A virus of some sort is doing the rounds of my body at the moment so I’m not fit for much, but it’s hard to let the weekend go by without a trip to the lotty. It’s been so windy recently that I needed to see how the uncovered broad beans were doing and water the sweet pea seedlings.

I dragged my aching limbs down to the plot and on arrival promptly collapsed on my shed stool. Some time later I went to check on the beans. Assorted buckets from goodness knows where were wind strewn across my plot but thankfully the beans seemed to be holding themselves together.

I was pleased to see a huge bee moving hurriedly from flower to flower as well, good job I removed the fleece or those flowers may never have set.

The only other thing I managed to do was to fill a few rows of modules with potting compost and assorted exotic seed: sweet peppers, chilli peppers, mixed lettuce, basil and a couple of dahlia types scrounged from a Bridlington allotment.

These have been packed off to live in Shakti’s flat as well, I’m doing my best to convert her place into a nursery.

London woke to a pretty dreary and overcast day this morning. Not the most inspiring of days and it seemed to push me into the dumps as I arrived at the plot. I haven’t been keeping my eye on the allotment stores recently, the shed was clean out of digestives and my cup of tea just wasn’t as revitalising as usual.

I wandered round the garden sipping tea and imagining the future, a day of the triffids style future where the weeds grow to 6 foot and throttle you as you reach hopelessly for the hoe.

If I’m sweating with dread in February just imagine when the growth really starts to kick off. You have to pull yourself together when the weeds on your plot start to give you daytime terrors. I put the cup down, stopped stressing about the future and just knuckled down to the here and now.

I like gardening, it never fails to ground you.

First strike today went to the old rocket and spicy salad leaves bed. The rocket has been a super provider but has now past its best and the spicy leaves are so overrun with nettle plants that my salads have a tendency to give far more bite than is healthy. Both were whipped out at the roots and plonked in the compost bin. First tidy patch sorted and I have space for something new now.

My early planting of broad beans have been very successful, maybe even too successful? They have been pushing at the top of my fleece cloche for a few weeks now and bending at the tips. Today I decided it was time to expose them to the elements and whipped of their toasty covering.

Most of them are flowering so hopefully they wont be traumatized by any more frosts. I spent about an hour tying myself in knots with about 100m worth of twine, fashioning a cats cradle support. There is very little wind protection in that particular spot and the beans are effectively trying to stand tall in a wind tunnel.

Carried away with the weeding, I whipped off more of the cloches and cleaned around the chard and cabbages.

Everything started to look beautiful again, I began to smile and contemplate my next cuppa and a future decidly more rosy and bountiful than it seemed when I started.

I finished by planting my first row of spuds! How ridiculously early is that? The traditional date for planting potatoes is Good Friday which this year is particularly early anyway so I’m not sure what possessed to me to anticipate the great day by about a month.

I’ll do my best to keep them cosy and earthed up til summer arrives.

Oh and did I mention that my sweet peas have germinated? What a glorious and uplifting day its been.

There’s been stacks of progress over the New Year break and I’m sitting here at the end of the day with a labor intensive back ache. Good job I’m going back to work tomorrow, I need a rest!

I popped into a garden centre on my way back to London yesterday and I was tempted by yet another variety of potato - Kerrs Pink. This cultivar is now 100 years old and much favoured by the Scots and the Irish who ought to know a thing or two about spuds.

The potting bench in the shed is now laden with chitting potatoes, I’m digging like crazy to clear enough space to house them and I’m left wondering where the heck I am going to put the rest of my planned crops. Which brings me to the rather impressive structure in the photo. It’s my space saving, climbing bean/sweet pea support structure.

It seems that most plot holders here grow their beans as a fencing crop and it strikes me as a great way to squeeze in a whole family without having to set aside a specific bed. I don’t think they will cast much shade (at least not on my plot) and may even benefit the remaining crops by providing some wind protection and by discouraging the fox from running through.

Digging has proved to be painfully slow. I’m dealing with the patch in front of the shed, which the previous occupant had formed into a long ridge. There have been a couple of similar ridges across the plot, one of these comprised numerous mango pips buried in the ridge and covered with layers of newspaper. This one appears to contain nothing but couch grass roots, it’s so dense in there that not even soil has managed to find its way in. It is so tough to dig, I can get my fork in but can’t get it back out. I’m having to loosen the whole ridge and then go back over and peel it back like a decaying, detritus covered roll of axminster. No wonder my back hurts.

I had cleared quite a bit of the weed pile yesterday by bagging it up and tipping it but its mountainous again today. I had to shift it to a new location so that I can dig under it, maybe with all this turning it will rot down in to a perfect pile of compost. Not that I’d ever dare use it.

