Forking Hell

I keep forgetting my camera, which is making this blog too wordy and means I'm unable to prove a) a chicken egg found in one of the carrot boxes, and b) my neighbour's amazonian strength when using a gardening fork.

The chicken egg was weighted, and clearly dead, so we didn't want to look inside. It was obviously nicked and buried by a cheeky creature who thought we wouldn't notice.

My neighbour stuck her gardening fork in the ground to dig a patch for our dormant goosebob bushes to move into. Our plot is very stony, and after she'd dug up half a small cottage worth of stones, she got one caught in the tines. After pulling on the fork, she brought it out of the ground to reveal it pointing with one finger, as if to say 'that was you, that was.' Ooh we did laff.

Being the hardy young lass that she is (guffaw), she carried on with the bent fork regardless, and we got the job done.

The sun was out today, but it was hard work. It wasn't just my arthritic knee. I'm quite young (guffaw) to have such a thing wrong with me, but it was the fact that I'd only had two slices of toast for breakfast, and we were out there till 3pm with no lunch. My neighbour is a slave driver.

We also planted some bulbs today, to lift our spirits come next Spring. I tried to plant them in the letters of my daughter's name but some stones got stuck in the third letter. I'm not going to mention it to anyone.

Summer over. Over Winter.

We've learned a few lessons this year, and that's without the benefit of a gardening course. As far as learning curves go, this one is long, but never dull. It is still good however, to be working this plot with my neighbour, as it means the plot is always an enjoyable job to be done, rather than another discarded hobby, left to the weeds of demotivation. It makes finding a pristine, unbroken full sized bath at the top of our allotment a fun discovery instead of just a practical one. I would always recommend sharing a plot now.

The second installment of my gardening course at Meersbrook park had a more promising turnout, but it poured it down all day, so we stayed under cover and discussed the merits of artificial compost. I still don't know what the benefits of artificial composting are, as apparently I can't buy the raw ingredients (Coir anyone?) nearby anyway. I can order it online though. I need to look into this, because it is used as an alternative to peat, but I haven't yet researched how much peat there is in the bags of compost you can buy anywhere.

I also now know, that if I'm going to make some up, I'll need sand, especially in the newly acquired carrot bath. Our carrots are lovely (albeit small) this year, grown in home-made and reclaimed boxes (due to clay soil and carrot fly larvae), but they were grown in small receptacles, so we could get a larger crop next year.

We've sown mustard and rye, and will sow field beans for our green manure. We've now put our alliums in, for over wintering. Our red onions failed last year. We think we planted them too deep, but we also reckon the packets come with different instructions every time (that's our excuse). Our courgettes are finished now, but were one of our great successes along with the potatoes. The peas were great too. The brassicas are coming along, and as by all accounts the squashes must come out now, we might have to pick our small fist sized ones, even though it's still a healthy looking plant with lots of flowers still on it. Any advice?