Pottering

I do not get much time for freestyle pottering at the lottie but Sunday was an exception. Unlike Saturday where I dug up some more Potatoes, turned over another couple of foot of the ex-legume bed and beheaded all the weeds I could. Sunday was most leisurely.

I have a little paved area in front of my lottie dubbed "The Patio". It covers a very poor section of my plot. Where my plot starts so does the French drain which crosses the allotment site. In laying the drain the contractors pulled up all the sub soil, rather clay, and in reinstating the surface have left a barren clay in which nothing will grow. Even the plucky Docks which abounds on the rest of my plots has just one solitary outpost and a very sad specimen it is. The area is about ten foot deep and fourteen foot wide. I had previously set out three compost bin made of pallets on the boundary facing into the plot. I laid two rows of 2x2 paving stones in front the bins. This gives a nice surface for shovelling off when the manure has been delivered. I then enclosed a raised bed four wide by seven foot. One edge of the bed makes a boundary with a path, another the start to the cultivated beds. This gave me an area six and seven foot for paving. I have since decided that will have another bed five foot by four adjacent to the path. The reduced paved area, which was not wholly paved, but still large enough for deliveries. The new bed is for flowers. H fancies Gladioli. This where the pottering comes in.

On Sunday I had a little spare time so I took off to the lottie with my tools, some spare timber and pegs I had picked up on a walk earlier in the week. I found a handful of nails in the back of the car. In true allotmenting style, after a bit of rough measuring, sawing and banging I had a new bed. I tried to loosen the soil with fork but the surface did not yield as I balanced on the fork's shoulders, like riding an unbouncy pogo stick, whilst I tried to make the tines penetrate the surface. Next time it will be the turn of the big guns....the mattock. That leaves me to find four 2x2 paving stones to complete the "Patio". I might even try setting out my deck chair for a contemplate. The contemplation might have to take a back seat to winter digging. The soil is in desperate need of re-fuelling.

The other job in tackled was to build up a threshold strip under the gate to my plot. My lottie neighbours had seen a rabbit nip under the gate to the bunny larder. I had a happy half hour embedding bricks and shuffling pebbles about to make a threshold to keep the varmints out but let me run the wheelbarrow through without it being impeded.

Happy days.