Week 53 – Weeding and Waterbutts

Two visits to the plot this week. It’s a quiet time of the year for gardening but, as ever on my plot I can usually find something to do.

I popped to the allotment for an hour or so on Thursday afternoon. The amount of weeds on the plot is beginning to bug me – seriously, they’re everywhere! So I picked one of the empty beds and weeded it. I pulled up a huge amount of bindweed which, even after a year I still find incredibly satisfying.

While I was weeding Dan arrived with 6 blue barrels. They’ve been donated from a local company for us to use as water butts. I’ve been given 2 – I just need to make space for them.

In view of this, I headed to the allotment at lunchtime today with a plan to clear the area behind the shed. This seems like the obvious area to place the waterbutts – it’s currently unused so I won’t lose any growiing space by placing them here. I’ve ignored it so far because the rest of the plot has taken priority but also because it looked like a bit of an impossible job – very over grown and lots of rubbish ‘stored’ there (this is where the shower doors live!) It took about 2 hours to go from this:

to this:

Having looked back to what I was doing on the plot this time last year, funnily enough I was cutting back brambles then too. As is normally the case it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it might be. I haven’t finished yet – there’s still lots of work to be done but it’s a good start and I can already imagine all the waterbutts in place round the shed. My main concern, as ever is the rubbish removal – 2 shower doors, a water butt and more wood and rubble, but that’s a worry for another week.

In an attempt to reduce plastic in our house, Louis and I now use bamboo toothbrushes. I recently replaced my one and, as I was told when I bought it the handle is compostable so that’s what I’ve done with it. Today I cut the bristles off it – unfortunately the bristles aren’t compostable – and took it to the plot for the compost bin.

 

I’ve kept up the running this week. As well as our regular Friday night track club we also went along to the Wednesday night one. It’s run by the same people but at a different venue – Allianz rugby stadium.

The day before, I’d treated myself to a pair of new trainers. My friend recommended a local shop which does gait analysis and then chooses trainers based on the results. It involves running/walking on a treadmill for about 10 seconds while they video your legs and feet. I don’t mean to show off or anything but the man in the shop said I have near perfect gait! He was incredibly knowledgable and helpful and I left with a very nice pair of trainers. I was (naively) expecting the trainers to, miraculously transform my running experience – they didn’t (obviously) but they’re definitely giving my feet more support which can only be a good thing.

At our regular Friday night track club both Louis and I received our 100km Sarrie’s t-shirts. We were both very excited about this. 100km means we’ve both walked/run round the track 250 times!

On Tuesday after college I took my 2 allotment helpers out for pizza and then to the cinema. (It’s half term this coming week so no college but we’re planning on getting back to the allotment the week after.) We saw ‘Alita Battle Angel’ which I didn’t think I would like as Fantasy/SciFi is generally not my thing but I really enjoyed it. We saw it in the new XScreen cinema where the film is shown, not only on the standard screen in front of you but, at various points during the film the picture widens out onto the side walls. It’s a very strange experience at first but great for the fast race scenes. As a ‘thank you’ for taking him my allotment helper number 2 gave me some beautiful pink roses whiich he gave to me on Valentine’s day – so sweet.

Everything I have in the ground at the moment – strawberries, onions and Rhubi are all doing well. I’ve removed the cover from Rhubi as we’ve had some lovely sunny days recently and are due more.

This is how I left the plot today. Not much noticeable change as most of the work happened behind the shed. We have half term this week so no college. I’m hoping to convince Louis to come to the plot with me and maybe help me move the rubbish (He’s going to have such a great week off!)