Dereks Diary Part 2

I am at Portmadog on my grandson's computer.Forgot to tell you yesterday that we were coming here.We have just come to exchange Christmas presents so we are only staying overnight and will be back home tomorrow.
Another thing I forgot to mention last week is that the National Vegetable Society have an advert in Garden News for my two veg books"Getting started on the showbench" and "Getting started on the allotment" because they will make good Christmas presents for somebody.However,I was rather disappointed that the advert didn't say that I had written them.Garden News readers are familiar with me because I write in the paper each month so if they had been told that I was the author more may have sold.Each book is £3.99 plus £1.50 postage but they are offering both books for £6.00 plus £1.90 postage.

Yes , I had a full days gardening today. Went on the allotment this morning and finished forking over the bed that had grown potatoes. Dug a lot more potatoes up that I had missed when digging them up in August and most of them were still usable.
In the afternoon I finished forking over the border round the back lawn. I grow pansies in the part of the border nearest the house but they have not done very well the last two years. I therefore decided to change the soil with some soil from farther along the border. Decided to do this in case growth was being affected by a disease called pansy sickness.
I also finished what I was doing with tidying up the plants in the greenhouse.

Johnny Woods, the secretary at the veg meeting that I go to, phoned to say that he has got my "Pendle improved" leeks from David Metcalfe (the raiser). We arranged to meet this afternoon , as we always do when he has something for me, at a place between where we both live. They are in 12 sectioned cell trays . They will have to stay in the house till I have finished cleaning my greenhouse.
I carried on with the greenhouse the rest of the day. I told you yesterday that I had removed all the plants. Today I removed everything else. There were seed trays, plant pots and pieces of glass that go over the propagator, trays that cover the staging and seed trays. Swept clean the staging and all the shelves and sprayed them with armillatox. There is a large home made propagator in here as well and I swept out and sprayed this as well. Swept all the rubbish from the floor and cleaned the windows inside. Left the door open to get rid of the smell of armillatox before I carry on tomorrow.

Not been able to do any gardening for the last two days but I went on the allotment this morning. I intended carrying on weeding where I was doing last time I went. However it was a bit frosty and this bed was still shaded by nearby houses. So I decided to start weeding the runner bean/sweet pea bed which is at the other side of the allotment and in full sun so the ground had thawed out there.

Just had the afternoon for gardening today. Remembered that I had about 12 more shallots which I had forgotten about yesterday so I potted these up. Emptied a lot of pots which contained plants that had died or that I had discarded . Spent the rest of the time moving plants back into the propagating greenhouse from the other one .There is enough plants in here now.

Went to the allotment this morning hoping to start digging the trenches for my runner beans and sweet peas. As soon as I arrived though, it started pouring down. I just sat in the car for a while listening to a tape and drinking coffee( I always take a flask ). It did stop after a while but I thought it was too wet to do any digging. I just marked out the positions of the trenches with canes ready for next time I go then came home.
I started sorting all my canes of which I have hundreds. I examine each one to see if it is sound and sort them into sizes and tie them up in bundles. I do all this in the greenhouse. When I transferred plants back into the propagating greenhouse I left one side of the larger greenhouse free of plants to give me room for sorting the canes.