Nic Dempsey

We have so much work to do to join the old and the new halves of the plot together but we have made inroads into the work. This weekend we moved the compost dalek on the old half to the compost area on the new half. So the compost area has two full bins and one half bin all layered with woodchip and a container, full of weeds that shouldn’t go into the compost and water. The weeds will decompose and then I’ll add it all to the compost. It’s pretty gross but it works.  The only thing left to do is to buy and/or built two more bins that I can turn compost into, but that will wait until later.

Our next task was to sorting out the gaps left behind by the compost bins on the old half. So you may or may not be aware that we had two beds either side of the wooden compost bin. So we moved one to join them together. This will house the two gooseberry bushes in the new half plot that I’m going to move next week. It’s ridiculous to have them all over the place, so we’ll move these two into one bed. Next year finally move the two we have into the bed right next to them, finally I’m going to plant more rhubarb in the gap left by the gooseberries.. (I could move them all at once but then we might not get gooseberries in the summer and that would be unacceptable to Ma!)In the space where the dalek was I planted a piece of rhubarb that I’d been given and we also planted some bulbs where the other compost bin had been.

Ultimately my aim is to have 6 rhubarb plants because we really like it, but right now for fruit I currently have (in various stages of production: four rhubarb plants, four gooseberry bushes, two baby blackcurrant bushes, two raspberry beds, one boysenberry, six blueberry bushes, a plum tree, an apple tree and the loganberries that are in dire need of sorting out. For the coming season, we’re looking at adding two more raspberry beds (one from splitting the bed we have and I’d like some yellow ones!) and a couple more blueberries because they take time to produce and I don’t get a lot, ultimately I’d like about 10 bushes. I would like to think about other fruit bushes but aside from trying to persuade the committee to let me plant some blackthorn (for sloes) or elderberries (for cordial and syrup) once we’ve pulled Joe’s shed down, I’m thinking either a honeyberry, the japanese wineberry or a jostaberry because there should be a free bed! I can almost hear my mother tutting but on the plus side, Christmas ideas should be really easy!

Next week, the priority is to move the gooseberries on the new half to the old half, to get the beds we aren’t using covered, to ‘fence’ of the two flower patches on the new half (one has been planted up and one hasn’t) and to sort out a rubbish pile from Joe’s shed and a burning pile. I don’t think I’ll be doing much else but I think Ma is keen to get the new half that is right up next to the old half, weeded and covered.

Honestly, I don’t think we’ll have time for all of that, it feels like the light goes at about half past three right now, but we’ll do what we can.