The Battle Of Netall's Plot

“We shall fight amongst amongst the carrots, we shall fight in the cabbage patch and in the turnip beds, we shall fight on the paths, we shall never surrender.”

Before the Battle

 I don't wish to disparage Churchill’s famous speech in any way, but if he’d been an allotment holder, faced with the invasion of weeds that I have this year, he might well have said that.

As already mentioned, the house move and taming of a new garden has meant some neglect of the plot, and a few weeks back I decided to tackle it.

My plan for this year was to leave a large area fallow, and skim off the weeds as they appeared, but that idea soon went belly up as the more invasive weeds took hold, so I decided to strim it.

“It’s easy”, said the Son in law, as he handed me the machine he’d lent me, “ just press that and pull this, and Bob’s your uncle”.

I asked my  neighbour Bob if we were related when I got down to the plot, but he just looked blank and watched with mounting interest as I tackled the strimmer.

I followed the instructions religiously, checked petrol, set choke, and  pressed knob three times as instructed (stop giggling at the back there), but when I pulled the string, nothing happened. So I pulled again, more vigorously and prolonged this time, but still nothing. After about ten minutes of pulling and swearing, I gave up exhausted and sat on the bench.

All the while I could feel Bob’s eyes on me, and eventually he muttered, “If it’s owt like mine you’ve got to flick that red switch on’t top, to ON”.

What red switch ? The Son in Law never mentioned any red switch !  But he was right, on inspection there was one and it was in the OFF position !

Having now started at the first pull, it stalled straight away as it got hold of my trouser leg and worried it like a demented terrier, but eventually I was on my way.

After about an hour of attacking everything in sight I took stock, and although there was some effect it was not as much as I’d expected. There were weeds in that patch that would have withstood a flame thrower, never mind a strimmer.  The stalks of thistles stood laughing at my attempt to mow them down,  and I could see the couch grass re-growing as I stood there.

The enemy, Couch grass.

Also, I was covered from head to foot in flayed vegetable matter, and stinging from the pebble shrapnel being thrown up, that even had Bob ducking 20 yards away.

So I gave up and dug it all over instead, which took quite a few days.

The dead and dying

It was a long hard battle, but surveying the dead and dying enemy baking in the midday sun, I knew it was worth it in the end.

The Victor