Ooh, I Love My Bed!

After much planning, drawing and colouring-in to make a plan for the perfect allotment, everything went out the window this weekend when we/I had a 'mahoussive' change of mind and, in the spirit of recylcling and allotment growing everywhere, decided to use our old Ikea bookshelves to make raised beds instead of buying scaffold boards. Good old Billy - there he is on his back filled to the brim with horse poo - what a way to end your days!!

We started off by digging over a previously cultivated plot the width of two Billies separated by a 1m path to safely accommodate my bottom when crouching between beds (pic 1 - the plot not my bottom obviously). It was tough going as the soil is predominantly clay and resembles those pictures you see of wastelands, artistically cracked and hard as concrete. We then pulled out as many stones as we could without our trusty sieve, which I'd left in the loft and used them to in-fill the outside of the bed (pic 2) and finally, carrying a plastic bin between us, we skipped off to the manure heap to dig for victory - well actually for the really good rotty stuff at the bottom of the pile. This we spread merrily about by hand making sure that the poo was at least three inches deep and covered the entire surface, creating a mulch that will hopefully discourage the weeds. This should also break down slowly over the winter and make the soil all lovely for planting next spring. Anyway that's the plan but I say HA! to plans.

LxXx