Thursday, 22 May 2014

HOW DID HE GET AWAY WITHOUT CUTTING THE GRASS!

She had this thought when she had been cutting the grass for an hour, yes Dear Readers, it does take a long time when it has grown like Topsy and is fast approaching knee height!

Up and down and around about the big and small beds, it took three tanks of petrol yesterday and it was whilst she was filling the tank the second time that she thought how come Bruce got away with not doing this? 

That is why it got to be so long, they didn't go to the garden, they stayed in the city and did his stuff.

Never mind, it won't take her long to catch up with the garden chores, she did all the grass and the back bit of her Italian neighbour's plot, he doesn't have a trimmer, it only takes about five minutes and means that the nettles won't get to go to seed.

It was a 'funny old' day yesterday, it was warm but overcast and looked as if it would pour with rain at any minute but it stayed dry until in the early hours of this morning, when she popped outside, as you do in the dark, to do a 'Slug Patrol' and found it was raining and very lubbley-jubbly 'good' rain it was too!

On the bus from Hammersmith to the garden she met a garden friend, Rose, with her very charming Jack Russell Terrier Gertie, dear flirty Gertie, she is such a brilliant ratter and mouser! 

Rose was very pleased to see her as she remembered that she had forgotten her allotment gate key! She did that once, it is very boring to travel for an hour to find that the keys are not in your pocket.. grrrr!

Whooo, all the potatoes are growing splendidly,  they need to be earthed up which is what she will do today but the main job today is clearing the ground of all weeds and doing a light hoe under Miss Victoria Plum, this little tree had a problem with a maggot infestation last year and she knows that she didn't pick up all of the plums that had dropped off the tree.

After a good scratch around to disturb any larvae and having cleared out the weeds, she will put down a thick layer of newspaper and cardboard, having made sure this is wet through, she will then cover this with a thick layer of well rotted horse manure. She uses a brand called 'Country Natural'. 

In the old days, Jack and she used to go with his big red van to the Ealing Riding Stables, that was a source of great manure! The horses and ponies were fed on good quality hay and bedded on proper straw, you had a choice of old rotted manure or fresh but sadly Jack is gardening up in Heaven and Ros has sold the van.

The artichoke plant has been very clever! It was split in two by those strong winds two weeks ago and despite having been laid completely flat, the top of the plant just pointed itself towards the sun and a good crop of artichokes are growing, quite happily, about two feet off the ground!

There is lots of gardening to do, so she has to go and do it. We have had our morning 'cuppa' of LapySang tea and now it is time to break our fast with a delicious watermelon, we are just like Jack Sprat and his wife, one of them ate the fat and the other ate the meat, she eats the flesh and I crunch the seeds, I call that a fair division of fruit, don't you Dear Readers?

GeeGee Parrot.
May 22nd, 2014.

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