Hoochie Coochie Man / Reg / Project Solardome Part One Million

Sat here in this tropical heat, it is hard to imagine a better time to be writing my blog. Everything is properly coming into life, just to my right is a wonderfully hairy poppy, next to it a mysterious type of fern and a rediscovered hosta. More on this in a separate blog. What I want to tell you about, avid followers, is the curse of the hoochie coochie man.

I am of course talking about cooch grass. There is so much of the stuff it reminds me of the blackberry bushes from last year – the abundance, the unfettered abundance of the stuff is maddening. It’s hard work pulling it out too. Sir Cakealot and I were jousting the ground with forks for all we were worth, and then pulling it out in handfuls. Trouble is it kept snapping, which meant more hoochy coochy for the future. To that end the bagged stump chippings came into play. We poured out approximately half of the chippings over the forked and (partially) cleared areas. We then raked it in. Sir Cakealot went ballistic as the photo testifies! We then recovered the area with carpet, to leave for next year, where hopefully the cooch will all have broken down.

In the process I met a sweet old man called Reg. He was partially deaf so we were both talking very loudly. I loved the way he said ‘You’ve got to watch out for them weed seeeeeeeds,’ he grinned as he said it, flashing a majestic gold crown. ‘Do they call you Teddy?’ he asked me after I told him my name. No Reg, not enough people call me Teddy, Howard, yes, Oregano, yes, but not Teddy. Maybe that’s for my later years.

Weeds are running rife amidst the potatoes, the onions, basically all over. It will be the work of many patient years to fully regain control of the land. It always seems insurmountable. But we always overcome. G unit!

Also in the mix is Project Solardome, now in stage one million according to Parsley. Over four days her and a friend constructed the extremely intricate nexus of beams for the glass. It becomes ever clearer that our team is divided thus: Parsley is the mastermind, Cakealot is the nurturer and I’m the work mule.

The dome looks absolutely amazing, and it’s not even finished yet. I am so excited for the final result.

Sunshine. Suits me fine!

The Lucky Lackey

'Everything you ever do in your life involves bending. I just never noticed it before did you?' - Parsley

A classic statement from Parsley, who on account of her pregnancy, can't bend as much or lift heavy objects without getting jousted by an irate Sir Cakealot (the father). It has been a few days of heavy lifting and labour - hence the title of this particular blog entry. As Parsley and Cakealot had called me their lackey - I added the lucky part. Because, I do still feel really lucky to be doing this, and to be a part of shaping their amazing garden; to be a part of shaping the allotment and to visit eccentrically peopled gardening shows, amongst other things.

As Parsley's parents were preparing the foundation for the solar dome (see pics attached), it left me to move several bags of wood chippings - all that remained from the stump. There was somewhere in the region of fifteen / seventeen bags - most of them power load (heavy). I took them all over to the allotment in the course of two days and about five visits, one with Cakealot. The chippings will be used to suppress weed growth once we've removed the cooch grass or as much as possible.

We had covered most of the plot with carpet and plastic, with some areas fully treated with glyphosate - others not. The result was some areas of clear soil, others teeming with weeds. It's ongoing, and as Cakealot said from his throne in the garden yesterday - 'I can't relax there, there's still too much work to be done.' It's good agitation, if that makes sense, because it keeps you moving and tinkering. I never would've thought we would have got this far, this soon; it has undoubtedly come as a result of larger committed tasks / jobs that have taken all day - see the petrol strimmer entry, and smaller intimate fifteen minute excursions. Everything counts.

Oh and Cakealot and I have started to move a giant hump of soil from behind the solardome foundation!

To summarise it's been an exciting few days. Here's the highlights :

1. Eric aka King Smethwick going ballistic with a roll of string, becoming entangled and doing two somersaults, then running next door.
2. An unintentional matching outfit catastrophe with Cakealot and I - namely the classic white t shirt and blue jeans look. This lead to camp posing with forks and spades, sneering comments about us looking like BROS and many, many Diet Coke break moments.
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JvHroG3u5E Me singing this, much to Parsley's irritation.
4. Faux Michael Caine accent from yours truly - everything from picking up concrete chippings (Parsley has us doing the most ridiculous things), to PLOP BIRDS.
5. Things blossoming, growing, becoming beautiful. Even the two heavily weakened apple trees in our garden have flowered well this year.

