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| MY PLOT BEFORE WORK COMMENCEMENT. |
It has been a month since I accepted the allotment plot and as keen as I have been to get started, varying factors have affected the first official forking, until today that is.
Up before the lark and with the intention of making this Sunday my first gardening day, I packed a few basic tools: spade, fork, wellies, flask of tea and a banana for mid~morning energy, and marched the few hundred yards from home to the site, arriving a little after nine o'clock.
Larks get up quite late around here!
I was aware that the overall size of my plot was on the generous side, with the dimensions measuring up at 45 feet by 20 feet, giving a total area of 900 square feet. Metric measurement = 13.7 metres by 6.1 metres, giving a total area of 83.5 square metres. (All measurements and calculations being of the Ish)
There is room along one side for an expansion of approximately 45 feet by 5 or 6 feet, which would give an additional area of 250 square feet (Ish) only this is rather overgrown and will probably not be ready for any planting this side of 2019.
By the time I'd had a little tidy up, removing pieces of plastic and other ugly litter, the joy of digging had begun at around ten o'clock. At this stage, with so much digging to do in the very short period left for soil preparation, all of which should have been done at least a month or two ago, times are important as the need to assess how long it is going to take to dig the whole plot is crucial for a nerd.
After approximately three hours of single digging in soil that was heavily compacted and quite claggy due to the moisture content plus the fact that the plot has been left dormant for several seasons, the total length of tilled soil was 6 feet along the 45 feet long edge.
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| MY PLOT AFTER 3 HOURS SINGLE DIGGING |
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| MY PLOT AFTER 3 HOURS SINGLE DIGGING |
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| MY PLOT AFTER 3 HOURS SINGLE DIGGING |
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| MY PLOT AFTER 3 HOURS SINGLE DIGGING |
So, working the maths, that is 6 feet divided by 3 hours equals 2 feet per hour. With 39 feet of length left to dig, this should take me somewhere in the region of 20 hours to complete.
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| MY PLOT AFTER 3 HOURS SINGLE DIGGING |
"Can you Dig It?"
"Guess I'll have to!"
