Greetings to you all. We haven't posted for ages and so there is much to tell. Where to start? At the allotments because that is the most important place I reckon.
As you know, the blackberry briars are a troublesome member of our community out there, they think they have the right to gobble up every inch but they got a nasty shock about ten days ago. For the big red rubber trug came out with the secaturs and she began the assault in two places on plot number 35.
Why did she do it in two places? Well, it's an evil and very large briar growth and to just do it in one place you can only go forwards but if you do it in two places, before long you meet your work coming from the other direction and it is easier to get the trug into the space (and out again to empty it) and hey presto! You suddenly see that it is 'do-able', instead of it being just a big fat mess!
This work was done on the days when it was quite hot, to put it mildly, and the cuttings dried quickly and the pile of them shrank.
Then we had a dramatic drop in temperature and that was ok too because she needed to work in Little Shack. Mister Rat thinks it's his home in the winter and so it has to be washed out and sterilised each Spring. She uses washing soda and bleach to do this, she had put everything away or hung it in its' proper place in the late Autumn, the glasses had all been washed and were all upside down, so it didn't take long to wash the work surfaces and the floor.
But one thing that is a big fat mess are the hand tools, not the actual tools themselves but the screws, nails, metal pegs etc. She needs to go to go to Poundland and buy a couple of those black plastic tool boxes, then they can be sorted out and separated.
But if the truth were told, which it always should be, these tools are in the wrong place! They should all be in Little Shed. But beastly Briar has gobbled up Little Shed and she will have to cut her way through it in order to get at the door. That's a job for next week as well as killing the briar who has sneaked his way onto the terrace.
She hacked out the path beside the Shack to the wood store at the back, nettles had invaded the path and a briar had come through the fence and grown along the path and up onto the roof of shack, it had grown along the roof, thankfully not between the wooden roof and the water-proof felting!
This weed store is where pots and spare rolls of roofing felt are kept and it needs a new roof, a tornado tore it off which also weakened the structure and knocked off the water tank that supplies the Shacks' kitchen which has to be reinstated.
And to help us greatly, we have been given a wonderful gift! Dean, the man who drove for her all those years ago, has given her his old decking! Wow, just as she was thinking of costing up the price of wood with which to make a whole new section of raised beds. How fortuitous was that?
For where the big patch of briars is used to be vegetable beds and she wants them back! The ground is fertile, we know this as nettles are growing there, a sure sign of good earth. And now we have the wooden planks with which to make the beds AND they're already drilled, all she has to do is put little square blocks of wood into each corner to connect the planks and go vroom.. with the powerful Bosch drill which is charging as she taps.
The Asparagus has given us more than she thought it would and it was early too. She cuts it all and then close trims it with the grass trimmer. This way she keeps the weeds down and the Asparagus stands a chance but she thinks it's probably its' last year. She'll make a new but not so large bed and ask Mrs. Ayling or her son William for three year old crowns.
Then that bed needs to be dug over and weeded properly. It will free up thirteen square feet, that is a good space and will be useful for several smaller raised beds.
In the meantime we have several trays of things growing here at home. Different varieties of Beans and Courgettes / Zucchini plus our much beloved Sweet Peas. Yes, you can start them off in the Autumn but slugs lurve Sweet Pea shoots and there is nothing sadder than the sight of slug munched Sweet Peas.
So she starts hers off at home and then puts then into a bed with sand, finely ground egg shells and slug pellets and they race away in mid May. They don't like frosts and we have had a couple of really strong frosts in the last two weeks, a couple of the new allotment plot holders were moaning about it having caused damage and one of them asked her on Thursday "When is our last frost date" and was shocked to hear it is the ninth of June!
But at the risk of being hated.. she is crying out for rain! As are all the farmers as well, the April showers? We didn't / haven't have any so far, what we did have was a hot spell that reached 74 F, which was FAR too hot for this time of the year and unless we get significant rain, the fruit that is already forming on all of her bushes and trees will dry up and drop off.
Then the June Drop won't be just of the smaller fruit, it will be all of the fruit, we have another five weeks before we reach June, which is the first month of Summer and this season, Spring, is the season for gentle but consistent rain in order for fruit, vegetable, wheat, hops, barley and grass for cattle, horses, sheep and goats to grow.
Goodness me.. it is nearly eight pm! Time to eat.. yumyum calls, it has been a strange day here today, for there was a plan to go to the allotment with a friend but yesterday she knew she wouldn't be able to make it, she has a Spring cold which has gone up into her sinuses.. very painful.. and yes, she has done lots of her usual treatment of mashed garlic, ginger and cloves in a tea and put drops organic sesame oil up her nostrils at night which has cleared the left side but the right side is proving to be a right ........ and it will take longer to clear up and clean out.
But she has a pleasant day planned tomorrow with gardening on Tuesday. Hopefully we will post again soon with good news of briar killing and the rescuing of poor Little Shed from its' evil grasp!
Until then.. PipPip to you all.
