5/6 January 2008 - La Cage aux Folles

Much of our final days of holiday were spent in plot.

We picked up some raspberry canes and strawberry plants at a new (to us) garden centre, Aylett's Nursery, and commenced digging the area (230cm x 460 cm) which will form the base of the fruit cage. This involved clearing bits of turf around the edges, digging in some well-rotted horse manure and, finally, digging the whole thing over.

The next day we constructed the makings of our pallet-walled composter, affixing wire mesh inside it and adding the new turf plus our old friend the remains of the Brussel Sprout plant. In due course, a companion composter will join it, to better facilitate the turning over of the compost.

To our existing three or four (it's a little hard to tell because they procreated) raspberry plants, we added two Autumn Bliss variety and five canes of Malling Admiral. The new plants won't be allowed to fruit this year, in order that they build up their strength for Summer 2009. It's good, in these instant-gratification times, for our patience and sense of perspective.

Then, at what will be on the left side as you will one day enter the fruit cage, we planted five strawberry plants (Elsanta), leaves snugly sticking out of black plastic.

I counted and measured our remaining wood - much of it from the Freecycling floorboard guy who broke our trailer (now, hurrah, rivetted back to working order) - and think we have exactly the right amount for the cage. I want to be able to stand comfortably inside, so it will be about two metres high. We will also move the shed to form one wall of the cage. To achieve this, our neighbours promised us help next weekend.

Sadly - or, rather, disturbingly and infuriatingly - our neighbours suffered some loss of spring onions to rabbits because someone (some toerag) had assaulted their fence. Someone had also damaged our other neighbour's fence and left thier shed door open. No damage to ours, but someone smoked a cigarette in our plot and left the butt. K spoke with Mr G earlier, who had already had several complaints about intruders. We suspect that Mr Fox has been sniffing about too, judging from the pawprints in one of the beds. As long as he gets rabbits we don't mind.

When that's done, we need to give some thought to what to do with the space where the shed and palettes are now. And we need to acquire some more carpeting; parts of the plot are a bit of a mudbath at the moment.

Meant to note the other day that as we worked in the afternoon, several sheep were just ten yards away from us in their pasture. And Mr Robin was keeping a sharp eye on us meddling with his property. This is all far better than urban allotment-keeping.

Weather note: cold, crisp, sunny (occasional rain).