Back to it! There's still lllllloads to be done!

Albert's Garden of Wonderment

I have been concentrating on mine and David's garden for the last week or so. Mostly this has involved grafting various plants / herbs into different parts of the garden. So, we now have a wee herb bed with some oregano, rosemary and mint next to the barbecue; we have forget me nots by the pond; poppies by the conifer and some ultra tentative hollyhocks planted near the fence.

Additionally I have prepared some natty tins with compost for salad, and will try to grow some of our wild strawberries which always have tonnes of leaves but never seem to grow in their current habitat under the privet hedge where it is mostly shady.

We had a large fern which cut a long soil bed in half, so I cut it into five pieces which have been redistributed around the borders at the bottom of the garden. I hope they take. The viburnum is growing steadily as is the mystery tree / bush thingummy I moved from under the conifer last year. There's still a sycamore there too!

The biggest job was weeding. Around the apple tree toward the bottom of the garden and in the long soil bed aforementioned. I spent the best part of one day weeding - and this was only possible due to fabulous musical choice. As an illustration of what I've been caning my ears to whilst in my garden paradise - we're talking : Bill Withers, Miles Davis, Grime, Drum and Bass, Dave Pike, Billy Cobham, Bonnie Raitt, Simply Red - hilarious!, Brian Eno, Jelly Roll Morton etc. It all goes, in some weird sense. It all gels.

Once the weeding was done I raked over the topsoil and planted a combination of seeds - some bought for my Birthday : sunflower and meadow seeds and some given to me by the redoubtable Parsley after the wedding. I then staked the perimeter and lay down £5 netting - £5! CRAZY PAYMENT, making sure to block the gaps in the fence with nice big square bricks. However, can you imagine my unbridled wrath when I saw a feline sprawled out on my carefully prepared seed bed? Happily lolling in the sun. I was happily running down the garden with every intent on cranking open a can of feline smack down. This self same quadruped used to sit on our apple tree of a morning right above a nest, waiting for the mothership to come out. Red mist, then as now! Pure rage. I have never felt so connected to my garden and its welfare.

Let's see how it all goes. Fingers crossed for a prosperous Spring and Summer. Thus far, things are looking very good indeed.

King Smethwick & The Funky Trunk Transplant

I am sad. I have only the wish to keep working on a) Our garden, b) Parsley and Cakealot's garden, or c) The Allotment. Any time apart amounts to a tugging at the navel, basically I just want to be gardening all the time!

Spring is well underway and already hints at the Summer to come. It will be glorious. It is glorious now. It can only get better.

The other day I was helping at the Masters residence. Parsley came over to discuss plans for our back garden, and believe me they will come to sweet fruition this year! More in a separate blog, if it so pleases. Having done that, we headed over, tooled up and started moving a beech / hazel tree. It lay in front of the raised beds at the back of the garden and needed shifting as it was getting in the way. It would be moved to join some bamboo, which eventually will sit behind the solardome. Cakealot and I were pumping pure python power (what alliteration!) into the removal of the said birch. We dug a sizeable perimeter around the tree so we could get to the root ball, occasionally plucking out bindweed.

I kept digging away bits until Cakealot rode in and jousted the tree cleanly from the ground. It took us both to lift it though, through heaviness but also care. It was then wheelbarrowed over to the fence. We then had to grub and mattock a monster root which was planted deep in the ground. P&C prior to the transplant had called in a stump grinder to clear the way. However these roots were deeper still, and needed some serious hacking. Both Cakealot and I were trembling like poplars by the time we managed to dig enough space to snugly plant the tree.

We ate some of Sir Cakealot's eight hour chili for lunch. Dispelling the common misconception that I never eat veg (and after my own admission of the same) I was eatin' them kidney beans like my life depended on it! So, so needed.

