Who Flung Dung?

'I've got a steaming pile of shit with your name on it,' how often do you hear this sentence and actually feel happy about it? Well, I was jubilant when Sir Cakealot aka Sir Cakeatonne (shortly to be discussed), tweeted me an image of what looked like a pile of brown lava, with a gardening fork sticking out of it. It was time to shift £80 of rotten horse manure onto our plot. Trouble was (is) the van couldn't get down to the bottom, so we had to wheelbarrow the brown gold down there ourselves. This was pre-Christmas as I was recovering from man flu. I tell you hitting a 'vein' of particularly smelly dung with a bad chest is hilarious. When I say hilarious I mean dreadful.

The cold, courtesy of our very own pleistocene epoch had frozen most of the manure, so it came away in great clods and boulders. We were really jousting a dragon; Sir Cakealot definitely had more energy than me, filling up barrows like ale in a tankard. Hence Sir Cakeatonne - he was powerloading pounds at a single bound. I was more systematic in my approach, reducing the back bit methodically. Damn my chest was sore.

Comic relief came in the form of Reg who was traipsing through the snow with a Sainsburys bag and a smile that outshone the Winter sun. Turned out he was curious who was on the plot, and was paying a flying visit. He started laughing almost straight away, real loud like. That set us off. He admired the dung and then headed off, with Cakealot shouting at the back of his head. This wasn't at all malicious, Reg is a tad deaf and Cakealot / Cakeatonne was his chivalrous self.

Mmm steamy!

The second round of dung shifting came yesterday. It was a milder day than I expected, with plenty of mist to make things atmospheric. I have seen the allotment in many ways over the year, and this was one of the most special. Cakealot and I had a good go at the pile and reduced it by approximately another quarter. Laughs were had with capsizing barrows (full to the brim), heartbreaking when that happens.

Amidst steaming plots, muddy walkways growing ever muddier and thinner, and puddles, we shifted a good six or seven barrows each. We also had time to lift up an area of carpet and black plastic we'd laid down a good long time ago. It had done the job well, with only a few hoochy coochy strands here and there. That too will be covered with the dung. There's still so much to shift though!

* * *

A great year for gardening, a lousy year for everything else, so say Brother Oregano. I hope you've enjoyed the blog almost as much as I've had writing it. Keep up the support and I'll keep up the amateur gardening. 2011 will be a feast of activity, so watch this space. Happy Millennium!

Weasel's First Allotment Visit / One Late Sunflower

Earlier this week Parsley paid 24 Rue Albert a visit with Weasel. I had my hands full with my favourite new UNIT. She was crying a wee bit so I spoke gentle words of encouragement like: 'Stop crying Weasel, you won't have time to be cribbin' when you're diggin' and a piggin,' and such like. Weasel is such a wicked little unit.

Went over to Parsley and Cakealot's to feed her some milk and for us to have a brew whilst listening to hilarious lounge music. Cakealot has a great vinyl collection. Checked out Cakealot's seed collection (wow wow and wow again, like he said - buying seeds is a tremendously optimistic thing to do). He kindly gave me a catalogue from Dobies - a veritable Aladdin's cave of seeds, bulbs and garden storage wonderment. The words Bumper Miniplant Flower Collections has an almost ludicrous charm to it.

When we'd tooled up - that is put Weasel in her pram and wrapped her up, Parsley and I went to have a look at the allotment. The whole way down there I was making jokes about Weasel being in a wagon in the Wild West. No-one laughed.

It was a lovely afternoon, subtle, crisp and golden. Rubbed off on her as she was very sedate / asleep. We had a small perusal of our patch of land and then headed home where we were assailed by Kate's neighbours, one of whom is old but COMPOST MENTIS; this time Parsley and I had a good chuckle.

* * *

Earlier in Spring, I planted a sunflower seed in a load of compost as a bit of an experiment. Clean forgot all about it, but was pleasantly surprised to see it had grown, albeit hugely late - emerging early November. So I've moved it indoors and will track it's progress here. As the cold draws in properly, these blogs will be a little more infrequent, but who knows, I will probably find more things to enthuse about. The sunflowers name is Mal, by the way. This is on account of a chrome dome I saw last night in the pub who looked like John Malkovich. I wanted to say he did but he looked like he might pop a cap in my cold frame.

Peace.

Pumpkin Carving and Mo' Weasel Blend

Paid my first visit to the newest member of G unit last week. Alice aka Weasel!

As you can see she was rocking the Halloween look big time. From prior experience with my three nephews, I have been notoriously hands off - afraid of hurting them with my clumsy mitts. This time I was only too glad to hold the baby - I mean come Spring, she'll be digging and pigging with the best of us!

Eric aka Smethwick (see http://parsleyandoregano.blogspot.com/2010/04/king-smethwick-funky-trunk-transplant.html) was ludicrously friendly, and curled up whilst we had tea. Cakealot provided pumpkin pie, which blew my tits off.

