Bed Matters...

Another extremely satisfying day today - in fact so much so that I am completely whacked out, & I suspect that I will ache like mad tomorrow.

I set off to the Hill with the aim of fixing the penultimate fruit bed & setting out and fixing the final one.

I was delighted when I arrived to find a couple of demijohns left for me at the side of the shed - I have John Badger (from the bottom) to thank for these, which I did when he came by later.

He said I should help myself to some Autumn fruiting raspberry canes that he is thinning out from his plot to go with the summer fruiting canes that I had from Jason (behind retired Maureen) last week - how brilliant is that?

Returning-allotmenteer-Christine came by & we chatted about blogs & this & that, & she asked if I'd pop over at some point & go though one or two queries that she has with her blog set up - I'm up for that, not least so I can see her shady garden with snowdrops which will be at their best very shortly.

I carried on with the beds, although I only got the point of setting out the final one before I got bored & moved on to a different job - picking KALE (curly) for tea. JB had given me food for thought - apparently, my raised beds have been the subject of some discussion, with Reg-next-plot wondering aloud what I'm going to fill them with.

Standing back & having a look at the fruit beds, they did seem to have a certain wooden-frame-pegged-on-flat-earth quality, so I borrowed Lionel (by the gate)'s wheelbarrow, turned to the manure skip & set about filling 'em up.

Learn a little every day, I say, & today I learned that

• I cannot propel a full wheelbarrow with any degree of competence - it is like wrestling a bear
• Manure from the bottom of the heap is hot & crumbly & far better than using manure straight from the bags it arrives in as I have done before
• I cannot shovel manure into a wheelbarrow with any degree of competence
• Manure is jolly slippery if trodden underfoot

A zillion trips back & forth later, & the fruit beds look fabulous with their thick layer of muck - although all that playing in the manure skip meant that today was another day for stripping at the back door to get straight into the bath...