December´s pics; the background of the plot 2 photo shows it quite well).

Monday January 3rd

And up again, armed with sandwiches and flask of hot chocolate :) Not quite as cold as yesterday, thank goodness, but not as clear or bright. Chris was already there, and we had a chat then got round to digging. Realised quite fast that I needed to edge out the first of the sections, so recycled one of the frames, putting three of the long pieces of wood next to each other and nailing them into the verticals. That got hammered into the ground and I could then start to dig. Eventually had to make some more sides, a couple to keep the stone path in place and another one for the lower bed border. Dug as far over as the end of the long border (3.5m) through the old potato plot, and discovered why I couldn´t remember much about the Pink Fir Apples - I think I accidentally left most of them in! There are now significantly fewer volunteers than before...  also dug up some Rattes. The carpets cover most of the rest of the plot, so it´s beginning to look cared for again. Back didn´t whinge, and I stopped before it had a chance to. Rained a bit, which was annoying as it wasn´t supposed to until tomorrow, and I was going down with a migraine so decided to call it a day after lunch. Met Elaine on the way out, and discussed ways of keeping out the yobs. I still think tall gooseberries around the borders will do it nicely!

Saturday January 8th

Managed to grab an hour and a half´s digging on a lovely but very windy day. The wind has toppled the jury-rigged cabbage frame again, so I shall have to go up with the brackets and screws to do it properly. At least it´s just flattened and not twisted. But everything else seems to be roughly in the right place (even if the water butt has somehow escaped through the loganberries).

Sunday January 9th

Acquired 4 pieces of wood for £11 and somehow managed to carry it to the lottie (though was rescued by John at the halfway point). They are 2.1m long, quite thick and quite wide, so should be ideal for bed edging. Bit short, but I figured I´d rather have some I could carry. In any case, the price per m was the same for those and the longer ones. Found the first bit useful in that it replaced the piece pictured above, allowing me to use that for the bed´s side. Then replaced one of the plot 1 edges (the one with the really quite rotten bits of timber I´d salvaged) and then tried to decide what to do next. Settled for digging a bit of soil out of the bit above the bed, so I could level it up a bit, then added a barrowful of manure - it´s going to be the leek bed. The other, wider one will be onions. At least this means I know how wide the plot is now - 2.1m + 3.5m + 0.4m = 6m, a metre narrower than plot 1, so the plan in November´s page is a bit out. Mind you, so´s the position of the shed. Corrected this in the main plans!  

Gave up dithering and set to work in starting another row of beds. Hauled the carpet out of the way and measured a width using one of the crosspieces from the old frames. Dug out a trench for the board so that the higher bit was buried and the lower bit built up, and edged the whole bed with one of the not terribly good boards off plot 1, if only because that stopped the soil wandering onto the path. Started digging, and got divebombed slightly by the robin coming into land. He got good pickings off me today! Though had to suffer being photographed as payment. The downhill side of plot 2 was previously raked so that there was a steepish slope down to the path - possibly to stop the soil ending up on the grass. This means quite a bit of soil shifting to get it back to being level and deep all the way to the edge. It wasn´t helped by the incredible amount of flint in this plot. A lot of it was shifted to the edge area, so I had to pick a lot out before starting to dig it over. But at least the path from the shed is getting filled up quickly! I think I now realise just how good condition plot 1 was in when I got it - the previous chap must have spent a lot of time removing stones. Managed to dig across about 2m before the drizzle started to get annoying and the soil was noticeably heavier to dig. Still, 2m less to do next time... and it´s this year´s spud plot so hopefully it will be ready on time!

Friday January 14th

An afternoon off (I like flexitime!) with the aim of getting spud bed 1 finished. Not too cold, and I found some more bits of wood which got pressed into service as path edgers. Sawed up one of the new edgers to complete the main edging, then got digging. Very sticky today - hasn´t dried off as much as I´d hoped, but at least not raining. An hour later I´d got the main digging done, then added the extra wood bits as uphill path edgers, and added carpet. Took the second photo, then realised I could scrounge another bit of wood and complete the uphill edge, so did that and added a bit more carpet too. Now have a quite decent path which hopefully won´t wander off downhill and will suppress any weeds. Am cutting up one of the larger bits of carpet which seems to be disintegrating fairly fast, so it´s not much use for plot cover any more.

Featherball finally appeared as I was finishing the bed, so I told him to help himself and went to see if there was anything I could do with the carnations. To my surprise they are just overwhelmed by grass and poppies, both dead old ones and new seedlings which will no doubt be a riot if I leave them in. Was mean and weeded them out, but there´s still a lot of seedling poppies. I spent pounds on trying to get them to grow in the home plot, and here I have to pull them up! Have left a few round the edge. Measured the below-shed part of the plot properly at last, and it turns out to be 6.3m by 6m, which isn´t terribly big. I can get another bed in by the side of the shed, where the bindweed and spinach is currently, but after that it´s the solid bit by the fruit area. I shall deal with that later!

