Monday 29th January
Today I planned to do a bit more digging out of the oldest first stage compost bin and shovelling it over into the central second stage bin to mature. I had taken the shovel home and filed off the edge to sharpen it as I last time I found it hard work pushing it into the heap. While at home I gave the blade a good coating of motorcycle chain oil after cleaning it. The oil is designed to stick around in all the road muck on a motorbike so should stay a bit longer on the shovel blade. I also got the teak oil out and gave the shaft a rub over with it. In the end all my garden tools within reach got a service!
However I still found shovelling up the compost was difficult and discovered the fork was much easier, just using the shovel to scrape up the last dregs.
It was so much easier I soon found I was shovelling up the last slice and finished with all the compost transferred. I then spent a little while dismantling the bin itself to do some maintenance and scrape some lovely compost out from between the two bins.
The net result was the middle bin full of well mixed compost which will compact down and mature over the next few months. The reassembled empty bin awaits some coarse material to line the bottom before being the receptical for all my green waste.
I then harvested a good picking of my marvellous Brussel Sprouts (the first time I've managed to get them to heart up and grow to a decent size!), some leeks and some 'Hungry Gap' kale.
​For some reason the whitefly is not as bad this year. It has not been cold enough to kill them off - perhaps replacing part of the butterfly netting with 2" square netting and letting in the small birds is doing some good!

Monday 22nd January

​Arriving on site I was horrified to see how much damage I caused to the verge just by parking next to the plot!

​​However, once I'd arrived I set to removing the front of the middle, more mature compost bin. Cutting  a 2 to 3 inch slice down the front of the stack and then shovelling that layer into the barrow means all the layers in the heap get mixed together. This the loose dry top layer gets minded with the wet compact bottom layer and the green layer off grass cuttings in the middle. 

I finished with a nice empty bin ready for me to transfer the contents of the outside bins across

​In the end 10 barrow loads of compost were spread over where I plan to grow my sweet corn and the extra one where I will plant my courgettes.
Some real work shovelling but it was great to have that done. I need the space for the fresh compost material.

​Sunday 21st January
I was going to stay at home as rain was forecast all day - until I remembered that my shed really needed sorting out!
Last autumn I had emptied it and stored all the usable stuff in my greenhouse, filling it completely. That had enabled me to clear the rat debris out and put down poison. Despite me blocking all the holes with bricks, the poison continued to disappear even though there were no rat droppings visible. I thought the bait was attracting the vermin so stopped putting it down. Since then there has been no evidence of then returning.
Recently I had collected the stack of laminate flooring from the cafe debris and stored it in the shed, planning to lay it as an additional layer to block holes and resist further rat invasions. However the planks were very dirty and still had the nails that had held them down poking out.
I spent all morning sweeping the muck off each plank and easing the nails out before sorting them by size and stacking them.

Part way through I took a rest from the back bending work and fixed a batten on the door wall and some eyelets and rope slings to give somewhere to store the 8 foot canes that were blocking the way into my greenhouse. Most of the canes fit in perfectly in the roof above the window but some are just too long. I left them slanting in the space but plan to shorten them an inch or so until they fit.














​At lunchtime I had all the canes stored away and a stack of clean flooring planks ready to start laying them at the next opportunity. Feeling pleased with myself I left the site in the continuing rain, the only idiot still there!

Saturday 20th January
After all the rain I wondered if I would be able to do any work today so I chose a job that was less weather dependant. I needed to finish clearing the leaf bin and empty some of the bags into the empty bin so I could give back my neighbour's bags.
It took only a short time to clear the couple of barrow loads from the bin using my shovel for the dregs which I dumped on the old raspberry bed ready for the courgettes this year.
Then, fortunately for me, I found that one of the posts had rotted off so it was easier to lower the netting on one side. With bags of leaves still waiting from last year stacked next to that side I was able to hoist the bags one at a time up onto them and tip the leaves out. Treading the leaves down meant I could fit all 8 bags into the bin and cover it with a carpet. The remaining 4 bags, which are mine, stacked neatly next to last year's and everything protected with carpet weighted down with bricks.
Part way through all this, when I needed a rest from humping heavy bags, I broke off to staple the netting on the brassica tunnel where there was an opened seam to stop pigeons getting in and spoiling my Brussels.
Before it got dark I harvested a couple of leeks, some spinach beet and a Mooli.

