There's good news ........... and bad

Never start with the bad, so the good news is I HAVE BABIES IN SOIL ! Ran up to the lottie after work, thought I'd managed to find all the courgettes lying about the g/h ........ WRONG ! I missed one. He'll just have to go in with the squash ! I felt really good once they were in. Felt as if I'd made a decent amount of progress in the last two weeks or so.

Found some more weeds as I was preparing the holes, but as my new hoe came today as well, that's them taken care of. So here's my babies and just in, and one with them tucked up for the night. I still don't trust them out in the open. To celebrate this massive occasion, I opened a new pack of fleece ! Even the wind stayed away while I laid it out. I thought that had to be a good sign !









Now for the bad news .................... at least two of the courgettes have mosaic virus ! Obviously I didn't know this before I planted them, and I've been told that it won't affect my yield. BUT HOW WILL IT AFFECT MY PLOT and what am I supposed to do with this new found knowledge?

I was up, now I'm not.

I'm more worried about the toms in the g/h that the affected plants shared with for a while.

Here's one of the diseased babes. Now what do I do ?

Answers please.

Another full day

Was up at the lottie at 9am and finished up at 5pm. Better than a day in the office any day.

Quite a few more peeps up there today who all seemed very friendly but all wanted to tell me that this corner of the site flooded. Met the woman who put the spuds on my patch last year and thanked her for doing the digging. Apparently last year it was like concrete !

The father-in-law rescued me from endless chat, by having a limited chat. He was out for a walk. He declined my kind offer to keep him busy for the day however.

Was extremely chilly at home this morning as I opened up, but the day was pleasantly mild with a couple of light showers and one downpour just before I packed up for the day.

Rescued a panel of corrugated sheeting from the skip which can be used to keep next door's weeds out.

That's another bed fully dug (although I have a suspicion that they might be some more roots lurking deep down. So that's two full beds, and two flattened and levelled paths. If the temperature warms up a bit this week, I'll get the courgettes and beans in. If I've measured up correctly I can now get 5 beds down each side. I'll find out when I get to No. 5 lol.

So here's my progress ........ can you tell where we shop ?











Oh and I found out that the black plastic was folded in half ! Dozy mare !

The rain washed the blues away

Must admit to feeling a little disheartened last night. I felt that even my wee ickle plot was going to be too much for me to cope with.

When I came away last night, I had lots of fears that when I turned over the rest of the half that we've almost finished, I'd find as many roots that I hadn't seen the first time ! In fact it wasn't at all bad !

I was up there at 8am and promptly trod on my fork which went straight through my wellie lol. I haven't actually taken my sock off yet to have a look, but it's not sore so it will wait til i have a shower and soak it in disinfectant !!!!! Then within half an hour of getting there, it POURED !!! But I kept going and 10 mins later it stopped and the sun came out and more or less stayed out all day.

The ground was easyish to work with the little bit of rain on it, so by 11am when the OH phoned me to say he was up, I'd got the runner bean/climbing bean bed roped off and raked and the first courgette bed was just levelled and finished. That's two more beds ready than I thought I'd have last night !

Went and got OH (we're only a 10 min drive from the lottie), was fed and watered and stayed up there until 4pm.

If we have another reasonable couple of days, I reckon that by next week I'll be planting ! YIPPEEEEEEE!!!!!

I don't want to put anything in this weekend in case this cold snap arrives but with a bit of luck half the plot will be completely ready and beds roped off by Monday night ! Then I'll start taking the tunnel hoops and fleece up there and get the courgettes and squash in at the very least.

We have nightmare winds up here so I don't want to put the beans in just yet as I lost a load last week hardening them off on the deck.

Joy of joys, we think we saw a mummy, daddy and baby thrush ! Never seen one before so we're not entirely sure, but they were about the size of a big blackbird and speckledy. I was thrilled. And then it got better, heard some chirruping, turned round and there was Mummy/daddy robin feeding a baby in the doorway of the shed. As soon as i moved to get the camera, baby disappeared... shame.

THEN when I got back to the house, I had to do the plot ! So all in all I did a 12 hour shift today and loved every single minute of it. Grin

I realise that i'd just fallen into the first timer trap of feeling overwhelmed but once I'd got up there, I just got stuck in and once I'd got the first bed done, I was back to being Little Miss Positive again.

We picked up another for sale signpost on the way home (for fencing) so that's 3 I've got now ! There's another one waiting for me north of the river so may go and get that tomorrow if the weather is rubbish.

Here's today's efforts.


























Now I've just got to keep my fingers cross that the weather people have got it wrong for the rest of the weekend.

You remember that optimism I started with ?

Well, it's on the wane.

I thought I'd cleared a fair patch last night ....



and just thought I'd fork it over, and ended up having to dig the whole lot again and brought out another sackful of substantial roots ....



I know I should feel pleased with myself, but I also know there are a tonne of tiny spaghetti roots still in there !

Ah well, the back will mend and I'll sleep well tonight !

Scarcity of worms

We've only found one or two worms since starting on the lottie.

The lovely Mr Sec said that about 10 years ago the nasty Australian Flat Worm was found on the site but he's not seen any in years.

I wonder how long it will take for our indigenous species to return, if it ever could. It also makes me wonder how I'm going to get anything worked into the soil without digging it in.

Could I introduce some from the garden as we have plenty ?

Answers on a postcard please.

All Change

The lovely Mr Sec is obviously very pleased with my enthusiasm. He told me I don't have to have everything planted by next weekend and instead of a gold star, he told me why don't I put my manure pile and compost bin on the weed patch behind the hut.

What a very very very nice man.

At last, yesterday's pic !

