Finally, the sun has been out long enough to dry the soil out a bit to dig - our soil is clay and can be far too sticky to dig or concrete!

Today it was perfect conditions to finally get stuck into turning over the soil in the beds and start tidying for this year's direct sowing and planting on.

I tidied around the over wintering onions too. We have a way to go, but not too weedy just several hours of digging to freshen up our 10 pole plot.

I call it 'achey April' 

Well the wet and cold weather coupled with working has delayed the start of our own growing but finally we have our usual windowsill filled with promise!

We have leeks x 2, sprouts, tomatoes and chillies x 2....

I was lucky to be on the waiting list for just 3 weeks. Along we went to choose a plot; there 4 to choose from and we picked what looked the easiest for absolute beginners. Nobody told me what a nightmare couch grass is (I have been told it’s a herb - could have healed the UK lol). We have or rather Steve dug for victory all last summer to clear it much to the entertainment of the old boys; he did it and then it was covered for the winter. But still it persists in other areas. 

Right in the middle was a good place to start which wasn’t so bad and that is where we started with our first row of potatoes which were damn fine. 

Follow for more ……

I sometimes boast that I receive no negative feedback or complaints, however, this changed recently! I received this neg feedback.

Sadly my trug was not fishished well. Rough, frayed edges to wood, clearly not sanded. Contacted company with my genuine complaint and was treated brusqely. Such a shame as good customer service is also part of a good business!

Mrs T********e
 

My genuine emailed response to the customer, (that she perceived as 'brusque') was as follows: -

Dear Mrs T********e, obviously you will disagree, but to my wife and I, service and quality is absolutely paramount. We believe we do achieve both, perhaps in excess of other Trug makers and most certainly many other businesses. The sad truth regarding feedback, is that customers of every business are far more inclined to leave negative feedback than positive, understandable, but a fact! Despite this fact, I have never, before yours, received negative feedback, conversely, my positives are in their thousands, a tiny proportion are on my website - https://www.trugmakers.co.uk/Trug-feedback.html. Regarding your critique of the finish, sandpaper is not a tool of the Trugmaker as it is a rustic item. For cabinet makers, sandpaper is a required tool. Naturally as a rustic handmade item there will be hairs and minute variations, as I have said many times to visitors "they are all the same, but although I have made over 100,000 Trugs, there have never been two identical, these are not machine made". Upon completion, I examine, then sign and date my Trugs and before shipping, my wife checks every Trug for possible imperfections. If any are discovered, Jaqui brings the trug through into the workshop and it is rectified. I have no way to 'prove' that I never get negative feedback, I wish I could, but perhaps enough to compare my feedback with other businesses? In addition, my Trugs were voted No.1 by the Gardeners World magazine.  Your pictures are accurate but in high magnification, I am sure there are many hand-made items sold that could be faulted while magnified. If you are not happy with my Trug please return it and I will happily refund, but I will not supply another as it will probably be the same, I will not give it special attention - that would be wrong.

My Regards

Kevin & Jaqui

Trug Makers

She did not return the Trug!

My blogpost from last weekend

https://plot7marshlane.blogspot.com/2024/03/woman.html

It’s March and today the Sun is shining. Feels like an allotment kind of day!

I don't know how many of you out there have bought one of those cheap tubular walk in small greenhouses. Well I have! on average one every year! Every new season we discover, what was a greenhouse is now a twisted pile of tubes, plastic bits and a holy cover (that is with holes. There's nothing sacred in our garden. Anyway, fed up with the same annual expense equivalent to my website hosting fee, last March I decided to upgrade one of these greenhouses. In high winds, the tubular components that make up the chassis, tend to separate. Of course it is impossible that they would fall back into place. Once they have separated, it's goodnight greenhouse and now just a kite! So as you can see by the images, I bought a box of 1/2" self-tapping screws (£3), drilled 1/16 pilot holes and at every point a tube meets a joiner, fixed the buggers. One year on, it still stands completely intact. So pleased with myself and the success, I bought another. So now have ample room for millions of seed trays etc. Smart eh! Wife was so pleased, I managed three visits to the snooker club this week.