Thereafter there was high jinks from King Smethwick who did his annual trick of lying in all the beautiful Daffs, looking regal and naughty all at once. He actually reminds me of a cavalier, with his cheeky little black beard. Other synonymous folk include Frank Zappa! Come on, the likeness is uncanny!

We started to move the soil back into the hole we'd created, so that it could be re-turfed. It was an amazing afternoon, one with a slight hiatus (I had to go and see my GP for stomach related ills), but then back to work after two doughnuts and tea. In the dying hours of the afternoon, I planted varieties of lavender at the rear of the garden. It was a lot of work, like the old times (that is last year). And as ever, I want more. I am sad.

(Not so sad. Parsley came out with another classic mishearing. Dialogue goes like this :

Oregano : 'Haha! Look at that! Two blackbirds fighting mid-air!'

Parsley : 'Plop birds?'

Oregano : 'What?!'

Parsley : 'You said plop birds.'

Oregano : 'No I didn't I said blackbirds. Hang on a minute PLOP BIRDS! [sarcastic and insanely false laugh] Watch out for those plop birds.'

Crazy paving!

Bastard Trenching & Narcissus Pseudonarcissus

Last week I dedicated a healthy portion of Thursday and Friday to the allotment with Cakealot and Parsley. On the Thursday I was digging a trench around the outside of the plot so the rainwater could drain off properly. How unfit I am. My rapidly dwindling energy left me feeling like a rag doll before lunch. So much so I had a power snooze when I got back. It barely helped! Where was the Greek god physique of last year? Why were the pythons asleep in the grass? Especially when there isn't any grass left?All the same I worked as hard as I could slopping out leaves, mud and twigs to see that precious trickle of water lead to the drain...Immersive.
Parsley and I were also weeding the brilliantly titled cooch grass (sometimes known as Witch grass, Twitch or Quack grass) - the bane of any gardeners existence, along with Mare's Tail. Not so brilliant in that there are still legions of it in the soil. Once we had dug as much of it out as our backs would allow, we raked over the topsoil and Kate sprinkled blood fish and bone fertilizer in preparation for planting the potatoes.Came home feeling like I'd been shot. This is one of the most rewarding elements of working outside. I love the dull ache that sits in my muscles. It feels like VICTORY.

A new visitor to the allotment was a furry flame by the name of Monterey Jack. If I find out in the future that it's a female, rest assured her name will be Monterey Jacqueline. MJ was a strange one, always rolling about, running up to you then legging it. Thus far we have three (garden related) amazing cats - Tad Wilder, Gigasmethick, and Monterey Jack. For your viewing pleasure here they all are in one place :

What a trio!

On the Friday Cakealot started digging some serious trenches for the potatoes. It took me four times as long to dig a trench! Now whilst this wasn't strictly bastard trenching it was a bastard on my back and knees and legs. It started raining pretty heavily so digging became even more difficult. WEAK! However, six - seven rows of tatties were prepared, taking up most of two plots - which of course means us having to dig more and more! We still have plenty of space left.

Parsley planted some of my surplus daffodil bulbs at the bottom of the plot as they'd started to sprout in the bag. Remember my blog of September 13th fame? Well, my daffs have come out but some of them are already dead, which breaks my heart - seriously! However my (now) favourite Narcissus Pseudonarcissus have come out in all their pale glory - I am looking out at them now. I am smiling.

Project Solardome Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dy553E_oa0

Let's get that one out of the way for starters! Project Solardome!

I was up at 6.30 on Saturday morning, feeling raw as a potato, having had about three hours sleep - part excitement, part insomnia, part Czech rum. Parsley and Cakealot were equally ko'd when I went over to eat a vegetarian breakfast at their DOMEstead. So many changes this year.

We didn't get started proper until around nine, when the redoubtable Alex Johnson came in his Boratmobile - a beautiful mustard VW van, replete with tools. Same went for P&C. It was proper heist territory - glass suckers, stanley knives, power drills, rope; the works. We headed out to Lincoln, getting a bit lost, paying an extortionate amount at a toll booth, with me sleeping in the back seats. 0 stamina and endurance. But that was to change.

