Resolution for the Year

Never walk past a weed

Well, ya gotta be aspirational ain't cha

Happy New Garlic

and Happy New Year too.

There's something symbolic about planting something on New Year's Day, especially if it's garlic which needs a cold period to perform properly (today's test - give me the proper name for that cold period. Marks out of 10 for prompt response and bonus points for spelling it correctly).






I planted 70 cloves of various garlics from The Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight http://www.thegarlicfarm.co.uk/ and 4 cloves of elephant garlic. Last year's garlic was very poor so I'm looking forward to a better crop from better stock - some of the cloves are huge.

Then came home and had a heart-starter (double espresso & a shot of Calvados). Yummy.

This morning we went to see The Golden Compass, with lots of armoured bears on Svalbard. I was going to make a cheap crack about "Not much gardening on Svalbard", but have a look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault

Impressive.

Best wishes for a good year

Ronksley Brunch again

Pouring down last night

Pouring down again now

but in between..... a window of clear skies and cold sun which enabled six of us to get to a pre-arranged brunch at the shooting cabin just off Ronksley Moor.

It was windy and cold but bacon, eggs, tomatoes, sausages, mushrooms & beans - washed down with coffee & mulled wine - was a good end to the old year and start of the new.

Washing up was a bit al fresco

The day before the day before Xmas

Yippee. And..... it's a glorious day with bright sunshine and bitter cold frost. Ideal for getting back to the plot and doing some....digging!

So here's the result. Second patch from the top dug over, copiously manured with cute little chicken poop pellets, and lots of ordinary manure around the rhubarb and the plum tree. This year the plum tree produced two plums and both fell off before i could eat them. If it don't do better this year it'll have an appointment with my chopper.

And managed to get some Xmas leeks and Xmas spuds (the taties and the leekies, when they are both full grown, etc etc. make your own rhyme!!)

And finally, in the likely event of nothing posted tomorrow, best wishes to anyone happening by; hope you have a good Xmas and lots of allotment-related presents!

Freecycle

I've just discovered Freecycle www.freecycle.org.uk . It's brilliant. Bean Sprouts will love it. Sustainable, low impact, recycling etc. The link to an allotment frame of mind seems pretty clear.

We managed to get rid, in one day, of a settee we'd been trying to sell for ages. And I think I've got a filing cabinet that would cost me £90 new. Neat!! And it keeps it all out of landfill. Apparently Sheffield was the first group in the UK and now has over 6000 members. Downside is that I think I've now had emails from most of them.

Bold Sir Brian Botany (last)

Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on
He went among the villagers and biffed them on the head
On Tuesdays and Saturdays, but mostly on the latterday
He went to their cottages and this is what he said

I am Sir Brian, ting-a-ling
I am Sir Brian, rat-a-tat
I am Sir Brian, bold as a lion
Take that, and that, and that


That's all folks!

Bold Sir Brian Botany (7)

Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on
He went among the villagers and biffed them on the head
On Tuesdays and Saturdays, but mostly on the latterday
He went to their cottages and this is what he said

I am Sir Brian, ting-a-ling
I am Sir Brian, rat-a-tat
I am Sir Brian, bold as a lion


Only one to go

Bold Sir Brian Botany (6)

Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on
He went among the villagers and biffed them on the head
On Tuesdays and Saturdays, but mostly on the latterday
He went to their cottages and this is what he said

I am Sir Brian, ting-a-ling
I am Sir Brian, rat-a-tat


Still waiting? Two more

Bold Sir Brian Botany (5)

Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on
He went among the villagers and biffed them on the head
On Tuesdays and Saturdays, but mostly on the latterday
He went to their cottages and this is what he said

I am Sir Brian, ting-a-ling


To be continued. Just wait, more tomorrow

Bold Sir Brian Botany (4)



Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on

He went among the villagers and biffed them on the head

On Tuesdays and Saturdays, but mostly on the latterday

He went to their cottages and this is what he said





To be continued. Just wait. Patience is her own reward & a mighty virtue

Bold Sir Brian Botany (3)

Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on
He went among the villagers and biffed them on the head
On Tuesdays and Saturdays, but mostly on the latterday



To be continued. Just wait. Patience is her own reward

Bold Sir Brian Botany (2)

Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on
He went among the villagers and biffed them on the head



To be continued. No cheating. Just wait

Bold Sir Brian Botany

Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on


To be continued. No cheating. Just wait. Dym Googlio, as they'd say in Wales.

