Two-Sheds

Devotees of early Monty Python will recall Arthur "Two-sheds" Jackson, who in fact did not have two sheds but was only considering a second shed.

Dear Reader, I have gone better - I am now Two Sheds. My rude hut at home now supplements a ruder hut at the allotment and rejoices in the title you see below.

Sixteen Miles on the Erie Canal?

Well, no actually, more like 10 miles on the Chesterfield Canal towpath this morning, by bicycle. The Chesterfield Canal should look like this

but bits of it actually look like this.

There's been a breach; the ducks look very confused.

I was listening to Springsteen singing about the Erie Canal on the Seeger sessions last night, and I have actually been to the Erie Canal,

here in 2001 when I was on my Churchill Fellowship following David Douglas - all good allotmenters should know about David Douglas (1799-1834).

But the Chesterfield Canal has grand aspirations:

Meanwhile, back in allotment-land, it's been glorious here today.

Finished clearing out the cabbages

and came home with that great Russian delicacy, a bucketful of cabbages. I've also started digging out some of the internal paths - my path:plot ratio is too high and I'm wasting good growing space. Although all I have in the whole plot at the moment is a few leeks and some excellent garlic.

Other plans for the plot this year include:

• making a manure 'bin' immediately behind a thin part of the hedge so that I can have manure delivered and hurl it, in a cavalier fashion, through the hedge into a cunningly placed receptacle - not unlike what my Geordie Granny would have called an outside netty.
• To one side of the pseudo netty I want a flowering mallow (Lavatera), for big showy colour and
• to the other I want a Rambling Rose to ramble picaresquely through the hedge.
• Downhill from the pseudo netty, I want to extend the top part of the plot and and actually grow things in what is currently a fallow area.
• Also need a new water butt for the top, and to repair an old one with concrete (what else?), and fix a puncture on my wheelbarrow.
  

Exciting times, what?

Pheasant in mi Garden, what mi gonna do?

(with apologies to UB40).

Anyway, today's snow seems to have driven an unusual visitor out of the woods and into the garden.

Ronksley Cabin Brunch

Bloggers with long memories (Sept 22nd, last year) will recall an off-plot expedition to Ronksley Moor shooting cabin in the Peak District, Derbyshire,

and a threat to revisit for brunch. Been there today with my old mate Paul.

A "no-breakfast" start got us to the shooting cabin by 9.30, for bacon, eggs, sausages, mushrooms & tomatoes, courtesy of Sainsbury's and two small camping stoves.

Fabulous. Completely stuffed, it took us another two hours to get back to the car and make plans to do it again.

Favourite Tools - No. 1 in an occasional series

The Spade

This was my Dad's spade, which I inherited when he died. He never had much money in his life and I discovered after he died that he had saved up for a month, in his seventies, to buy this spade. It is a really good spade (Bulldog, I think). It isn't stainless so I have to keep it in use to keep it shiny, which my dad would have liked. He was wont to say "Come on, put the tool to the job", so I do.

I like to think he would approve of the use it continues to get. Not sure what he'd make of this blogging business though.

Plastic Fantastic

New "greenhouse" is up & running. Well, it'll do for now.

Oh, Potting Bench...

Oh potting bench, oh potting bench

To leave you now is such a wrench

Next lines please. Have to scan to the tune of Tannenbaum, People's Flag, Oh Christmas Tree etc.

Woodpecker in St James's

There I was at 9 o'clock this morning killing time in St James's Park in central London, before going to a sustainable development conference, when I heard loud and clear, twice, a woodpecker.

Got the day off to a good start. Glorious bright sunny morning, good conference in prospect (and it was) and a woodpecker.

Are there two moons? Was I looking at the wrong one?

Watched the eclipse last night, on a brilliantly clear night. Everyone is banging on about the reddish colour it went. Not in my sky it didn't. And it was an hour late.

Am I missing something? It was good, and very clear, but not the teeniest bit red. Am I in a parallel universe?

First seeds sown, taters chitting, mice hungry

At last, some seeds sown! Tomatoes - Tamina & Moneymaker (haven't grown MM for years because I remember them as insipid; we'll see how they do this year. Leeks - Musselburgh - back to an old favourite because my Gigante d'Inverno from Seeds of Italy did badly last year (suspect I'd kept the seed too long). Parsley - Flat leaf. can't get enough of it in summer.

Taters - Nicola (chosen by Mrs M) are chitting well but, checking back through last year, I find those are the ones Mrs M said she didn't like on account of them having a 30 second window between being cooked and being boiled to mush. So Charlotte are now chitting too!

And finally, the saga of the omnivorous mice seems to be over. They've eaten not only the chocolate orange but the box and the silver paper too. That must have given 'em bellyache!