Rolled up to the house around 12. The dome was tucked away in the back garden / yard - betwixt a telegraph pole and a privet hedge. The owner was hilarious : a purple faced loon who called his cat Mum. We kept hearing him periodically coming out of the house saying 'Hellllllooooo Muuuuuum!' It took us a while to work out what was going on.

The dome itself was very impressive. In the photos it looks fairly small but I assure you the effect is quite the opposite. A dead robin was a bad omen! So be it. Parsley talked with Alex

about how we were going to go about taking it down (start from the top and work your way down - I guarantee I'd have messed this up if left to my own devices). Then she numbered all the glass panes - 120 if I'm not mistaken - whilst I removed nuts from what I can only describe as metal oysters, then WD40'd a load of nuts on the inside for later, coping was removed, I was as ever clueless and needed directing.

The biggest part of the job was removing the silicone which was holding the glass in place. Palette knives, stanleys, toothbrushes and warm soapy water - everything came into play. Alex and Parsley initially tackled the highest panes, with Cakealot and I scrimping and scraping the lower tiers of glass. Thereafter it was all change. With the first few panes being brought down (the very first cracked, our morale never did) we took some time out to assess the situation and eat. The predicted four hour takedown plan became so much longer.

It was slow work - with a very careful series of readjustments being made to how the glass was stored in the van - lots of bubble wrap and old blankets and an advanced lesson in trigonometry and spatial awareness. All the while purple conk was screaming hello Mam, his yappy dogs were going mental, it was getting colder. Time was not on our side - or rather the light wasn't. Indeed we worked right through to nine o' clock.

Once all the glass had been removed (no mean task), we still had to take down the frame - a colossal geodesic nightmare! I left the boys to that one, taking out the bottom vents / segments that were resting on breeze blocks, and carrying materials, tools etc to the van. The stars were out and I managed to identify Ursa Major. Pat on the back for a manifestly cold Oregano.

This was hands down one of the longest most exhausting days of work I've done in a long time and I did a third of what Cakealot, Alex and Parsley did. Yet, I loved it. I would do it again and I would recommend GEODESIC SOLAR DOMES to everyone. Do I want a unique geodesic focal point in my garden? Yes please! Do I want practical applications and benefits for my plants and veg? Yes please! Do I want to wake up the morning after helping transport a solardome, feeling like I've been shot? Yes please!

Remember this is only part 1. There will be many more to follow, as so far we have only transported it from Lincoln to the domestead. Weeee!

Adendum: A few years back Minda and I came up with a list of dome related puns. Four pages of A4 were filled. Here's a rundown of some of the better ones :

chrome dome

Big Trouble in Little Dome Town

White Men Can't Dome

Obi-Wan ka Dome Me

Dome2D2

System of a Dome

Domeformers

Home Adome

Buffy the Dome Slayer

Eastenddome

Dome and Away

Somebody answer the bleedin DOME

Die Another Dome

Dome White and the Seven Domes

Etc!

Project Daffodil / Viburnum

I am extremely excited. Project SOLARDOME is but a few days away. I'm not saying any more until after Saturday, but good times for good people - they are coming.

The daffodils are emerging. If you cast your eye back to my Blog in September, I was paranoid I wasn't doing it properly; those juicy lean green stems speak volumes to the opposite, however.

There are some other tentative growths too, throughout the garden. At first I thought they were weeds...but something tells me otherwise. Gardening intuition! Now there's a thought. I was talking to my Charlie and Ben* on Saturday about how my instincts were kicking in and the schematics for the garden were sprouting from my sub conscious! Thank G Unit it's Spring, I feel so much more in touch with things.

Mum and Dad brought me a cutting from their Viburnum tree in January. It's famous for a Dad classic: 'Have you sniffed the tree?' Draw your own conclusions. Anyway, this was planted at the bottom of the garden where I hope it will take nicely. I think there's the option to move it if there's not enough sunlight. So far, more or less everything has taken well, but having come out properly for the first time in many months, I see that everything has died back: it's all sludge brown foliage or leaves as dry as a skeleton. Cycles, yo.

Oregano out. There will be many more blogs hitting this space soon! PROJECT SOLARDOME especially...wow.

Payce. (Peace).

*Flame on!