February 3rd, 2009 by Rich

Monday was meant to be a nice lazy day for me, I had the day booked off as I knew I was unlikely to be in a fit state to work as I stayed up to watch the Superbowl so I knew bedtime would be around 4am. The game was a corker and was in the balance right up to the last 5 seconds of play when the Steelers secured their victory, it was a game the really showed why the Steelers and the Cardinals got to Superbowl, I’m glad I stayed up to watch it.

Ahhh lovely sleep, wait what’s that f*&£ing noise …. arggghhh, yes no one told Seefur that I was meant to be having a nice sleep. I managed to put up with her being a royal pain for about 2 hours and ended up getting up bleary eyed at 9am. I knew snow had been predicted but was none the less surprised when I looked out of the window to see just how much snow there was.

On a day where there is snow and  schools are shut, public transport is cancelled the country is in mass hysteria, what is the first thought that comes into my head? Hmmm I should get down the allotment and get that snow off the greenhouse roof! Yes truly that is the thought I had upon seeing the snow, I guess this proves I’m a real allotment man!

The drive over there and back was a little interesting, (mainly because it appears the world is full of morons who can’t drive) whilst over there I quickly brushed off the snow off the greenhouse and the shed roof to make sure they weren’t going to get damaged by the weight of the snow. Having done that I took a quick photo and headed back to the warmth of the house and plonked myself in front of animal crossing on the wii so that I could weed and plant flowers

The difference a day can make:

This also shows nicely shows how much more wood chip we need to shift as you can see all of the paths around the raised beds

February 3rd, 2009 by Rich

A bit of a catch-up post today following a busy weekend. We spent many an hour Saturday and Sunday down on the allotment mainly concentrating on getting paths sorted. We had previously put boards up to mark paths and a nice area to have table and chairs etc so this weekend we put down a load of weed proof membrane and covered it with wood chippings. We were fortunate that the council supplied us with both membrane and chippings, the down side was the chippings were in the roadway behind and along from our allotment. This meant that we had to fill up a wheelbarrow, wheel it down to our fence and empty it over the fence into another barrow to be placed where we needed it. As you can imagine, this took a little bit of time and the unloading over the fence became the most tiring part! By the end of Saturday we were both achy and tired but pleased with the transformation that we had made, no more slipping on mud outside the shed and somehow it just looked so much nicer.

Being achy and tired, clearly the best remedy for this was to have friends around to drink beer, eat take away and play rayman raving rabbids on the wii, after all shaking remotes around like a loon has to be good for you right?

Sunday ended up being a little more of a relaxed day, we got up late and headed down Scours Lane for a few more hours of membrane and chipping action. We didn’t do huge amounts as we were still a bit achy and it was bitterly cold, fortunately I remembered to pick the mugs up so we nice hot coffee helped me along the way. By the time we left I was happy with our progress, we have probably covered about half the area we need to with the chippings, on the whole the bits left to do now are the paths between the raised beds.

This photo gives an idea of what we have done, you can see the path leading down to the “patio” area, all around the shed and across to and in between the greenhouses (there are two honest! there is one behind the one you can see.)

What we will do this coming weekend, I don’t know I guess that depends on the weather!

January 28th, 2009 by Rich

So I thought I would post a photo of our new plot on Scours Lane, it was taken by my *better* half a few weeks ago, not a lot going on really, some raised beds laying around, our old greenhouse and  a new shed in the wrong place! The only real reason for posting this is so that you see what progress we have made when I post a newer photo in the days to come (unless I forget which is entirely possible – after all whilst there is beer to be drunk it will be!)

In the foreground you will see a nice big pile of poo! Well poo and straw actually, the pile is now half the size it was as we have spread some around ready for the ground to dry out a bit before I get to take the rotovator out for its first run. The rotovator was a brilliant find of mine from rehomeyourstuff, a website I suggest you check out.