Pig Sty Avenue

That's the SW bed, home of carrots & onions this year. Most of the earth is what was taken off the southern edge of the concrete structure, which had been an earth path, proving to be a concrete path beneath. Anyway, earth that's not been gardened in a long time. The rest is earth hacked out from what was the floor of a nettle jungle. Probably high in nitrogen then. So it's been hacked-at with the hoe, and thrown over with the spade, so it just needs levelling with the rake (and some ingenious footwork on the planting plank), and I can get it planted out, (albeit rather late) with onions, carrots, & parsnips.

Sometime ago, one of The Predecessor's daughters paid a visit. She told me that she, and others would say to him, "Dad, an allotment should have a path right through the middle of it. Why don't you get a path through the middle of it?" But he wouldn't. "He's a stubborn old man. A stubborn old Irish man." She was right about the path, of course. South of the old greenhouse foundation area, there were no discernible paths. Until this morning. The "before" and "after" photos are taken from the POV of the old greenhouse/concrete structure, facing South. What the left hand photo doesn't show very well is how hillocky the ground is. This part of the plot was partly a hollowed out area, partly a thickly infested nettle bed. It was all lumpy because I'd hacked into it with the Libyan hoe. I had to level the course of the path first, about an hour, taking it easy, and then lay the path, another 40 mins or so. My philosophy o...

I planted these, probably, end of October last year. Tough buggers. Took them several weeks to germinate but once they had they kept growing throughout the winter, and really took off in Spring. Their time has come though, and I chopped them down with the sickle this morning, composted the upper parts, (the leaves are rich in nitrogen, apparently). I can turn over the whole bed now. I've kept a few WFB stragglers by the path, see how they go to seed.

That's enough. And it'll look better when it dries out a bit, and I brush the earth off the top. But take my word for it, that whole flat-ish area around the structure in the middle is a mosaic of concrete and bricks. The bed immediately adjoining it is a bit higher, so I'll need to get some kind of edging, and maybe do a bit more levelling next spring. But enough for this one. Last night I had an obscure nightmare in which levels featured in some metaphysical way. Just the NW corner bed to do now, and then it's digging and planting.

Now that I've given up the glyphosate as a weapon against the ground elder, I need some alternatives. Bristol City Council are trying vinegar , so I'll keep an eye on that trial, and have a go myself. Naturally, it won't be as effective as glyph, (duh!) but the idea is to keep weeds in check, not necessarily eradicate them. And it depends on how often you spray, too. Getting vinegar is not a problem. A few years ago, I got kilos of strawberries from the fruit and veg shop. Dad used to go there to get whatever they were throwing out, for his chickens. I made several gallons of strawberry wine, but a vinegar fly must have gotten to it because I ended up with several gallons on strawberry vinegar. So any fruit will do, just make the wine and don't worry if some of it goes to vinegar, it will find a job with the weeds.

Last night I sowed several hundred seeds, in 2 trays (recycled tin foil, about 7x10x1ins, holes in bottom with old vegetable knife). I used John Innes seed compost from B&Q. Procedure: take seeds from polythene bag in fridge, put into a plastic measuring jug after shaking around in a metal flour-seive to get dust out; pour 300ml approx boiling water; leave about 10-15 mins until water was lukewarm; drain through the flour-seive.  place on paper kitchen roll to dry, (when wet the seeds stick together in clumps); by hand, a pinch at a time, sprinkle seeds onto trays, attempting to get them as evenly spaced as possible, (this isn't easy because they're a similar colour to the compost, therefore difficult to see - they are shinier than compost, so catch the light somewhat); sprinkle on a layer of compost by hand, about 2-3mm deep, (checking to see that no seeds were shining through; the two trays were put into a cat litter tray; water well from the bottom, (although...

Tuesday night, and I've not been to the plot since Sunday. Should get a couple of hours tomorrow. 3-4 ragged rows of winter field beans at the north end, I was going to grow for seed. But I've got a couple of bags of field beans for seed, to sow in the autumn, so I'm going to compost the plants still growing, and level & dig right to the hedge.

As of this morning, I've got 9/10 gorse seeds germinated. Of those, 2 seem to have a problem shedding their seed coats, But let's say a 75% germination rate, and I've estimated I've got 400+ seeds, so that's as many as 300 plants for 280ft of boundary, (250 for now, actually: the S boundary is shaded by its fence, so gorse probably won't do; I'm thinking holly and yew, eventually). I counted up the soft fruit bushes and other odds and ends of plants already in the hedgerow, and 31 have quickened. The hawthorn and alder have been disappointing. Zero hawthorn germinated, so there's something clearly wrong there: even without stratification, I've noticed in the past, you get a 1-2% germination rate; these buggers had 2 months in the fridge. The alder, I've got maybe 6 germinated of several hundred. I'll prepare a finely riddled bed for the hawthorn and alder. They can go in there any time soon. I'll have to keep a close eye on the weeds....

