Progress Report

If January went out in a jet stream storm with lashings of wind and rain, then February arrived like a precursor to Spring. Calm, dry, gentle and fresh. A lot of winter digging opportunity was lost in January and the last two weekends have more than made up for this.

Having eliminated the Hill that was located down at the path, a compost bin was constructed and now acts as a milestone for the progress that has been made. Since then, just after Christmas, the plan has been to work back along the strip that was entirely rubarb crowns and ground elder.

The rhubarb has been left out to frost in the freezing weather and is now ready to be split and cleaned of the ground elder root which has worked itself way in. Inveigled is a better word for what it has done. There is so much rhubarb that a decision has to be made about chucking some of it away. When you consider the cost of buying a crown in the garden centre, £7.99 is not uncommon, then we seem to be sitting on a gold mine here.

A gold seam was hit in fact this morning when we discovered a stretch of the strip, marked by Big Bertha (she with the big orange handle) was a layer of buried brick, cobbles and setts. That's it in the pile behind the wheelbarrow. Inside the wheelbarrow is yet another supply of the ground elder. Eight bags of this was taken down to the Council recycling centre where it will be hopefully shredded, cooked and turned into usable compost.

This is season two on Plot 12a and what you see is ginormous progress. It was satisfying coming back home with a sack full of rehubarb cuttings some of which will be going to Eileen, horticultural expert of Ayrshire. She is giving me some of her Epicure seed potatos in return.