A Break in the Rain

Welcome to Mark N and West9, thanks for dropping by and I hope you enjoy the journey...


Hallelujah, we've actually had a break in the weather, well the rain, it's still rather chilly. Since the beginning of April, I can't remember going any longer than a day without rain, rain or even more rain. To be quite frank, if it didn't rain again until ooh maybe November I wouldn't be bothered, even though that means watering the garden with 6,7 or 8 litre watering cans, I'd quite happily suffer in silence. The rain and continuous cold spell has put the season back quite a few weeks, for me anyhow. But this bank holiday weekend we had 3 days of mostly dry conditions.


So I struck while the iron was hot so to speak with that dry weather... I spent most of Saturday at the allotment digging over the area where the potatoes are going to go (eventually), all of Sunday afternoon and evening and then went back again at 8am on Bank Holiday Monday to spend another 6 solid hours finishing off the job. Who in their right mind goes digging on an allotment at 8am on a Bank Holiday Monday! One mad plotter that's who... I was dead on my feet by the end of it, the soil was quite waterlogged and very heavy, which made digging rather hard work. But I did it, it's all cleared and raised beds are starting to appear.


Here are a few pictures of how the 'Solanace' patch has improved....

How it all started with the weeds (July 11)

The weeds chopped down...

You can see here (April 12) that I've took down part of the fence and started to dig over the potato (solanace) area, a couple of beds are in but still a bit to dig over...

Here (May 12) the whole of the potato (solanace) area has now been cleared, dug over and another bed created.

So hopefully the weather will hold off this weekend so that I can finish building the remaining beds and get the potatoes in.... please Mr Weatherman, play nicely...

Wordless Wednesday

Update - The Past Year

So what have I been up to.....

I've been working hard on the plot, well Plot 1 that is, it's just about completed now, all the raised beds have been installed, the hen house is built, the frame of the bottle house built, still a couple of things to do, e.g. create the raspberry beds, the flower beds and plant a few more fruit trees (currently in tubs) but these are things that I can get on with later during the year. Plot 2 is now starting to be worked on, practically half is dug over and I've started to create some raised beds. The other half is covered in black plastic so that I can get around to digging this over when I have more time.

Time, well that is the most precious thing isn't it... when you work full time you find yourself really analysing what you do with your time and where you can get more time from. Here in Middlesbrough I could really do with more time... Or even better for time to stand still, though this would have to be on a sunny day! I took some annual leave over the Easter holidays to try and get Plot 2 sorted, but 10 of the 14 days were lost to rain and therefore i'm not anywhere near where I should be. I have earmarked Plot 2 for the Potatoes and Squash families in my crop rotation. Here we are at the wrong end of April and I only have my 1st earlies in... It has rained just about everyday since I went back to work and therefore not a lot has been able to be done. I am now racing against time to get the rest of the Potatoes in. I have however planted out a bed of Broad Beans, a bed of Red Onions and a bed of Brown Onions. I've sown a few radishes direct and also started to sow some carrots. I have Shallots and Garlic in which have been in since October time, these have come through the winter and seem to be doing ok.

Away from the Plots, I've had a holiday in Ibiza; revisiting my youth I think, and a couple of weekends away in Edinburgh and Nottingham... Boooziee weekends with friends, these were really nice and relaxing. But on a sad note, in August we lost Samson to Kidney Failure, it was devastating, and we lost him rather quickly after the diagnosis. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing I'll never know, we didn't really get time to say goodbye but then we didn't really have to watch him deteriorate. In January we adopted Diesel, another Dogue de Bordeaux, he's 16 months and very cheeky....

I'll end with a couple of pictures for you..

Images of the Chicken House