Plot 2, Mostly cleared and ready to go

Jez planting onions.

Milly digging up leeks.

A nicely prepared bed, ready for onions.

Potato bed still covered in muck and straw.

The plot at the beginning of the season.

The plot at the beginning of the season.

Is Spring in The Air ?

I've been very busy on the plot over the last couple of days, as the rain has finally stopped for a rest! I finally finished preparing the raspberry bed (next to the greenhouse) by edging it with lawn edging and covering it with a thick layer of well rotted manure. It's now partly planted up with 6 canes of Glen Ample, & 1 of AllGold. I hope to fill the space with some Autumn Bliss.

This is the front of the plot, with a lovely pallet fence...! I've decided to put in some 'edible hedge' planting along here, so started clearing the ground on Staurday. I finished the job this morning, and the first plants to go in were 5 bare-root blackthorn - Sloes! Still to plant in here are a couple of redcurrant bushes, and possibly a blackcurrant, although the space isn't really big enough...?!

Just a quick view up the plot from the gate, the black hump at the left-hand side is going to be the kid's bed divided into 3 1.2m x 1.2m sections. They're all trying to decide what they want to grow, with seed catalogues galore!

Hypermobility Syndrome - Do YOU have it??

I promised ages ago that I would do a post about this, and having just received my membership renewal pack from The Hypermobility Syndrome Association (HMSA) with plenty of info. and a request to spread the word, I figure now is a good time! So, some questions:

• Were you particularly good at gymnastics or ballet when you were younger due to your suppleness?
• Have you ever had any 'double-joints'?
• Did you have problems with your joints in your teens, way before you were 'supposed to'? (ie. I had a disc prolapse at 16, my sister dislocated her knee twice before 18, my friend had Osgood Schlatter's in her knee at about 14)
• Have you had any joint problems (feet,ankles,knees,hips,back,shoulders,neck,elbows, wrists) which seemed to take forever to heal, or never have?
• Are you unreasonably tired after seeming to do very little?
• Do your joints ache a lot, especially at 'that time of the month'?
• Are you considered 'clumsy' and crash into things/burn yourself/cut yourself more often than seems reasonable?
• Do you twist or 'go over on' your ankle more often than you like?
• Do you suffer Irritable Bowel Syndrome?
• Do you have panic attacks, or phobias, or suffer depression or OCD or PTSD?
• Have you ever suffered at the dentist or in hospital because the local anaesthetic seems not to work properly?
• Have you had an unreasonable amount of gynae problems, incl premature labour or haemorraging in labour?
• Do other members of your family suffer from any of the things mentioned above?

If you can answer 'yes' to any of those questions, you should probably read on...! (I'll put the proper diagnostic criteria at the end, as it's rather long!)

Ok, so, what is Hypermobility Syndrome?

Here's what HMSA say

"Connective tissue proteins such as collagen give the body its intrinsic toughness. When they are differently formed, the results are mainly felt in the "moving parts" - the joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments - which are laxer and more fragile than is the case for most people. The result is joint laxity with hypermobility and with it comes vulnerability to the effects of injury. The Hypermobility Syndrome is said to exist when symptoms are produced, a state of affairs that may affect only a minority of hypermobile people."

So, basically, your collagen structure is different, which makes you more stretchy and your joints a bit slack ("double-jointed"). However, you can be this bendy or slack, and NOT suffer any pain or problems, in which case you are 'hypermobile'. If you start to suffer from pain or problems, this is Hypermobility Syndrome.

But, it seems like there's a lot more to it than that. It seems to be possible to have no symptoms at all in the joints, but still to suffer from other problems listed above. At the moment, research is not prolific, and a lot of the links are being made anecdotally, but they seem to happen far too regularly in the already diagnosed HMS sufferer to be coincidental.

The related illnesses/problems already linked with HMS, and backed by research are;

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS)

Chronic pain/Fybromyalgia

Problems in labour

Local anaesthetic resistance

Longer healing times, and more pronounced scarring of the skin.

Increased tendency to 'Phobic states' incl. PTSD, OCD, Agaraphobia etc.

