Silver Clouds

Called my nurse today ref fainting incident as got so much stick. She was very relaxed, but suggested that maybe they could look at the egg on the back of my head. Dr gave me MOT and declared me perfectly fit.

On way home popped into Morrisons and discovered they're selling walk in plastic greenhouses (£20) and growbag greenhouse (£7) so bought one of each ... see, every cloud has a silver lining.

Excuses, Excuses

Got up today as normal, went to bathroom for a shower and promptly fainted - twice ! Thought it was a bit strange that I had gone to sleep on bathroom floor whilst getting ready for work. Crawled to the spare room and lay there pathetically for about half an hour and realised head really hurt - lots of blood and huge egg. OH hid car keys so that I couldn't drive to work ... wouldn't even let me go to lottie, not that I think I could have done anything - spent whole day sleeping.

February days

Woke to beautiful sunshine this morning, but as the car died last night had to wait for Kwik Fit to open and get a new battery.

Straight home for a quick cuppa, then up to the lottie. Gathered all my tools, decided upon my mental checklist and started weeding - there is a saying 'one year to seed - 7 years of weeds' and I think its going to be very true in my case.

Finished weeding the garlic when the heavens opened, and I mean opened. First it rained (think premium sports car, 0-60 in 3 seconds), then it hailed and finally it snowed, all within 5 mins ... with the roof of the potting shed straining I took the hint, packed up and came home to read my new allotment books and decide what to do with my newly acquired pallets.

Especially for you ...

Hey Mike, been carefully cultivating my very first crop especially for you ... its looking very healthy and has lots of mates and is excited about being eaten by you ...




... mmmmmmmm GARLIC !! yum

Mum mentioned that she'd quite like to try them, so I've grown a few extra for you to take home with you !



[ note to all: Mike, my stepdad, has a very strong aversion to garlic ]

Bernard & Roo debate having a nap ...

Frosty Days

so keen to get on with digging (time is flying by alarmingly now) that leapt out of bed on Saturday (sleep is over-rated .. yeah) not realising just how cold it was. Went via supermarket to get goodies to last me through my demanding digging only to arrive at frost covered lottie :-( ground too hard to dig and didn't want to go home in defeat so decided to attack hedge instead. Took ages, especially as lottie next to mine is not worked and hedge has gone bananas on that side. Gave up in the end when I realised that I had 3 mega piles of rubbish and decided to have a fire instead (the lady 2 lotties away from me had a really good one going for hours) ... half box of firelighters and one box of matches later finally admitted defeat - am seriously considering OH's suggestion of dousing everything with parrafin or petrol ... am rubbish at getting fire going.

Was seriously worried about my garlic after reading posts on a lottie forum where peeps are posting amazing photos of garlic shooting away, especially when they appeared to have planted them at the same time as me, so decided to dig some up, just to take a peek and make sure they've not been eaten ... GOOD NEWS !! They're still there and on very close inspection found 4 shoots - was extremely excited and did a little jig. Hopefully shallots will appear soon too.

Old Ken popped round to ask 'know 'owt 'bout growing then?' He didn't seem that impressed with my CV (mainly flowers/shrubs and a few potted vegetables) so has decided to lend me his 'how to grow vegetables' video .. so sweet, have got lovely neighbours.

Got my main crop potatoes this week. Managed to find Desiree, so will begin chitting them later - especially now that I've discovered a use for the 17 blue trays that I found dotted around the lottie.

Am causing a stir at work with my origami pots, have a decent sized pile now steadily growing across the desk intriging my colleagues, although may have to move them soon as boss returned on Monday and didn't seem impressed with my creative flair ... tossed them around a bit and asked why they weren't on the lottie ... couldn't think of witty response ...but I will, I will.

Greenhouse !

Hurray, today collected my new lean-to greenhouse ! Got it from the fabulous freecycle network (many thanks Jeff & Claire x). Going to put it at the back of the house and fill it with herbs, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuces ... yum