Strawberries have gone to sleep for the winter

Puddles, sickly cabbages and onions

More puddles and onions !and sickly cabbages

Garlic

I found some garlic languishing in the fridge, I was going to throw it in the compost but then I thought I stick in the ground and see what happens. I wasn't sure how to plant it so I treated it like an onion and planted it up to its shoulders. However upon further reading I found out that it should be planted twice its depth, so I pulled it up to replant.

I am thrilled how well it has grown, the first pic doesn't look that good but the second picture shows just how much it has taken off - I only planted it about 2-3 weeks ago and its the best thing on the plot !! - What a reflection on my life that I am getting so excited by this !!

Garlic has now been lifted and replanted at a suitable depth and width and should continue to flourish !

Lazy Bones

This is one of the reasons I often decide not to go down the lottie - these steps will be the end of me. No matter how much work needs doing you always have to leave a little in the reserve tank to tackle these beasts, the main problem is the width of the step they are a slab and a curb wide which is just a little bit to wide for my stumpy legs to take in one stride so I have to walk like a child climbing each step individually !

In case you were wondering what is the purpose of the plastic and wood wonky fence running alongside the path it is to trap wildlife. The groundwork is being prepared for a road to run through the area so the wildlife people(sorry to be vague I don't know their correct title!) put these special areas in then after a few months they go in and collect up any wildlife that is of interest or requires protecting and move it somewhere else.

Foot prints !

I had to replant some onions that the birds had decided to pull up and the soil was the wet that in the time it took to shove half a dozen onions back in the soil I had sunk! Granted I am a chunky monkey but even so the soil is that saturated the sand has risen to the top and it is like quick sand. I thought afterwards that maybe I should have got a fork from the shed and tried to turn the ground over a bit where I had compacted it, but I think I would have made it worse bywalking on it even more.

A quick visit

The weather has been disgraceful beyond belief these past weeks and I haven't even attempted to visit the lottie, but I bucked my ideas up on Sunday as I had to take the rotting food and leaves from my back-yard to the compost bin. Between showers we popped down and was annoyed to see that the horrible birds had pulled a half a dozen or so of my second planting of onions - kindly donated by my neighbour, she bought a kilo of onions from our local pet shop but didn't realise just how many she would get !!

I couldn't stay to replant the onions on Sunday as we were already late for a beef dinner with my mother - and I will not miss that dinner for the world - so the onions had to wait !!

Industrial Waste or potential compost ?

Regular readers will know that I have recently built a super duper compost heap and have been doing my best to fill it up as it is rather large for the ammount of rubbish I create at the moment. Anyway, I came up with the idea of asking my local florist if I could have his leftover greenary to fill up the bin. A few weeks ago I had a lovely black bag almost full and added it to the compost bin, I called in in Thursday to collect some more, this time the owner was there, he said that he was really sorry but he isn't allowed to give me his greenary as the Council class it as Industrial Waste and as a result it has to be disposed of as such.

I couldn't believe it, Councils are forever trying to get people to cut down on their waste and reuse recycle etc and when you try and do something proactive they have a law against it. The florist also told me that when the Councils waste analyst(honestly !) visited him he stopped him taking the stuff home to compost himself as it was against the law and he would prosecute him if he continued. Apparently a florist in another valley has been prosecuted and fined £70 for daring to take leaves and dead flowers from his own shop to compost.

I would really like your input on this one readers, please leave some comments - have you been affected by similar laws, what do you think of this - should I just nonchanlently walk passed on bin day dressed in black with a balaclava and grab them and run?

More bramble removal

The brambles are casting a shadow over the plot especially with the weak winter sun so we have decided upon removal and who knows we may even take on the plot underneath ! I have been away for a few days so on the same day as he got the fire going my Dad made a start on cutting through the brambles. I will be able to go to the plot on Thursday so I will continue his good work. I am also aiming to get my broad beans in by the end of the week - so that will be an oportunity for another picture of bare earth with the promise of good things to come !!

Fire

Self explanatory really !! My Dad volunteered as fire person in chief and tried to get it going but the brambles had become so wet that were having none of it, so instead my Dad and my neighbour removed smaller sections and began to burn it off - it was so cold even the horse came for a warm !!

An onion !!

I haven't been down to the plot for a while, but the last time I did go I was sad enough to take a picture of one of my onions which has poked its head through. At the time I took this photo we had just endured rain of almost biblical proportions, it had been raining quite literally non stop for about a week and the clay part of my soil was sodden. Now we have the other extreme it has been so cold it is silly. I have even had to light my log burner in the day to keep warm as I am holding out on the central heating. We have buckled and put it on as when the temperature hit minus 5 it felt appropriate to heat the house !!