Q. " What did you do on your days off ? " A. " Shovel 3 ton of horse muck ! "

That is what we've done, shovel and shovel and shovel....muck,muck...glorious muck ! The allotment muck man Malcolm finally delivered our trailer load of manure.....and boy did he air on the generous side ! We'll have enough manure for the next three years let alone this year.

I ve been begging and scrounging pallets from here there and everywhere, with the plan of building a shed from recycled wood, so we ve used a few pallets to start making the compost bin to house the manure. We only got it half built before we were both completely pooped ! I got the second bed boarded off as well and finally next door have moved the caravan off our side. Mind you they also pilfered most of the paving slabs before we got round the other night...cheeky sods ! Still at least that caravan is now just their problem and not ours.

That is about it as far as the lotty goes.

I've had a good few hours in the veg garden at home today though. Last year we got plagued by rootfly in the turnips. So tis year plans have been laid to hopefully combat them. The answer is an insect busting mesh cover over the bed that the carrots and turnips are going into.

    So a pack of roofing laths and a box of screws later...oh and few blisters on these office hands...and this is the result. The mesh was from ebay and is very fine so it should keep most of the airborne pests at bay.

Now the weather has finally started to break from those howling Easterlies we can finally start to get some crops sown and planted out. Onions and shallots will be the first into the ground in the home garden. Potatoes being the first things into the allotment.

Oh and to try to save a bit of fuel and get my legs working I ve also invested in a trailer for my bike to take the tools and things round to the allotment.

  I ve had one test run up to now and it does the job nicely.

That's all for now.........some more muck  moving is on the cards next visit to the plot so I ll probably post an update when we ve got a bit more done.