Well its Thursday – digging day, hopefully. You may remember I dumped 50 wheel barrows full of alpaca stable poo onto the Allotment:

Well today I wanted to dig it over to do some planting tomorrow. So somewhat hopefully I fired up the rotavator and made my way to the field. As you can see it was fine for digging – although it took me 5 passes to get it to this level – with the poo mixed in and the soil broken up. As you can see I have only dug some of the area – this is all I need to plant into at the moment. The dry weather is unseasonable, we could well get 3 weeks of pure rain, which would leach away any goodness that had been dug in. I took the decision it would be best left on top un-dug until required. The tilth I managed to get the soil too is still a little wet and sticky – OK for onion sets, maybe broad beans, but a little too thick for any seed smaller.

When we came here 5 years ago the Allotment field looked like this  – a somewhat unloved pasture. We were not to know but at some point it had been an all weather Horse training ground – made of a blanket covered in sand, which had grown over. Many hours fun was had digging that mat out – and the sand has made the loamy soil a lot more lighter.

A year later, from the other angle, we had dug a basic allotment out, but it was open to the elements and the rabbits. The pasture was also full of weeds, and weed seeds, which we still fight!!

By 2013 we had erected the Poly Tunnel and put a fence around the growing space. We had also planted a Yew hedge around the perimeter to create an enclosed, ‘walled’ garden effect (eventually when it grows)

After that work out the other thing I did was plant out some Ginger. Apparently likes semi shade so I planted it near the small pond adjacent to the Chicken Enclosure. I have put a protector around it, made of a small plastic storage crate, with the bottom cut out. This serves two purposes – it protects the young shoots, and the core of the plant against being eaten by rabbits, and secondly reminds me where the plant is when mowing time comes around!!

When the plant is established it can be cut away.

Hopefully, planting tomorrow!!!