Speaking of pumpkins, Cakealot and I carved one, or rather I did the design and he did the carving. It was loosely based on my Groucho Marx costume of the preceding night.

from this

to this!

It was a superb afternoon. Although I did feel bad for not helping Cakealot on the allotment afterwards. We still have tonnes of manure to order and get spread over all the weeds before the frosts come on....G unit for Lyf tho' and ey! Mad skills to Weasel.

Weasel / Late Allotment Antics / Tulips

Breaking news! For those of you that don't know already Parsley and Cakealot have recently had a baby, Alice, whom cakealot in his wisdom has nicknamed weasel. That means there are now six members of the G Unit clan:

****Parsley, Oregano, Sir Cakealot, Weasel, Winks &

Smethwick****

Hurrah! The love grows even as the season grows cold!

Maybe the cold has been keeping me away from the allotment, maybe it's been the wandering to Rutland to hook up with an old friend Dan, a brilliant sculptor and wit, or maybe the barbarous few weeks I've had at work....pressure makes diamonds but I'm not seeing any cubic zirconia!

Either way I took a couple of trips down there last week to pull up some nettles to slap in our bath to make fertilizer, and to quell the brambles, remember how much I love them?!

http://parsleyandoregano.blogspot.com/2009/10/operation-blackberry-or-destruction-of.html

Didn't get too far as my pythons were getting ripped and I had a dinner date with a living Goddess. All the same, a second visit saw me clear most of the waterway that leads to the storm drain. Don't want that getting clogged up!

I was naughty and dead headed a poppy I shouldn't have. When I got home and was rattling it for all I was worth, an earwig crawled out. I screamed! Gotta hate those earwig catastrophes! Needed Cakealot to come in and joust it with a rake.

Lastly I plucked some golden apples and runner beans which I'll give to the parent Units...I'm so egalitarian and still so much of a carnivore.

Lastly, I have planted all my tulip bulbs around various parts of our garden, along the thin border just on the right of the front door and under the privet hedge at the back. I'm hoping the daffs will be back from last year. Needless to say you will be seeing a well documented account on here! PAAAAAAAACE! And a very big welcome to Weasel. You got crazy wonderful parents kid!

Epic De-seeding, Purple Sensations & Lavender

After hoarding poppy heads and ceremoniously decapitating my first sunflower, I was set to deseed my little collection. It took me a good few hours as well! First I was shaking the heads to remove the seeds into a container, then I took to crushing them en masse. There were thousands of seeds in a thousand shades of umber and topaz. Thereafter I sieved them all to get rid of the larger bits of detritus.

The sunflower was also a mini epic. I started off by gently plucking out the individual seeds which looked like mint humbugs. They had a wonderful kind of sheen to them, with miniscule hairs. As this was taking so long I just applied some torque and they were popping out all over the place. The flower still smelt great, even at this late stage.

I then funneled the poppy seeds into individual seed packets. Same for the sunflower seeds. These will go out to family and friends.

* * *

I was all set to plant my tulip bulbs but I found out it was a tad early. Menacing terms such as premature flowering etc. put me right off. Instead I opted to plant my purple sensations! These beauties belong to the onion family and will hopefully make a welcome addition to our garden when (if!) they emerge next year. Back on the waiting game. As with the daffodil planting of last year, it was a Friday and it was warm. Good omen!

http://parsleyandoregano.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-wandered-lonely-as-cloud.html

Ludicrously enthusiastic, I strategically planted the bulbs round the garden, where we have the most sun, then stuck stakes in the ground marked allium, in case I forgot where they were. As everything dies right back in winter sometimes there's no way of knowing if things are ever coming back or growing for the first time.

I call this one Hank.

Buoyed on by the fun and energy of planting the bulbs, I decided to move the lavender from the compost tray / tin catastrophe, whatever you want to call it. It was planted under the conifer where the soil is dry and somewhat dusty. I have it on good advice that it will grow well here. Watch this space!

Wasp Central / Welcome to G Unit

A couple of films I made the other day. A glorious pro active day with lots of sunshine. Wasp Central relates to an earlier film I made by the same name. This was supposed to be Bee Central, but I got caught up in the moment. Mesmeric!

As for Welcome to G Unit, did I jump or was I pushed?! Hysear Don Walker knows....perfect Summer music. Pace.

P Unit

P Unit, aka Parent Unit! This short entry honours my parents garden. I paid a visit to Manchesthair (Manchester) for a wedding this weekend gone. It was raining with a vengeance, but there were some lulls which allowed me to get a quick peek at things. I love the hollyhocks especially and hope ours are as lustrous when they come out next year.

P unit for lyf, nice one Reg / Scholteim and Sue / Oaf. X