The start of 2024 has been a rather grim one for many gardeners with their properties being so waterlogged. As I stand and look out of my kitchen window at the desolation of my garden due to gales and high rainfall, it only makes me more determined to get stuck in at the earliest opportunity and make it better than ever. In truth, my wife and I must admit to being shamefully fair-weather gardeners, we need the sun on our back, stripped to the waist (just me, not the wife, neither a good look) and a glass of vintage cider glinting on the decking table.

It says something for both our resolve, considering the catastrophe’s we have suffered over the years, that our garden is not completely paved over! I will explain: -

Catastrophe 1: Last year I constructed a 5-meter-long raised bed for Dahlia’s, a total disaster! Just as they achieved full growth, we realized that as beautiful as they were, the stems were far too short to cut and display without sacrificing many new buds, which would be a shame. Deciding to leave them to bloom in the garden, almost overnight, the entire crop acquired a white powder-like covering on both leaves and flowers and the stems had developed the weirdest twisting contortions. My wife denied using my home-brew cider to promote growth, so the cause remained a mystery. This year we will replace the triffids with Chrysanthemums!

Catastrophe 2: At the rear of our pond is a large are of soil supported by log-roll. The entire area was covered in probably a hundred plus of beautiful Hosta’s, which are apparently a ‘McDonalds’ to slugs! Off the shelf slug pellets were of no use as the foliage was far too dense to apply around the base, anyway, the slugs would only trot along the slabbing around the pond perimeter and leap across to my Hosta’s. As a child my ambition or career intention, was to be a ‘mad inventor,’ so slug purging became my new challenge, to invent a no-slug solution.  And a solution it was! I dissolved a whole bag of table salt in a full watering can (to a slug, salt is the equal of 20,000 volts to a human) making a brine solution and showered the entire Hosta area knowing that nomatter how hungry, no slug would touch them from thereon. The following evening, I found every single plant brown, withered and dying fast, eventually to disappear without trace, never to return. On each subsequent visit to garden centers, I swerved any Hosta display for fear of further retribution or injury from the leader of the opposition in public!

Catastrophe 3: A friend lent me a huge tub of expensive fertilizer. Preparing the soil of a designated area for runner beans, I mixed the contents into the bed. The runner beans were grown against three trellis topped fencing panels which eventually grew to the length of snooker cues, I chopped, blanched, and froze them all. One evening, a neighbor beckoned me over from his garden and handed me a huge bunch of runner beans that would have taken gold in any large veg growing competition. Thinking he was boasting having grown runner beans akin to railway sleepers, I said "no thanks I already have a freezer full". He said "they are not mine, they are yours, they’re growing through the panels on my side". Good stuff that fertilizer, but the catastrophe was, upon cooking, they were tougher than tree bark and tasted similar. All had to be disposed of and a return to Tesco’s to complete our Sunday dinner. I later learned from my ‘ex’-friend that I should have used a handful “NOT THE WHOLE BLEEDING TUB!” Anyway Spring is springing shortly, time to grab my trug that I bought cheap off the head gardener.

1st beds ready for planting 

So it’s roughly 3 months since I got the keys. 
it still doesn’t look like much….

but I have - 

• got a new shed
• got some tools! 
• Cleared the bottom that was overgrown and waist high
• planted onions and garlic as I was so eager!
• planned where paths and beds are to go
• got a compost bin on the go

theres still lots to do ready for spring. I continue to dig over the soil and pull up all the weeds. Then cover them with cardboard to suppress new growth. I hope! 

my garlic is doing well. Onions seem a bit slow… fingers crossed. It’s my first growth and I’m very excited every time I see them! 

Fingers crossed this all works and I can get a bit more done before any frosts arrive….