| Plot 17 – The Earthly Comforts Garden Recovering Plot 17 |
| Oh, Daisy Daisy, Do! Diary 15th September – 04th October |
| Daisy Plot 15th September 2022 |
| Daisy, soon-to-be The Wilding Orchard, was one of the most significant bare-ground projects plot 17 had. It took me primarily six days or around thirty hours to take to task and handle the challenge between 15th September and 04th October. Suze helped me on 30th September, and we worked for about six hours that Friday. The result is that a sizeable subplot is ready to rock and roll next year! It was a significant job; the hard ground had to be hoed to a depth of around four inches due to the wastes in the soil, and rubbish had to be removed alongside weeds and twigs, old potatoes and stones. It was very pebbly soil. The whole of Plot 17 is extremely pebble bound. But looking at the area now, stripped back and raked over and covered with a pegged-down mat, it is a job well done and one that l no longer have to worry about. I have no direct plans to mulch this area. It is good ground and will be easy to plant and sow into next year. The fig tree still needs to be cut back, but that’s about it, and the Stripper needs to be covered, but that, too, is easily achieved. At least the apple trees have been removed. The mint was quite aggressive, and the rhubarbs need to be addressed and resited. Although l think of the three, we are only keeping one. At least the ground can rest and be untroubled by weeds until we are ready to start to work with it next spring. |
| Daisy Plot 16th September 2022 Suze tackling the overgrown nasturtiums on the plot. |
| Daisy Plot 27th September 2022 Starting to hoe, weed and de-pebble Daisy was tiring work and yet you had to start somewhere. More importantly, you had to start full stop. I opted to start with the sides first then tackle a quarter at a time. Each quarter was yielding two green buckets of pebbles, one of rwigs and weeds and half of a third with bits of plastic and metal rubbish. The reason for so much rubbish was two fold – 1] unsieved compost was used to mulch before the dig in and unfiltered compost. As you progress through the composting process it is best to remove unwanted debris otherwise they will simply be added to your soils. During the cooling down periods between turns 20 – 25 of a hot compost, l remove twigs, stones and bones. I am very careful when l start a new batch of compost to remove any unwanted plastics or metal before hand, not all composters do. |
| Daisy Plot 29th September 2022 Second quarter of the plot now finished. |
| Daisy Plot 30th September 2022 Suze was with me on the Friday, she had taken a day off from the grandkids and we together worked a good six hours on the plot. Suze worked on the bottom Stripper as there were still many overgrown nasturtiums to be lifted out. I chose to tackle the last two quarters and finally got the entire plot completely done. |
| Daisy Plot 04th October 2022 Now the plot is matted up and secured to the ground with pins to protect it for the winter. The fig needs pruning back and the rhubarbs removed, but aside from those tasks, it is a job well done and no longer needing to be worried about. |
| From this to this! |
| I will see you again with another episode of Recovering Plot 17 tomorrow. Thanks for reading. |
Earthly Comforts 
Great job done Rory and Suze
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Thanks Sadje 🙂
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You’re welcome
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Oh, yes! Beautiful job! Thank you for sharing the process with us, Rory. It’s amazing how much you and Suze have accomplished so far.
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Hey Betty, well l have just messaged Suze and said l feel like a bit of a lazy so and so this week as l have not been to the allotment to work it since the 7th, aside from a brief drop things off visit on the 9th. She is back properly once her family goes back to Australia on 17th.
So Suze will be back on the 18th.
I will rest one more day and head down there tomorrow on the 16th.
I don’t like not doing stuff l have noticed. I have a compost spin today at Willow, but also the weather has been quite wet to boot this week.
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Between your body and the weather, I think the message has been for some well deserved R and R this week, hasn’t it Rory?
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Forced l would say Betty, forced. You know autism and Aspergers well enough l should say to know we don’t always like to take a break. 🙂
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Yes, I do – but that’s when nature steps in, Rory. 😊
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It is very heartwarming to see how much you both care and how hard you work with this!! My respect ✊
You guys have done amazing – I wish was more people like you!
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