Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Digging it

I did it. After I dropped the kids at school today I went to the allotment and did some digging. I double-dug an area about 5' square, and tomorrow I reckon I'll be able to do the same again because Sam (pictured) is at pre-school all day.

The first spade-depth of digging is OK, but when you get down to two spade-depths you hit a layer of pure rubble. Whole house bricks, roof tiles and slates, cobbles and lots of broken glass. At the weekend we pulled out one rock which must have weighed five stone. We've also dug up a couple of bakelite light switches, one of those decorative plaster corbals with feathers and scrolls, the bottom of a tin with "Eat Baxters Nourishing Game Soup" printed on. It's more like archaeology than gardening.

A skip is coming to the allotments on Friday. Everybody is very excited. It seems this is about a biannual event. It has come at the perfect time for us because we'll have about half a ton of rubble to chuck in it. It's the only thing which is well-timed - I keep seeing people leave the allotments with punnets of strawberries, gooseberries, peas, onions and other things. It's harvest time and we've only just started putting seeds in the ground. I'm very conscious that we're racing against the clock.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Carrots, peas, fennel are the things to start now. Other pea-related stuff might work. Salad leaves, lettuces, too. Give spinach a go, but don't plant any in July because it'll bolt as soon as look at you, apparently.

Anonymous said...

Hiya, Sam looks like an extra off LOST. Are you keeping the more interesting finds from your digs? Would love to see photos of stuff you've dug up, as there's no crops yet for you to show.