Got the beansticks in and 6 Borrolotte bean plants that were given to me.

THE BED FILLED YESTERDAY.

READY FOR PLANTING

ALL PLANTED UP NICELY

GOT THE BEANSTICKS IN AND SOME PLANTS IN

I've been spending every minute I can get on the lottie - it's that time of the year. Everything else has been taking second place on my priority list. Most evenings I come home and I'm so tired and stiff I can hardly stand, so writing a blog is just too much after days like that. How sweet the memories of the time when I could shift double the work in half the time and not feel tired at the end of it. Sigh!

It's starting to take shape, but again it's a late season this year. For three seasons we've had silly unseasonal warm weather in March, rain and cold through April - so that you can't touch the soil, then in May - when things should be getting into their stride - there's scorching wind and sun in the day and cold nights. A gardener's nightmare. Add to that slow/ non existent germination rates in the polytunnel coupled to mouse problems (peas and larger seeds just disappear) and you have the recipe for a very irate allotmenteer!!!

Saw Ian my best friend today, he tracked me down at the lottie and had a cuppa with me. A bit of good news there, he tells that the old faithful white van (must think of an appropriate name for her) that doubles up as my mobile shed between home and the allotment is nearly ready for her MOT. A few bits 'n pieces needed doing, like a new handbrake cable and new steel brake pipes plus a new brake cylinder that had seized (sorry girls - this is boy talk, bear with me), which should be finished today, and then she should sail through - I miss her terribly!

Anyway, must go our No. 1 son is coming up tonight and he's spending a few days with us. I'm REALLY looking forward to that. Better still he tells me he's going to give me a hand on the lottie on Wednesday WOO-HOO perhaps I'll get all my beds sorted before the weekend after all!

Had a good day on the lottie yesterday (Wed). Got a whole 40 foot row of potatoes planted. Also filled a row and a half with muck (half a dozen large barrow loads). Ridged the one row, then the rain came. Stephen & Phil got caught in the shower doing the same as me - panicking to get the spuds in as soon as the soil is workable again.

I paid for that flurry of activity. I was almost too stiff to go to bed last night. I anticipated being even stiffer this morning, but strangely I wasn't too bad. BUT I I've been too tired to budge all day.

Ian, one of my best mates from long, long ago, came to my house today to take away my trusty old van that I use for the lottie - actually it's my mobile shed. It carries EVERYTHING around inside it (it's like the Tardis), from my carpentry tool-box, my Mantis tiller, rope, string, trays, sacks, seeds and gardening tools etc. etc. you've probably got the picture by now. The MOT is up. Ian, who has a workshop and repair garage on his farm for his implements (he does contracting work and employs a diesel plant fitter full time). He  brought his trailer down and carried it away. Hopefully he'll get it through an MOT for another year. I look after his computer equipment and web-site, he takes care of little things like my van. The world of barter and favour banks is a wonderful one. I would quite happily do away with all that horrible money stuff tomorrow. I'm convinced people were a thousand times happier before money was invented. That's when everyone got "independent" and started relying on their money rather than their friends and neighbours network to make their world turn.

So the lottie had a miss today & I busied myself at home, although I'd got my boots and lottie clothes on this morning I never did manage the enthusiasm for this stiff old carcass to get going with anything more strenuous than making a weeding hand-tool for myself - and I didn't even finish that! However I DID manage to make a sign to stick in my muck heap to remind the dopey hippies on our site that the muck is not a free for all to dip into. I get the muck from Marc a farmer from close by whose computers I also look after - in turn he provides me with all the muck I need, delivered by tractor and trailer to the allotment site. Trouble is some think everything should be shared, the only flaw in their logic is that they think others should always provide for them whilst they NEVER provide anything for anyone. Scroungers. One of them has just finished dipping into my wood-chip pile. He apologised when I tackled him about his thieving habits. He said that he would arrange another delivery for me (hardly the point) however I suspect I'll catch a dinosaur in one of my mouse-traps before that materialises! 

So it's WET & very cold & miserable here this morning. The mice that should have got their sentences executed in the traps in my polytunnel last night must have decided to stay in their warm nests somewhere - very wise - given the weather. So my enthusiasm for revenge never got quenched. All six of the death traps were still gaping at me like little miniature hippos when I went in. Not a stiff mouse in sight. Hmm. This could turn into a real "cat & mouse" game.

I went down hoping to do a bit of sowing etc. in the polytunnel this morning. HOWEVER the disappointment of no mouse-trap victims coupled to a horrible cold & damp feel (as readers of my blog will know - I absolutely hate the cold especially when it's damp, because I go into "shut-down" mode, get VERY miserable and can't motivate myself to do ANYTHING).

So it's back to the house - after taking Josie and her friend Jan down town to get a "couple of things from the shop" (that's code for - "go and sit in the car for an hour & read your book, whilst I exorcise my can't pass a shop addiction"!)

Right central heating back on 'constant' for the afternoon. Write my blog, sit down & read the Sunday papers and have a couple of glasses of sparkling Schloer for me for the rest of the day - the weather can go to hell!

Anyone else got chickens in their back gardens.  i  know most will have chickens on the allotment but its still quite novel to have them in such an urban environment.

This will either be achieved by land share or with our fundraising and land rented or purchased or possibly gardens that need help, from there hopefully our project will grow.

If you would like to make a donation, or know of some land or some ones garden that needs tending or help with the project in any way please go to the contact us page for details.

To grow an oak tree ….. You must first plant the acorn. We hope you enjoy our site and would like to hear from you with all your ideas and advice. Warmest regards The Nathe Farm Project team

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