Pig Sty Avenue

Also yesterday, I got that area of hedgerow hoed, running North and then East from the ash tree up and along to the central path. As I hoed away, cutting off ground elder, grasses, and clover, uprooting a comfrey volunteer and some small docks by hand, it occurred that it's going to be several years before the hedgerow shades out most of its competitors. That's a lot of weeding. The boundary is 70m long.  April to October, 5m a day means it would all be done every fortnight, which would be enough to stop it running away with weeds, as it did this Summer. That's in addition to hoeing all the beds. But, keep at it and it gets easier, mostly because hoeing 30mins to an hour every day for six months gives you forearms like Popeye. This from Cornell is good on hoeing , as it is on weed management generally. All of which I'm taking careful note of: next year, I manage the weeds rather than they manage me.

Hardneck garlic arrived just now. Long time since I've grown garlic, so I've done a bit of googling. This was helpful . Garlic doesn't like waterlogging, either, apparently, so let's hope the new drainage, right by next year's onion and roots rotation bed, does the business. I was going to dig in 2 barrowfulls of oomska, but I think I'll dig in 2 more, now. This area - well, every area of the plot - wants riddling, but I'll wait now until the garlic's harvested late Spring, and riddle it all when it's less claggy, and then sow carrots or parsnips. Carcassone, we're told, has been occupied since the neolithic, and was the site of an important Roman fort, so maybe legionaries planted the first garlic there. I like the virtues of hoeing being extolled on that quickcrop link . S/he's right there. But that's another post...

Weather forecast notwithstanding I took the dogs to the plot yesterday and between showers dug a spade-wide trench down part of the Western boundary, and then across the NW bed to the central path where it should flow down into the pond. I had the pleasing sight of it actually working, the trench filling with water, which followed me as I dug in the direction of the pond. Gorse, apparently, doesn't like wet, boggy ground. It's planned to be the staple plant of the hedgerow at the central area of the Western boundary, so the drainage needs to work well if it's going to thrive. It might be that along this section of the hedgerow, I'll need to plant pyracantha . I've bought 100 seeds, but have a feeling in my bones that it's going to become the mainstay, and I'll likely want more.

Thanks to Therese for pointing out the historical possibilities with Google Earth. There's a 1945 image, which is so unclear as to be meaningless. Apart from that, the earliest is this one from 2002. The chief interest is that the double plot next door, to the West, was paved over even then. I suspect this is what has led to the waterlogging - all the water falling onto that area running down into my plot. It also suggests that nothing much changed between 2002 and 2015. The fruit bushes to the East were taking up a lot of room, but the beds were being cultivated in the northern 2/3 of the plot. The absurd old shed is there, and there's something else in the midden area.

BBC, from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2635167 If I was in Jeremy Corbyn's shoes, I'd be a bit ticked off today, having to make a speech whilst, in Islington, the weather's not bad, and he could have had a couple of hours at his allotment. No such luck here. Glasgow's right on the edge of that big lump of rain that's over the NW of Scotland, so it's been stop-started raining all day since about 10am; no allotment today. Nor for the rest of the week, it looks like. Bah. But that's it, we're bound by the weather, it's allotmenteering, not stamp collecting. The knock on effect of this rain is that, even when we get a break in the rain, the earth at the old greenhouse foundation is too wet to riddle.  Which means the supply of gravel and small stones to the new shed foundation's hardcore layer has stopped. Also, I've got to take my eyes off the new shed for a bit, I suspect, and get back to trench digging, where the rubble path's g...

2 barrow-fulls of oomska, ready to dig in to the NW bed for the garlic. Whilst I was down that way, I weeded the two rows of neeps, planted about a month apart. The first row is looking very good indeed: most of them bigger than the 'largish apple' suggested here . What I've noticed about our neeps is, they're significantly easier to peel and to chop than supermarket ones, which have skin a centimetre thick, and need a very heavy duty, sharp carving knife to get through them. Homegrown are more like potatoes to deal with.

