Up the creek

After both getting stuck with poor Sunday train services, Henry and I attempted to get some manure on Sunday. The first load went OK. We went back to the farm we got it from last year, forked the well rotted cow manure into the trailer and dumped it down the end of our plot.

It was on the way back with the second load that it all went wrong. A tyre on the trailer burst and we didn't have a spare. We had to wait around for an hour to get it picked up by the breakdown recovery truck. Then, rather than get it to the plot, it had to be taken to Henry's house. This meant that we had to shovel it all out into wheel-barrows and take it down the end of the garden, and we still need to find some way of getting it to the allotment!

Seeds and Poo

This Saturday, I walked round to my friend Henry's house to see his plot, which he has been using for the last few years. We then hooked a trailer onto the back of his car and set off into the sunny countryside round Cobham to go hunting for manure.

The first place we stopped was a stables who didn't have any going spare, but the second farm we went too couldn't get rid of it quick enough. "How much can you take?" the guy asked, "Ten ton?"

He wasn't kidding. We followed him over to Wisley airfield in his landrover, where he had huge piles of shit the size of small houses. Given the choice of animals and maturity, we settled on some well rotted cow manure and set to forking it into the trailer. The farmer was so nice he even mucked in with us.

Now, while it's not the kind of thing I'd usually get excited about, we were pretty chuffed with our trailer full of shit. Just a little bit worried we were going to lose it over the front of someone's nice new Porsche on the way home. Not for his sake, but because we'd have to do all that work again!

Once we got rid of some of the poo and had washed our hands, we went down to the farmer's market on the Leg'o'Mutton field, to get some tasty food. Then we spent a long time choosing our seeds at the local garden centre. Because you get so many in a packet we decided to share the ones we're both growing, so went home and split them up between us.

Finally we went back to our respective plots to dig in our glorious bounty of dark brown goodness before it got dark. The veg is gonna love it! :)