Monday 11 October 2010

Preparing for winter

I haven't had a great deal of time, of late, to spend some time at the allotment and begin preparations for winter. However, having taken my Uncle down to have a look during his visit from Canada, I realised there was some urgent work to do.

With the weather improving, I took a day off and spent the morning, weeding the entire area previously occupied by the potatoes and around the remaining carrots. Also, I took all of the netting off the strawberries and raspberries weeded around the strawberries and lastly weeded the raised bed area by the shed.

So a good start, but still about the same amount to be done over the coming weeks.

Here's how it looked before I started;-


...and a couple of hours later, here's the result... oh and I got bitten by something too, so now have marks on my chest....a rabid spider or snake....well, something wanting a meal and not happy about being disturbed.


Now the strawberry bed. There are lots of tubers, so I will split them over the coming weeks too and put more of them elsewhere. There are some more coming too, so we'll see if they survive if the weather changes.

...and the final photo looking back at all of my hard work.


Looking a lot better, but still work to be done. With luck over the coming weeks, I'll get all of the clearing up and weeding done. I shall then sort out the strawberries, stain the shed (which I still haven't done), find some guttering to collect water for next year in my new butt and dig over the remaining grassed area to extend the strawberries. Let's hope we have a few more pleasant days or even a day or two off work to help me achieve all this.