After I moved some of the skinny brick path from the West to the East bed yesterday, I dug a wee hole where the brick path had been. And this is how it looked this afternoon. So my concern was justified: thanks to the phacelia for tipping me off that all was still not well in the Mid and North West beds. And this is very early autumn, mind, it's only going to get worse in the weeks ahead. So here's the plan: Along the course of the skinny paths separating the hedge area from the beds, and dividing the Mid and North West beds, I'll dig a ditch about 1ft deep, and fill it with rubble. That will still serve as a path, of course, and should guide the excess water down to the main rubble drain under the central path, and thence into the pond.

I was grateful to the brother-in-law who reminded me over dinner the other night to plant garlic. If the rains pass, as they're forecast to do, I'll clear a patch and manure it this afternoon, next to the neeps. The NW bed is for carrots and onions. Most of the ground there is from the heaps of earth I used for levelling, that is, far from the The Predecessor's mania for planting onions, and therefore, hopefully, less likely to be having any onion pests. First of all, I researched the difference between hard and softnecked garlic. This gives an explanation . All of the garlic you can get in supermarkets is hardneck, and I want some of that - it does better in cold climates, apparently. And it's said to have more complex flavours though it doesn't store so well.  But I want softneck, too, for the very reason that you can't get it in supermarkets. Flavour is less appealing when it's not fresh. I could of course get lots of varieties, but I'm beginning ...

The whole middle and northern part of the eastern boundary was all fruit bushes - berries and currants. I did a lot of work there when I got started last summer, first getting rid of the tall, mature nettles which infested the bushes, then pruning the bushes, then coppicing them, and eventually digging them up to relocate them elsewhere. I did think of incorporating them into the hedgerow where they were, but they'd gone absolutely crazy, after what seemed like years of not being pruned, nor even having the dead leaves cleared out from beneath them in autumn, which meant a build up of leaf mold and led to plants having several sets of root systems along their trunks. Which made dealing with them bloody hard work last Winter . There were brambles in that area too, whether by chance or design I can't say, and several gooseberries. But mostly it was blackcurrants. Not that I saw much fruit, but I've grown blackcurrants before and know their leaves. I also know how easy the...

Heavy rain Saturday, and heavy showers yesterday, meant no allotment all weekend. And when I got there today, the area of the old greenhouse was too wet to riddle it. So I moved part of the skinny brick path from part of the Western boundary, to it's new home as you can see here, from the central path to the cherry trees, delineating where the Middle East bed, (to the right) ends and the pond margin begins. The wee shoots you can see in the ME Bed are winter field beans, which have germinated well and made a good start. I've moved the bricks because it still seems the Mid and North West Beds aren't draining properly, so I'm going to dig a trench, fill it with rubble and call it a path and see if that helps, next year. And put in raised beds - I mean proper raised beds, about 3ft high - on the soggiest part. It's a case of watching where the water goes this Winter, which is l iable to be another wet one, apparently . By the time I get all the drainage works co...

Remember, I pricked out 80+ fig seedlings a few weeks ago into modules. These were sown with seeds from a dried Turkish fig back in May . So it's a slow process. Most are still showing only cotyledons , a few have grown secondary leaves, and a small number of those are just showing the next leaves beginning to bud at the apex. 16 of the 80 have died, but I still had approx 40 seedling growing in the original vermiculite seed-tray, so I was able to replace those. There are still about 25 left in that seed tray, and even if I lose a few more, we will have the 80 eventually for the hedgerow. 75, say, as there are still no doubt hazards for them along the way. The plan is to leave these 80 on the windowsill at home until the potting shed is built and heated, some time in the early Spring. At some point next year they'll be big enough to pot on, and then spend the next winter in the shed or polytunnel. They should be big enough to join the hedgerow some time in 2018. One thing I...

