Merry Tiller and Onions and Shallots

Finally a good session on the plot.

Yesterday the weather was good but I was in the midst of revamping my business website. So I made a promise that, if I finished it off, I could spend Wednesday on the plot, Working for myself, I tend to put silly hours in at times so it is important to get some downtime, Anyway, all appeared well with the new site until I checked something at midnight and so at 1am this morning it was fixed and finished.

That, of course, left me a bit shattered this morning so to the plot just after 1pm.

Preparing for the greenhouse

First task – planned time half an hour ? was to creosote the beams that will form the base for the new greenhouse. Nearer to two hours later, dark black beams for the base of the greenhouse. Well good foundations will ensure a good building and I don’t want to have to replace them in a couple of years so I think the creosote will help in that,

Merry Tiller to work

The soil is dry enough to work and the racing tuned tiller would be set to work. The spindle (bet there is some proper engineering term) to which the tillers fit looks like it had some grease on it but that has long since turned to oily mud, so cleaned it up and re-greased. Five pounds for a tub of grease seems extortionate but I think it will last my lifetime!

Third pull and we were away. I don”t know if it is me being out of practice or the machine handling differently since the service increased its power, but for the first few minutes it ran away with me. Soon had the knack back and running on less than full whipped up and down a bed on plot 5.

It?s better to let the tiller bounce on and go over again than try and keep pulling it back. All in all, I ran over the patch about 4 times resulting in quite a good tilth, which I will leave for a day or two to settle down.

Shallots and Garlic

Decided to plant the shallots and the Albigensian Wight garlic into the small deep bed on plot 29, having first cleared the weeds off it. The shallots went in at eight inch,  equidistant spacing double row. I then covered with a plastic cloche. This will stop the birds from getting to them until they are established and also help them cope with the minus five predicted tonight!

Garlic is very hardy and will be fine. I was quite amazed by how well this garlic is doing.. Good healthy shoots above and a mass of roots below. It was a bit overdue for the ground but I think it will be just fine.

Temperature

When I got to the plot I took off my padded jacket, body warmer and sweater. It was really nice and warm in the sunlight with a blue sky crisscrossed by contrails from the jets going to Manchester airport. By around 3pm the body warmer was back on and at 5pm the sweater went back on. By 5.30pm the jacket was on again. I can well believe the minus 5 prediction tonight. I’ve just put the greenhouse heater on (10.30pm) both barrels.