Monday 15th January
My neighbour collected another five bags of leaves which I brought down and hoisted onto a stack behind my leaf mould bins. In order to store them permanently I needed to empty the bin I filled with the leaves from autumn 2016. It had broken down into leaf mould for the most part so I dug it out and barrowed it to my pea and bean patch. Even though I only collected a small amount of leaves that year I had enough to mulch a 3 by 4 metre patch.
By the time I had finished it was dark and unfortunately the gate had been left open again. I had to use my phone light to open the padlock ready to lock the gate when a white van with signwriting for a builders' company appeared from the first track and squeezed past me to leave.
​I left with the gate locked.

Friday 12th January
Struggling with my wife's illness and cancelled Christmas arrangements I've only made visits to the plot to harvest veg and drop off compost material. Today was the first chance I've had to actually work on the plot.
I brought the trailer down full of bags of leaves and kitchen waste but had time to do some work.
One of my neighbours with a garden surrounded by trees rang me to say he had bags of leaves for me. He had 5 part filled builders' bags, large and heavy and will have more when he has time to clear the rest of his garden. I thought I had missed having his leaves this year but now I will have to get the two year old leafmould bin cleared to have room for it all. (I still need a petrol mower to shred the leaves otherwise they take too long to rot down!)
To make sure I had somewhere to spread the leaf mould I realised I needed to clear a stack of pine needles. It didn't take long to spread them over the path beside the newly planted summer raspberries after I had set some boards on edge along the row of plants to stop them being buried.
I then reset my three rat traps using peanut butter as a bait.
Finally I harvested food to take to my daughter's for a delayed Xmas visit. There were Brussels sprouts, leeks. I pulled a Mooli hoping my son-in-law who is from Zimbabwe knows something of how to cook it. I wanted a parsnip and tried to dig one out. It was very resistant and I managed to slice a chunk off the next one struggling to unearth it. When I eventually extracted it I found it was about 18 inches long! I also lifted the damaged one which was a respectable size. When cleaned up the large one was rather cankerous but the smaller of much higher quality.

​I went home pleased to have started the New Year's work and all set to prepare for my delayed Christmas visit to my daughter with my produce.

​Wednesday 20th December

​Having located the missing panel from my greenhouse and found my stock of glazing clips at home, I came down early to refit the panel. Fitting it was easy but originally there was a stiffening strip along the bottom edge that was meant to stop the panel stretching out of its mount. It had failed to do its job and was missing. I found a length of cane and bent it across the bottom to try and replace it. I think a strip of exterior tape is called for.

Once that was fixed I started harvesting for my Xmas trip visiting family. They are not great veg eaters so a few Brussels sprouts for Xmas dinner and a few leeks was all I had planned. However I also pulled a large parsnip size Mooli as I think my son-in-law may find it similar to the crops he knows from his home in Zimbabwe.
​The following day I grabbed the chance to pop down and tape the bottom edge of the roof panel after cleaning a strip along the edge. I managed the important one just before the rain came down and I went home!

Tuesday 19th December
After Sunday's working party I realised the old café flooring would make a good rat-proof layer for my shed floor. After checking over-night with the committee I came down to the site just to collect the boards and transfer them onto my plot ready to fit after Xmas. While doing that I also sieved the ash but will use that on my garden not my veg as I'm not sure it is free from poisons.
While stacking the planks I noticed one roof panel was missing from my greenhouse. The plastic sheet was eventually located weighed down on a neighbour's plot. However I could only locate one clip so will have to return to fit it.

Thursday 15th December
I came down to the site this morning to help with the disposal of the old cafe. Our chairman, John Bachelor together with John Lack and Mark Merrit had done all the hard work but I helped take some of the rubbish down to the tip in our chairman's van.
When they had gone I had time to pop to my plot. I checked the shed to find the rat poison had all been eaten. There were no mouse droppings but with carefully checking I found a few rat droppings. Where are they getting in? None of my traps have been sprung!
Restocking the bait trays in the shed I went to plant the autumn raspberries that I had heeled in in a vacant patch. It didn't take long to dig a trench next to the single 'Joan J' plant I bought last year and fitted in the 5 canes I had bought online. 'Joan J' has an Award of Garden Merit from the RHS and I've had some good comments about it. Together with the slightly earlier 'Polka' canes and the new summer raspberries, 'Malling Jewel' and 'Glen Ample', I should get raspberries over a long season.
All that remained was to pick some crops. I dug out 2 very small parsnips from next to where I had lifted a huge one last week! I pulled two nice leeks and then a smallish Mooli radish which I shall grate over my lunch time salads. Finally I cut the last two Brussel tops leaving the sprouts themselves for Christmas.
As usual I forgot something - to take a photo for this post!