Repetetive Strain Injury

Early-onset Osteoarthritis

Proprioception & Kinaesthesia disfunction - this is your brain's automatic awareness of where your body is in space especially your extremities like hands and feet. In people with HMS this is often not functioning correctly and can lead to bumps & bangs as well as more serious things like cutting fingers during food prep and burning yourself on the iron/oven.

Anecdotally (or unproven) related illnesses/problems include;

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

PMT

Migraine

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME

Restless legs

This isn't an exhaustive list, but as you can see, there's quite a lot to take in!

If you feel that any of this might apply to you, I would encourage you to go and have a look at http://www.hypermobility.org/ where you will find loads of information, and a really great forum where the members are happy to answer questions (although they aren't medical people and can only give the benefit of their personal experience) and are generally nice to newbies!

After you've done a bit of research, you should raise the matter with your GP, who should be able to refer you to a suitable clinic/rheumatologist/hypermobility-trained physio in your area. There is no 'cure' for HMS, but an awareness of what is causing your problems often helps you to feel less helpless, and also affects the type of physio you may be given as traditional physio can often make the problem worse.

Beighton Score

Score one point if you can bend and place you hands flat on the floor without bending your knees.

Score one point for each elbow that will bend backwards.

Score one point for each knee that will bend backwards.

Score one point for each thumb that will bend downwards to touch the forearm.

Score one point for each hand when you can bend the little finger back beyond 90°.

REVISED DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA FOR THE BENIGN JOINT HYPERMOBILITY SYNDROME (BJHS)
Major Criteria
· A Beighton score of 4/9 or greater (either currently or historically)
· Arthralgia for longer than 3 months in 4 or more joints
Minor Criteria
· A Beighton score (See above) of 1, 2 or 3/9 (0, 1, 2 or 3 if aged 50+)
· Arthralgia (Pain) (>3 months) in one to three joints, or back pain (>3 months), spondylosis, spondylolysis/spondylolisthesis.
· Dislocation/subluxation in more than one joint, or in one joint on more than one occasion.
· Soft tissue rheumatism. (inflammation of soft-tissue i.e. tendons) >3 lesions (e.g. epicondylitis, tenosynovitis, bursitis).
· Marfanoid habitus (ratio of body to leg length) (tall, slim, span/height ratio >1.03, upper: lower segment ratio less than 0.89, arachnodactily [positive Steinberg/wrist signs].
· Abnormal skin: striae, hyper-extensibility, thin skin, papyraceous scarring.
· Eye signs: drooping eyelids or myopia or antimongoloid slant.
· Varicose veins or hernia or uterine/rectal prolapse.
The BJHS is diagnosed in the presence two major criteria, or one major and two minor criteria, or four minor criteria. Two minor criteria will suffice where there is an unequivocally affected first-degree relative.

Snow!!

The first snow of 2008!
The veggies still in the ground - savoy cabbages, red brussels sprouts, leeks & swedes look lovely don't they? They should all stand up to the snow ok, I hope!


























Not much hope of getting on with the digging of my raspberry bed though... Although the plants are in containers & not 'bareroot', I'd really like to get them in before they start sprouting in Spring! Ah well, whatever will be, will be!

Greenhouse, then to now...

Well, after several PC breakdowns, we've finally got a new one... Still battling with the terrible new operating system (which for legal reasons will remain nameless), but I've managed to upload my photos, so this is going to be a MAJOR update!

At the end of the last post, we had just got the greenhouse up, a fairly major undertaking - think Meccano on a grand scale, with rubbish instructions and you'll be somewhere near!

http://www.norfolk-greenhouses.co.uk/shop/buy-Greenhouses-Standard.php

This is the greenhouse we bought (the Standard 12, which is about 6'x12'), and despite what I said above I would recommend it to anyone on a budget - it's big enough, the covering is good with good light transmission, the rear window will take an automatic opener with minimal modification, and it seems to retain heat well too.

Anyway, enough of the waffle already, here's some pics;

This was the exciting moment of starting to fill the greenhouse, on 10th June.

The plan was to have tomato plants in the first half, left and right - nearer to the door for ventilation, then cucumbers and chillis in the second half - cucumbers nearer to the centre for more humidity. Every plant in there was grown from seed at home, so I feel quite proud looking at this picture.

