Here’s an item that allotmenteers might be interested in. Researchers at the University of Coventry, in partnership with the RHS, have published the results of a study into the damaging effects of bad digging practice, along with a few suggestions as to how to improve your posture and technique to help reduce the risk of […]
Tag: digging
For at least the past four years, Langley Allotments Plot #79 – the one opposite ours across the road – has been a derelict eyesore. When we first took on our plot, Plot #79 was an overgrown mess of trees and bushes with a collapsed greenhouse and not much else going for it. It’s right […]
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Plot #59 Update: October 2016
October was another mild month – the ongoing legacy of the El Niño phase of the ocean temperatures in the Southern Pacific earlier this year, most likely – which meant we were able to put in a fair few sessions down on Plot #59. Here’s where we’re up to, as Summer is banished to the […]
So here we are at the end of October and, being realistic, at the end of the season for work on the back garden. It’s been a strange old month, hasn’t it? If, on the first of October, I’d seen an accurate weather forecast for the next four weeks, I might have been tempted to […]
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Hard Slog: Man vs. Midden
We’ve been doing a lot of general clearing and sorting down at Plot #59 this month. Jo has been hacking back her sunflower thicket and deadheading everything that’s still in flower. I’ve been clearing away spent bean plants, tidying up the brassicas and ripping out a few large weeds that have snuck in here and […]
September turned out to be a really good month, weather-wise, so I ought to have been down at Plot #59 for most of it, working my backside off to finish a few infrastructure projects, clearing the last few patches of stubborn weeds, sowing a few winter crops and prepping for next year’s growing season. Instead, […]
The weather was kind in September – until the last few days’ worth of persistent, soaking rain, that is – so I’ve been taking the opportunity to push ahead with the hard digging phase of the landscaping. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a bit of a slog: weedy turf to remove (hand-picking the perennial roots […]
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Plot #59 Update: August 2016
Ah, the long lazy days of high Summer! (What’s that? Summer? Has it arrived yet? Are we due one? Answers on a postcard to the usual address…) Definitely long, but not so lazy if you’re an allotment holder, with early crops finishing and going over that need clearing away, and later crops just starting to […]
Still digging…
What’s that? You’ve just taken on an allotment for the very first time? Hey, congratulations! You’re about to start on something that could be truly wonderful; great for your health (physical and mental alike), your diet, your shopping bill, your social life, you name it. Just wait until you lift your first potatoes, or start […]