Manure arrives

I've been meaning to start a blog about my allotment for months now, but never seem to get around to starting it. There isn't really a good time to start an allotment blog because despite the seasons, there is no real start or end of the allotment year - it's an all-year round thing. But, having said that, this weekend seems like as good a time to start as any because it saw the occurance of the single biggest influence on next year's growth. A delivery of manure.



I've had my allotment for about 4 years now, but have never really been able to get a decent amount of manure into the soil. It's a very sandy well drained soil without much goodness, and I think my crops have suffered for it. So I'm really pleased to have finally been able to get some manure. A local farmer arrived with his tractor and trailer yesterday morning and dumped a huge mound of steaming manure onto my plot.



It was a freezing morning with the frost still very much present when I arrived. The steam pouring off the manure was incredible - looked more like a bonfire than a pile of poo! The ground was too solid to do much in the way of digging, but I did managed to move a few barrow loads of manure to the far end of the plot to mulch the recently weeded raspberrys. I also spread some manure on part of the covered over bare soil, and then re-covered it. The huge pile of manure should be more than enough to spread and dig into the rest of the plot over the coming months, in preperation for next year's growing season. Before returning home I managed to prise a few parsnips and leeks (see below) out of the ground, along with the last few small carrots.