At least the hard work myself and Neil have put in over the last couple of days has had an unexpected advantage-if we ever find ourselves out of work, we can set ourselves up in business as gravediggers! We have quite a talent, particularly for the shallow ones or the big pile of mud ones. Not sure how we would fare with a proper 6 footer but thankfully we don’t need one of those for the allotment!
We started digging the beds over the weekend and it wasn’t a particularly positive experience at first. The toptrek surface is quite compacted and so getting started was the most difficult bit. Even after we had broken the surface it seemed like we weren’t making much progress. We had a feeling that there was a really good technique for the digging but we weren’t sure what it was! So we tried a variety of tools-spades, forks, chisels with hammers, crowbars with hammers etc etc. Fortunately Gilly then offered us the use of his pick axe. I say fortunately as we were still on the first bed, boy would we have been mad if we had struggled on with a lot more before his kind offer. After mastering the technique with the pick axe we were cooking on gas! We were almost rained off today as the weather was forecast to be showery all day and for once the forecast was right. But with us having the day off we didn’t want to waste any time so we layered up and carried on regardless, although the coats were on and off all morning as it was warm work despite the rain!
So here is the evidence of all that work…
Unfortunately the next two weekends are pretty busy for us as Sunday is Neil’s Great North Run and the weekend after I am in Palma and Neil is in Minnesota. So we won’t be able to dig the remaining 5 or 7 beds(depending on the final layout) for another couple of weeks. And in the meantime we may have a whole load of soil to deal with. Not sure where that will go just yet.
Injury update (both mine unfortunately)
Blister from using the chisel and hammer method of digging beds, not recommended.
Blister number 2 from the more traditional spade method, highly recommended in comparison.
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