This is from October last year. In the foreground is the 'Old Greenhouse' area, which I'm now nearly finished excavating. Beyond that is mostly rubbish stacked on top of bits of tarpaulin I'd laid to keep thistle down (etc) from landing and storing up problems. Now, that area looks a bit of a mess because it still needs levelled, but I've hacked out all the nettle roots, and it could be ready to plant in a few hours. The foreground area, oh my God, I've lifted I don't know how many tons of bricks out of there. I'll have to remember to get another pic from this vantage point when I've got that bed dug over, and the foreground finally levelled.

It's not looking great, is it? As soon as I get the beds planted, I need to turn my attention here, before the poor auld thing falls down. You can google "how to build a shed" but not "how to repair a shed which is the work of many hands over, perhaps, nearly 100 years, and looks liable to fall down". So we're talking 1st principles, here. Whole new set of skills for me.

A session (for want of a better word; stint? let's go with stint) at the allotment lasts 2-3 hours, and all the work is sliced up accordingly. Most things that I set out to do can be achieved in 2 or 3 stints. Sometimes, they take longer, and I've noticed, that's when they become tiresome. Hacking out the fruit bushes was one. Excavating and raising the path, oh my God , that was certainly another. This wee area, the "old greenhouse foundation" will become another if I don't get it finished soon. I foresaw this last September, apparently . But here's the weird thing. The yellow/ligher-brown lump on the left of the photo is the subsoil, heavy boulder clay. It's actually higher than the concrete, the level in the central area of the photo. I can't work out how that has come about. Whatever. When this area gets level and dried out, brushed down, rain-washed clean, it should be pretty interesting. Areas of ground, like the clay, to plant with ...

The whole concept of no-dig is embraced. In principle. But it probably won't be started next year, as originally planned. This is because the soil, already pebble-ridden, will be even lumpier now with spoil from the pond. And, much worse, all the bits of broken glass and fine rubble from the concrete and brick structure area. So, I plan to dig it all over in the next couple of weeks, raking it before and after digging and getting out as much rubble and pebbles as possible. Same again at the end of the 2016 growing season. Hard work. Very. But that's nothing because either at the end of this year, or beginning of next, (I've run out of time this Spring), every bloomin' inch of the plot is going to need riddled to really get rid of the pebbles, rubble and glass fragments. Riddling spadeful by spadeful will be 3-4 weeks work, I'm estimating, that's about 30-40 hours. So heigh bloody ho and ho nonny nonny to a whole lot of bending and stretching. But it's th...

I'm clearing the earth from the top of the structure, and barrowing it to various points further down the West bed - areas that look a little low. If it was good earth it would be easier, but as it is it's earth with a lot of brick rubble and broken glass. So I pick out what I can during the process of digging and barrowing and dumping. This morning, just when I thought I'd reached the end of the strange structure, I found another outcrop of concrete, and gave up to come home for a bath. Be nice to get it finished this weekend. Looking out across the West bed, raised overall another inch or so by the earth from on top of the structure, and leveller for it, I realised why it's called a "bed". It does look like a bed, albeit an unmade one, ready to welcome lots of plants.

Last night I got the last of it uncovered. It stretches into the central path. Best I can say is, it's a patchwork of concrete and bricks, different levels, different authors, different decades. It could all get quite funky once the earth has dried and I brush it all down, and work out a planting scheme. The area around it I've marked out for green manure, but there's still quite a bit of leveling to do. I'm shifting the earth further north down that western side, which now all needs dug over and a bit more raking level before planting. Which is all going to be late-ish, this year.

As of this morning I've got 7/10 gorse seeds germinated, (though 2 of them seem to be struggling to shake off the seed case). We're likely looking at a germination rate of 50-70%, maybe more. And I've got approximately 400 seeds. I'm going to get some seed compost from B&Q later today. So I'm looking at perhaps 200-300 shrubs. That's enough for one whole row around the boundary, (in a two-row hedge). According to the RHS , it '[w]ill become leggy in rich soils'. It's a legume, and fixes nitrogen, but can acidify the soil . I might need to deal with that once it's established, maybe with lime. I can't imagine how 'leggy' gorse will look. It's going to take some management, but will be worth it in wildlife terms . Here's a photo from Warwickshire, with a fairly formal gorse hedge on the edge of a cultivated garden, so presumably fairly good soil. And it looks as if it's responding to management, regular pruning. A he...

