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A day-to-day guide to creating an allotment garden from a starting point of absolutely no knowledge and no experience.
Sunday, February 08, 2004
I buy a bucket full of chicken manure pellets and head down to the allotment in the afternoon to do some of the tasks recommended by the HDRA.
Using a pair of shears I chop down some of the green manure and leave it lying on the ground. I then measure out the first of my beds - two metres long by five metres wide and begin to turn the earth over. This is where I am planning to grow my garlic but I soon discover the earth is too heavy to plant the cloves today. It sticks in great clods to my spade and my shoes. I keep going till I have turned the whole bed over. But I don't try to break up the clods - I'll try that later in the week if it is dry.
I then turn my attention to top dressing the wintering crops with the chicken manure. When I take the lid off the bucket, the smell almost makes me retch. It is vile. I scoop the pellets out and over the beans, peas and onions. It is not a pleasant job. Hopefully if the next few days are dry, I'll be able to make my first bed a bit more enticing for the garlic cloves and turn over another bed or two.
Using a pair of shears I chop down some of the green manure and leave it lying on the ground. I then measure out the first of my beds - two metres long by five metres wide and begin to turn the earth over. This is where I am planning to grow my garlic but I soon discover the earth is too heavy to plant the cloves today. It sticks in great clods to my spade and my shoes. I keep going till I have turned the whole bed over. But I don't try to break up the clods - I'll try that later in the week if it is dry.
I then turn my attention to top dressing the wintering crops with the chicken manure. When I take the lid off the bucket, the smell almost makes me retch. It is vile. I scoop the pellets out and over the beans, peas and onions. It is not a pleasant job. Hopefully if the next few days are dry, I'll be able to make my first bed a bit more enticing for the garlic cloves and turn over another bed or two.
