Sunday, 19th November, 2006

The whole family spent a good 2 hours at the Plot this afternoon. Weather was good, ground was not! It is just soooooo water logged it drives you up the wall (yes, I know it's winter, but just read on). P did an amazing dig over with the fork while I tried hard to get rid of some of the roots he'd dug up. At the moment it feels like a never-ending task, but I'm hoping it'll get better as the ground dries out. We decided to get rid of the carpet and cardboard (which was just so soggy) as it was flattening out the ground and not really helping with the airing side of things. Again, we compared our lumpy clay soil to the beautifully dug over, unlumpy soil of the plot next to us and felt like weeping!

As we were leaving, the couple who look after the adjoining plot turned up, so I begged him their secret of lovely soil. It appears he's been on his plot for 20 years and that ours does have poor soil due to people staying very short times on it and not really getting all the old roots and junk out of the ground.

Now the bad bit - he suggested we continue to dig and weed and turn over the ground until winter has really set in and then leave it for the frost and winter hardness to kill off anything in the soil. Continue to clear and dig for most of next year and then put on lots and lots of manure and compost (he'd used mushroom compost from a local mushroom factory), ready for planting 2008!

Now the good bit - if we do this, he guarantees our plot will be as lovely as his and the soil will allow an vegetables to be easily grown.

So, we plough on ....

Wednesday, 15th November 2006

Quick update. As you'd been away last week on holiday, I thought the plot would have sprouted extra weeds in our absence so we were itching to get along to continue our major dig!

As it happened, the ground didn't look much different, perhaps we're going to be lucky and not have many weeds on our site (just loads and loads of old roots, which is still pretty bad). All the sections we'd previously covered were still covered, so I just continued to clear another strip. The plot next to ours has been recently worked on. He's dug over a large section and the soil looks lovely, crumbly and clear. We seem to have a bit of this kind of soil next to our walking path, but the rest is pure clay!

We've had a bit of rain since our last visit as the ground was pretty waterlogged - you could hear it squelch as you lifted the fork! Before we left, I dug over a bit extra, just to break it up and let the air dry the ground out a little to hopefully make it easier for me when we return. B was unable to help with any digging this week, he couldn't even remove the fork from the ground poor love. Instead he dissected the numerous pears that have fallen at the head of the plot, and continued to fall (plop, plop) periodically as I worked.

We were alone on the allotment for most of this visit, but one other chap did arrive to pick a few of his huge carrots. He's given me one of his rusty, holey wheelbarrows to help me out. Very kind of him really and it was a help, rather than lugging a large crate of old roots to the dumping area. This chap has quite an industry going on his plot! Huge amounts of odds and ends, buckets, wood, pallets, tools, carpet, netting and a locked shed or two of goodies!

Here's an update photo. Doesn't look much different, can't wait to get some growth on the plot - of the wanted kind that is!