Bloody computer crashed 4 times this morning trying to upload this pic, but after downloading the new drivers we seem to have cracked it.

Yesterday, we collected our new post from the lovely freeshare lady, complete with metal spike (justified the petrol) but sadly there was only one, not three like she thought. Anyway one is better than nothing. So complete with compost bin and post in the boot, we toddled off up to the lottie.

The OH seems fairly keen on this (for the time being). I recognised the fact that I was becoming obsessive again, but it seems to have spurred him on ! So now he's said that well get the rest of this half done, and then I can get planting and he'll weed the other half! :-O

So three hours later we've managed less than a quarter of the plot ! AND I ran out of weed suppressant lmao. Perhaps the lottie is bigger than I thought after all.

We got the compost bin rigged up and the central path marked out. At least it looks lived in now so when Mr Sec passes by, he'll notice some improvement.

On the way out, we noticed a few piles of paving slabs just lying around, together with a couple of water butts on one of the other plots offered to us at the beginning. I'm going to have a quiet word with Mr Sec and offer to buy the slabs and butt. With a bit of luck he'll just say "have them ".

Found a couple of wireworms which Mr Robin took away for us, nice fella.

There were a few more people up there yesterday, but as it was such a lovely day, I was a bit surprised there wasn't more activity.

Anyway, here's our hard work. Doesn't look much progress for my aching back just a rather lovely collection of plastic bags and heavy things !



xxx

Come on in, the soil's lovely !

Really easy to dig, fair few weeds, but apart from the thistles which go on for miles and some other beasts with no name, easy to come out! The OH came back up with me after the football (well done to the Chelsk) so we spent about an hour up there in the sun ! Hopefully tomorrow, will see enough dug to get something planted. Rather cleverly, we've cleared the patch where the water butt is planned for !

Can't wait to get the courgettes in there though, I think they'll love it.

After much huffing and puffing with the camera

We now have more pics! :-D

My hut on the right !

From the top.

I swear there were more weeds here today :-)













Casa Kay Pee

East-ish towards the big woods at the other end of the site. Glad I'm not by them - it's chilly up there.

You can just about see the white string boundary. Not huge .... but home!

Revised Plan

Not too many changes. I'll just have to breath in !

Soil has been broken !

Only to push some bamboo marker sticks in, but I have now officially started.

Intermittent lashing rain, but quite warm ... thankfully.

I now have the proper measurements and have marked out the boundaries.

A nice lady a little drive away has got 3 posts for me (it always pays to ask nicely I find), and my lovely Mr Sec left a bag of onion sets for me in the hut (which has a leaky roof). How nice is that ?

I took the boundaries as far as I could go without hitting concrete (:-O ?) but that was near the path so I guess it's the foundations for that. The actual soil is really soft, but not puddling and considering the rain we're having just now, that's a bonus ! The golf course across the road, has worse drainage problems than I do by the looks of things as one of the greens was halfway under water.

More photos taken, will just get myself a cuppa and put them up.

A cunning plan

This really is pushing the boundaries, but at least I've got something to play with, and even managed to get four rotatable areas.

Each big bed is 3.5' x 8'. The main paths are 18", the smaller ones 12" (are they going to be wide enough ?).

All subject to change of course, when I measure it out properly and find my strides aren't as long as I want them to be. The north-west corner is very visible from the big bad world outside, so I'm thinking of high screening that and have put out a wanted ad on freeshare for more for sale sign posts ! Waste not want not eh ?

The entrance is south between the fruit bushes and manure bed and of course I don't need a seating area as I can sit outside the hut (when I've got time).

Absolutely pishing down here this morning, so I'm not sure even the measuring will happen today which is why I've spent the last couple of hours with grids and things. I'm more than happy with what's here, just hope it fits in.

:-)

We have keys !

Well just the one and that lets me in, so who needs more ?

It's been blowing a gale here today, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, up to the lottie I went about 7pm to meet lovely Mr Sec, swapped a key for the princely sum of £11 (3 months rent, and £5 joining fee).

Before Mr Sec got there, I'd already paced out the approximate size (9 yds x 6 yds ish), took some photos and had a little tramp around. There were a few more thistles than I remember, and apparently we have bindweed that runs along the border :-( and maybe I was being a little optimistic about getting it weeded in one session but heh ! it's only ickle and should be a breeze.

Apparently the drainage channel that I was going to dig, isn't going to make a blind bit of difference, so it looks like it's raised beds and pallet paths.

So here it is, in all it's glory ..........

Looking south ish down the plot. Mine stops about 2-3 foot short of the orange shrubs, top right.

The paving slabs are my boundary although I can see me grabbing a bit extra at the top. The hut is to the left out of shot.

From the path looking north ish up the plot. The sign top left is just about as far as I can push the boundary at that end.

Running along the top edge. To the left of the bricks is the "wildlife" area i.e. the weeds !

Mr Robin was a constant visitor all the time I was there which was nice ! Mr Sec said don't bother bringing up any borage, I can have some of his and it was nice to see that my courgettes back on the home plot were far bigger than his !! Mind you, I've got to get them in the ground still alive yet. He's going to try and get me a blue water butt. I'm definitely going to have to build some raised beds to get the likes of the rhubarb and fruit bushes surviving the winter floods but there's a pile of manure that I can help myself to, so urgently need to acquire some pallets and make a quick manure pile.

Apparently tatties were grown on there last year but he's not sure when it was last manured.

The chap who is down at my south end, has a very nice and tidy well laid out plot. My new friend Mr Sec is slightly less obsessive.

Still it's a start and I should have it all spick and span and full planted up by ............. next weekend ??? :-)