I had to rope in the help of Mr L and all the little L's (much to their disgust) to get everything moved from the old plot up to the new one. Unfortunately Mr L discovered that he wouldn't be able to take the shed apart so he's going to build me a new one; on the plus side it looks as though it will be bigger and I know it will be very well built because nothing less than perfect will do for him even though I'm more of a "it'll do" kind of person!
The main thing for me was that I didn't want to throw away all of my hard work and, indeed, money! Mr L wanted to take the scaffolding boards from the beds; I wasn't sure how he was going to do it and I was worried that all the soil inside would just collapse out but he was adamant that they should be moved. He therefore set about taking them as well as all of the pallets that he'd brought. He put them on top of my car and drove them up the lane before having the carry them up the path to my plot. It's quite a way and I honestly don't know how he did it. Over the 2 days of the weekend he carried 8 - full sized Euro Pallets, 7 - 13' scaffolding boards and 6 - 6' scaffolding boards. He also put together the bed for my raspberries and 2 of the beds that I'm going to use for my rotation crops.
One of the first things Mr L did was rebuild my compost bin in the corner of my plot so that I could start moving things into it. I intend to have 3 compost bins; the first should be one that you're filling, the second is one that's full but needs leaving to compost down and the third should be compost that's ready to use - usually been breaking down for at least 1 year. My plot currently has 2 compost bins but they're in the wrong place and they both seemed to be full of green waste. Mr L building my new compost bin meant that I could move the green waste and then deconstruct the top one to move; once I'd got into moving it though I realised that more than half of it was compost; when I checked the other it was the same. I moved all of the green waste but because there was so much actual compost I wasn't able to empty it to move it. I'm going to have to sieve the compost to be able to use it, which won't be an easy task but I will need to do it to fill my biggest bed, that I'm intending to put my fruit bushes into. My plan is to have a mix of top soil, garden compost and manure - that is mostly due to cost and necessity than any knowledge so I'm just hoping that it will be OK for my raspberries particularly.
We then had to go back to the old plot that essentially looked like someone had been through it with a sledgehammer (heartbreaking) to uproot all of the plants I wanted to keep. I had already decided that I was going to totally abandon my middle bed and so I was focused on a climber I had at the side of the shed and the fruit bushes in the end bed. I didn't realise how much the raspberry roots spread in such a short space of time and because of that the pots I had to transplant into weren't big enough so I only transplanted 4 out of 6 of my raspberries and my blackcurrant but not my redcurrant. I also left the rhubarb behind but I have another at home so I wasn't so worried about that one. I carried them all up to the new plot, which was a mare given that I have a horrible cough, which was making me sick, and trying to manoeuvre a hard wheeled wheelbarrow with a massive pot full of raspberries up a tiny bumpy lane, at the end of the day when everyone was fed up and tired!
Once we had everything straight at the new plot we went back to the old one for the final time to empty the shed and take anything else, that wasn't going up the hill, home until my new shed is built. I thought we'd moved the majority of things but as we moved everything to the car it became very obvious that it was going to be hard to fit it all in. I had all 3 kids so I couldn't put the seats down - they ended up with plant pots full of stuff on their knees and Littlest L kept saying to give her more! She had the handmower behind her but with the handle over her head and the garden kneeler on her knee. The boys also had their fair share and Mr L ended up with the camping loo on his knee!!
I can't tell you how hard everyone worked this weekend - especially Mr L and I've now got to take a break for 2 weekends because I'm away with work. Mr L has told the little L's that they're going to have to go to the plot every weekend until we've got it sorted. I suspect that won't go well with them when we get to it each week but I'll keep you posted!
Anyway, I'm signing off for now and you won't hear from me for a couple of weeks while I'm away but I hope you all have a great two weeks and don't miss me too much!
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