The Great Bank Holiday Polytunnel Project Day 2

With drill recharged and the additional equipment of a step-ladder to avoid a repeat of yesterday's inelegant dangling off the top rail and swearing a lot as he tried to attach important screws, Andy and I set off for the allotment for Day 2 of the polytunnel experience. At the allotment, yesterday's handiwork stood tall, proud and hoopy like a tall, proud, hoopy thing.

As Andy immersed himself in a pile of power tools and bits of wood and metal, I continued my weeding campaign from yesterday. I am pleased to report we are almost weed free and whatever weeds that pop up for the rest of the growing season can now be dealt with by a bit of swift hoeing. I also made two net cages for the many cauliflower seedlings ('We LOVE cauliflower, don't we Andy?' 'Mm-mmmmm,' says Andy) and cabbage seedlings that needed planting out, and sowed some seeds straight into the ground - red beetroot, golden beetroot, carrots and spring onions. I stood and admired the flowers on the blackberry bush and strawberry plants and whilst I was upside-down and head long 'neath the gooseberry bushes weeding out some buttercups, I noticed some tiny, weeny gooseberries starting to swell.

We both agree the allotment is looking pretty darn good at the moment!

Today I was called upon to hold the spirit level against the door frames and to draw lines on the door frames where the wood needed cutting as Andy stood, arms aloft, holding up the door frames. I resisted the urge to tickle him until the very last moment when naughtiness got the better of me. In I went for the tickle. Andy, alarmed, stepped back and trampled my raspberries. 'Mind the raspberries!' I shrieked. 'Mind my armpits,' shrieked back Andy. Touche!

My opinion was also required vis a vis the location of the diagonal brace bars.

'They don't look right, sitting at that angle,' said Andy, frowning 'neath his big floppy hat.
'What angle?' I said, because I couldn't see anything on account of the fact my even bigger floppy hat was rammed very tightly onto my head because of the wind. (Atmospheric, not personal.)

So we wiggled and jiggled the diagonal brace bars, slid them up and down a bit, turned them upside-down even but there was only one way they were going to fit as per the instructions, and that was the way Polytunnel Maestro Andy had fitted them.

A nice old chappie from the lottie across the way and along a bit mooched over and enquired after our polytunnel e.g where we got it, how much it cost, the pros and cons etc. He admired it and declared it a 'wonderful thing,' and then wandered off with the kind of wander that suggested he might very well be getting one himself.

And he was right, that nice old chappie. Our polytunnel is a wonderful thing. It adds gravitas and grace to our plot. It confirms that we are SERIOUS about growing our own organic food. That we have moved up a step on the self-sufficiency ladder. Walking up to unlock the main gate to let Andy drive through as we finished our allotment stint today (another 5 hours!), I found myself very much in mind to make a jazzy number '87' to add to identity our plot.

And here is another picture so you can see progress for today.

Slugs 'n' Snails 'n' Slow Worm Tails

Allotment day. The mists hang heavy across the land; the air hangs humid with er, humidity. We need to get the rest of the potatoes in and move the storage bin before the arrival of the polytunnel. Optimistically, I thought I'd take some seeds to plant (beetroot - red and yellow- carrots, spinach, spring onion and kale) but one look at the old compost heap that rose like a citadel and was in need of flattening tells me seed planting will have to wait.

We march our plot and check the crops. The Jerusalem artichokes are sprouting, the raspberries are putting on much leafage. And the gooseberries have gone from sad little twigs to lush bushes with a hint of tiny flowers appearing. The first potatoes we planted are poking foliage above the ground and need earthing up. The onions are shooting green javelins toward the sky and the shallots resemble the hairstyles of Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street. I pull some rhubarb from last year's plant which is going wild with growth now I've removed the flowers. We allocate tasks. Andy to plant potatoes and clear away old brassicas, me to dig over the old compost heap and level it with rest of plot ready for planting. Andy to move storage bin to other end of plot, me to help him if it looks like he might collapse mid-move.

All is quiet, all is calm as we start work. Then...

'OMIGOD!!!!' yells Andy.
'WHAT?' I yell.
'SNAILS!' yells Andy back. And he's right. In lifting the wooden pallet the storage bin has been standing on, he has revealed a colony of about three hundred snails. Tall ones, short ones, some as big as your head.
'We'll take them back for the chickens,' I declare, throwing snails enthusiatically into a box.

Back to work. Then...

'EEEEEK!'
That was me.
'WHAT?' yells Andy.
'SNAKE!' I yell back. Actually, it's a slow worm. A BIG slow worm. Now, slow worms are a protected species and you aren't supposed to disturb them. However, I have inadvertently disturbed this one by flinging it across the diameter of the compost heap during my vigorous digging efforts. So I rescue it and relocate it to the new compost heap. I just hope the slow-worm police don't come after me for this transgression. Nor for the second one when I discover its mate in a similar fashion.

