The incinerating and turning over has begun...

February half term - seemed like the best time to make a proper start on the allotment. Except for the first few days my body decided to give in to all the germs I spend all my time fighting. So the first half of the week was pretty much a write-off. 

Wednesday though we headed straight out to the shops and bought an incinerator. I don't want to be spending a fortune on things, preferring to get as much as I can from what people are giving away etc. However getting a hold of an incinerator was proving difficult so we had to give in and buy one. (A whole £16 from Wilko's). Setting fire to the now quite large pile of grass and bramble roots wasn't a possibility. There's too much dead grass around, and the plot is too close to others, so it certainly wasn't worth the risk. We did realise however after about an hour, that it's actually going to take quite a long time to burn all this stuff down in this small incinerator. (You can just see the pile in the background behind the smoke)

So, while my husband worked on getting the incinerator going (boys seem to love playing with fire don't they?) I made myself useful and began the long task of turning the whole plot over.
 As I said in my last post, we looked into a rotavator, but at around £80 a day, it wasn't really something we were able to stretch too.

So the hard work began!

It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be. It turns over quite nicely. The soil is nice, quite like clay, but not quite as thick. And not waterlogged in anyway, so I wasn't squelching around. The only downside was every few feet fighting with a bramble root. They are definitely my least favourite thing at the moment! 

I think it's quite helpful to turn it over by hand though, to really see the sort of soil I'm working with. I did discover there are worms everywhere - including this monster! It was huge! So that's definitely a good thing...I mean, not for the worms I accidentally ended up killing, but there were so many it was pretty hard to avoid them. So I think it's safe to say the soil is well aerated. 

We are still working along the lines of, while it's still the boring, hard work phase, we will just do a few hours at a time so we don't sicken ourself with the place.

So after about 2 hours work the other day it was looking like this. As you can see there is still a lot to do! We worked out that if we turn over the same size patch each time we go then it will take 6 visits to turn the whole thing over...so putting it that way doesn't sound so bad! And if we have a slightly longer visit at some point we'll be able to get even more done I guess.

Sadly I am back at work tomorrow, so will only be able to head along at weekends for the next few weeks. Although when the lighter evenings come along I will be able to get along even if it's just for an hour or so after work.

It will get there eventually! And it should mean by the Easter holidays (in 6 weeks) that I am able to start properly planning thing out on there, and creating beds/paths/a shed etc...not to forget the pond that I am very excited to create!

And so it begins...

Yep, that's right. Well, I guess the clearing had to begin at some point!

At the end of January my key arrived. I felt like when you get a new house! Someone had finally given me my own plot of land, and it was only going to cost me around £50 a year! Bargain right?

So, at the beginning of February on a cold but sunny Saturday morning, I went along, with my rake in hand to start taking up all the grass and brambles.

So barely 10 minutes in, and I accidentally woke up this critter! Feeling very guilty, I ran around the allotment trying to find somewhere sensible to put it. In the end I ended up recreating the bed I had just woken it up from in a safer place.

I then figured due to the state of the allotment that I was bound to come across a lot more of these! There is also a mound of dead grass by the entrance of the allotment, so who knows what's living under there at the moment! However, all I could do was add to the pile!

After 2 hours of raking up all the dead grass, chopping down the brambles so I was able to rake them up, and pulling out the odd bricks and pieces of rubbish I came across, I had all but cleared barely 2 metres square... 

It's safe to say it's going to take a while! So, after a few hours that morning, even though it was freezing cold outside, I was sweating and dirty and in need of a cold drink and a shower, I headed home. I figured, probably better to do just a few hours at a time right? So I don't become disheartened? That's my thinking anyway.

So the next day, I took my husband along. We were able to go over much more with the 2 of us there! It still seems like a huge job, despite it being a fairly small allotment.

After taking a moment to pose with the rake, you can see how long and full of brambles the plot is in this photo! On the plus side, a lot of the grass just raked up fairly easily, even though it did mean we were left with the small pile now a lot larger...

It must look like I'm about to go and collect a couple of shetland ponies at this rate! Who know's what the people next door to me think! Although, I have yet to meet them.

So we decided after a few more hours work, and the allotment looking like this, that it was time to go home...

I know it doesn't look much better, but it really is!

We also decided the best thing to do would be to purchase an incinerator and a rotavator. Despite me not wanting to spend too much money on things to do with the allotment, we sort of thought that was the way to go.

Until today...payday of course! So we headed to the shops to buy an incinerator - we discovered Wilko's has them for just £16 at the moment, so decided that was a bit of a bargain.

However, we then drove to a garden machinery rental shop to look into a rotavator, only to discover that the shop that we thought was there was no longer there! After looking online and finding another place, we discovered that for a day, to hire a rotavator it would cost us at least £70. A little out of my price range sadly! So it looks like we're going to have to turn it over the old fashioned way...need to get some good hand moisturiser in!