GeeGee Parrot.
April 23rd, 2017.
As you know, the blackberry briars are a troublesome member of our community out there, they think they have the right to gobble up every inch but they got a nasty shock about ten days ago. For the big red rubber trug came out with the secaturs and she began the assault in two places on plot number 35.
Why did she do it in two places? Well, it's an evil and very large briar growth and to just do it in one place you can only go forwards but if you do it in two places, before long you meet your work coming from the other direction and it is easier to get the trug into the space (and out again to empty it) and hey presto! You suddenly see that it is 'do-able', instead of it being just a big fat mess!
This work was done on the days when it was quite hot, to put it mildly, and the cuttings dried quickly and the pile of them shrank.
Then we had a dramatic drop in temperature and that was ok too because she needed to work in Little Shack. Mister Rat thinks it's his home in the winter and so it has to be washed out and sterilised each Spring. She uses washing soda and bleach to do this, she had put everything away or hung it in its' proper place in the late Autumn, the glasses had all been washed and were all upside down, so it didn't take long to wash the work surfaces and the floor.
But one thing that is a big fat mess are the hand tools, not the actual tools themselves but the screws, nails, metal pegs etc. She needs to go to go to Poundland and buy a couple of those black plastic tool boxes, then they can be sorted out and separated.
But if the truth were told, which it always should be, these tools are in the wrong place! They should all be in Little Shed. But beastly Briar has gobbled up Little Shed and she will have to cut her way through it in order to get at the door. That's a job for next week as well as killing the briar who has sneaked his way onto the terrace.
She hacked out the path beside the Shack to the wood store at the back, nettles had invaded the path and a briar had come through the fence and grown along the path and up onto the roof of shack, it had grown along the roof, thankfully not between the wooden roof and the water-proof felting!
This weed store is where pots and spare rolls of roofing felt are kept and it needs a new roof, a tornado tore it off which also weakened the structure and knocked off the water tank that supplies the Shacks' kitchen which has to be reinstated.
And to help us greatly, we have been given a wonderful gift! Dean, the man who drove for her all those years ago, has given her his old decking! Wow, just as she was thinking of costing up the price of wood with which to make a whole new section of raised beds. How fortuitous was that?
For where the big patch of briars is used to be vegetable beds and she wants them back! The ground is fertile, we know this as nettles are growing there, a sure sign of good earth. And now we have the wooden planks with which to make the beds AND they're already drilled, all she has to do is put little square blocks of wood into each corner to connect the planks and go vroom.. with the powerful Bosch drill which is charging as she taps.
The Asparagus has given us more than she thought it would and it was early too. She cuts it all and then close trims it with the grass trimmer. This way she keeps the weeds down and the Asparagus stands a chance but she thinks it's probably its' last year. She'll make a new but not so large bed and ask Mrs. Ayling or her son William for three year old crowns.
Then that bed needs to be dug over and weeded properly. It will free up thirteen square feet, that is a good space and will be useful for several smaller raised beds.
In the meantime we have several trays of things growing here at home. Different varieties of Beans and Courgettes / Zucchini plus our much beloved Sweet Peas. Yes, you can start them off in the Autumn but slugs lurve Sweet Pea shoots and there is nothing sadder than the sight of slug munched Sweet Peas.
So she starts hers off at home and then puts then into a bed with sand, finely ground egg shells and slug pellets and they race away in mid May. They don't like frosts and we have had a couple of really strong frosts in the last two weeks, a couple of the new allotment plot holders were moaning about it having caused damage and one of them asked her on Thursday "When is our last frost date" and was shocked to hear it is the ninth of June!
But at the risk of being hated.. she is crying out for rain! As are all the farmers as well, the April showers? We didn't / haven't have any so far, what we did have was a hot spell that reached 74 F, which was FAR too hot for this time of the year and unless we get significant rain, the fruit that is already forming on all of her bushes and trees will dry up and drop off.
Then the June Drop won't be just of the smaller fruit, it will be all of the fruit, we have another five weeks before we reach June, which is the first month of Summer and this season, Spring, is the season for gentle but consistent rain in order for fruit, vegetable, wheat, hops, barley and grass for cattle, horses, sheep and goats to grow.
Goodness me.. it is nearly eight pm! Time to eat.. yumyum calls, it has been a strange day here today, for there was a plan to go to the allotment with a friend but yesterday she knew she wouldn't be able to make it, she has a Spring cold which has gone up into her sinuses.. very painful.. and yes, she has done lots of her usual treatment of mashed garlic, ginger and cloves in a tea and put drops organic sesame oil up her nostrils at night which has cleared the left side but the right side is proving to be a right ........ and it will take longer to clear up and clean out.
But she has a pleasant day planned tomorrow with gardening on Tuesday. Hopefully we will post again soon with good news of briar killing and the rescuing of poor Little Shed from its' evil grasp!
Until then.. PipPip to you all.
GeeGee Parrot.
April 23rd, 2017.
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