100 gorse: planted

Tell you what, working full time, teaching, marking essays, on top of all one's usual domestic arrangements, doesn't half interfere with the allotment and the piano.

However, I managed a few hours this weekend at the plot. The boundary along the mid and north west beds was thick with weeds: some of this was clover and phacelia I'd planted myself, but there was also ground-elder, nettles and grass invading from the next plot. I was 2 hours clearing a few yards of an area less than a yard wide. But I got there eventually. One thing to note: phacelia has extremely shallow roots, and can be pulled up just raking it. Clover's another story, it roots like field beans, and can't be pulled up by hand, but needs a trowel or even a spade.

Anyway, I planted a row of gorse behind the currants and berries on the NW corner, filling in gaps in the front row where the transplanted fruit hadn't taken. And then the whole of the midwest bed's boundary was a double row of gorse, 9-12ins apart, staggered. A dozen or so left over plants in the module trays I put on the boundary of the Middle East bed, where the tatties were.

I pricked out the seedling into modules back in June. They've done well. Many are over 6ins high, and all of them, even some little-uns an inch or so high, have good rootballs, to the point of being somewhat pot- (or rather module-) bound. So 2 1/2 months in the module is long enough, and it's the right time to plant them out. My hope is that they'll grow a bit more in this tail end of the growing season, and put down their roots, so they'll get a good start next Spring.

I still have 90-ish gorse left to plant out. Not sure where they are to go yet. And not sure of priorities now at all. I think probably getting back to collecting and riddling rubble for the shed foundation is the next priority. And I need to source my pallets, too.


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