| Fingers Crossed |
| Main Image – September Morning on the Butts. |
| “I am at one with the bench, l am not here, the hoomans cannot see me!” |
| Music Score –Adventure – Morning Light Music This post may contain affiliate links, please read the Disclaimer for more info. |
| Willow on Rampart’s Ropewalk sharing space with Ducks and pigeons |
| Plot 17 [R] is a sizeable plot. You can see Mike’s Plot 14 [M] which is a long plot and the previous 2 Suze and l have viewed. In June we also viewed Plot 15 which is right beside Mike’s plot, but that was taken the day we viewed it. The small Plot of 44 is sited next door to the Strutting Peacock as we call him and Plot 20 was a plot we believed to be empty but apparently wasn’t, so hopefully 3rd or 4th time lucky will be just that. |
| You can see Plot 17 above. Suze took this video on Friday. You can see and hear Mike and l talking about it having just talked to Steve. It is quite a tidy plot already but Steve and his wife haven’t worked it for a few months properly because of the summer we have just had and decided to give it up. There is mostly tidying up and repair and soil recovery work to be done. Suze and l wouldn’t keep all the current vegetables, but we have plenty of space for everything we want to grow. |
| I think September will be as busy as August, July, and June was, maybe even more so. I have this gut feeling that the proverbial poop will hit the fan regarding lots of work; l could be wrong … but certain pieces of the puzzle are slotting into place. I viewed an allotment on Friday and Sunday that is currently being rented by a friend of Mike [Reserve’s conservationist], who is looking to pack it in. After hearing about my desire to have a plot, he would love to hand it over to me. I emailed the council last night, and Mike’s friend Steve will do so today. If all goes well, Plot 17 will be the rental for Suze and me. It’s a healthy, good-sized plot where we can have the chickens, a good-sized polytunnel, all the compost boxes and two additional worm farms. It would be our little slice of the Off-grid whilst still on the grid. But until l know it’s ours for sure, l am trying not to become too excited by it all. Although, in a discussion this morning with the council, it turns out that the plot once it is signed over to us by the current renter would be ours to work in a week! Happy Days indeed! Suze and l had a jam-packed weekend with the topic of food wastage. Some of you may recall a post that Renard wrote a few weeks back on food wastage – 5 Simple Ways To Prevent Food Wastage. I shall also be producing a small mini-series this month – covering the angle from the points of composting, bokashi and vermicomposting. But we were seemingly non-stop engaged with this topic in one format or another. Just when we thought it was safe and we could relax from the worm harvests for a while, we realised that stage two of the vermiculture side – the commercial side – would be launching quicker than we counted on – but that is tied in with getting the allotment. If we get the allotment sorted quickly, the compost system sited here at Willow will transfer down to the plot and free up considerable space. This means that the worm expansion will then double down. The priority was to harvest the towers as they were and to ensure we hadn’t suffered horrendous losses with the extreme heat we were experiencing. Thankfully we didn’t. So once harvested – four new temporary towers were created – one hatchery, one grow-on and fattening zone and two breeders. On the proviso of once we had secured some reclaimed garden space on concrete, the next stage was to lower the six tiers down to a more sustainable and workable two-tier farm. Technically they would still be three-tier farms, but only two tiers would hold compost soils. The top tier would be the feeding bay and ventilation area. The compost units create beddings for the wormeries as well as composts for the growing of plants. So even though they would move down to the allotment, they are still valuable to the wormeries. The beauty of Plot 17 is that it comes with two New Zealand compost boxes which l would buy from the current letter and add them to my own three NZ boxes and one huge NZ and so l would have the ability and capacity to hot compost around 2 tonne of fine compost every 12 weeks which is a serious quantity of content. Still, once the compost operation moved out, that backspace would be considered again, and the plan was to create six 2/3 tier farms – three on each side. This would mean much easier harvesting. Plus, two other worm farms would be sited down at the allotment. We thought we might get an allotment sometime in October, which is also tied in with breathing space and recovery from the massive harvests of July and August already performed but also because Suze’s daughter and grandkids are over from Australia for a month on the 19th of September. Understandably Suze wants to spend as much time as she can with them. We read a couple of months ago that worm farmers in the UK don’t need licences to breed or sell worms or vermicasts! So this meant that we could expand the breeding operations and start to get some sales in for the spring of 2023, but we needed to work the breeding units and work them as much lower towers. I can see it’s going to be another busy month. |
| Time will tell regarding everything here, but fingers crossed but hopefully some good news is heading this way. Thanks for reading, catch you next time. |
| Saw this newbie arrival this morning in the place where the barge used to be. |
Earthly Comforts 
I hope you get # 17. The squirrel is adorable.
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Thanks Sadje – me too. Yes the squirrel was cute.
Suze and l were walking down the path and l saw the Squirrel on the bench in front of us and when it saw us it froze as we were literally only perhaps five feet away and it just wouldn’t move and suddenly became one with the bench 🙂
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And it didn’t try to attack you!! 😀😍
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I think it was more concerned about the nut it had in its mouth. If you look closely you can see a round grey thing in its mouth, it was terrified l think that we we wanted it hahaha 🙂
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Oh yes, I see it now. Nicely camouflaged.
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#17 looks like a “prime” spot! Close to Mike without the Peacock is good too.🤞🤞
Will Suze’s family be invading Willow, or have they made other arrangements?
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Thankfully other arrangements have been made, but l will have the house to me for a good period.
I have learned both this morning and this afternoon literally a few moments ago, that there is a very good chance we will have #17 this week. If so that’ll please Sue as it means she can help with the plot for the two weeks before the kids arrive. Then it’ll be a case of me walking down there every
Yes l think Mike is getting excited as it means he will now have a decent compost set up. I have promised l will make him one and turn his compost over as well 🙂 third morning to turn a hot compost 🙂
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Ahhh see… I’m not the only one with crazy things!!
That would be life 🙄✌️😘😄
How exciting 👏👏
🙏🙏🙏 hoping for you!! Can’t wait to hear about your huge smile lol ❤️👏🙌🙏🙏🙏
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Yeah Mistress KayKrazy – there is crazy hectic everywhere 🙂
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Nice not to feel alone with that lol ✌️❤️
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Well we can’t have you taking all the Crazy Credit can we now hahaha 🙂
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Hahaha ❤️
No I suppose not lol … nice to have company ✌️😘
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🙂
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Keeping my fingers crossed for #17!!
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Oh, #17 would be lovely – and you’re on the end, too! Just seems more roomy to me, for some reason. I join in with the rest, wishing you all the best!
I love the little squirrel playing its invisible game. 😊
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It is a good size, l think the difference is that Steve [the chap who was renting the plot] was a head gardener for years and so he made the area easier to walk and so put in dedicated pathways.
Many allotments don’t bother with dedication pathways and so when they do, they appear way bigger because they are tidier and open spaced.
It is even bigger than Suze shows in the video. Where the video starts [with the sunflower] there is a section before that empty.
Once we have the polytunnerl in, the chickens and the composting and worm farms operation [the latter when fully operational extend to a length of around twenty feet and then the vegetables and the water butts, it’ll look less roomy]
it’ll still be tidy because cut and paved paths always make something look more spacious 🙂
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Thanks for the added detail, Rory! I can just visualize it already. It’s so exciting to think of! 😊
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