First blog for a while, but our inactivity on the website is definitely not reflected on the plot. Last week whilst Pilla was recovering from an injury I decided to get some more flags laid on the path. This decision was helped by the arrival of some chippings which I managed to get a fair few wheelbarrows of, and meant I could nicely finished off one side of the plot. In between laying the flags I also managed to get a couple of big wheelbarrows full of manure and spread it around the recently removed pumpkin patch. The week before we took home the pumpkins and it turned into possibly the biggest harvest we have taken, it literally required a trolley to get it back to the car!
We also started using some of our homw grown compost, which looks really good. We put the first two wheelbarrows on the area where the potatoes were, some of it is full of clay, so now has two or three inches of compost and manure spread out over it.
We knew we had some helpers this weekend and so had planned a few big jobs. The main one was to dig over the ground we uncovered under the old shed and also clear the back corner of the plot. In preparation for this on Saturday I took a few pallets apart and made a place to store some manure, this is going against the back fence and meant we could then clear the ground around it. Whilst i did this today, Pilla, Nic & Ed set about the horrible job of removing all the weeds, glass, bricks, rubble, plastic and old tools in the ground. We spent almost all day doing this, with Nic finishing it off by raking it all level. The plot looks way better for it. I’s now pretty much ready to start building the base for the greenhouse and shed.
… which looked like this before we started today… 
… and this 6 weeks ago … 
We’re pretty please with how it’s all looking now, we don’t really have any areas of huge weediness now, and should have a nice new greenhouse and shed soon. We’re also pretty pleased about how our butternut squash is looking, having never got anything so much as a fruit nubbin last year!
Hello Neil and Philippa.
Sorry we haven’t got back to you sooner about THE WEDDING OF NEXT YEAR. We are very honoured to be invited and will be very proud to attend. We are busy making our new back garden into a very mini allotment 20′ x 10′. What are your consultancy fees? In fact you an advice us now, we want raised beds but don’t know the best height for water retention and drainage! See you soon. Sheila and Stan.