Free Vegetables

[Twenty Inch]

Some of you know I have an allotment, mainly for because I like growing food and cooking fresh vegetables, slightly because I resent supermarkets' power and quite enjoy being subversive by eating a fresh swede I've grown myself, but mostly because I like growing free food. OF course, for free food you need fertility, so when I saw a freegle add for free manure, I was delighted.

Loaded the BX up with about 200kg of free manure, and got two miles down the road when the back end went down, the steering went heavy and the brakes evaporated. I'd bust a hydraulic line and had no suspension, steering or brakes - they all run off the same system. So I started limping home with hazards on, and was within 1/2 a mile of the allotment when I drove into a combined VOSA/HMRC/Police/Environmental health checkpoint at the side of the road. Well they ALL had a go at me, with the result that I got an instant prohibition on driving any further. Fair enough, they cut me some slack and gave me an exemption if I could get the manure unloaded so I called my mate Reg and he drove up in his shiny new Dodge 4x4 pick-up and we put 200kg of shoot into it....

Anyway, the garage is going to charge me about 300 quid for the repair and subsequent MoT. In the meantime however I goofed around on Ebay and found a nice Xantia estate for 500 quid that I committed to buy, hoping my offer would be rejected.

So since Saturday morning, my free manure for my free veg has cost me 800 quid and has lumbered me with 2 cars...

You've got to laugh, haven't you?

 

[wafflycat]

Apart from the car issue, the thing with free manure is to be *certain* the source hasn't been eating on land treated with any aminopyralid in the past. Or you could end up having an entire crop destroyed.

http://www.allotment.org.uk/garden-diary/257/aminopyralid-herbicide-residue-in-manure-killing-crops/

 

[Twenty Inch]

No, it's aminopyralid free- this stuff is 7 years old. It might be slightly contaminated with hydraulic fluid though...

 

[trustysteed]

perhaps it needs to brake-tested first then?

 

[NickM]

Excellent story, TI

Should earn you a good few pints over future years, if that's any comfort...

 

[ttcycle]

I hope the manure gives you some good veggies- the waiting list for an allotment round my part of town is 3 years plus...It's great growing you own stuff!
Though two cars? That's a fair old investment for some veggies

 

[Slowgrind]

That'sthe biggest load of $h1t! I've heard this year!

 

[HobbesChoice]

Man ure commited to this vegetable growing lark!!!!

 

[trustysteed]

so far, i'm not per-sweded by the root point of your argument as i don't think it breaks new ground. that soil i'm going to say on the spudject for now.

 

[PBancroft]

I hope the manure gives you some good veggies- the waiting list for an allotment round my part of town is 3 years plus...It's great growing you own stuff!
Though two cars? That's a fair old investment for some veggies

I applied for an allotment 6 years ago.

Now I have a patch on private land. It's going to be redeveloped at some point in the next 36 months, so time is limited, but at least I have something.

Ridiculous that folk don't have ground to sustain themselves.

 

[fossyant]

So you think a Citroen is going to cost £500.............

 

[Wobbly John]

I pull about 200kg of hoss-muck behind the bike :

We don't have hills round these parts tho'

 

[atbman]

Allotment holders = man urenited?

 

[trustysteed]

Ridiculous that folk don't have ground to sustain themselves.

their garden?

 

[Twenty Inch]

I pull about 200kg of hoss-muck behind the bike :

We don't have hills round these parts tho'

Yes it was about that much. In a way I'm grateful - the hydraulic line was clearly on the way out and it could have been at the other end of the country with a load of kit in the back.

Nick I don't drink, so that's not much of a compensation.