Well there was no eviction notice tacked to the front of the shed so I may start to relax now. Mind you it was so windy today that any notice would have blown away, I was surprised the shed hadn’t taken off in fact.

Check out the laminate flooring!

Despite the horrendous weather (Dad take note - your weather forecasting is not to be trusted), I enjoyed a little pottering on the plot. I managed to plant out the new Spartan apple tree, sort the compost and do a bit of hoeing between the onions and garlic.

Of course more time was spent inside the shed, looking out and pondering on the intricacies of life. I need a chair now and perhaps a kettle, you need to be comfortable to ensure high quality philosophising.

Well it hasn’t been all that quiet it’s just been so stressful recently that I’ve kind of gone into blogging hibernation.

I mentioned in my last post that I had been offered a super shed for use on the plot and I’d roped in the help of my mum, dad and brother to help erect it, after I’d dismantled it and delivered it to the plot.

So, full of excitement and enthusiasm I set too on the shed, whipping out screws and nails, or at least I would have done if I hadn’t shredded every screw I touched. The flippin things wouldn’t budge and faced with the enormity of my task I sat down in a little sulky heap and tried to remove all shed dreams from my memory banks.

Following a call to the family, I discovered that there are many people way more talented than me on the DIY front. It seems my brother knows special tricks for the removal of stubborn screws and the shed dream was back on. With excitement creeping back, I booked the van (after checking it would take an 8×6ft shed) and then headed to the plot to prepare the site.

Seems a little strange to prepare the soil for planting a shed but I was worried about it becoming a safe haven for bindweed if I left any roots. Now I risk the shed sinking instead but the ricketier it looks, the safer it will be.

Early last Saturday morning the 4 of us headed to my friends to start ripping the shed apart. What a job that was. After getting all the screws undone but before pushing the shed apart like a pack of cards, the question was asked - “should we not just put it back together and leave it well alone?” Clearly there was an inkling of the trouble ahead.

We continued and after about 4 hours had the shed piled up in a heap ready for me to go and fetch the van, parked about 8 miles away in central London. I was a little concerned when I saw the van, VW Transporters aren’t that big really, but I had asked the question and was told it would fit so I drove it back.

So much for asking questions and really I suppose you shouldn’t trust anyone to do trigonometric calculations when you are quite capable of doing them yourself and discovering that the doors are more than a foot too short! Curses! Where do you get a whopping great van without notice at 4pm on a Saturday. No where is the answer.

We carried the shed back into my friends garden. I went back to drop the useless van off and spent the rest of the evening trying to get my dad and brother drunk on vintage port so that they weren’t too concerned about all the wasted effort.

Next morning I managed to hire a massive hi-top transit van and we were back on the job by 9am. Vintage port gives the sort of headache that doesn’t welcome early mornings and hard labour. Still, the shed fitted like a dream and we were off to cause havoc at the allotment site.

Sunday morning is no time for trying to squeeze the biggest damn vehicle ever down the middle of the site. I must have disturbed just about every plot holder there and anxiety levels were sky high. We unloaded it pretty quickly though and I skulked off to dispose of the van. By the time I was back it seemed the shed was almost up! And I promise I didn’t take my time, I was only gone for about 15 mins. My brother is clearly an ace at construction.

I didn’t really do a lot, I just looked on with gradually declining anxiety and fetched screws. When I finally got to look inside I discovered that my dad and brother had knocked up some fantastic staging and laid a laminate floor! This is definitely going to be a home from home.

With the shed up my brother had to shoot off home (and I didn’t even give him any lunch). My mum and I set too with the organising, finding special spots to hang the tools and finishing off the shelving. As if they hadn’t all done enough by this point they started digging over some of the areas I’ve missed, planting bulbs around the pond and constructing a permanent bench. I had to drag them away eventually so we could get some dinner.

It’s almost a wonderful end to the weekend except for the fact that I seem to have broken some allomenting by-law. The shed is apparently too big for the site. Quite a bit too big. Now I’m living in fear of being issued an eviction notice and having to go through the whole sorry process again. If push comes to shove I may take a chain saw to either end and make it smaller that way, but it would be a terrible shame.

So at the moment I am keeping a low profile, I need to go up to the plot to plant an apple tree and empty my overflowing compost bucket so I think now would be a fine time - tis absolutely belting it down. I bet I won’t see a single soul there. I’ll be able to plant my tree and sit in my dry shed admiring the view and waiting for the bulbs to poke through.

After last weeks struggle with the compost I decided it was time to invest in a high tech conveyor - a wheeled contraption is required for lugging the heavy stuff.

