Sunday, January 29, 2006

Saturday 29 January - At Last...

We arrived on site just after 10am to find the sun shining and a hard frost making the earth heavy to dig.

The Spouses had been reading the Greenhouse instructions and were confident that they could finish construction work in one day. I could hoe one legged and although Mel's shoulder prevented her from hoeing, she could still dig.
We finally had a plan of the four crop rotation beds marked out with where all the seeds were supposed to go which meant we might do some planting at last.

Within minutes the Spouses were swearing and Mel put her back out. As my one legged hoeing was working well, I carried on clearing what will become the legumes bed while Mel (who could kneel down but not much else) started planting the Longor Shallots and Solent Wight garlic in the already cleared 'onions & roots' bed. As our soil is a little heavy, she added sand to each planting hole which according to our book, the garlic prefers.
Driving home at lunchtime we spotted an ivy clad old wheelbarrow poking out of a skip. After years of watching smug Londoners furnishing their homes with designer skip finds on tv shows we have now furnished Polt 21 with our very own skip wheelbarrow complete with shredded tyre. Hopefully one of the Spouses will fix that post Greenhouse.
Mel finished planting the onions at the same time that I finished the legumes bed and so carried on planting the Aquadulce broad beans. These were supposed to be planted in November so it will be interesting to see how they do.
Meanwhile the Greenhouse was looking really good no thanks to the instruction booklet. The Spouses were finally fitting glass on to the roof and we lit our first allotment fire with the greenhouse packaging as the sun went down. The plot is really taking shape now and the four of us headed off to the pub feeling really happy and very crippled.

1 comment:

Frankie said...

Thank you!