Monday, January 4th, 2005

And a very happy and prosperous New Year to you and yours!

Time to be planning next year's Christmas dinner!   Frozen and/or supermarket veg - tasteless, texturess --- no, mustn't rant.

So I took a walk over this morning - really just to have a look; lovely day, very fresh and cold, but the soil is just a bit too wet to do anything sensible; my excuse!

Good to see the rhubarb and comfrey just peeping through; the chives have survived the transplanting; some of the fruit cuttings look very healthy.   The bottom end of the plot was full of water back in October - but just digging a drainage channel across the main path means it's much drier now.   There weren't any sedges among the weeds in that part - so my guess proves right; it was just a short-term problem caused by digging beds down the slope.

Must have a think about this idea though - planning drainage to stop the water getting to the lowest point; makes much more sense - and keeps the water in my plot for later in the summer?   I may redig the beds so that they run across the slope.   Common sense - ach, hindsight's a wonderful thing.

The clods are beginning to break up and crumble - but a few clumps of the couch grass are survivng well :-(; it doesn't all get drowned then.

Heard my first blackbird of the new year, singing away lustily; a wren over the other side making a right old racket; and the blu tits having a noisy ball high up in the ash tree.   No sign of the missel thrushes that were around last week though.

Sunday, January 9th, 2005

In the lull between the storms, today - fresh and cold, but a lovely pretty day; there are a few sheds and greenhouses leaning a lot more drunkenly today, and several bits of roof and panes of glass in unusual places!

Got the last chunk of digging done - that's half the plot dug over - and spread some lime where I'll put the brassicas.   I haven't done a pH test, but I reckon it's worth doing anyway - just in case there is club-root, and the lime should help the clay soil crumble.

So all that's left are the big tidying jobs - in preparation for clearing the other half this year.   This "weed" is now gone - not just cut down (the kids did that in October), but I spent all afternoon getting the stumps out, and following the roots to get all its little (not really so little, either!) friends.   Must have been 10 years old?   Although its spread was huge, I'm guessing that because it was a sucker off the plum tree on next door plot, it didn't have a tap root?   And like the couch grass, it's been unable to get more than three or four inches into the heavy clay.

Sunday, January 30th, 2005

At last - the loads of manure have arrived.   Good looking stuff too, but needs a bit of rotting down; still a lot of straw.

Ah - and the smell!   I love it - and miss it when my brain starts to ignore it; odd how, after an hour, you don't smell the manure, but can smell all sorts of other things.

I'm never happy though - the nearest the tractor could get was at least 100 yards away.   So we've spent a couple of hours barrowing the stuff on to the plot - a third of it moved, the equivalent of pushing a laden builder's barrow over 2 miles :-).   I'm piling it up on a piece of carpet (I'm not letting the weeds grow up through it!), and it's also covered in carpet - keeping it warm and the rain off.   Hope it warms up and rots fairly quickly.

And Glenn's given us some more parsnips - for all it's a clay soil, they are big; and they taste superb too.   Nice!

First ladybird of the year - sitting on the manure heap!   So much for a cold hard winter.