Asparagus

Spent the day today finally planting the Asparagus crowns which have been sitting under the table for a couple of weeks. I ended up planting 18 crowns on 3 rows ina 2m by 2m bed. Just to make sure I had completely eliminated all traces of the weed forest which previously inhabited the plot I dug out the whole bed to 2 spade depths, sieved the whole lot and then added 50kg of sharp sand to aid drainage. The whole lot was then put back on the bed and the 3 rows planted and watered in. The stalks had already started to grow in the box so they will be left to grow and flower for this year before I hopefully get a few spears next season. In the meanime i'm off to the local Asparagus farm to get some for my tea.

Recycling the propper way

Here in Oxford we have been converted to the fortnightly rubbish collection which has been in the newspapers so mach recently. Personally I think it works well. The only issue comes about when you have a sudden increase in rubbish or recycling. The main reason why the plot has been neglected for the past few weeks is because we moved houe. This move has generated enormous amounts of paper and cardboard for recycling. The paper has now all gone to the recycling center (some 3 car loads), but the boxes are now going to the plot. I am planning on covering the whole of the plot which is not currently being worked with the cardboard.

So today I took the first car load down to the allotment site and having carefully removed all of the sticky tape from the boxes I spread them over the earth. Despite the large number and size of boxes they actually haven't ended up covering much area. This is probably due to my larger than necessary overlaps, but then again I don't want to let any light through to the soil. I think I also need to get hold of a load of compost and cover the cardboard and let the whole thing rot down into the soil.

Digger heaven

They always say that man is happiest when playing with toys, and the bigger the toy the happier he is. Well today I finally got back down to the plot for the first time in a few weeks and I went via the local HSS (equipment hire shop) where I picked up an industrial sized digger/rotovator. This beast which took two of us to lift it out of the car made short shrift of turning the plot over. I know there are arguments which say that it just cuts up the roots of the weeds and makes everything ten times worse, but it does break up the soil down to about 12 inches which will make pulling the weeds out a whole lot easier when they do grow back.

Anyway it took just under three hours to turn the whole plot and as a very useful side effect it has also levelled out some of the strange lumps in the middle of the site.