Kitchen Garden Forum

My annual festive digging got underway yesterday...some at work and some at home. Very different soils, medium clay based at work and much lighter above a layer of greensand at home, although it doesn't look it in the photo.
Some more achieved today, another, narrower, section of the vegetable border at work and finished the initial strip at home up to the path side..... I hope to keep nibbling away at both locations.

We have placed the golden variegated Holly behind the mirror in the hallway this afternoon, so we are all decorated up ...to add to the many cards on every available surface.

Christmas greetings,
Clive.

We managed somehow to get into the carol service at Canterbury Cathedral yesterday, after having our original application turned down as it was full. We were going to wander around outside for a while, and a volunteer told us there were some returned tickets. Could not have been more delighted. It was incredible

Lucky you, Clive, to be able to do the digging. We collected our sprouts, kale, parsnips and leeks this morning and it was far too wet to dig, in spite of the allotment bein weel-drained.

And lucky you, retropants, too. That must have been a wonderful experience. There is nothing to compare with live music in such beautiful surroundings, is there?

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas Day and do enjoy the rest of the festive break!

Clive. Out of mild curiosity, is that a trenching spade.

It's a Spear & Jackson Neverbend No.1. I think its description would be a grafting spade and would have suited trench work but it isn't actually the longer drainage type trenching spade. I also have another which is wider and is stamped No.2, that one was my late fathers, he bought it new in the 1940s, whilst the one in the photo I bought s/h from a local house clearance shop a few years ago, cleaned it up and put it back to work.

Clive.

..not digging this morning...I see the rain gauge has 40mm in it, some arriving as white stuff last night. C.

Garden looks lovely with 1 ft of snow over night and lovely sunshine today. No digging only path clearing. Only downside it was such a heavy snowfall that it has flattened shrubs and broken some branches off the trees.

No snow here thankfully. And no manic urge to be out in the retail therapy revolution either. I saw a photo in the paper of a woman who had just bought EIGHT large handbags in the Boxing Day sales and breathed a sigh of relief at being far away from insanity of madding crowds who were queueing at 4 am waiting for the retail centre to open.

Shopping? What shopping... Adverts keep saying we'll save lots of money by going to the sales, how do they work that one out then? Are they paying shoppers to take it away?

No snow here yet, but a very deep, dark, heavy band of cloud is approaching from the northwest.

MW

Surprisingly I was able to dig this morning, a very thin frozen crust to the ground and our very forgiving soil enabled me to complete the last bit of the section I had started a few days ago.

Then I came in and have had a look at a Hornby Dublo locomotive that I've been promising to look at for nearly a year
Problems with a wheel that I have building up my nerve to address.

Is that festive. ..Yes, Hornby Dublo toy trains for Christmas.


Clive.

We went to my son in Marham, Norfolk for Boxing Day with an overnight stay and had teeming rain followed by light snow there. When we came home on Saturday, a couple of villages beyond Marham, there was a lot of snow and on the roads too. We came back via the motorways instead of the usual way through the more rural areas of Lincolnshire, just in case. No white stuff here in Hull, other than heavy overnight frost.

The wet snow around here was mainly melted by the Sat morning...and the local river to the top and some more by the look of the adjacent fields around Partney.

Good white frost lingered all day today.

Order placed with Kings this morning after some fumbling through seed catalogues, seed box to double check and amend the crosses placed in the catalogue for a 2nd order for work.

Blackberry pruned out...Fantasia...so not so much festive as festering I suspect....it's a bit of a thug.

Clive.

How's that wheel doing Clive?

The wheel developed into wheels but are sorted... I haven't put it off for another year.

Just written an email to source some parts for two others...but haven't sent it yet.


Clive.

Evening Clive, i don't suppose there's any chance of some photo's, is there.