Woody digs again; Dig, Woody, Dig

At last, the coincidence of a decent day and not being at work. I've started digging from the top plot down, taking the opportunity to extend it and put piles of manure in. Here's a 'Before'

and here's an 'After', taken in the almost-dark-at-4-o'clock light.

Eleven bags of manure 'after' to be precise, although they weren't huge bags. I was going to say that should help with a better crop of garlic next year but have just discovered that garlic needs to be on a long (6 years!!) rotation to ensure build up of eelworm doesn't happen. That may explain this year's poor crop. I tend to think of anything in the same family as leeks being pretty much indestructible. That said, the leeks are pretty feeble ths year too, although that's mostly due to malnutrition.

Problem with having an allotment on a very steep slope, in a wet year like this one, is that all the nutriments go whistling straight down the hill. And I was so dispirited by the poor show, drowning, rotting off etc that I couldn't get round to feeding the beggars again.

Mind you, look at the state of the lettuce plantation (foreground).

Poor show, Woody. Do better next year.

And finally, Number 2 in an Occasional Series of Favourite Tools - The Cornish (aka Irish) spade.

It's a cross between a pointy shovel and a spade. Takes a bit of getting used to - you miss a cross piece at the top of the handle but you do get excellent leverage from that really long handle.

At last I've.....

..... taught myself to do links. Intuitive it isn't.

Note the nifty clock too.

A photo would be good but may be a bridge too far for today.

The East is Red....

... said Chairman Mao. He's clearly never been to my shed, which is supposed to be Red Cedar (that's what it says on the bucket of jollop I've just slapped all over it) but it looks remarkably like Brown to me.

The Great Leader never said The East is Brown. Except when he fell over carrying a bucket of night soil, thus causing the Cultural Revolution in which others ever after carried the Great Leader's poop bucket for him.

You'll deduce from all this that Woody has been winterising his shed - temperatures in Fairbanks, Alaska reached a high of -9C today. You can't be too careful.

Woody has also been stripping the pestilential Russian Vine off his pergola. Low points included falling off the stepladder while head and shoulders through the structure of the pergola, with an electric hedge trimmer in one hand. In an act worthy of the great Trapezo, who never did this clutching a hedge trimmer, Woody caught the trimmer with his foot & swung one-handed from the pergola, emitting Tarzan cries the while.

Still seem to be in full possession of all digits, limbs etc. And all this while suffering from plague. Oh, all right, a streaming cold.

I'm gonna walk 500 miles

Woody & Mrs Woody had a good stomp with the Proclaimers last night, on the occasion of Mrs Woody's birthday. We remember them first time round so it was good to see them live. Not the most communicative of individuals, in fact Charlie said (quite literally) not a word the whole time, but when you can have a good stomp to 500 miles, who cares.

Romany Ways

Surprise weekend away for the Wilburys; surprise in that Woody didn't know where he was going - we always knew it was going to be a weekend, and that we'd be away. And look where we ended up.

I always wanted a shack in the garden,

and even better if it has a Romany caravan there too.

and it did, and we slept in both of them, under a goosedown duvet. Just north of Abergavenny.

Abergavenny itself was dreadful. We tried seven pubs, all purporting to sell food, before finding one which actually did. Abergavenny Food Festival struck us as a bit of contradiction in terms!

Much better side trips to Hay on Wye & Hereford but mostly to Gentle Jane's tearoom in Grosmont and the Angel Inn, next door in Grosmont. Fabulous venue in which to watch England thrashing the auld enemy, but Ye Gods those Welsh Dragon sausages were hot.

Plague of Flies

We are surrounded by flies. The house is full of flies. Where are they coming from? Nothing seems to have died and rotted but they are everywhere. Everywhere, I tell you. Aaagh.

Cabbage, or what?

What about this then?

Now that's what I call a cabbage! Sadly it isn't mine. It's in Aberglasney Gardens in West Wales,

where we were last weekend for Granny Wilbury's 80th birthday celebrations. Despite her recent hip op Granny W proved v sprightly in hip-hopping around.