Here's what was once the path up the middle of a long-gone greenhouse. I gave it a wash and brush up, just for the photo. I'm looking forward to the day when all the heavy digging and excavating is done, and I can get all of my paths brushed down and kept clean. As you can see, it's under about 8ins of earth. You can't really tell from the photo, but it's surrounded by a low wall to the back and right, just what would have been used as the foundation for an old-fashioned greenhouse. The left hand wall I took out during my leveling activities, which I'm regretting a bit now, but, spilt milk and all that. The path looks very similar to the one which runs parallel to it, a few yards north, so perhaps they were laid by the same hand. That other path was under nearly a foot of earth. I'm trying to use them to piece together some of the plot's history. I know that The Predecessor held the plot for more than 30 years, so that would be since the early 80...

When you encounter a load of... rubbish in your plot, usually a mixture of rubble, broken glass, bits of wood and fragments of old plastic bags, mixed with good garden soil, when you do that, SORT IT OUT STRAIGHTAWAY! Don't, please, as I did, pile it all up together on a vacant bit of ground thinking vaguely, I'll deal with that later... Because this afternoon was 'later', and a tedious job it was: the aforesaid rubbish had become weed infested, which added a whole new layer of difficulty: roots and aerial parts clogging up the riddle and the danger of grass and other seeds finding their way into my nice riddled earth. I'd thrown up the load of crap onto this area (early in Spring I think it was), and today raked it off the top, put the bigger bits of rubble in the spare wheelbarrow, threw the weeds and bits of wood onto the for-bonfire pile, and then riddled the earth out of what was left - and there was still plenty of gravel and smaller bits of rubble for ...

Day off allotment today. Regarding the plot as my gym, all of this riddling is working the arms and shoulders. Spin-off benefit for piano playing there. I'm slowly processing through the old greenhouse area for the poly-tunnel. I haven't measured it, but estimate it's about 10x8ft. I've gone about 3ft into it, and so far moved 6 or 7 barrow-fulls of earth, and working on the assumption that for every 3 barrows of riddled earth, there's one of gravel and rubble, that's a couple of barrows onto the new shed's foundation. I have a feeling that getting to the end of the old greenhouse will supply enough hardcore for a nice thick and level foundation for the shed. And I'll have a cleared area all ready for the poly-tunnel. It seems to have a brick paved section down the middle, about 4ft wide, with a couple of feet of earth or clay each side of that. Which is perfect. I like the fact that the poly-tunnel and the shed will divide the plot up, 1/3 to the Sout...

 Harvested almost all (one row is still in flower) of the coriander today. Here it is in a colossal bunch, hanging up in the old shed. I'm hoping it'll shrink back a bit so that I can fit it into a hessian sack and catch the seeds before they start to fall. One of my few succesful crops this year, and I'm for growing it again. The scent of it when it rains is gorgeous. And I noticed that it attracted unrecognisable (to me) insects, quite unlike the honey, bumble and other bees, hoverflies etc which went for the phacelia. Flops over terribly, interfering with my neeps this year. Next year I'm going to grow it in 4ft squares with some kind of support around them. Below, 2 photos of the riddling process, before and after. Before show a spadeful of earth in the riddle. After shows how much is left by way of stones and gravel once I've got the earth out. BEFORE AFTER As you can see, maybe 1/3 of the spadeful's volume was stones. It makes me wo...

The region of what I used to call 'the old greenhouse foundations' was unnaturally high, a kind of island in the middle of the plot. Or more like a fortification, with a series of ramparts of brick and corrugated iron. I levelled the West side last spring , getting down to a concrete and brick base, which was actually by then lower than the rest of the plot. Since then I've been filling it with rubble as the foundation for the shed. You can see it on the left middle ground of the photo, with a scaffold board over it because I've been checking to see if it's level enough for the shed to be built on it. It should be a formidable foundation: a course of bricks and concrete on top of the original heavy clay subsoil, topped off with 6ins or so of rubble. Before I actually start building the shed, I'm curious to see whether or not any water's going to puddle there. So meanwhile, I've started on the right hand, Eastern side of the 'old greenhouse'...