This particular model is the Revolution Cargo trailer by Edinburgh Cycles. It normally goes for £125 but I managed to source one on ebay and save myself a fair sum. It is pretty impressive, very manoeuvrable and can carry 50 kg, which is a lot of compost. Now I have to go in search of things to carry, perhaps I should cancel the veg box and set up my own scheme delivering fresh produce from the back of the bike.

Yesterday the trailer showed its worth by carrying two whole seed packets to the plot. My freebie pea and bean seeds had been delivered so I thought I’d better get them in before the weather got much colder. So thats another double row of Aquadulce and a row of Feltham First. It also means the whole of one side of the plot is now completed, where am I going to put all my plants next year? I think I may need another plot already, I can imagine the remaining side will be filled by squash plants as I have in the region of 7 varieties of seeds and I haven’t even started on the spuds and carrots and……

Shakti (pictured sowing peas in her posh gardening clobber) has offered me her garden shed for use on the plot. How exciting is that? The next few weeks are going to be taken up with dismantling crises, as we try and take it apart, balance it on the bike trailer and deliver it the allotment ready for reconstruction. The whole family have been called in to help with the construction part so it will make for some Heath Robinson style photos as I don’t think any of us are that talented in the DIY department.

I staggered across to my allotment today, laden with compostable materials. Not sure what the heck happened on the waste front last week but I’m going to blame the veg box. I could barely carry the bag of peelings, vacuum crud and shredded paper and by the time I added my friends sack of grass clippings to the load I was really struggling.

Still, it’s got to be done. Compost is my new passion of the moment and as I have three bins to fill I can’t slack on the waste production front. I was even tempted to pick up a few discarded pumpkin heads on my way but that was just too much.

It was practically dark by 3pm today so I had to light my way by a rather impressive bonfire. It was my best so far and actually managed to make an impact on my mountain of couch grass roots. It’s also provided a good heap of high potash ash that should give my fruit trees a good spurt for next year. I’ve been building the fire on the site I’ve earmarked for the Spartan tree due next month.

I’m really enjoying the preparation stage of this allotment and am just a tad worried about what I’m going to do when I’ve got everything sorted. I have a low attention span and get rapidly bored by tasks so the new plot is ideal for me - every 5 mins I can hop to a new job. Today I did bonfire building (which is actually quite hard to get bored of), lacewing hotel making, weeding (doh!), transplanting, manky chard nurturing, cloche making and compost stirring.

I was fortunate to find my broad beans pretty much in one piece but I wasn’t going to risk it with the pigeons and chose to knock up a protective fleece cloche with my last bits of blue piping. The fleece turned out to be the perfect size, something like 8m by 1.5m and it only cost £2.99 from Wilkinsons. Wish I’d got another pack at that price.

I mentioned last week that my first delivery of plug plants had got lost in the postal strike. Well my little chard plants and assorted brassicas finally turned up after 3 weeks locked inside a cardboard box. Most of the plants were complete mush as you’d expect and went straight into the compost pile but a few of the chard plants seemed to have a few leaves still in the land of the living. I’ve nurtured them on my windowsill for a few days and stuck them in the plot next to their more vibrant brothers today. I’m not holding out too much hope but fingers crossed.

I had a late night trip to the lotty this week to deliver a load of compost bins that I’d managed to scavenge from my block of flats. It was interesting seeing the site in the middle of the night. I had to use my high power halogen torch to find my plot but once I got there I was able to turn it off and do a bit of weeding by the light of the overlooking train platform. I wonder if my plants will benefit by the extended light hours?

Not quite enough light to bother taking photos though - that had to wait til Saturday when we were back to do some more tidying. Shakti was my able assistant this weekend and we spent most of the day trying to remove a patch of nettles and clear the remaining bindweed root from the edges. Nettle roots are amazing - such wiry yellow critters - a complete pain to remove but I bet they’d make a great clothes dye.

I am really excited by the compost heap windfall, I love compost and will have a production line going in no time.

After de-weeding (fingers crossed) the edge, I transplanted the raspberry canes that my dad donated, to make a fruity fence alongside the railway track. I also shifted the plum tree even though I should probably have waited til next month.

My new neighbours are jolly friendly and offered me spuds if I could be bothered to dig them. As this is just about my favourite harvesting task of all (after pea podding) I was delighted and we had a little bag of what I think were Pink Fir Apples to see us through the rest of the week.

Back home the ginger beer plant seems to be slacking a bit. I think its just too darn cold in my flat and the yeast has gone to sleep. It created a few more bubbles after adding sugar today and yesterday as its a lot warmer and I’m wondering if I should just carry on feeding it for another week or just get on and bottle it. Decisions, decisions.