  This pa rt introduces "studies and cases" of the uses of tests. PP45-9 discuss the intentions and effects of tests. The latter is familiar territory, first delineated by  Messick, 1981. There's a concise discussion of washback , effects and consequences . Of more interest to me is a short section regarding intention s. "There are very few studies that have systematically examined the rationale, intentions and expectations for introducing tests." There may be "very few", but references there are none. A distinction is drawn between overt and covert intentions, the former being, obviously, a decision maker's published rationale for a test. The latter will be unpublished. The real rationale for introducing any given test will be discussed behind closed doors. I shall call it Test User's Intention in order to give it a name. It's a significant issue for my research because it may be considered that the test use, that is, the UK government,...

Couldn't get to allotment yesterday, and today's shaping up the same way, (though I might get a hour tonight). Lovely weather, it's a sin to be cooped up with domestic duties and the EdD, but there we are. But I have come up with a last minute change to the crop rotation. It occured that the structure to the West (above) of the central path could extend East to the other side of the path. This will limit the space needed in future for a poly-tunnel and perennials bed. Besides, the beds as I had them are probably too big. That pond bed can probably be smaller next year, too. Depends on this year's yields. I should mention the winter field beans. The are of course legumes. They covered most of the NW area over winter, except for an area where the brassicas will go, which was waterlogged enough all winter to stop them growing. The ones on the plan are 3 or so rows I'm leaving to go to seed to plant out somewhere over next winter. I'm very impressed by their ...

Which is a remark I made back in July . Digging east from the Birthday Path, I've encountered what I can only call a structure. Maybe even a sculpture. Dunno about Time Team . This evening was more like The Twilight Zone . The concrete & brick path I unearthed on my birthday, is actually part of a wider concrete shelf, which seems to extend almost to the middle of the plot. Well, that's not too odd, it could be the floor of a shed or greenhouse or whatever. But then there's the structure: one course of bricks, mortared, arranged in an irregular shape on top of the concrete shelf. Unless someone's deliberately made it as a work of art, I have no clue what it can be. I'll do a diagram of it once it's all uncovered. I would have carried on tonight, so curious had it made me, but it was getting dark, and besides I've pulled a back muscle. It looks as if I decided that this area was an old greenhouse quite early on: "I've got to tackle the s...

Yesterday afternoon I got to the end of the latest discovered path, it's about 7x3ft. I took 4 barrows full of earth out, and moved them to a slight depression in the mid-west bed. Just now the path is lying in a shallow trench, but when you stand back from it, the ground each side of it forms a hump, and yes, there's room for more earth further down the plot. The other rediscovered path, to the left, (south) of the potatoes and comfrey on the plan, seemed too low down initially, but somehow during the digging and clearing and leveling process, the rest of the plot lowered itself to join the path, and now it's integral to the allotment. The new path will hopefully go the same way. That area is dominated by the ash tree, and gets shade in the afternoon and evening. Don't know yet what I'm going to plant there, but not a crop per se, maybe bee plants and/or herbs.  The new wee dot by the path at the north end is a rosemary plant I got from Asda, reduced from £2...

Friday was my birthday, and Plot 79 duly obliged with a present: another path. I was digging over the west side of the Old Greenhouse foundations, ready for planting. I knew it would be hard(ish) work, because there were bound to be bricks and other rubble there, even though I'd already dug out most of them with the foundations. Roots from the ash tree extended a few inches below the surface, out into the bed, (which suggests it's been a long time since it was dug over), the longest reached about 10ft from the trunk. I chopped them off, and got a lot of bricks out, digging from west to east. Half way across I encountered something more substantial than the usual bricks. Another path, running from North to South. Much better workmanship than the one I found earlier in the week, running East to West, and made up of three kinds of concrete. This is concrete and brick, very solid. About 1ft below the existing surface. It's actually below the level of the greenhouse foundati...

Back at the plot for an hour or so this morning, did a bit more measuring and now I can tweak the plan, which is more or less to scale. I managed to get the newly (re)discovered path cleared as far as the fence, as you can see. The concrete actually stops about 1ft shy of the fence, so enough room to fit in some hedge plants. I've started hacking north now, in the direction of the ash tree on the top right corner of the photo. The bank of earth must've been there a while, because the tree has put roots through it, 1.5ins thick, some of them. I could have finished this area this morning, got as far as the tree, except for the shenanigans of Dixie, who I've been dog-sitting the last few days. Her most persistent misdemeanor has been barking. She loves the allotment, it's a kind of terrier heaven, with the odour of rats and foxes, and piles of earth to dig in. So she became immediately proprietorial and showed off by barking at any passer by. Anyone visible, in fa...

