Digging and weeding

This morning despite the cloudy and chilly weather, I walked down to the allotment. I wasn’t sure whether I would get much done as even with a fleece and bodywarmer I still felt cool.

I swung by the clubhouse and spent a good hour chatting away to Dave the Plod, Geoff, Cliff, Steve and Mick the Greek. Partway through, Rachel joined us too. The main topic of conversation was Brexit as in most other places in the UK at the moment. A general consensus was reached – there would still be allotments and carrots would still be growing next year whatever happens. And on that note, we all bimbled off to our plots to start work.

First job was to feed and clean out the chickens. They seem to be enjoying the longer daylight hours and so far seem to be getting along with each other. After the food and water were sorted, I cleaned out the coop. Minimal mess inside as they are starting to sleep outside more now that the weather is warmer.

Next, I moved onto watering. It is a job I always forget to do and many plants have died due to neglect. All watered and I am pleased to say nothing has died yet this year! As I was wondering what to do next, Phil swung by and offered to lend me his fantastic hoe thing again. I said yes instantly. I really can’t explain how much easier it is to hoe a plot with one of these. It’s a long time until Christmas or my birthday but I may be able to persuade my long suffering husband we need one before then.

Today was the day to start dealing with the nightmare weed section at the bottom of the plot. I went over it a couple of times and extracted as many weeds as I could before digging it over. If you dig it over without removing weeds they just grow back twice as fast. It’s so frustrating. But after removing a good number of weeds, it looked better. The chickens love it when I am weeding as they usually get the weeds to eat. They will eat almost anything but you need to be careful that no poisonous plants go in (potato leaves, rhubarb leaves, nightshade etc). Dandelions are their favourite weed at the moment.

Now the weeds had been removed, I began to dig. I initially continued the left section but rapidly gave it up. It was better to tackle the weedy section between the greenhouse shield and the new trellis section. It took quite some time to go a proper job. It was now hot work as the sun had decided to put in an appearance. But it definitely looks much better!

I also spent some time tweaking the crazy paving. Using three spades of coarse sand, I filled the cracks between the slabs. According to Steve this should ensure each fragment stays put and doesn’t wobble. The addition of the sand has another bonus, it brightens up the crazy paving and catches the sunlight more.

Finally, I went to have a drink and a chill out in the shed. As I write, the sun is shining, the wind is blowing gently, the birds are singing and I am covered in soil and dust from head to toe. Life doesn’t get much better than this.

Tomorrow’s job is to clear the end of the weed section and finish off clearing the back section between the fruit bushes that I started this evening.