Happy Gardening Continues

Stocking up on gardening malarkey today. Having sorted through our seed box, we ordered some bits and bobs from a seed company on the interwebbly, then it was off to the garden centre to purchase essential equipment.

Firstly, a garden fork. We have three forks already. One, a ladies' border fork - weird description, I know, but basically it is a narrow lightweight jobbie to use in flower borders, presumably stemming from the days when it was the most strenuous job a lady was capable of performing in the garden, encumbered as she might have been by hooped petticoats, long swooshy skirts and a cocker spaniel called Flush. (Unlike me yesterday, Mucky Mary of Malarkey Manor, in her jeans and shirt hefting barrow loads of horse poop up and down the allotment).

The second fork is a stalwart of five years labour now and still going strong. We forgot we had a third fork until we dismantled one of the compost bins last weekend and found it in a tangled, twisted and near-dead state at the bottom.
'Did you realise it was missing?' said I.
'No,' said Andy. 'Did you?'
'Nope - but it looks like it's beyond salvage,' I said. So we bought another one.

We also bought a new watering can. Although we already have a watering can it doesn't have a watering rose for the fine watering required of new seedlings. Oh, we have several roses, but none of them fit the watering can. I am not sure how this happened, but the decision was made today 1)to buy a new can with a rose attached, and 2) to make a sterling effort not to lose either the rose that fits, or the can.

And finally we bought a large garden sieve, for the fine sieving of soil over newly sown seeds. This horticultural purchase was motivated by the fact that Monty Don had one on Gardeners' World on Friday evening, and it looked fun. Also, Andy has plans to pan for gold. Whereabouts, I am not sure. I don't think the lake in the local park is likely to surrender many nuggets.

Back home we made a DETAILED PLAN of the shape the allotment is going to take this year. What with the polytunnel and fruit cage, it's developing a real personality, so we decided to give it an all-over make-over with new paths and structural features like trellis for the grapevines, and obelisks and another runner bean frame. And then we shall probably call it Dave.

And then, in a second interwebbly search for willow because I found a recipe for a make-your-own willow obelisk, I discovered a brilliant website www.thewillowbank.com which is a willow extravaganza and made me want to have living willow structures all over the place and go on a course on how to make my own willow structures.

That'll be the next thing then.