Garlic is doing well,

Rhubarb too. Spring is Springing!!!

A Pile of Poo

Taking the visiting relatives for a walk in the woods, we chanced on a pile of poo, of the Horse variety. What better for allotments? A neighbour keeps two horses in a paddock in the woods behind his house and the poo is beginning to escape the confines of his manure heaps. Free for the taking, but for the small matter of bagging it up, barrowing it through the holly bush and over the rickety bridge into the bottom of our garden. You think I'm making this up don't you?

The holly bush diversion is new, following a tree coming down in the Big Storm. The rickety bridge isn't very rickety but still challenging with a wheelbarrow full of poo. Why don't I just get a trailer load of manure delivered, like normal people, you may ask? Trouble is, the unstable back won't handle that amount of lifting, twisting, turning, tipping. It's actually easier to do it in smaller quantities, through the holly bush etc. Pictures in due course. Bet you can't wait?

Meeces tidy up too!

It hasn't taken them long to get to the 2nd Chocolate Orange. Through the box yesterday, now through the foil and half the choc has gone. Oh for a mouse cam.
















But look what they've done to my shed by way of thanks. How tidy is that?

















Sadly, tidy inside doesn't necessarily mean tidy outside!

Meeces clean up!


















As you can see they've left no trace of the Chocolate Orange but plenty of traces of themselves. There's another, still wrapped, Chocolate Orange next to the remnants. They've already started on the box. Let's see how long it takes them to get through the foil.

Of Mice and Spiders

At last I've found a way of disposing of the Terry's Chocolate Oranges I get in profusion at Xmas. I don't dislike them hugely, I just get a bit fed up of them, so take them to the allotment for an emergency sugar surge. Carelessly left one unwrapped last week and found it today, significantly smaller and with mousey teeth marks on it. Meeces, you're welcome!

Less welcome was the spider which had made a nest in my [allotment emergencies only, got to be pouring with rain before I wear it] cap. Big, nest, big spider, and of course only discovered when I put the cap on and it ran round the top of my head. Hey Ho.

Who nicked my Darwin Fish?








I bought one of these last week. A really neat and elegant statement of belief, from www.darwinfish.co.uk , and put it onto a nice clean car on Sunday. By Wednesday, GONE!!!!

And it had spent Monday & Tuesday in a secure car park. Unless evolution has speeded up dramatically (mutants?) and it's gone off for a nice walk by itself I have to conclude some toe-rag has nicked it.

Or has it been too provocative a statement for a passing Fundamentalist?

Still struggling with a bad back but this time it's my own stupid fault. It had been improving all week and had a good pummeling from the chiropractor, then I foolishly tried to move a cast iron Chiminea and it all went twang again. Hey Ho.

Rather restricts allotment activities - in fact all I managed was to dig up some leeks, although I did have to dig my way in to the plot. Recent heavy wind & rain meant a pile of soil & leaves 18 inches high against the gate. Needless to say, there's been no sign of The Inconstant Gardener since well before Xmas. But, three bright spots on which to remark:

three plots surrounding mine which were derelict when I took this one are now well advanced in the recovery position

my garlic is sprouting well

and so is the rhubarb

First post of the new year, and it's actually nothing to do with the allotment. Although I have got this year's sald potatoes now (Nicola, chosen by Kate). But that's it - the allotment is a mudbath at the moment and attempting to do anything will simply make it worse; well, that's my excuse. But the Seeds of Italy catalogue has come so there's lots of fun to come with that. Think I'm going to buy a Passata maker, to avoid wasting surplus tomatoes.

And I've been out onmy bike too - 13 muddy miles on the Transpennine Trail, which has hurt my back so now I'm hobbling.

In the bleak midwinter (not so bleak, not so midwinter these days), the allotment sits dull and grey. No action, cold wet and miserable.
















Or perhaps that's just me? No matter; I can take comfort in a festive cabbage!!

Happy Xmas, allotment bloggers everywhere

Seeds ordered (at 33% discount from Suttons through work). Cut down on some of the daft ones this year but still seem to have a lot of chillies (How'm I feeling? Hot, Hot, Hot). Still using home-made chilli oil from 2 years ago and it still blows your socks off, despite looking distinctly unsavoury by now. My son refuses to touch it. Gnome - try some in your chutney!

At last!! Back online again after a 5 week absence - broadband nightmare, new provider, line faults, exchange faults, call centres in India etc. Very tedious but now alive again. And how is the allotment, you may ask? Neglected but not as bad as it would have been if neglected for 5 weeks in the summer. Digging now 70% done.

And next year's Garlic is in, on 2nd December. Not quite as early as last year when it went in in October but it'll still get some cold weather for vernalsiation. And there's lots of it. Ye Gods - 64 cloves. Good job we like it!