Pig Sty Avenue

The photo doesn't show much detail, and frankly the details are tedious: I've moved 20-something barrowfulls of earth from the East to West side, and another 12 or so to go. But look at that beautiful blue sky. Lovely February weather, the ground hard and frosty first thing in the morning, but by lunchtime it's Spring. And I'm beginning to think I'll be ready by Easter if not by St Patrick's day. The crop rotation plan is coming to me as I fill barrows and move them around. North at the top. Salmon (?) coloured stripe up the middle is the path. Black bit to the north east is mostly pond, to the south unexcavated greenhouse foundations, midden and shed. The red area is the North West, Blue the Midwest, and Green the South West bed. Beige on the right is the Middle East bed. To keep it straightforward, and reproducible, I'm going to follow the RHS 4 year system, here , with the beds numbered 1, 2, 3 down the Eastern side, (red, blue, green) and 4...

It was good to have been here at New Year.  You realize how much of Shanghai's population is made up of migrant workers who went home for the holiday when you see how many flats are in darkness, nights.  And the streets are quiet, just the foreigners and Shanghainese. It reminded me of being in Barcelona in August, it gave a sense of belonging. And the year really has turned, New Year's day itself was the mildest and sunniest day we've had since I got here in December.  This morning, the third day of the year, with a 4% waxing crescent moon, it's lovely and sunny and mild and I've not put the wee electric bar fire on for once. I'm going to check out the flower market at the end of Wanhangdu Road, see if there are plant pots and compost for the herb seeds I brought from Scotland.  A previous occupant of the flat had left a load of twigs, over a yard long, tied to a pipe in the utility room. One's a woody, a bit like birch, and the rest are green and stick...

We ate the last onion of 2006 last night. The rest of the meal was made up of vegetables from the shop. This is shameful. We planted some absurdly early first early potatoes under glass back in January , but they only began to grow a few weeks ago, and won't crop until June at the earliest. I'm blogging this now to put down a marker, and remind myself that we don't want to be in this situation this time next year. The answer is, more root vegetables stored, more spring cabbage, and quite a lot of all-year-round things like chard (and rocket [?]) Incidentally, whilst googling around this idea, I turned up an article about The Cattle Trade and Agrarian Change on the Eve of the Railway Age . The link's there so that I can get back and read it when I get an idle moment - God only knows when that'll be.