Sunday 28 March 2010

Tidy Backyard

Spent Saturday at the plot - got another 5 square metres dug over, only another 20 or so to go. Unfortunately it's the section I was planning to plant potatoes, so may have to whittle down the number I was hoping to sow or reduce planting schemes elsewhere. Hey ho. The last bit won't be easy either, as a few tentative fork pokings & exploratory spadings have revealed that at some point in the past some kind of structure - probably a shed - has been built there, as proved by the vast amounts of stones, bricks & lumps of concrete buried just under the surface of the soil. May need a period of good weather & some prolonged hard work with a sieve to properly deal with that area. Still, the stones are proving to make fantastic path material, and being of the sharp broken flint variety make brilliant slug barriers.


Hey! I'm making myself my own personal corral! an encampment of vegetables protected by razor-sharp flints from marauding slugs and snails! Well, it will be once I've pelleted all the ones I've encircled. With slug pellets of the organic variety, of course - wouldn't want to put anything down that harmed other wildlife. Or maybe I'll just drown them in beer (bit of a waste of beer though).



Today weather forecast suggested rain (which is only just starting to fall now at 7pm in the evening! Grrrr) so spent the day tidying up the back garden instead, which has been sadly neglected since we got plot last October. Insane really, as it's the backgarden that I look out onto everyday. Still - all nice & tidy now, everything trimmed back, and ready to receive the tomatoes, aubergines & chilli plants that I think'll do better in my sheltered back garden, rather than up at the exposed plot.

6 comments:

  1. No, no! I don't want to look at the picture! I read the post by looking sideways so I could keep my eyes as averted as they would go!

    Esther

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  2. Slugs go after our hosta and ligularia like it was candy. I use soapy water in a spritzer and spray every day. Welcome to blotanical. jim

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  3. I haven't got my potato bed dug over yet either. I'm hoping for some good weather over Easter to get some jobs done on the allotment, but going by the weather this week, it doesn't look likely. I look forward to following your progress on your allotment this year.

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  4. Hope you have some good weather this weekend to get some digging done. The potatoes will soon catch up -the soil is still cold at the moment.

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  5. Ah yes, ground way too boggy to plant potatoes just yet. But hoping it'll dry out this weekend.

    Sorry for the slug pic Esther - it's the stuff of nightmares!

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  6. Hi thanks for visiting my blog. Looks like you've got lots of work done on your plot - putting me to shame.
    Hope you get lots done over Easter. Have a good time. J

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