Back the right way up again

No blog posts for the last few weeks as I've been in New Zealand on holiday. However from the various emails I knew that I'd see some changes to the site on my return.

Mike has finished the hedgelaying at the far end and has put up a stockproof fence. Work on the hedge alongside the lane will have to wait until after bird nesting.

A grubber plough has been over the land twice in the last few weeks and large amounts of root matter are gradually being removed ,Andy's chrome proving to be the most effective tool for the job ( chrome photo  taken by Martin)

Hopefully final ploughing can be done next week and the allotments then marked out to start work on our own plots by Easter?

Hedgelaying

Work began on hedgelaying a few days ago.The first couple of photos show Mike,Ron and Frank on day one.The rest were taken this morning before the mist cleared.

Back garden late January 2012

So far the grubber plough hasn't been able to get on to the allotment land because of the near constant rain for the last week or so.
However it's dry today so I took some photos of my back garden looking good in the winter sunshine.

Photostitched - the raised beds don't really curve like this!

Hart's tongue fern colonising well

Rose - all year round flowering

Scorzonera

These snowdrops were planted "in the green" last spring

Hellebores

Spearmint

Flat leaf parsley

In a cold spell last May I made a couple of temporary cloches using netting hoops and very light plastic sheet and grew the best lettuce ever.This year I'll try to go one better with a DIY minipolytunnel something like this

,this , this  or this for starting off plants for the allotment from seed ,and use the rest of the raised beds for salads, permanent veg and flowers.

A new year and work starts

14th January 2012 was our first work day and we made a good start on clearing the site helped by the fine weather.

Tea break already

Mike (the Village Lengthman) strimmed the weed killed vegetation a few days ago and the some of the old potato ridges can now been seen.
The enthusiastic work has continued into midweek in preparation for a grubber plough to go over the planting area.
These next photos were taken on 18th January before Mike smoothed some lumps and removed the larger bramble roots and plastic edging with a mechanical digger.

NB Click on any of the photos on this blog to view them in a larger size.