17 May 2009

After many years...

I'd like to think I'm finally winning the battle with the hedge. This is further helped by the new neighbour who maintains trees and hedges for the National Trust which is a bit of a bonus. For his professional reputation I should point out that most of the hacking of that hedge was carried out by me!

Looking down the plot - OK it's a mess, but at the bottom of the plot you can see the remaining few bits of the hedge adjoining the plots below as well.



Looking up the plot - the hedge at the top of the plot looking like it's well maintained... It's not.



Out and about on the plot everything has picked up in the rains, and strangely I've not seen any slugs or snails??? Even saw a few bees around on Saturday, so feeling pleased I left the comfrey go to flower:



The dwarf peas are picking up a treat and remain largely unblemished by either bird or slug attack today. Not entirely sure why, maybe the fewer trees on site is finally helping, but they also have some twigs from the hedge and string to help protect them:



Discovery
I've finally made it into the old greenhouse and cleared out one of the beds. Well I say cleared out, but I'll be digging out glass from there for many years to come. I'm finding it absolutely fascinating sorting it out and the picture below does not do it justice. The base is about 90cm high, and approximately 3 x 7 metres - yes it was vast! What you can't see in the picture (and can't really be captured) is a water tank to the left of where I took the photo from. This is set into the ground and is about 50cm deep, but is fed into by the much larger tank outside via a pipe through the wall - presumably the outside tank collecting the water off the greenhouse?

It has to be remembered that this has been there for many years now, the site is on a very steep hill and on the outskirts of Sheffield so quite how whoever built it got the materials there is beyond me! I still harbour thoughts of putting a polytunnel over this base, but I don't think it's as stable as it once was.




Any mycologists out there?
In tidying up the plot I found a small patch of mushrooms next to the (privet) hedge, growing in amongst the old bits of hedge I know use to bean sticks and the dead leaves. Now I've no idea what these are and am wondering if they are edible at all. Now my wife's cousin (an 'amateur' mushroom hunter, but by her own admission, no expert) seems to think they could be St George's mushrooms. Anyone have any thoughts???





4 comments:

The Mulch said...

I wouldn't want to be the one to say eat it, but I looks like St George which also looks a bit like the Deathcap.

Google Rogers Mushrooms if you are wanting to eat them and you can post your pictures to their forum who will be more qualified to answer the question

Greenmantle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Greenmantle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
pj said...

how do you get away with apple trees - the council come round and cut ours down as its against the Sheffield allotment rules?