'Things to do' list, an experiment. And a sulk about buying compost.

Alright, so, a minor experiment.

I think, if I'm not hungover (could be hungover), I can manage five hours on the plot tomorrow before I have to do family things. Five hours is actually quite a long time for the little jobs I need to do, I reckon, so I'm going to set myself some fairly aggressive targets. I've got to take some plants over, to dig them into the ground, which could take two trips. But that's ok, give me an excuse to refill my thermos. Anyway, here's what I could achieve if I try:

Must do:

• plant runner bean seedlings
• plant spinach seedlings
• water beds
• thin out beet seedlings
• weed beds
• prepare courgette bed
• plant potatoes

Would also like to:

• finish pea cage (abhorrent nightmare job that has turned into)
• hacksaw blue bin into two strawberry pots
• plant courgette
• make a strawberry planter (this has to wait until last, it could take me days)
• turn wood mountain into discreet wood pile
• hack back a bit of couch grass
• plant parsnip/more carrot seeds
• dig out hose from under pile of matting and couch grass
• move waterbutt
• grab couple bagfuls of leaves from leaf bay for covered beds 

When I write it down like that it sounds a bit easy (apart from the strawberry planter), and I think if I just worked hard I could do it. I just spend too much time fucking about. Fucking about is fine. Enjoyable, bit after only having one day down there in about a week, I've got to get some stuff done. Then I've got to cajole Mr G into helping me get some (yet more, always more) compost. This whole no dig bed notion is very attractive, but fuck me, it's organic material thirsty. I was bought some strawberry plants, which will definitely need compost (I didn't want these plants, explaining I was growing some alpine strawberries, albeit slowly) and I still have a bed of rock hard heavy clay that could do with a couple of hundred litres of compost before I can forget about it. Then in October, I can cover it with lots more expensive compost and manure, and then in the spring I can do that again and then I can plant stuff in it. This sounds easy in comparison to digging soil that one's spade bounces off, but until I have a substantial amount of homemade compost from my own bins, its a lot of cash. I hear rumours about getting municipal from the council delivered to the allotment site, but its mythical as far as I can tell. I've also become sceptical about the no-dig method's ability to really change the structure of very hard clay soils. How does it do it? Just worms? These worms would have to be superheroes.
I'm feeling negative about it because of the cost, and because of the difficulties, I know. If I drove, if I wasn't trying to do everything on a shoestring, I wouldn't be so nervy about it. 

But I've set my course, and I need to stick to it. All I can do now is what I can do. So lets hope I can do what's on the list.