The good and the bad

The recent lack of posts has been caused by an unfortunate coincidence of me not having a camera and Andrew not having an internet connection. So I'm afraid this will have to be a pictureless post until we get Andrew's photos onto my computer somehow.

Last weekend was our first free weekend in ages and so we managed to get up to the allotment not just once, but twice! It was a weekend of ups and downs:

Bad thing: nettles. HUGE nettles. They've taken over the allotment (well, the paths around it) in the last couple of weeks. OUCH. I'd forgotten how much nettle stings hurt. Luckily the allotment is also surrounded by dock leaves so I managed to prevent too much pain. Andrew unfortunately didn't take advantage of nature's cure for nettle stings and ended up with a painful rash all over his arms for a few days. The plus side: Andrew's aunt Jill tells us that nettles make a good fertiliser if you soak them in a bucket of water for a few days then use the water on your plants. We're trying it out.

Bad thing: Dry soil. Our soil is so dry!! And with just a little watering can, it takes an age to keep the vegetables from going thirsty. The plus side: our lovely allotment neighbour Carol bought a new hose and has given us permission to use it whenever we want. And it's a 'kink-free, extra long hose'. Brilliant.

Good thing: sunshine, lovely sunshine. The hottest weekend of the year so far. The down side: The factor 30 wasn't enough to stop me getting sunburnt.

Good thing: Andrew's brother Ben turned up to see the allotment and ended up spending the whole afternoon helping us out. He did loads of weeding around the beans and peas. demonstrating particularly excellent weeding skills, and then he helped Andrew sort out the guttering on the shed. When we put the shed up, the guttering was the last thing to go up, and by that time Andrew's dad had reached "I'm tired, let's just get this done as quickly as possible" point. So the guttering ended up being, how should I put this... not exactly perfect. Water slid down the roof and right over the top of the guttering onto the ground below! Not really fit for its purpose of saving water. If we'd had a water butt (which we didn't) it would have stayed empty. But now, after a few hours hard work from Craig brothers 1 and 2, and thanks in particular to Ben's excellent DIY skills, learnt at his father's knee I think, we have a fully functioning gutter that flows down into our lovely new water butt (yet another present from Mum and Dad Craig). The down side: There isn't a down side. Ben can come and help any time he likes.

Delivery

It was a bank holiday.. It was always going to be bad weather. So why the surprise when, true to form, it doesn't stop raining for 24 hours?!

Oh well. These things are to be expected, and our plot could do with the water anyway - over the last few weeks the reality of our "very well drained" soil has hit home, with the unworked beds turning into piles of dry dust. 

As there wasn't anything growing on it when we arrived we decided some time ago that what we really needed was some nice manure to mulch in. Apparently it's good at putting nutrients into the soil and also retaining moisture and the like. 

We'd spoken to Jill (who helps with the admin and runs the tiny allotment shop) about this when we first started, but hadn't got around to getting any yet.

So, with much trepidation we phoned the poo man, had a strained conversation on volumes ("Erm.. I'm not sure.. how much do you think we need..?") and after some deliberation became the owners of 10 bin bags full of premium horse shit. 

Woohoo!

Phil arrived with it in the back of his Fiat "Poo-nto" (his joke..) the next week. 

So we've now dug most of it in, only one bag left.. I'm quite surprised at how quickly it's disappeared actually. You can tell which bits have had it too, just by the colour of the soil. At least I think you can. You probably can't. 
Anyway, I think we need more.

Also, the poor neglected, desiccated pear isn't dead after all! We have shoots! Hurrah! Sure we'll have no fruit this year, but hopefully it'll settle in for next time.