At last the rain has stopped

After about 9 weeks of almost continuous soggy, snowy, rainy days during which it has been impossible to advance any more with the new plot, this morning was fine, bright and dry. It was still a little soggy underfoot and demanded wellies but I managed to advance the trench another couple of feet. It's much harder work than I remember but I suppose I am a little out of condition with the long lay off!

Just glad to be back on the ground....

Frosty start today but the sun is shining

Early on the allotment as the sun is shining. Despite the quite hard frost to start with, I managed to work up a sweat and advance the cause by another yard or so. I reckon I am about a third of the way now.

It's slow going

I am advancing slowly down the new plot. I am having to go down to the red clay sub-soil, 2ft under the surface and the bramble roots still go down! 

The work consists of hacking away a chunk of earth from the "cliff-face" I am creating with the Azada and then working through each chunk with my fingers to pull out the twisting bramble roots. It takes about an hour to go across the plot, 2ft deep and about 1 ft forward. With 75 feet to go it will take some time....

I decided to take a break from the grind by starting to clear back the huge brambles from the boundary under the trees. It has made a huge difference to the daylight striking the plot. It has also left me with a massive bonfire to light if the rain ever stops to let it dry out.

Nice weather, barrow will have to wait

At last a bit of dry sunny weather so I am attacking the new overgrown allotment. It's very hard going with quite heavy wet soil and loads of bramble roots. However a couple of days has seen a fair start underway. And anothe huge pile of roots to burn when they dry out. I am having to use the azada to go down 18 inches to get all the root out. A very slow heavy job.

Barrow progress

Cut and rough shaped handles..

and form the axle end....

Put it all together and it's starting to look like a wheelbarrow...

A Victorian Style Wheelbarrow

I have been very kindly given a large amount of dismantled pallet wood which is in excellent condition.  This has whetted my appetite to build something of use. I will be using some of it to extend my composter but I thought I would tackle a bigger challenge.

I have no wheelbarrow at the allotment and was considering buying one but the arrival of the timber prompted me to consider MAKING ONE!

So I am building my take on a traditional Victorian Wooden Wheelbarrow. 

I have not yet decided whether I will try to fabricate the wooden wheel as I have bought some very nice pneumatic wheels on eBay which would fit. 

STAGE 1

This is where the idea was born... a rough sketch...

I then mapped out the side shape on thick card plotting the widths of the pallet planks.

Using this as a template I cut the 3 side planks for each side with a hand saw and electric jigsaw.

Then screwed supports around the edges.

 

after more timber cutting, drilling and screwing I have ended up with a fairly reasonable facsimile of the tub of the wheelbarrow, I will be smoothing and sanding the whole thing before treating the wood....

That's it for this afternoon. The next stage will be to construct and fit the handles and side rails. Then it will be time to decide on the type of wheel I am going with and to fabricate the axle mechanism. I have all the parts waiting to be cut and drilled etc.

Watch this space....

Tidying up

I made an exploratory start on the new allotment, albeit you could hardly call it an allotment yet! As I suspected it is even more choked with bramble roots and will be very slow going.

I have decided that the best approach will be to start a deep trench at one end, taking out all the roots I find, then gradually moving the trench along the plot until the whole lot is cleared.

Meantime I have trenched all along the path that separates the 2 plots to try to stop the roots making their way onto the good plot.

We are allowed to have bonfires from next month so at least I will have a way of getting rid of the mass of roots I will end up with.

Plus a little time spent making the original plot tidy...