Monday 23 February 2009

... walled garden ...


Someone asked for an update on how the wall planner was looking so here it is, wonderfully adorned with garden bird sketches by various visitors.

Then curvy beds now have letters! If anyone can think of curvy names instead please do. So that we have a record of what the soil is like I'm afraid I'm going to get technical.

Beds a and b were the first to be double dug (double diggers all). Bed a has a very thick orange clay subsoil and was a horrible dig. Bed a also has a very thick concrete path 8 inches down and on the extreme left of the bed. This path clips the extreme right of bed c. Beds a and b are fully double dug and maured.

Bed c is a bed of 2 halves. The right hand half dug relatively easily, even the clay broke up fairly well as it appears to be fairly sandy as well! The left hand half was a much more difficult and blistering experience as household and garden refuse formed the first 6 inches of the soil. Bricks, old tools, wire etc. Bed c has finished its double digging today and now needs manuring.

Beds d and e share an alignment with what looks like and old ditch which shows up very clearly after rainfall. The soggy line of standing water that appears lines up perfectly with the hedged boundary beyond and is presumably the remnant of an old field boundary. These beds are not dug as yet and should be interesting digging once we get to them.

Bed f is a figment of our imagination at the moment and only exists on the wall. The plan was to make herb bed, but it looks like it might just be too soggy, re: old ditch.

johnty7@hotmail.com

Saturday 21 February 2009

... faeries in the blurry snowdrops...

Thanks to Matty's amazing ability to abuse my camera we have these telling photos of the beauty of late winter (or is it an eerily early spring?) and of how double digging can lead to aches and pains later in the day. Avoided by a trip to the pool and 40 lengths of unwinding. Click the pic and squint hard and you may see one of the little people.

johnty7@hotmail.com

Friday 20 February 2009

... chitting beginning ...

So what we're only half way through double digging our clay ... we're showing our faith by buying one 2.5kg bag of Pentland Javelin, a guaranteed first early winner ... and they are merrily chitting away in the utility room as we speak - in fact if I listen carefully I can just about hear them.

So there it is - the first green shoots of recovery.

Also bought 7.5kg tub of pelleted chicken manure and some massively reduced herbs. Total cost to date of all our gardening adventuring is £18.

johnty7@hotmail.com

Thursday 19 February 2009

... created equal ...

When Adam Delved and Eve Span
Who was then the Gentleman?


A phrase from a sermon by "Hedgerow Preacher" John Ball which loosely translated reads ...

When God made the first people to be gardeners, did he set an authority hierarchy over them?

William Morris' utopian view of a classless world was fuelled by an understanding of the Peasant's Revolt and the life of the martyr John Ball.


Click the image to read Morris' novel A Dream of John Ball.

johnty7@hotmail.com

Wednesday 18 February 2009

... common thief ...

The law will hang the man or the woman
who steals the goose from off the common
but lets the greater thief go loose
who steals the common from the goose.


If you like the anti-establishment sentiment then you will love Chris Wood's album Tresspasser.

johnty7@hotmail.com

Saturday 7 February 2009

... Harry Hill pays a flying visit to open new composting facility ...

Today we were very honoured to received a visit from the "burpmeister" Harry Hill. Harry said, "It gives me great pleasure to open these bins in the name of all that is pathogenic, may your compost be always black and crumbly." The only difficult part of the ceremony was the forced eviction of a family of brown mice from under the old compost heap, no doubt they will be taking up residence in a roofsapce near you sometime soon. Harry praised the work of the Rotting Department of Hull City Council who supplied a compost bin for free (so long as you buy a second one!) For further details click the compost bin below. The Macbutton teaches us all a lesson about decomposition in another way altogether.

johnty7@hotmail.com