All fired up

The sun comes out; is spring about to be sprung?

An absolutely gorgeous day today, so with just a faint whisper of a hangover I headed down to the plot for the first decent stint in a long time. There was some actual heat in the sun and it was beautifully bright. I did briefly stick a fork in the soil, but it's still treacherously damp and cloddy, so no real digging action today, that'll have to wait. There was plenty enough tidying-up to keep me occupied for a good few hours.

This is an ex-fence

 Getting a new fence built at the back end of last year was very necessary, but it has resulted in us having a massive heap of wood from what was our old fence. Some of this will be recycled to make posts for maybe a fruit cage or a manure pile, but a lot of it is knackered and rotten so only really good for burning.

Blazin' Squad

I thought it might've been a bit tricky to get a good fire going as a lot of the wood was pretty wet. No such issues; a precautionary initial dousing of paraffin, and there was soon a rare blaze on the go. At one point I thought I might have overcooked things a bit as flames shot high out the top of the barrel and it was too hot to go anywhere near, but it died down eventually. Sat on the allotment drinking tea, Radio 4 on the wireless and a wild inferno in the background; it don't get any better than that.

We could seriously do with a good continued dose of this lovely weather to help dry and warm the soil a bit. I'm grimly aware that before planting our first early spuds some serious digging is going to have to be done.

More please

In plant news, some of the crocuses we planted back in mid November have poked their heads above the surface. I'm looking forward to the splash of colour they they will hopefully provide in a few weeks.

Crocus in focus

Other news: Elephant Garlic is showing first signs of breaking the surface of the garlic patch which is great as I was getting worried I'd buried the cloves too deep. I think we're going to have to give up on all the onions we planted in autumn, which is pretty gutting as I planted loads. The few that have sprouted are doing nowt, I think we'd be better off to re-dig and re-plant new sets. Same I think goes for the few broad beans that have popped up above the surface. They look knackered and useless. Damn you, ridiculously wet Autumn/ Winter, what miseries hast thou caused us! No sign of the daffs we planted in autumn yet.

I had a bit of a wander round our section of the allotments before leaving. Seems that some previously abandoned plots have been reallocated and are being dug over which is great. Fair play to the committee, there don't seem to be many, if any, left that have been completely abandoned to the weeds.

I headed home just as Swansea scored a late winner against Newcastle, against the run of play, which was the only thing that sullied an otherwise excellent day of pottering about and burning stuff down on the plot.