Managed to get down for a bit of work this afternoon. After a quick survey and a think, I got back to work on clearing the area opposite the shed, which will be the site of the polytunnel. I'm going at it with a shovel, getting it down to the level of the path for now. Every shovelful is riddled, the rubble and gravel piled onto the new shed area for its foundation. That's nearly done, actually, only a few inches to make that side on a level with the path. When that's done, I suspect there's still going to be a lot of rubble and gravel. So the next thing with that will be rubble/French drain and path across the bottom of the Middle East bed, marking it off from the pond margin, (which has gone wild on me, but will have to wait), and helping with drainage. That path will continue along the edge of that bed, between it and the course of the hedgerow on the Eastern boundary. I think I'm going to run out of bricks for the skinny perimeter path, and will use rubble a...

Or something, I've not been counting since I got the bug when I was in Greenwich during the summer. Appropriately for Dance of the Hours, "hours mean hours" now, none of the "academic hour" of 45 minutes baloney. The Poacher took me, at last, it seems, through some kind of pain barrier. Not that it's gotten as easy as I would like, but it's not head-bangingly excruciating. Or maybe The Hours is just easier. I've got the RH memorized, now, as of this evening. And I've started on LH, which seems quite simple. I was going to use the @kommie_p 's teacher's method, which is to dive in with both hands, and I will return to that one day, but for now, to get 3 pieces under the belt before November, I'm sticking to the old RH>LH>2H. So I've got maybe 17 days before the closing date for Autumn entries for Grade 1. I have hardly looked at the aural and sight reading parts of the exam, yet. The bit's between the auld teeth now,...

Various circumstances conspire to keep me out of the allotment yesterday, and so far today too. But I've taken the time to prick out those fig seedlings. 2 module trays, each with 40 modules, and seedling growing medium, 50/50 sand and peat-free compost. These were planted in 2 improvised seed trays, (the tin trays that come with a supermarket chicken) with holes I stamped in the bottom. They took ages (6-8 weeks) before beginning to germinate. Back in July, I estimated 40 seedlings . And then a couple of weeks ago, I counted roughly 100 .  And then this morning, I got 85 exactly from just one tray: that's 80 in the modules, 5 in a small plant pot. The other tin tray contains a few less, maybe 40-50, and I've just left them there until I think on what to do with them, (fill another module tray, maybe, but I'm running out of windowsills, and these need to stay at home until I get the allotment shed built and stove installed). 40 Fig Seedlings, Pricked Out this Morn...

Only one of the original 7 bulrushes has thrived, although I don't think it's going to flower this year. In fact, although these plants are perennial, they actually seem to behave more like biennials, flowering in their 2nd year. And when they do flower, according to Motivans & Apfelbaum , the seeds have a very high germination rate. But they also reproduce vegetatively, from rhizomes. As you can see in the photo, the original plant to the right has grown a new ramet, (for which terminology see Grace & Wetzel, 1982). These are growing in the middle part of the pond, at the deepest point. That's been under water apart from a short spell of drought in May, when it was just mud. The other plant is surviving, but not thriving near the pond margin, where it is only under water when the pond is full, which has been a rare occurrence since last winter.  Grace, James B., and Robert G. Wetzel. "Niche differentiation between two rhizomatous plant species: Typha...

That's the Middle East bed, formerly the 2016 tattie patch. It's 3/4 done in that photo which I took yesterday, and I got it all finished - as far down as the pond margin - this afternoon. I dug it over, finding a few stray potatoes as I went. I sowed it thickly with winter field beans, var. 'wizard'. And then finish it off with a couple of inches of horse manure, now nicely rotted down. I'm curious to see how these wfbs do this year. Last year, I was running late with everything, and didn't get them sown until November, in rows. And then, of course, large parts of the Mid and North West beds were waterlogged. The beans coped surprisingly well, considering. Now, they have the benefit of a well drained bed, and a couple of months of growing before Winter comes.