Finally I think I´ve got the scale right in the plan (the grid is square metres). Three beds for whatever I feel like putting in them (one will get French beans for sure), the three I´ve finished and the one for permanent flowers. I think that one will get bulbs in as well, to cheer up the boundary with Chris. There is easily room for another four beds where the wilderness is - but as I said, that´s for much later! I shall be happy this year if I get this plan done without doing myself any injury!

Saturday January 15th

Dawned somewhat wetter than expected from the forecast, which was initially a blow to my digging intentions. Decided instead to go and spend money and get some proper wood cut to size so I could do the remaining beds properly. Made it to the local wood yard before they shut and managed to get enough wood to do all bar one of the main beds (cos I forgot a piece!) and the flower bed. They are very good - cut all of it to size and even sharpened me posts to hammer into the ground! Spent the first hour putting one of the small bed edges in (the one closest to the central path below - which is going to get the French beans) and then went for the large bed by Tony´s shed. This one was the one with the huge bump in the soil a foot in as shown on the 13th Jan last photo, and proved to be easy to dig (thanks to the carpet stopping it being too wet) but full of bindweed and stones. Several hours later (despite having decided I wasn´t going to a) do any digging and b) dig a whole bed at once to protect my back) I´d dug the whole thing. I´d been doing lots of stretches, sitting down picking out bindweed and listening to my muscles, so I wasn´t about to overdo it!

There is quite a gradient leading up to the gate, and there was just enough mist about earlier to dampen the grass which was in the shade so didn´t burn off in the sun, so traction was impossible. In trying to get off the slipped tracks, I nearly went off the path completely so couldn´t even go backwards to get a better run-up. Panic. So we decided to use some of the bits of carpet which had been the reason for taking the car up there in the first place, ironically. But it still took three people pushing (thankfully there were chaps still up there too) and I got out. Phew. I now owe Chris, Dave and Jim a bottle of their choice, and next time I drive all the way up,  it´s going to be very dry!

Probably won´t get up again this month as the next two weekends are spoken for, unless the last weekend is dry and I can get up on the Sunday. Chris and I are off to the HDRA members´ potato day on the Saturday, which is repeated on the Sunday if you´re not a member.

Sunday January 23^rd

Unexpectedly got back early from trip so grabbed a fork and trug and headed off to finish the last raised bed. Was in time to meet up with Chris who was on her way out, but not before we managed to finish de-netting the fruit bushes ready for pruning.

Coincidentally, Julian was visiting at church and asked how it was going! They are about to sow parsnips over in France, as they aren't a veg usually grown there. But he recommended sowing 2-3 seeds in a loo roll tube, sticking in a cold frame and planting the whole lot when 2-3" high. Good job I've been saving the things!!!

Saturday January 29^th

Very early start and nice trip up the M1 to Ryton. We arrived an hour ahead of opening time and sat for half of that in the car, only venturing out to join the queue when it started to look rather long. In the half an hour we were outside the queue ended up halfway down the car park - way longer than last year. Got in fairly fast and this time went straight to the marquee - what a scrum! Fought our way through to the potato boxes, discovering along the way that there were no International Kidney this year. Wail. They had Royal Kidney instead, which Alan Romans says is better, so we shall see. Bought 15 of them. Also bought, as planned, 8 Sárpo Mira, 5 Ratte, 5 Pink Fir (organic), 8 Kestrel, 8 Estima and 8 Red Duke of York (organic). Also bought as definitely NOT planned 2 Salad Blue and 2 Highland Burgundy Red, which really were pretty coloured inside. I have the consolation that Chris cracked first. Those are maincrop, so I might just have to put them in the edge of the earlies bed to get room, else squash up the real maincrops. Got as sort-of planned 3 more Mimi, this time to grow in a bucket with slugproofing. And another woops - 3 of the early early (!) Rocket which I'm half thinking to put in the earlies bed and half thinking in buckets. Depends where the coloured ones end up. Either way, at 9 weeks from planting to maturity I don't think that they'll hang about long.  Should be ready first week of June assuming I get them in on time at the end of March. Went to several good talks, not the least being the follow-up to the Sárpo trials of last year. With having bought mine from the potato day, I didn't get the report forms to fill out, but agreed with about half of the comments. Some folk found them slug-prone, which I most definitely didn't. Most others also didn't have foxes biting off the labels, so could test the different tastes of each of them! All of mine went in the one bucket for Christmas dinner given I'd no clue which was which. The overwhelming result was a preference for Tominia - the one that has been discontinued thanks to some obscure governmental rule because Mira just happened to be registered first. Typical! Learned a few things in the Q&A session (some very pertinent to my planned growing Mimi in pots!) and sat in on a recipe session. Had a very good lunch in the restaurant of potato-themed food (potato and crab rissoles, potato pancakes and ratatouille with cheese). Bought a load of bits and bobs in the shop and had a good journey back home. Had fun finding enough labels for the (ahem) 67 tubers to chit, but they are now all sitting in module trays, hopefully properly identified.