... crop circle No 4 ... bark chippings and a blob ...

What a baeautiful day. Bright and frosty start, perfectly still, blue skies and damp ground. Started digging the biggest circle to date - 6 paces in diameter - at 10am and completed it by 12pm. Then used the bark chippings from the felled black poplars to create pathways between the beds. By 1:30pm the paths were complete and I was ready for a meal with the fry-up boys, Matty & Olly.

Handy conversation with Frank who was tidying up the chrchyard nextdoor. He remembers this land when it was farmland and has useful hints on what we can reasonably expect.

By 3:30pm the sun was below the roof-top skyline and frost was re-setting itself. By then I had outlined and dug the first turf layer of a blobby shaped bed - it just seemed to suggest itself!

Finished the day by using spare turf to fill in a dip in the ground that fills with water when it rains.

Next will be a bed near to the kitchen for herbs.

Total cost to date £0. Bring on more days like this.

johnty7@hotmail.com

.. here we go again ...

Having been buoyed up by gardening success at the school I work at, and Hull City's amazing rise up the Premier League, my spirit's are high and we (Liz, Fiona, Andy, Ella, Johnty & Olly) are about to embark upon another plot from a first scratch.

This time it's a huge space. A section of a lawned garden big enough for 4 tennis courts (there used to be one in one corner) - that's lawn over boulder clay though. Still it responds well to a spade and a fork. Have decided with other housemates to dig a series of circular beds (no particular reason). Stripped turf on Sunday last and made turf walls around the beds. Looks really cool. Have Community Service type restorative-justice help coming this week! The pic shows about half the space.

The garden is part of a vicarage on the Bransolme Estate in Hull. Vicarage has been empty for a long while and the church agreed to allow us in and look after the place and do our community thing. Since we've been here only 1 break-in. The property doesn't have a gate so security could be an issue!

The plan for this year is tons of spuds to encourage virgin gardeners to keep at it by providing them with a mountain of Inca gold to fry into chips.

Really great pics to follow soon (I'm tending to go to work in the dark and return in the dark at the mo).

johnty7@hotmail.com