News from the salad tosser, or just a load of old coblers?

I have a reader! An official reader, other than Wilbach of course. Thank you Coblers for the lovely message. It's so nice to receive confirmation of the non futility of this exercise, even if it is abusive. But what I really want to know is how did Mr Cobler know I grew salad. In case you're wondering, and because I'm not quite sure whether you can see my comments, I have been called a tosser (not a perfumed ponce), or at least that I sound like a tosser. I've always had confidence in my ability to be irritating, as I'm sure my friends will confirm, but I never realised I could do it remotely. A new string to my bow. What I don't understand is what attracted Giles to the site in the first place, perhaps all the other readers can let me know, in other words bring on the feedback.

The abuse isn't particularly welcome but it will be helpful. I've had the great pleasure of being entertained this evening by Manmen, my Spanish lodger, and a couple of her friends. We have been watching the X-factor and indulging in some of our own remote verbal abuse (i.e. shouting at the TV). Not sure how the subject came up but I've been teaching them, by request, some traditional British insults, so new examples would be welcomeish, ideally with a Spanish translation. It's been an illuminating evening so far, so further heckles may come in handy for these dark winter nights.

Which leads me on nicely to the supposed theme of this blog.......

..A full time job and dark nights make allotmenteering in the winter months a sporadic affair. It's weekends only at the moment and the main tasks seem to be digging and muck spreading (a hobby Giles Cobler seems to enjoy). If you're planning to jump on the allotment bandwagon now is the time to do it, dark nights or not. The weeds are at their weakest so it's the perfect time to block out the light and kill everything off ready for a fresh start next March. Of course the winter crops are excluded from this, the Christmas sprouts must live.

So, assuming you have your new plot ready to go, get some light excluding material, ideally this should be a large quantity of horse manure, and cover every part of the plot that you would like make good. If using horse manure make it as deep as you can, a foot deep would be ideal, as the worms will take it all down into the soil by next year ready for a reasonably easy dig over. If you can't get any manure the next best thing is thick black plastic weighted down with bricks, this will exclude the light and prevent growth. Hopefully in march you will uncover a pretty bare patch of soil with some weak and struggling weed shoots which can easily be removed.

I'll stop now with the useful advice as I have a heckler news update, and official confirmation of two readers, oh joy, my life does have a point. Shove a what up my where, Justin? This isn't going to do your application to the diplomatic service any good you know. But never mind, you can sleep safely in the knowledge that your attempt at abuse has provided me with further confirmation that my blog is being read. I thank you.

I can't help wonder if my two hecklers heckle for a hobby. Are they wasting time in work waiting for the whistle to blow? Or are they scanning the web in the wee small hours looking for people to bother with their anonymous invective, between looking at other, more exotic websites. Wherever, and whenever it is, I can only imagine they are doing it alone. I shouldn't be too harsh with these two, I probably do sound like a tosser, and I am a Scouse git. But I have enough confidence in my allotment skills to know that the marrows I grow would never fit where Justin is suggesting.

So 50% for Justin, and 100% for Giles. Well done boys, and good luck.