The tomato plants are; Pink Brandywine, Black Russian, Ailsa Craig and Roma which were left over from last year, San Marzano and Rio Grande plum tomatoes which I'm trying for the first time this year. Don't think I'll bother with the Brandywine again next year - too many of them are suffering with blossom end rot this year, and I only got about 2 fruits per plant last year... Bad yield for the effort involved!

Everything Else...

Of course plenty of things have been happening apart from the greenhouse. Where to start?!

On my last post, at the beginning of June, I'd planted potatoes in bed #3 and tubs, the onions, shallots & garlic were in bed #1, I had a bed ready for courgettes etc., and bed #2 was being sieved.

So, bed #1 ;

The weather hasn't been kind to my onions, and they were all badly attacked by slugs & snails. A lot of the red ones went to seed, even though I paid extra for heat-treated ones. The shallots and garlic did better to begin with, but eventually the garlic succumbed to rust, and the shallots were in danger of rotting in the wet ground.

The shallots were a reasonable size, so I decided to harvest them even though the foliage hadn't died off - they might not store brilliantly, but at least they wouldn't rot in the ground!

I lifted them on July 7th, on a reasonably dry day, and laid them out on a pallet to dry off.

Oh 'eck... it's well after midnight, and I'm struggling to keep me eye's open...! Think I'm going to have to kaffle - I promise I won't leave it a month to tell you about my potatoes... Although I don't suppose you'll be as interested as I am :)

Potatoes, and a greenhouse.

I know you shouldn't start a sentence with 'because', but I'm going to anyway...;

Beacause I didn't start this blog until 3 months after I started rescuing 'the lottie', there's quite a lot to catch up with, so please excuse me if I miss anything out, or seem out of sequence with myself....

So, potatoes...

Back in January (when I knew I was getting a plot, but hadn't seen it), I got a little carried away with my seed order (?!) and ordered 3 types of seed potato - Desiree main crop, Charlotte salad and new variety Harlequin second earlies. Once I had actually seen the plot in early February, I knew I was going to have my work cut out to get ground ready to plant them all in, as well as the onion sets, shallots and garlic that I mentioned earlier. After the weeks it seemed to take to prepare the onion bed, I knew I had my work cut out! So I had to look for some solution, and it needed to be quick - the weather was warming up sooner than expected, and all around me other plot-holders were getting their spuds in the ground! Cue the wise Grapes on The Grapevine, with some great advice;

1. Mark out a bed, and loosen the soil. Take out any large roots which work loose turning the soil.

2. Cover the bed with a layer of cardboard (preferably the thick corrugated box sort) and dampen.

3. Cover the cardboard with a thick mulch of 'organic matter' - homemade compost, or well rotted manure

4. Cover the whole lot with weed suppressing membrane.

5. Leave for a week or so

6. Cut holes through membrane, push a trowel through mulch and what's left of the cardboard, and push your seed potato as far down as possible.

So that's what we did with the Desiree.

And, this is what they looked like a few days ago!

I'm really pleased with how they're doing so far, and the occasional weed which is managing to push through is really easy to pull out. Result!

We decided to take the same approach for other veg that can cope with being planted through plastic, and the next bed has been prepared ready for squash, courgettes and outdoor cucumbers. They are hardening off in a cold-frame at home, to be planted out in a week or so. More later!

The salad potatoes needed a different solution, and we decided to use Spud Tubs - basically a big, black, polypropolene tube - I used them last year, and they worked fine. So the Harequin (a cross between Charlotte & Pink Fir Apple) were planted in those on the lottie, and the Charlotte in big patio tubs at home. Since then I've been gradually adding compost, until the tubs were full. They are looking super healthy, and hopefully we'll get a good crop.

I know, the middle one's wonky!

The job I'm in the middle of now, is still the joy of sieving soil - bed #2 still isn't clear, and I have sweetcorn plants nearly growing out of the top of the cold-frame, desperate to be in there!

Progress so far;

Only a third left to do!

And I've saved the best bit 'til last!!

Greenhouse!!!!