Spring cleaning

To us allotmenteers, spring cleaning is actually autumn cleaning. This is where the hard work starts. Every season brings surprises as we didn't have the pleasure of the big clean last year, it is somewhat of a shock how much work is required, although a day of sunshine makes it so much better. I have cleared most of the small beds leaving only the chard, the everlasting onions, fennel and the bed with parsnips and swede. One small problem is, I didn't realise quite how many plastic bottles and canes we used so the greenhouse is filling up. We need to have a good tidy up in the shed to make room for winter storage.

I took up the 100 gladioli that were planted and, having consulted Ted on what to do with them, it appears that I need to hang them to dry. He was very impressed by the size of my corms!




The big excitement of the week is the manure delivery. A much larger load than I expected but smells lovelly and the boys popped round to inspect and gave their approval. In fact, they are going to get theirs in now that they have seen it.



Nick has prepared the strawberry bed on 53, ready to move them from Old Basing. We have a problem with couch grass on 53 so it took a lot of deep digging. There is a clump of raspberry canes that we have had to dig round as they are still providing a lot of fruit and it seems a shame to miss out on them.

We also seem to have been adopted by the allotment cat who took a lot of interest in the digging but we move interested in sleeping in the small greenhouse as there is a hole in the back that she can go in and out as she wishes.