During the digging, I suffer my first two insect bites of the season. That'll be me itching and puffy for a week now. Still, I'm better off than the insect that bit me. That's dead.

After three hours we decide to go home. The snails in the box have made several attempts to escape. It's like they know what their fate is to be. Psychic snails.

At home, we take the box of snails into Cluckinghen Palace and place it reverently on the ground, waiting for the hens to launch themselves enthusiatically at this heaving pile of fresh protein.

'What's that?' asks Poo, suspiciously.
'Slugs with houses,' says Miggins. 'I've seen 'em before. They're a bugger to eat.'
'Well, I'm going to give them a go,' says Slocombe, 'because you know how hard it is for me to assimilate protein and I need all I can get.'

Mrs Slocombe selects possibly the tiniest snail from the box. She spends at least five minutes swinging it around by its head, bashing it against wood chippings, small stones and other chickens. In fact, all four of the hens race each other around the play area in pursuit of cracking open this one tiny snail. Behind them, the other 99 snails we've brought home are making fast their escape. Andy is sitting on the swing bench laughing like a loon at our idiot hens.

I want to get a hammer and smash the snail shells open for the chickens so they can have easier access.

'NO!' yell Andy and Heather in unison. 'That's cruel!'

I have no idea when my husband and daughter became members of the Snail Preservation Society. I mean, I haven't seen them wearing badges or anything. But it's 2 against 1 so I may have to wait until nightfall before I sneak out into the garden with my hammer...

How to plant a raised bed...or not, as the case may be...

Here are the instructions on how to plant a new raised bed. You will need:
1) seeds appropriate for the time of year (in this case carrots, radish and lettuce
2) a digging fork
3) a trowel
4) a seed labels and a pencil
5) a bucket load of determination
6) another bucket load of patience

You WILL NOT need:
1) four hens

...but they will help anyway...

METHOD:
1) Remove one side of netting from cover on raised bed, remembering to memorise the configuration of rocks and tent pegs initiated by husband so they can be reinstated after planting in exactly the same position
2) Stand back as hens barge past you under the netting and onto the raised bed
3) Standing outside raised bed, use digging fork to agitate soil into some semblance of 'fine tilth' ready to receive seed - take care not to impale hens on fork tines as they wrestle for upturned worms and other assorted bugs
4)Remove hens from beneath netting
5) Repeat step 4. Several times.
6) Kneel down, arms akimbo, to shield entrance to raised bed from further chicken attack. Discover you've knelt in dollop of chicken poo.
7) Climb inside raised bed and close net curtain
8)Remove chicken that has crept in behind you without you noticing
9) Say 'Aha!' in loud and triumphant voice that the chickens are now outside the raised bed net and you are under the raised bed net.
10) Say 'Oh,' when you realise all your seeds for planting are also outside the raised bed net with the chickens
11) Retrieve seeds quickly.
12) Remove chicken from under netting. (This is usually the quickest, most persistent one. 'That'll be me!' says Mrs Miggins.)
13) Go into house and find apple as distraction for chickens. Cut apple into quarters. Try to put wellies back on feet using only one hand whilst holding four quarters of apple without dropping them
14) FLING apple as far away from raised bed as possible. Chickens will be unable to resist and race after the apple. You now have a very short time in which to get those seeds in the ground
15) Dash back under netting cover, make shallow seed drills, wrestle seed from packets, think 'Oh bother,' because your plant labels and pencil are still in the greenhouse, but no time to go and get them so you just grab bits of stray stick and pebbles, anything, to mark the ends of the rows you are planting
16) Remove chicken from raised bed, the one who crept in without you noticing and is now eating your radish seed straight from the packet. ('That'll be me again! says Miggins. 'Well, I just hope you don't start growing radish in your oviduct,' I say, 'because then we'll be in trouble.')
17) Cover over seed, doesn't matter how, because now you are really past caring
18) Back out of raised bed trying not to kneel in more chicken poo and replace net cover, remembering where those carefully positioned rocks and tent pegs go
19) Open up net cover to retrieve chicken trapped inside before they dig up your carefully (!) sown seed
20) Go indoors and have a cup of tea and flapjack

It's easy, really.

Pirates and potatoes

Making the most of the positively Caribbean weather in Kent today, we were at the allotment by 8 this morning and coats off by ten past. Andy set to, digging trenches to plant the first early potatoes that had reached Triffid-like proportions whilst chitting in Heather's bedroom, and I disappeared up the other end of the plot to tackle ONCE AGAIN the huge mass of grape hyacinths that seem to want to take over the site every March. For the last 2 years I've been trying to get rid of the darn things but still they come back, dividing and spreading like bizarre little onions.

