Welcome to my blog dear reader, your reasons for following the demented ravings of a middle-aged, Pastafarian archaeologist are beyond me but that's your business!

Sunday 29 April 2012

Allotment Corner #3

Sorry for the scarcity of posts recently dear reader, but I am busy organising a wedding at the moment. Mr Cheeze and I are to be married in 1 months time and things are getting pretty hectic here at Cheezey Towers! The following post covers the goings on down at the allotments over the past couple of months, hope you enjoy!

These pics were taken about a month ago when we were ready to rotavate the top half of the allotment after removing the weeds and adding all the compost we could bring from our garden. There was, however, a slight problem with the rotavator so Mr Cheeze and a fellow allomenteer started by trying to fix the problem.


Whilst this was going on I took some pics of the local primary school children who had come for a visit. They are going to start their own garden at the school so they had a field trip to pick up some tips and help out on the allotments.



Getting some tips on weeding!

Meanwhile the boys were still having trouble, even with a third helper the damn thing still wouldn't co-operate!

A watering lesson.


Not content with having to repair one contraption they found another to play with!




Time for a quick group photo for the local paper.

Say 'Cheeze'!

Time to go back to class.


Yup, still there!


 Our plot with a layer of compost applied ready to be rotavated (once the damn thing is operational)!




 Guess what the guys were up to, yup, still playing.




At last the rotavator was fixed and it was time to dig all that compost in.




 Once the ground was prepared it was time to plant our fruit bushes. Blackcurrants first!


After digging the hole for each bush, a layer of wood ash was added, fruit bushes love wood ash!




After placing the bush in the hole the soil around was firmed down and the watering in could begin!


The same procedure was then followed for our three gooseberry bushes.
Next, the raspberries!



Gooseberries on the left and blackcurrants on the right.
 Our next visit was in order to plant the potatoes!
Our first spud! A King Edward.


Drawing up the soil around the spuds.

Watering in!
 The finished potato patch.


The finished fruit area with gooseberries and blackcurrants on the right and raspberries on the left, there is also a blackberry at the base of the stick in the middle of the plot but there is nothing much to see of it yet. We will be training it along wires as it grows so that it spreads across the whole width of the plot forming a partition between the fruit and the potato patch.

Our dwarf Conference pear tree, we will be planting a Bramley apple and a damson tree shortly. There are strawberries in the raised bed on the left of the pic.
Well that's the top half of the allotment pretty much done! Later in the year we will be adding a shed and a bench to sit on and some bark chippings for decorative affect! We are really looking forward to sitting there on the summer evenings after a hard days allotmenteering, with a beer/cider and a barbecue. Just the bottom half to get sorted now!

Cheezey D x

Saturday 7 April 2012

A Village Tour


Hi everyone! Was at the allotments the other day (new Allotment Corner post coming soon!) and it was such lovely weather that I took a load of photos on my walk back home. Thought I would put them up here to give you all a virtual tour round our village. 



The playing fields where the allotments are located.
A lovely trough of flowers outside the entrance to the playing fields.

This house has a really cool painted pig statue in the garden!

A close up - the picture is of a river with fish and frogs etc. and the upper half is the river bank, clever!






A couple of nice cottages













                                     A converted chapel, makes a nice home.
















The Village Hall - regularly used for Craft Fairs, theatrical productions and other village entertainments!










The local pharmacy 




The Co-op with the Dog Grooming Parlour next door.



Some more lovely cottages.




The Chippy - our favourite establishment!

The High Street with Church.


Church tower - our village is famous for its church clock, if you look closely there is no number 10 but there are two number 12s. Local legend states that the person who commissioned it was always told by his wife that he had to be home from the pub by 10 o'clock so he made sure that 10pm would never come. Don't know how true that is but makes an interesting tale!



The Market Cross - 14th century.


Churchyard with assorted gravestones.

The local watering hole - yay cider!
Our little row of cottages.


And so we return home. Hope you enjoyed our little tour around the village. Look out for Allotment Corner #3 coming very soon!

Lotsa love, D  x