25th November

Last week we had our yearly soil association inspection.

It takes a full day, with a tour of the tunnels and the field, this part does not take very long, as it is obvious there are no chemicals getting used, then it is all paperwork.

All our invoices for what we have bought in need to be checked that they have an organic certificate.

All the seeds I have sown through the year get checked they are organic.

We also have a harvesting book which we record what we harvest every day.

It is good for my records, but it is also to check for example, if I sow five thousand cabbages, but harvest 6 thousand, where have the other thousand cabbages come from, and if I bought them in where is that certificate.

So, it is a very thorough inspection, but it is only one day, once a year.

Last week I was talking about my thoughts of making a willow tree and pallet shed.

We have far too many pallets lying around, and in the past, I have made lean to sheds out of pallets for storing the trays for bringing plants on and another lean to shed for our crates we harvest in.

The pallets work well as the wind can get through and helps dry anything out that is wet.

And we have a lot of willow trees that are a windbreak, they do need thinned out.

So, I thinned out the willow trees, and eventually got thirty-five fairly straight and thick trunks.

I dung holes one meter deep for each willow tree post, and screwed pallets to them.

I now have a shed ten meter wide by five meters long, it is three meters high and the front and two meters at the back.

So far, I have only spent £44.30 on screws.

Now I’m ready for putting the roof on, I did have a grand plan on trying to only buy screws and green polythene for the roof, which would be a total of £180.

But I now think I will need to buy nice perfectly flat timber for the roof truces, if I don’t, I will not get the polythene roof tight, and it is a big lean too roof, it needs to be tight.

And the willow trees are pretty straight but not good enough for the roof.

One of my hopes is that the willow trees start to grow, and we will end up with a living shed.

Through the years we have cut willow trees right back and they just grow.

We have also made the willow windbreak with just cutting side shoots of, and pretty much just shove them in the ground and walk away.

So, it would not surprise me if these willow posts start to re grow.