7/8 December - Two footnotes

Two footnotes - it has been very cold recently, and for the last couple of weekends, wet too, preventing us from getting to the plot.

Footnote 1 - yours truly heroically double-dug the new bed on her own on a day off from work. Jan, allotment neighbour, was amazed that I was going to do this and generously lent me her wheelbarrow, without which I would probably still be there, toiling in the mud like a small but stubborn insect.

Double-digging, for those of you lucky enough not to have done/heard of it, involves dividing the bed to be dug into sections, digging out the soil to a spade's depth from the first section and moving it to the other end of the bed, breaking up the resulting trench with a fork, putting a layer of kitchen compost on the top of the forked-up bed, and then - wait for it - taking off the top spade's depth soil from the NEXT section and putting that on top. In the end, you put the soil from the first trench into the last one. Although I felt unbelievably virtuous, my back duly gave me notice of a job too well done for at least 2 days afterwards. Then I met Mr G our allotment manager in Sainsburys who told me that double-digging was out of fashion now and I didn't have to be doing that despite what the books said and that the best thing to do for our unconditioned soil was to put some mushroom compost and chicken manure on and leave it. GRRR. Which is why we have orderd 10 bags of mushroom compost.

Footnote two - the day after this herculean feat we had visitors, N's brother Andrew and his son Australian Nephew (see blogs passim). It was too dark when they arrived to show Andrew the plot so he remains the only N-side relative to visit our new home not to have beheld the glories of the allotment. He seemed to cope pretty well with the disappointment of not having his picture on the blog - we suspect he may be a wanted man.