...as Tom Waits put it .  A fairly trite notion, Tom, if you don't mind me saying. This morning was the first weekday I've had off from work for months, so I was determined to get to the allotment for as long as possible because there's still plenty to do after my 6 week absence in the summer. I tidied up around the area of the new shed. The gorse plants were there, but as I get back to digging the shed foundations I want somewhere to throw the numerous stones still in the ground, and the foundations are a shallow depression in the ground which I'm slowly filling with rubble, about 8x8ft, easy enough to hit with stones and bits of glass from anywhere on the plot. All of this in the pouring rain, mind. The dogs ran around, Sparky using the long stretch of nascent hedgerow with its little gorse plants as a running track, uprooting a few of them which I of course put back. The gorse are doing well, some have grown visibly in the last couple of weeks, putting out side s...

I'll reserve judgement until I start with 2H, but so far The Hours seems to be much easier than the Poacher. I've got the RH first 5 bars or so almost memorized already, after another hour on Sunday, and 10 mins this morning. I'll have more time for practice next week, when I'll make the final decision to enter for Grade 1 in November/December (the closing date for entries is Sept. 30th). But just now, buoyed up perhaps by the endorphin I got from yesterday's afternoon of digging , I'm feeling pretty confident about getting The Hours before the end of this month, and then Calypso Joe by end of October, and heigh-ho for the exam in November.

I had thought I was going to get away without digging the tattie patch over. Just throw on the winter field beans and a layer of oomska, and leave it alone until next year... But as I tidied up, barrowing away the potatoes' aerial parts for compost, I saw that it was compacted from all the walking on it as I harvested the spuds. Besides, there were still a few potato stragglers in the ground. So I got back to digging for the first time in 6 months or so, and I was soon in a lather with the unaccustomed exercise. The methodology: dig back three rough rows along the bed, that's about a yard, sow generously with the field beans, and then throw on a barrowfull of oomska - so that's one barrow of it to about 4sq yards - 2 or 3 ins deep. The field beans should punch their way through that no problem, the garden thugs that they are. I was delighted to find that the oomska pile's population of brandling worms, Eisenia fetitda , has multiplied whilst it's been standing t...

Here's the thing: the maris peer, and the desiree which I grew from supermarket spuds are fine, but they've not been great crops. That's half a sack of desiree from 2 rows, about 16 seed potatoes. The other ones in the photo are from an odds and sods kind of row, I think there were 5 maris piper, and can't remember what else. Anyway, the maris piper were a wee kind of novelty birthday present, but proper seed potatoes, but they've cropped better than anything. So, next year I'm going to get good seed potatoes, and I'm going to get varieties that I can't buy in the supermarket, something a bit different.

The Poacher feels passable, so I'm going to leave him in his Lincolnshire pub drinking the crown he got from that hare . Having decided that this afternoon, I spent an hour with Dance of the Hours. I tried 2H, but that seemed very slow, so then I went through RH & LH separately, a couple of runs through the whole piece. I like the way it moves quite high up the keyboard to the right. It seems to be easier than the Poacher.

Practising this last week or so has consisted of ten minutes before I leave for work in the morning, and sometimes I get time in the evening, too. I’m nearly there, and if I can get several hours at the weekend, this particular hare should be in the poacher’s bag and headed for the pot. It’s almost at the right tempo, and I can sing along to the melody in my head; (I want to sing along to it out loud eventually, but that can wait). I’ve emailed the ABRSM local representative to see if I can get a more precise date for the exam than the vague 7th November to 10th December that is given on the website. To put it bluntly, I will struggle to learn 2 more pieces by early November, but another couple of weeks would make a difference. Really, I’m 99% committed now to getting this done this year. I’ve even started thinking about Grade 2 pieces, and have just had a look at the syllabus. I’m thinking of doing the Mozart, Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen; Holst, Jupiter; and the trad Scottish Piper o’ D...