Seeds, Sheds, Greenhouse Grief and a Nine O'Clock Bonfire — What a Week That Was

 You know those weeks where you've barely sat down from one job before the next one is already shouting at you from across the garden? That's been this week in a nutshell. A proper, full-to-the-brim, no-sitting-down, back-aching, satisfying-as-anything kind of week. I wouldn't swap it. Not for the world. But by Friday evening I did wonder whether my knees would ever fully forgive me.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we.

Seeds. Lovely, Lovely Seeds.

First things first — it was time to get the next batch of seeds set. And this is one of those jobs that I never get tired of, no matter how many times I've done it. There's something almost meditative about sitting there with your trays and your compost and your little packets, carefully pressing seeds into the surface and thinking about what they'll become in a few months' time. It never gets old.

This time around I went for marigolds, nasturtiums, and calendula. Now calendula is an absolute favourite of ours up at the allotments and has been for years. It's tough, it's cheerful, it attracts all the right insects, and honestly it just makes the whole plot look like somewhere you actually want to spend your time. Same goes for the nasturtiums — those bright, happy little things will scramble anywhere you point them and they're completely no-nonsense. And marigolds, well. Marigolds are just right, aren't they. You can't argue with a marigold.

I set these in full trays rather than messing about with individual pots, because the truth of the matter is we get through hundreds of plants across the two plots over the course of a season. If I did them one at a time I'd be at it until Christmas. Full trays is the only sensible approach when you're working at this kind of scale.

Now here's something I want to talk about because I mean it sincerely — the compost. I always use Clover compost for seed sowing and potting on. Every single time. I've been using it ever since I picked some up from the allotment committee shop and I genuinely haven't looked back since. The texture is just right — fine, consistent, no surprises. No twigs. No stones. And most definitely no glass, which I have encountered in other brands more than once and is never a pleasant discovery when you've got your hands deep in a tray.

I'll tell you what though — the thing that really finished me off with one particular well-known brand was the day I pulled a plastic bracelet out of a bag. A plastic bracelet. Sitting there in the compost like it had gone on holiday and ended up in the wrong luggage. I will not name the brand. I'm a reasonable man. But they know who they are and I know who they are and I've never bought a bag of it since.

Clover compost it is. I use it for all my seed sowing and potting on, and once the plants are past that stage I switch over to my own compost made here at home. I'm very particular about my compost as regular readers will know. It's a subject close to my heart and one I could talk about at length — and frequently do, much to Sara's quiet amusement.

The Greenhouse. Oh, the Greenhouse.

Right. Now then. You may remember from a previous post that I've been working on getting the greenhouse base sorted. I'd had it all planned out — lovely job it was going to be, neat slabs laid out ready to sit the base on, everything level, everything tidy. I had it all worked out in my head and I was rather pleased with myself.

You can probably tell where this is going.

I opened the base that came with the greenhouse and had a proper look at it, and there, in the corners, were anchor points. Not what I'd planned for at all. Not remotely what I'd planned for. The slabs I'd so carefully laid weren't going to work with anchor points — so that was the slabs out again, the lot of them. Then out came the spade, and me and Sara dug out for the base properly so we could get those corner posts concreted in the way they were meant to go.

I will say this about Sara — she is an absolute trooper when it comes to this kind of thing. There we were, the pair of us, level and square line in hand, going backwards and forwards, checking and adjusting and checking again. Finding the level and the square seemed to take forever. I'm not exaggerating when I say we seemed to be at it for a very long time. A very long time indeed. But we got there in the end, it came out right, and — and this is the part I'm most pleased about — we managed it without a single falling out. Not one. Forty years of marriage and we can concrete a greenhouse base together without an argument. That's something, that is.

Wednesday at the Allotment — The Great Shed Shuffle

Right, now we're getting to the main event of the week. We were up at the allotment early on Wednesday, me and the team — and we had a big job ahead of us. The time had finally come to deal with the sheds.

Now I should explain for anyone who hasn't been following along — we have been working out of what I will generously describe as a falling-down shed. It has served us well and it owes us nothing, but it was time. We also have another shed — also, it has to be said, somewhat falling down — and the plan was to move all our tools from one into the other, take the old one apart, and replace it with the new shed that has been waiting for this moment.

