Can he fix it?

As many of you are all too acutely aware, sometimes the magnificence of my intelligence simply knows no beginning. For several years i've been fighting a losing battle against white rot on my plot. I've tried applications of Basamid on sections of my soil where this is viable, such as the greenhouse borders and raised beds where I grow the long leeks and 250g onions. It's a rigmarole as the soil has to be a certain temperature and you have to cover it with polythene so the gases don't escape. However, this has only met with limited success and I still lose about 40% of my crop. This year I've decided to grow celery in the long bed where I usually grow 250g onions, so this meant I had to find somewhere else to grow them. To apply this very toxic substance on the garden in general is unrealistic so I have fashioned these rather fetching shallow planters out of old planks that I've stapled black plastic sheeting to. This has given me some quite nice looking, portable planters that are currently helping to hold down the tarpaulin on the next batch of land where I want to prevent a load of shrubs, weeds and grass from photosynthesising over the summer and thus kill it all, freeing up even more veg growing land next season.
These are Red Barion....

....and these are Setton.

I have filled them with a layer of sieved rough shite (compost and bagged topsoil) from my carrot and parsnip compost mixes, with a scattering of sulphate of potash and Tev04, then some M3 for planting into. There should be absolutely no chance of these onions getting white rot now! However, I have so many onions in trays ready for planting out as I'd decided I needed to grow more so that the 40% lossage meant I still had plenty to choose from, so I still need to make a few more planters. Luckily a friend is able to purloin several planks for me from a local building firm. Health and Safety means builders are no longer allowed to step on a scaffold board with the slightest split....thankfully for me! I still have 5 trays of Setton and 4 trays of Vento to plant out....some of these may have to take their chances in the soil! As long as I can make a decent set of 4 for the Malvern Millennium Class out of that lot i'll be happy.



I don't know if it's the impending holiday urging me into action, or Spring that puts an extra bounce in your step but I do feel in the mood to get jobs done at the moment, even small household maintenance jobs seem only minor inconveniences. Our bath water has been running painfully slowly down the plughole for several years and with 3 daughters and a wife that have dyed and titivated their barnets ad infinitum our plughole is always clogged up with hair (well they can't blame me!). We got some stuff that you poured down the plughole that was supposed to 'eat' hair but it didn't improve matters so I decided drastic action was required. Off came the bath panel and the U-bend was duly disconnected, although not before the very obviously hazardous chemical came spilling out over my bare arm causing pain like a rat had clamped onto it! Upon up-ending the U-bend a disgusting gloop of semi-solid material splatted into the handbasin. I called the clan upstairs to view this putrid pile of fur and fuzz in order to show them what their years of hair paranoia had produced and sent them back downstairs with a flea in their ears for causing me to endure such a disgusting task. However, when they'd left I did a closer inspection and realised that there ma-a-a-a-a-y also have been several long carrot and parsnip 'hairs', various lumps of compost and vermiculite from when I wash my roots in the bath each show season! I think I got away with it though. I daren't contemplate the kitchen sink where I wash my spuds!



And I've been on tenterhooks the past few days waiting to see what those Yorkshire bastards were going to do with a passport photo of me from 30 years ago that my eldest daughter naughtily posted on Facebook. I can't stand the suspense anymore so I may as well grasp the nettle and plonk it on here. Big hair was the in-thing in those days and I blocked some plugholes in my time with that thatch. As you can see there is some 4 stone or so that Leesa isn't married to! Rest assured the photos of me in my punk rock days will never, ever, ever see the light of day again!