Today!

Yes, finally up to date! A nice photo of the plot this weekend. You can see from the photo that the flowers and garlic and doing well at least. (the carpetted part is the neighbouring plot) And you can see the black cover over my chopped bramble area, which I decided to poison this weekend with Root Out. It already seems to be working! I won't be planting that area for a long time (summer earliest, but probably autumn) so am not worried about it.

Today I forked over and weeded half of another length of the main rows area and got in half my calabrese and beetroot. They'll continue into the next half of the row which I'll try and do this week. In order to get my second lot of potatos in I'm thinking of completing digging out a length - making a trench I can build up as they grow. That would mean not having to weed the turned soil so could be an easier option. I can use the soil for something else when I have time to weed it.

After this week I'm on holiday for 3 weeks so just have to leave it to nature for a while.

Drawings from last week!

Still forgetting my camera, but I've been sketching while having breaks. It's SO beautiful out, about 20 degrees last weekend! The flowers are all in bloom, lovely black tulips have all come up, garlic is going well, more digging but now the ground is rock hard.

A peek at the garlic.


One of the black tulips.


And a view over into the back half of the front half, now covered in black sheeting. There's a funny old frame made out of metal bars and then in the bramble I found the remnants of the steel frame from an old shed.

Catch Up: About 6 weeks ago, part II

More catch up photos. :) On the Monday my friend Leila came along to help chop bramble while I got on with digging. Jo (Oakley) popped along later with a lighter and we had a nice bonfire with the bramble! It burned really nicely in the old compost bin. A nice 'safe' holder so that I didn't complete lose it. I was slightly convinced we were going to burn down all of Eltham! So I stood by with bucket at the ready the whole time.

Second length of bed dug:


A couple "sculptures" found in the bramble, now in the flower bed. (These photos are very out of date now, the bed is filled with flowers now!)


The base of the shed is down, took a lot of digging, levelling, sand and paving stones. It'll do anyway.


My new 'tool'. A pram. Can you believe it? ME? With a pram? Haha! Very good for moving bags of sand though.


And another view of the plot with Leila over by the bramble.

Catch Up: About 6 weeks ago

I *have* been down at the allotment, just keep forgetting my camera. A nice Saturday out, started digging my biggest area for veg - weeding out all the couch grass of course. Grrrr... A nice shot of my first bed, the plot so far, and my wee rose bush! It was a beautiful sunny day.

Chopping chopping chopping

Had a day out with my friend Leila and my new loppers and BOY did we cut a lot of bramble! It was fantastic. In a stunning contrast to her usual fashionable style (well, her own style at least) Leila donned sweats, hoodie and boots and loved using the loppers. So spent a lot of time piling up the wheelbarrow to move the chopping down to the bramble wall.

Also borrowed neighbour's saw (with his permission of course) and chopped down a couple of the hawthorne trees. So here's a pic of me with my first felled tree! (yes, I did yell 'timber')






We had quite a few tea breaks too. Sitting in my eBay old army chairs, purchased from the National Theatre props dept.

Dry at last!

Thanks gods January is gone. And we seem to be having spring days, though I'm sure the frost will be back to haunt us. (We've only had a few nights frost last week, that's been it all winter.)

Wonderful day out...
Planted a bit more garlic. 'Hoed' (with my hands) my 3 beds and it's wonderful how the cold really has broken up the clay soil! One of those things I just didn't believe but I have lovely smooth(ish) soil to putter about with. I smoothed things out and weeded the flower beds. Put in a few more bulbs. Dug out a few bramble roots in order to make a little herb corner - just teensy little parsley plants in now.

Friend Leila bought me 6 primrose plants at the Manor House Gardens farmers market yesterday so I put them in a little row at the front of the flower bed. They look quite cheery!

I also put out 3 ceramic pots, made as birdbaths by my friend Shelagh, on the ground as either birdbaths or little ponds for frogs. Whatever wildlife might like them. Sunk them a bit and made sure there was earth banked up around them, tried to have one a bit hidden in grass.

Also chatted to Hamish next to me and decided to put my shed up at the top of the plot. There's a space I've already cleared, fairly flat and ready to go. So if I can get to the plot tomorrow I'm going to move the sand and paving slabs up to the top. That's a bit of a task in and of itself since I can only carry one slab at a time.

Light out until about 5.15pm. Will get some photos tomorrow.

Day 38 - Walden

Discoveries:
1. Libravox: public domain audio books! Fantastic. Download the mpgs and listen while you dig! I'm listening, appropriately enough, to Thoreau's Walden.
2. I need a bigger flask. More coffeeeeee! My tiny little 1.5 cup might work for a quick cycling pick me up but ain't doin' it for digging recovery.

Winter setting in and I'm finding it hard to adjust with the allotment, no more quick hour or so at the end of the day. So I have to be more disciplined at getting up out of bed early!

After 2 weekends of open studios and an art fair this coming week I've been pretty non-stop at work, so finally got back out the plot this morning after a couple weeks to check the tarps if nothing else. Got into chopping the bramble again! Had a look at the back of the plot again and decided that I need to prioritise making a path through. Otherwise my only way to the back of my plot is to go around the neighbour's. We're supposed to maintain a path between each one so he and I would have to clear up a path eventually anyway. So I'm hacking away at the right hand side for a narrow pass at least. Hard to see really, so I've made a circle around it. I did chop back about another metre today.

Also starting clearing a bit at the back where some trees are being strangled by bramble and some very odd thick and woody type of vine thing, fortunately it seems to be mostly dead. Again, hard to see in the picture but there's quite a few little trees in there. Not sure if I should keep them or not, so if you know what these are let me know if they're going to be an allotment menace in the future? (you can click the picture to see a larger version)


And finally, there's been lots of pics of the plot from the front vantage so I though I'd give you a longways view now that neighbour has chopped all his bramble so you can see it from the other path. So the metal water butt is basically the close side of my plot which then goes back to the bramble behind. Lengthwise, this isn't quite half of my space - the other half continues the solid bramble you can see on the right hand side. Bah. (again, click the piccie for larger view!)

Day 25 - catching up!

Things got a bit busy with my Open Studios and the preparation so didn't get to the allotment last week. Back in on Monday (day 24, technically) and played with my new azada! Whew, hard work! I'm told it's meant to be easier on the back but the overarm swinging isn't something my body is used to. Biceps are achy, a good thing. But back is achier, bad thing. (I have a bad back anyway.) But I'm sure I'll get into the 'swing' of things with time. *grin* Anyway, it cleared out a huge bramble root so I'm very happy! Not as sure about it's efficiency with clearing the couch grass topsoil vs the fork but will keep trying. The bramble root was the last thing in the way of the shed area so now that's cleared out and hopefully somewhat level. Hoping to nick some old paving stones from a skip down the road, but if all else fails there's actually a building merchant at the top of the road the allotment is on so I'll go ask for leftovers or maybe chipped slabs they can't use. Pic is of the cleared space for the shed.


Today I made the mistake of going to the allotment even with painful back. Nevermind. I did get all my bulbs in! So hopefully I'll have a lovely colourful spring bloom! They're spread about randomly, going for a natural look with about 250 bulbs.