Working in the shop (Again)

Back on shop duty again today. This time I was paired with Chris, who was last seen having creative differences with Alison on the barbecue. Very quiet in the shop today, despite it being a nice bright sunny day. The only thing that sold were bags of compost and potatoes.

So sunny that it is time to sort out the greenhouse. If you remember it's been a bit flooded in there so it needs a good clean out and reset of the floor and layout. The first problem is getting everything out. The shelves that are in there are too big to fit through the door. So I first have to remove the diagonal bracing and loosen the corner joints so that it can tip up at an angle to get out of the door. Took a while to do, but I eventually managed it.

Mucky floor

So now with all the buckets, plant pots, pallets and of course the shelves out I can sort out the floor itself. Dragging the weed proof membrane out is not hard to do. Nor is cleaning it off (with helpful buckets of water from the water tank). The rake was removed from it's duty as a window brace and used to re-level the floor and by thickening the main walkway. I dragged in an old piece of carpet to help stabilise the floor before bringing the now clean membrane back in.

I re-arranged the shelves to solve a problem when I first built them last year. Now I have the 'L' shape I wanted, which gives me slightly more working space in the greenhouse.

Everything back inside

Now I feel ready to start planting seeds and such. Actually, I feel ready for a stiff drink, so seeds can wait until tomorrow.

The first bed has been made

Slowly, the plot is coming together.

I took delivery of the wood first thing Saturday morning in the freezing cold. The lorry driver from Champion turned up we offloaded, and then I spent the rest of the morning shifting the pile of soil about 2 feet to the right in this picture. Dug out a small trench and used small wooden branches to hold the planks in place.

Each bed is 3m by 1.5m and there will eventually be three of them across this part of the plot. I have a nasty feeling that I will need to order some more wood so I can get a few more beds in, but that won't be for a while yet.

I popped over to the shop to see what the new stock entails. Geoff who runs the shop stock has got a good variety of seeds in.

Some of these are pretty good... but most I found to be very generic stuff which we don't really eat. But even so it's nice to see a whole range of potential sitting there. Now I have to go warm up. Even wearing two fleeces doesn't keep me warm enough out here. And the soil is still too damp to allow me to sieve it properly. The soil under the blue plastic (right on top picture) is dry enough - but it's just too damn cold.

Mad Hatters Tea Party

Every so often MAGA (Merton Allotment and Garden Association) will hold social events at the allotments. Today was the Mad Hatters Tea Party. Anybody could come along... so long as you wore a Mad Hat. Well anybody could come, except the weather wasn't having any of it. Rain. Rain. And more rain. Lucky we had a Marquee.

Rain makes a few puddles.

I spent last night slaving over a hot stove. I made two quiches, two loaves of bread and some toffee. One of the quiches was last night's dinner (well half of it). The rest went to the party. And a lot of other food was brought along by everybody else. So we were inundated by food of all sorts mostly of the sweet rather than the savoury nature. More food than people.

Laying out the food.

Party in full swing.

Everybody enjoying themselves.

And there were a few surprises. Fancy a slug biscuit?

Shop Duty

Martin Way Allotments have a shop on site where members can buy discounted goodies such as seeds, fertiliser, garden canes and compost. The shop is normally open for two hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings. However, at the request of some members, we are currently experimenting with afternoon opening hours on a Sunday.

Yesterday I did a two hour stint in the morning and again in the afternoon. Whilst we took approximately the same amount of monies each time, the number of people we had in the afternoon was a lot lower. In fact most of the afternoon's takings actually came from people who are involved in the running of the shop. Despite a vocal few wanting an afternoon opening, I do not really see the need for it. The amount of time needed does not really justify the usage.
The shop is affectionately known as "Ken's Shop". Inside there is a plaque with the story of Ken Entwistle who is responsible for the shop in it's current form.

Back on the plot, after a week away the bins that were stuffed with grass cuttings had all shrunk and compacted down. Good room for more.

But I am still finding more and more rubbish under all the weeds.
I think I will have to hire a mini digger to level the site. If I rip up one half of the site and dump the soil and what not onto the other half, I can lay out the plot as I want it (Shed, Greenhouse etc.) then sieve he soil back into the beds where I want it. This will allow me to remove all the bindweed roots out which should make life easier in the long run.