At one point early in the proceedings, Andy appeared up my end (oo-er missus!) to put some stuff in our newly located compost bins.

'Yeek!' Andy squealed, which I always find an odd reaction from him considering he spends a lot of his working life in situations involving poo, wee, pus, blood, guts and other unsavoury substances. Thus, I reason, the contents of a compost bin should be child's play for him.
'What's up?' I ask, pausing in my grape hyacinth onslaught.
'There's a dead rat in the compost bin,' he said and sure enough there is, on its side, very big and very dead.
'Shall we take it home and have it for lunch with a side serving of the many snails that are hibernating on the side of the compost bin?' I ask. (Hugh F-W cooked garden snails in his programme 'A Cook on the Wild Side.' The addition of rat was my idea.)
'Don't be disgusting,' says Andy.

As I ponder the dead rat and listen to Andy saying how nice it was that the rat could go somewhere warm, clean and quiet to breathe its last moments, I notice that next door's allotment, (belonging to 'plant-trees-in-an-inconsiderate-manner-string-girl. Remember?) has acquired a small flag pole on which is flying a Jolly Roger skull and crossbones. An icy chill runs through my bones.

'It's a warning,' I say, rooted to the spot with fear.
'What is?' says Andy.
'The rat. Look,' and I point to the flag.
'Meaning?' says Andy. I know what he's thinking. He's thinking, here she goes again.
'We have incurred the wrath of string girl,' I hiss. 'By moving the compost bins. It's a warning that we'd better watch our step. Or else. It's a coded message - PI-RATS!'
'No it isn't,' sighs Andy.
'Well,' I say. 'Just you wait. I bet we find a horse's head in there next time.'
Andy disappears back down his end, muttering something about sedatives and over-excitable imaginations.

When I next look up, Andy is sitting in a deck chair, watching me dig. The potatoes are planted and he's even got ahead digging a couple of trenches for the second earlies which will be ready plant in a week or two.

When I look again, Andy is tidying up the blackberry trellis, cutting back the old brambles and weaving the new shoots, sprouting with tiny green leaves into the shape of a giant heart. Which was nice.

Then I had a bit of a dig of the overgrown area recently revealed by the relocation of the compost bins. It's not as bad as it looks. We are still hesitating about whether to get a polytunnel but now I have tested the site and seen we could dig deep enough trenches to bury the edges of the polythene, I feel happier to make the purchase. Yesterday, I bought a tomato greenhouse from Wilkos (basically a green plastic tubing frame with a flimsy plastic cover. Andy liked it though. He stood inside and said how warm it was. And then I made him come out because he was starting to look like some kind of transparent Dalek.) It cost £9.99 and will house three tomato plants easily. But a polytunnel would be better.

After three hours, we head off home. It has been a good morning. Despite the Pi-Rat.

Up the Garden Path

Checking my biorhythms this morning I discover I am on a fairly even keel emotionally and intellectually (we shan't talk about physically, not after my bang on the head) which is just as well given the up and down nature of today so far.

Firstly, I slept very badly last night. No idea why but it meant I surfaced with a headache and inability to walk in a straight line. This meant I crashed into the willow tree (which was still in residence in the kitchen) and got covered in clouds of yellow pollen which showed up beautifully on my white shirt and pale blue cardi. Andy said, 'I've left a spade in the back garden so you can plant the tree if you like,' which, because I was in a bad mood, I took to meaning 'That tree had better be gone from the kitchen when I get home this evening...or...or...' Trouble is, Andy doesn't do threats so I am at a bit of a loss as to what to write now. My comment is therefore rendered unfair and unnecessary, and I apologise unreservedly m'lud. (Kissy-kissy, mwah, mwah!)

So I went into the garden to start work on 'Plan Bee Garden.' I dug up weeds and grass, and hacked at old shrub roots for three hours. I took clods of grass to the back garden for the hens. 'Thank you,' they said, launching themselves at the greenery with obvious joy.
'You're welcome, 'I said. 'Have a bit of cabbage too.'
'Don't give Mrs Pumphrey cabbage!' yelled Mrs Slocombe. 'It'll make her fart!'
And much hilarity was had by all at the mention of the 'f' word.

I also planted the willow tree and it looks very cute with all its fluffy buds cascading artfully towards the ground. I stopped periodically to quaff water, paracetemol, one of the muffins my Mum gave me yesterday, to put some washing on the line and to stare at people driving up the road whilst using their mobile phones. I thought, I'll put some of the old potting compost that the hens have been rolling about in all winter onto the freshly dug borders. So I went into the greenhouse and scooped up aforesaid compost, now enriched with chicken poo. And I got sidetracked into collecting up the many hundred flowerpots we've accumulated since becoming allotmenteers. And in one of the pots, a big 12 inch one, I found 2 eggs.

