Bank Holiday Monday 5th - What Lovely Weather!

The sun has got his hat on - hip, hip, hip, hooray

I was singing that song all day today.

After a quick drive into the office this morning, I decided that an hour down the lotty would do me good. With the week I have got ahead of me, I deserved an hour in my favourite place. I spent the time chatting (ha, ha - you should have guessed that by now)

I started off with Olga, who was working hard once again. I told her about my sunflower dilema - oh! I haven't told you yet - I forgot to close up my cold frame last night because of the humidity, and when I went to inspect things this morning, some toerag slug or snail had eaten one of my sunflower babies in half and the other totally, leaving only a stump! so kind Olga brought me over 2 brand new home raised sunflower babies, which I put into the corners of bed 3.

I then went to see Nigel at the shop, but he wasn't there - however he had left a kindly note on the board to say that if anyone wanted anything, to go and see him at plot 47, so off I went as I needed some horse poo - ooops - sorry manure. After a little chat, I arranged to meet him at 1245 to collect 4 bags full. As I started to walk back towards 142 and whilst texting Hubby Ian with the news and to mak arrangements for him to come and collect me and horses manure in my car ( he wans't going to get that lot in the Porsche, so better to use the dump run vehicle) I then bumped into the lovely Perry & George, my Jamaician boys with the green shed just down the way. They are both so lovely and happy all the time. If I am ever going to feel down, I won't go to the docs, I will go and find one of them, or both and have a good laugh. You can hear them laughing all the way back to my plot sometimes!

Just after leaving them, Paul, the man with the greenhouse and the wonky shed that is going to be donated to me and Susan, came by. He commented on my Tattie and how his little girl always came by to say "hello" to him. He then gave me advice on my potatoes, which I was very grateful for, as I have had mixed opinions, so his sealed my mind in a particular direction.

Paul mentioned to me that I had a "web" thing going on, to which I blushed slightly, and as I did not have a pen and paper I told him to get the address off my by from Nigel as they had eachothers emails - another possible fan then!! I mentioned to Paul that I would be taking pictures of my seedlings for identification purposes, as none of the books seemed to have these, so here they are.......

Radish

Beetroot

Parsnips & Radishes

Rocket

It was then 1245 and I had to go and meet Hubby Ian and my car at the far gate. He backed the car in, and loaded her up with the 4 bags. With permission from Nigel, we left the car by the shop as I had to go and get my bag and stuff. On the way I introduced Ian to Olga (the sunflower lady from Russia) and her husband Julian, who incidently is putting together a shed out of pallets, and after that Ian went on to be introduced to Perry & George, who up until that point, I am sure, were not convinced I had a husband. We all stood there chatting with Carl for a long time. Incidently - this is Carl, who had started to chop down the trees on my new plot 144.....

How very kind of him to make a start. I was worried at one stage though as before letting him loose with his saw on my new plot, he was taking some "shading" branches from the tree next door. This in itself didn't concern me - the fact that he was climbing on unbalanced and unstable looking pallets of wood did! Can I also add, that I am intent on getting this pigstye of a plot cleaned up and I have booked in Derek the Bramble Fairy, Bonfire fairy and digging fairy (Sorry Derek but that was not my nickname for you but I believe Julians!!) for as soon as he has a moment free - probably around September then - I am in no rush!

And finally. I fininshed off my afternoon by aeriating and putting the 4 bags of manure down underneath the holly bushes which are situated at the front of the house. It took Ian and I around 2 hours to do altogether, but a job well done. I then went onto pottering around the garden, especially the decking, which incidently is up for sale on EbaY at the moment, all 330 sq.ft. of it, and watering the pots. I then made a lovely cup of Lady Grey and dozed in a garden chair before returning to the Lotty to water all my hard work so far.

And finally - this is a picture of the wheelbarrow graveyard which I came across today.

and finaly, finally.......

This week is forecast to be "lovely" so hopefully a few more trips down to my lotty in the next few days......

Toodle Pip for now

More April showers & a Twirly!!

This is the WONDERFUL TWIRLY that my friend and fellow plot holder bought as a present for me! She is sooooo thoughtful as I have wanted one of these for my plot and she found me one!

It has pride of place at the top of Bed 2 - If anyone nicks it there will be BIG HUGE trouble. In fact I might even security mark it with that invisible inky stuff!!

Again, today, being another April day, we had on and off showers all day. I went to the lotty a total of 3 times with wheelbarrow there and back eachtime, and needless to say, getting a drenching each time too.

I managed to put in 3 rows of onions that I had grown from seed, and in between these 3 rows, which were quite generously spaced out withing the rows themselves, I inter-planted 5 varieries of French Marigolds - just for the "prettiness" of it all.

This plan will give you some idea of what it looks like......

Unfortunately I could not take a final picture of the sweet pea / onion / spring onion / marigold bed as it was :

• raining hard
• making me soggy
• cold
• disheartening
• dismal & making me angry!

UPDATE * UPDATE * UPDATE * UPDATE

Yet again the carrots and parsnips are alive, well & kicking. I took their cloches off today, whilst the sun was shining and I protected all around the carrots with 2 ft high meshy stuff. I used a stapler to arrange the mesh around the canes, but the intention is - which would have happened today if the sun was shining - to sew this mesh into place as that will be a good job done - another day then!

Tatty Bogie Gump News

TBG is now cemented into a bucket - this has only been possible with the kind assistance of Hubby Ian, who has devoted part of his weekend / time off, to doing this mammoth task for me.

TBG is currently outside, getting used to the elements. Me and Susan both hope he doesn't come down with some nasty bug or the flu for that matter!

We are going back to the lotty together on Tuesday night to dig a hole big enough for the bucket to be sunk into. Tatty Bogie Gump will be situated between the two potato beds at the bottom end of our plot!

And finally

This was my 4th to the lotty today as I managed to find a spell of sunshine, so that I could take a picture of what I had done/achieved today.

You can just about make out the spring onions to either side of the Sweet Peas, and the onions (from seed) being inter mingled with a variety of marigolds.

Good night - sleep tight

Lala Salama (in swaheli which I picked up from Masai Mari)