This is what blogging about allotments is all about: getting something up into the cloud so that you can come back in the future to see what you were doing, and this is really important, of course, for crop rotation. Above is a plan, running South - North/Left - Right. A lot of it is to scale, especially the beds, I did some measuring yesterday. It's 10 pixels to the foot. The SW bed, "carrots and onions", is a bit squashed up because of the oomska and wood piles to its left, and newly discovered path to its right. Carrots, parsnips, garlic and onions don't need much room. And I had to be careful with onions: latterly, apparently, The Predecessor grew them as a mono-crop, but this area was uncultivated for some years, being mostly nettles last year, and, " Possibilities for crops succeeding nettle are potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.), sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) and other root crops", Vogl & Hartl, 2003.  The southern end of the Midwest bed was ...

Felt like I'd got stuck on this bit. Maybe it's taken longer because I've been distracted by Dixie, The In Laws' dog who I'm looking after. Originally this was a hump of earth, running E-W to the South of the Old Greenhouse, and fortified by rows of timber and bricks, as if the Greenhouse was a fort and they were outlying ramparts. It was used as a path and was therefore compacted. In the foreground, (you can't really see it for the mud) is 4ft or so of quality concrete; then there's a yard or so of raised uneven concrete, very bumpy; and then finally, more good quality concrete - I haven't found out its full extent yet, but I suspect it was once there for the Greenhouse's water barrel to stand on - it's in the right place. So I'm going to treat the whole thing as a path across the bed, dividing the SW and the Midwest beds. It makes the SW bed slightly smaller than I'd planned, my mental division was at the ash tree, about 4ft to t...

I've only got a few square yards to hack out with the grubbing hoe, now. There was a buried concrete structure, maybe a path once, next to the old greenhouse foundation. I leave it be: the experience has been, if there's a path of some sort, the laying of it will have been seen as an opportunity to hide glass and rubble beneath it. In fact I gave up yesterday when I came across a glass mine, always an unwelcome discovery. And something like very crumbly asphalt, though what purpose that ever served, I can't say. Another few days should see it done. Then I have the path to lay - plenty of bricks for the purpose - from the old greenhouse area to the S boundary, and at last the path will extend the whole length of the plot, and the whole W bed will be cultivable.

lol That was the pond yesterday, after several days of rain. See the wee red plastic marker at the far end, (actually the handle of a little trowel I found buried)? That marks the spot where water can run out to the Council's drain, which is situated under the pile of pebbles you can see there. The iron bar keeps in place a metal grid over the mouth of the drain, so it can't get blocked up. It functions like the overflow in one's bath. So I've kind of worked out the fill/empty rate now. 2 weeks of drought, 3 for sure, will more or less empty it. 2-3 days of steady rain will fill it again. So, I'm theorising, it'll spend most of the summer emptying and filling, and most of the winter, pretty full. It's quite impressive to me now, though. How many 100s of gallons of water is it holding now? Several, anyway. All of which would be waterlogging the beds which I'd therefore be unable to dig over and plant out and cultivate. So it's doing its job an...

Bah! I was up early this morning and should have gone to allotment - I would have got a couple of hours work done before it started raining... But yesterday was good work, despite some heavy showers. I tidied up the site of the Last Big Bonfire somewhat - though I'll need to go through it more carefully at some point to separate out the bits of metal from charred wood and what not. It was mostly all the crap out of the shed: rotten doors with their hinges still on, that sort of thing. That whole SE corner: the shed, the midden, the fire site, the eastern end of the old greenhouse, it all still needs doing, but it'll have to wait until the cultivated beds are planted out. If I get it done and ready to plant with perennial vegetables and herbs before June, the 1st anniversary of starting work, that would be splendid. Anyway, I hacked away at the compacted nettle-rooted earth of the SW corner, and it's fluffing up nicely. Plenty of bricks. It's interesting, how I can t...

  Close reading of this text, as it appears to be a significant one in CLT. Google Scholar's current algorithm suggests it's been cited more than 700 times in total, 255 since 2012. I'll follow the author's chapters for note taking.The whole work is interesting to me, but I shall try to stay focused on my current area of interest, which is the interplay between current validity paradigms and CLT. The book is in 4 parts, and I'll publish a blog post for each part 1. USE ORIENTED TESTING is compared with 'Traditional testing' which had no interest in what uses tests were put to, the role of the test's designer ending when 'evidence of validity [is] obtained', (we must assume that the author is referring to the construct validity, the paradigm still in 2001). 'The task ends when psychometrically sound results are satisfactorily achieved.'   Messick, 1994, and Gipps, 2012, (first published in 1994) are referred to as signalling ...