Now yesterday, I happened to glance out of the kitchen window and I spied Mrs Poo engaging in what appeared to be flowerpot wrestling. She was inside this pot, flinging herself around like a loon. I thought, look at her. Barking mad. But now it seems this flowerpot has become Mrs Poo's alternative nesting box. I stood it up. I thought, I'll put a stop to that laying-eggs-where-I-like malarkey immediately. And then I went to clean out the Eglu.

As I stood up from giving the roosting bars a good scrub, I found myself eyeball to eyeball with Mrs Poo.
'Put my flowerpot back where it was,' she said. 'I need to lay an egg...NOW!' She meant business.
'I've just cleaned out your Eglu,' I say. 'Give me a second and I'll put some fresh bedding in the nest box.'
'Pah!' said Mrs Poo. 'I'm not sharing with them,' and she cast a glance at the other three who were stuffing down cabbage and parping like the Tihuana Three Trumpet Band. 'I have my own private facility now.'

And no word of a lie, dear followers of Much Malarkey Manor, that chicken STARED at me in a very menacing manner until I capitulated and set her flower pot at its previous jaunty slant on the floor. She got inside immediately and started rolling around inside it like a weeble in beachball. I shrugged my shoulders and set to putting fresh bedding in the Eglu.

As soon as I had completed my task, Mrs Poo raced from the flowerpot in the greenhouse and flung herself into the fresh Eglu Bed. She then proceeded to THROW the bedding around whilst making an appalling racket.
'Is that entirely necessary?' I said, crossly.
'YES!' she yelled. 'I might may my egg HERE! Or I might lay my egg THERE! I haven't decided YET!'

She's still doing it now, racing twixt greenhouse and Eglu, Eglu and greenhouse. I gave up and came indoors. The postman had been. With a copy of Good Food magazine. And a free gift of a jute shopping bag from 'Home Farmer' magazine. And the first rejection for Nearly King Jimbo (although the agent said she enjoyed reading it, it was very entertaining but not quite for her). And a notice from the waterboard saying they are reducing our water bill direct debit by 50%. I think, that makes a change.

So, a bit up and down today. I'm feeling weary so I'm going to have some toast and read a magazine now. And maybe go egg hunting later.

Mixed blessings - a Day of Dedications

Grasping the opportunity of a rather nice spring morning (i.e it wasn't raining), I decided a spot of allotmenteering was in order, especially as my first early seed potatoes are chitting like fury and will need a prepared bed in a couple of weeks' time and the allotment looks a bit post-winter raddled to say the least. So I popped on my wellies and scruffy allotment coat and marched across town, ignoring the odd looks from people in cars on their way through the rush hour. (Honestly, you'd think they'd never seen a woman in wellies before.)

Four and a half hours later, I am back home and as I can't move because my legs and buttocks have gone into spasm, I have settled in front of the laptop, and in the words of TV's great 'The Fast Show,' today I shall mostly be blogging in the style of mixed blessings and dedications.

To the masses of worms I dug up today -I am sorry I disturbed your underground work, and thank you for aerating the soil so beautifully. May you avoid small boys who might be tempted to carry you around in their pockets in order to frighten small girls with the invitation 'Wanna see my worms?'

To the squirrel whose food store I inadvertently discovered - my sincere apologies for disturbing your nuts, but thank you for that magic moment when I thought I'd managed to grow a whole pile of peanuts without actually planting them

To the old bloke who said 'Nice parsnips,' as I left the allotment -I'll assume it wasn't a double entendre but either way, thanks for the compliment

To the woman who was so engrossed in texting on her mobile phone that she did nothing to prevent her four small children running amok amongst the traffic in the busy car park outside the David Lloyd leisure centre -you can replace your mobile phone, love, but kids need more than a quick battery charge to recover from being squished flat like bugs

To all the young, high-heeled and high-fashion girls who looked down their little snub noses at me as I schlepped home in my mud-clogged wellies looking extremely dishevelled whilst trying to wrestle an armful of parsnips that were wrapped precariously in some old pea-netting because I stupidly forgot to take a bag with me - I LIKE my hair pouffey, okay??

To all the kids on half-term holiday that were hanging around street corners looking bored -why aren't you at home doing your homework/coursework? Your future depends on it

To all the ducks and geese on the river -may all your eggs be fertile

To the rain -thank you for holding off long enough for me to get home dry. I don't think a net of parsnips would have been a wholly successful umbrella but feel free now to rain all you like on my freshly dug allotment

To Phoebe, who I KNOW is loitering around the net of parsnips even though I cannot see her from where I am sitting-DO NOT CHEW THE PARSNIP TOPS! They'll make you throw up and I'm in no mood for clearing up cat vomit

And last, but not least...

To my beautiful, talented, funny and kind daughter, Heather, who was born at 2.55 p.m twenty-one years ago this very day - it's all hereditary, you know. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!