A video update in August

We have a shed!!

Despite the lack of updates, a lot has happened, most importantly we now have a shed.

Here is the base, with my dad making best use of it before we put the shed up.

... and a shed, needs painting over though, I am not fan of bright orange.

Weeding... little and often

Wandered down to the plot today to find Jim putting one of the concrete shed base slabs in as an edging bit between the path and the area where the shed will be... that means I need to find 3 more slabs on the abandoned plot. I was also planning on using gravel board... Oh well, it looks good and I didn't have to do any work -yay! Having thought about it, I will bring some flags from home to make the shed base and then use the slabs as the edging.

No real plan for today other than to do some weeding. First the easy bit, hoeing the big areas to slice through the annuals. Then the difficult bit; perennials -boo!

We had weeded pretty thoroughly, but with stuff like bindweed 'pretty thoroughly' is not enough as it can grow from a piece of root as small as 1 inch (and possibly smaller). We knew the potato trenches might be harbouring some, but the plan was to weed as they come up, weed as you earth up the spuds and weed as you dig them up. So I worked my way along the earth ridges gently pulling out any bindweed from the loose soil and throwing it on the bare earth to dry in the sun (which kills it). Most came out out easily but some pieces were a little deeper and snapped so the tranquility of the allotment was frequently shattered by low utterances of "bugger", "shit" and "bastard bloody stuff".

Each time I pass I pull out another bit, and any big bits get a spray of glyphosphate which should kill the roots. I know glyphosphate isn't organic (by UK standards, although can be classed as organic by European ones so that will do me) but needs must. Bindweed is amazing stuff, you turn your back for 5 minutes and it grows another foot!

Rolling rolling rolling....

No, not Rawhide, but the base area for the shed. I spent the morning getting it level and then my plot neighbour Jim informed me there was a roller somewhere on the site that anyone could use.

20 minutes later and I had found it and trundled it back to our plot. That got the base nice and level and certainly made sure it was well compacted.

The next step was to lay the concrete bas, this came in the form of old concrete fence panel bits, we have used 4 and need to dig up 2 more from the abandoned plot. This was made much easier with Jims help.

Now to wait for the shed to arrive.

On our shared plot I also dug over, weeded and raked a bed for Sparkly to plant some extra carrots in. We also planted 3 rows of 'Minipop' sweetcorn.