Lee Moody

Landscaping

Authored

A sunny, long bank holiday weekend!

A spade, fork, and mattock stood upright, driven into a sunny, freshly dug bed for planting.
I must have moved at least 20 barrows of soil from path areas to the area without much top soil. You can't really tell from the photo how much effort that was... hopefully whatever I plant there will have a chance now.

Our found mattock came in helpful here again. Over time I became a little exhausted and so less controlled in my movements. Reader, my steel toe caps work.

Throughout the work-week I'm constantly shovelling food and snacks and tea into my face. Procrastination? A habit whilst leg stretching? Pushing down the feelings? The crushing reality of life dribbling away whilst I fret we're all in agreement that paper is #fff1e5? Who knows. At the allotment, by stark contrast, I can labour merrily all day on a single hot cross bun and banana.

I mean, so long as I have a flask of tea! That will have to transition to iced coffee and water soon. 😎

Onion sets (tiny onions) in a freezer, zip-lock bag.
My allotment neighbour gave me some onion sets. He says he's rooting for our success with the plot 🥹

I wasn't going to bother with onions. They're cheap to buy and much for muchness, right? But how could I say no to a kind offer! And it would be nice to get something low-stakes into the ground, keeping bare soil weed free is endless and unfulfilling.

I'll probably put them in the shallow-but-now-not-as-shallow-as-it-was area, but want to dig in some organic matter first to help with nutrients and water retention.

A brick coldframe with no lid. Inside is a mess of scattered pots, rusted metal, and weeds. Lush, fresh bindweed growth scales the perimeter. A couple of potted strawberries look lost, intimidated.
Weeds have really started to take off, particularly within the new coldframe.
A coldframe, cleared of unwanted plants and junk. To the left a wheel barrow stands full with a mass of perennial roots.
You'd think clearing the coldframe wouldn't be much work. It's a small, well defined space, the weeds look small. Wrong! We'd cut them back before, so most of the work isn't visible. I tackled some of my toughest bramble roots yet. And the bindweed. The endless bindweed. Checkout the wheelbarrow of massed perennial roots.
A brightly lit coldframe close-up, of plant pots with fresh compost, where lolly-pop sticks with written names indicate freshly sown seed.
I sowed a variety of things in pots which are currently sheltering in the coldframe. I also have a couple of strawberries hanging out in there too, they were gifted by a different allotment neighbour.

My efforts to clear areas won't last long without plants or mulch to help suppress new, unwanted seedlings emerging. I'm going to have to get composting and planting soon!

In the meantime I sowed within the coldframe: shallot, I gather this is late to sow them, we'll see, there's just a few to try; leek, again I feel maybe a bit late, but I'll probably plant out as a group and harvest immature; spring onions; cosmos (an annual flower, thanks for the seeds, Gardener's World); french parsley, slugs willing; a sunflower, which I'm sure will die or be set back by the cold, but we'll see; and forget-me-nots.

Oh! And not to forget (hah) some opportunistic honeysuckle cuttings – plucked from a hedge-trimming pile as I passed a community garden in full swing.

Holding a paper packet of seeds to the camera. Personal details obscured, it reads: forget-me-not. In loving memory of St... 6th Jan 19...
I've been hanging onto the forget-me-not seeds for a while, since my granddad's funeral. He spent a lot of time in his garden, too. We'd always go on a tour of his modest but abundant garden together when I'd visit.

Forget-me-not are "a humble but glorious spring flower", which I love sparsely planted among grasses. Weirdly, considering I love forget-me-not, I can't bear most blue flowers – a part of me is almost offended by them. Bluebells are the only other exception I can think of right now, but having said that I'd say they have a kinda purplish hue really.

Small fox gloves planted out in a roughly dug over patch of ground.
I made a little fox glove patch, very roughly digging over a patch and moving those plants I saved whilst clearing elsewhere.
A fold out seat, set out beneath a tree. In the backdrop, visible below the tree's small canopy, a new fox glove patch.
The fox glove patch is behind a little seating area which I hope will look good come summer. Relatively speaking. It's unlikely I'll actually get to this area for some time.
Filthy carpet with a Stanley knife on top.
During the week it's been too wet to dig the ground. I made some headway slicing up all the carpet I unearthed. I'm in the process of bagging it up, ready to be disposed of. The Stanley knife seems both wildly, terrifyingly powerful but also frustratingly ineffective when I hit a snag of compacted carpet-mud-root.
A frayed, plastic weed suppression mat. It looks like reams of cassette tape.
I'm also bagging up all the plastic weed suppression mats I found. These had long been taken over, with soil on top and weeds growing through. They've frayed into a thousand cassette tape ribbons, which I'm removing from the ground constantly. I will avoid using any for this reason.

The other day I thanked a blue tit for happening to drop a broken, plastic, mossy golf ball with the other I found on the plot. Both ready to bag up. Every little helps.

Many small sprigs of rosemary planted snugly into a terracotta pot.
In other news, a neighbour (at home, not the allotment) cut back their huge rosemary bush and left bunches out for passersby. I couldn't resist popping some trimmings into a pot whilst making dinner.

P.S. Guess what! This week 2 whole people – 2 entire human beings with lives of their own and other things to do – said they enjoy these allotment updates. That's nice to hear, because it takes a little while to write up. Thanks for letting me know 😊

P.P.S I watered some plants with the rotting corpse of a frog this week, but there's a multitude of aspects to discuss there and I just don't know how to fit that in. I leave you with that lovely image.