2nd Sept - And Blackness Fell

Bright and early, my willing assistant who will probably never, ever come and stay again, were up and eating another hearty breakfast of soft boiled eggs, meats and copious amounts of coffee.

I'd been up since 6:30 feeding the cats, drinking coffee, looking at allotment books and planning the day. It's all very well trying to go green, or at least a bit greener than you were before (I now have far less plastic in my bathroom and my hair hasn't fallen out from switching to bars of soap shampoo and conditioner. I've also switched to a bamboo toothbrush and charcoal toothpaste which comes in a glass jar. I made Amy try it, so anyone looking at staying any time soon should be a bit fearful of what I will make them try!) so it bothers me that I have to keep driving a mile round trip because I need lots of tools and can't carry them all. We are waiting for the Parish Council to grant permission to erect sheds on our plots and won't find out until late September so short term this is how it is.

I needed an interim solution and found it in the shape of a plastic (yes I know, I know, but it isn't a use once throw away) bench that doubles up as a storage container. Once I have my shed, my bench will lean up against it and I can sit with my sloe gin and watch the carrots grow. It will be a super useful addition to the plot and will negate the driving to and fro every time. I then got to thinking about it resting on the soil and sinking into the ground when the rain finally comes. Genius lightbulb moment: I put a shout out onto Facebook buy and sell, asking if anyone had any unwanted patio slabs going free and I got a reply!

Back to our plan. We would dig up the tiny remaining patch of weeds, finally put the black sheeting down, have some lunch, go to B&Q and collect the patio slabs en-route back to the allotment, make them and then retire for the afternoon.

Wrong! We were far more tired than we realised and the last little bit took forever to dig up and the roots seemed to be bigger and deeper and tougher than ever before.. We stopped for a snack. We swapped tactics and decided to pick sloes for a bit. I raked for a short spell and that last patch was still there by 2pm.

With time ticking I made the executive decision to down tools and go to get the seat and the slabs and we would come back with new enthusiasm. The buying went incident free and the slab collecting was pretty straightforward too. Becoming somewhat experts "in the field" we are now never seen without our gardening gloves, so maneuvering the slabs didn't hurt our calloused hands and it also meant we didn't drop and break them when we flipped them over and found lots of black spiders who had made the underside their home for many years. Gloved, we were able to simply brush them off into the undergrowth to find a new home and it meant they couldn't bite and maim us in the process because our gloves are quite thick.

Back on the plot we had one final dock to go and I felt it only right that we do all the hard stuff first before our reward! The the west side of the plot was now a gorgeous, continuous, unbroken reddy brown! Our reward after some haribo was to build a patio and build the box. See I know how to treat my assistants well. Amy set to work on the box building and I lay the patio slabs only to hear Simon's voice from afar telling me that I had to even out the ground first! Patio slabs were lifted and I did some more digging. Finally I had completed my task and so had Amy. We married the two up and took a long and well deserved sit down on the new bench seat / storage box (and yes we even remembered to buy a padlock to keep all my tools safe and secure).

Now the real fun began with the giant staples and 25 metres of 4 metre wide black plastic (yes, again I know but it will be reuseable on my veg patches and to suppress the weeds under the pathways but like I said I'm making changes at home and doing less driving so that has to count a bit doesn't it?!).

Starting in the north-west corner, we lay the roll down, unrolled it, cut it at 12.5 metres which weirdly was the exact spot on the plot that we had dug up to just short of the hedgerow. We unfolded it and started to peg it down. It didn't move or shift, the staples went in fairly easily and it probably took us a total of 10 minutes. Result!

Our work was done. I couldn't have done it without the unfaltering dedication of Amy for the whole weekend and as a reward I took her to the pub and we had a roast and of course a pint of cider (see I told you I knew how treat my assistants!)

Footnote:

Is the cider pint glass half full or half empty. One half is done which means there's still another half to do arghhhhhhh help. Somebody. No really, anybody? Hello? Where've you all gone?????