First job then was to shift everything across. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Tools, equipment, netting, the lot. We crammed it all into the remaining shed and I will tell you now, by the time we were done I'm quite sure the sides were beginning to bulge. I genuinely think it was one decent gust of wind away from just exploding sideways. We got the netting in last and by that point the roof felt was starting to lift at the edges as if the whole thing was taking a deep breath and not sure it could hold it. There was a moment where I looked at Sam and Sam looked at me and neither of us said anything because there was nothing to say.

Anyway. Everything was in. Somehow.

Then we set about taking the old shed apart. Off came the roof first, then we stripped away the felt — and this is important — we made sure to keep the felt separate from the wood because you absolutely cannot burn felt at the community bonfire. You cannot burn it, you shouldn't burn it, and our allotment knows the rules and sticks to them. So the felt was set aside, all the tool hangers and screws came out of the walls, and then piece by piece the old shed came down.

Once it was down and stripped of everything that couldn't go on the fire, we carried it over to the bonfire area. That old shed has done its time and now it's going out in a blaze of glory. Quite literally.

Then we laid some old pallets down on the ground we'd already levelled and prepared, and we put the new floor down on top, securing it properly to the pallets. And then — the new shed went up.

I have to say it went together much more smoothly than I was expecting. These things can go either way. You either get a nice afternoon job that slots together like it's been waiting all its life to become a shed, or you get a three-day argument with a bag of bolts and a set of instructions that appear to have been translated from the original Swedish by someone who has never seen a shed. This one was the former. Sam and I did the heavy lifting and the bulky manoeuvring while Iris held the pieces in position while we got the screws in. She's brilliant at that — calm, patient, just gets on with it. We had the whole thing up in a couple of hours.

Then me and Iris went back up on Thursday to felt the ridge — just to make it watertight while we crack on with the rest of it. Job done. Lovely.

Now. I Have to Talk About the Bonfire.

I want to say something here and I want to say it plainly, because this one really does press my buttons.

We are incredibly fortunate at our allotments to have committee members who go way beyond what's expected of them. And one of those people is a fella named Andrew, who lives close to the allotments and gives far more of his time than anyone would have any right to ask of him. He keeps an eye on things, he gets involved, he cares. That kind of dedication matters and it doesn't go unnoticed.

Now Andrew decided he'd light the community bonfire on Thursday evening. And he was careful about it — very careful. You see, we have people living near the allotments who have, over the years, made formal complaints about fires on the site. We've been reported to the police, to the council, to the neighbourhood watch — and the complaints have included accusations of burning plastic, tyres, old mattresses, you name it. Every single one of those accusations has been completely baseless. Our committee burns only what the rules allow: wood and dried greens. Nothing else. Not ever.

So when do we light fires? Not before six in the evening. Not if the wind is blowing towards the housing estate. These aren't suggestions — they're our rules and we follow them.

Andrew, knowing all of this, waited until gone nine o'clock on Thursday night before he put a match to it. Nine o'clock. In the evening. To be on the safe side. Going above and beyond, as he always does.

By half past nine the fire brigade had turned up.

Someone had phoned them. At half past nine at night. For a small, entirely legal, properly managed allotment bonfire, lit by a committee member who had specifically waited until the latest reasonable hour to avoid causing anyone any bother whatsoever.

I'll be honest with you. I don't have the words. Well — I have words. Quite a few of them. But this is a family blog and I'd like to keep it that way. What I will say is this: what on earth is wrong with some people? Andrew was doing everything right. More than right. He was doing everything with extra care and consideration piled on top of right, and still — still — someone picked up the phone.

The fire brigade, to their credit, will have turned up and seen exactly what it was: a small, controlled bonfire at a well-maintained allotment site, run by people who know what they're doing. I have every confidence the crew involved spent less time there than it took someone to dial the number. I hope whoever made that call thinks on it.

I'm going to leave that there before my blood pressure gets any more of a workout.

In Amongst All That

Despite all of the above — the concrete, the slabs, the shed explosion, the bonfire business — it's been a genuinely good week. There is something deeply satisfying about standing back at the end of a long day on the plots and seeing what you've actually achieved. A new shed standing proud where a collapsing one used to be. Trays of seeds tucked up in good quality compost, doing what seeds do. A greenhouse base going in properly.

The team is good. Sam grafts like a good 'un and Iris — at seventeen — works harder than most I've met. I couldn't do any of this without them and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

More to come next week. There's always more to come.

Take care of yourselves. And if you're thinking of complaining about your local allotment bonfire — maybe have a little think first.