I had no plans to, but a friend of my mother’s was giving away raspberry canes. It’s a sad tale: she’s a fruit farmer, and her poly tunnels collapsed under the winter snows. For various reasons, she can’t afford to replace them… so the raspberries were up for grabs.

I feel guilty profiting from another’s misfortune. But I guess they’d have been thrown on the compost otherwise.

End result: I have a row of Glen Ample raspberries. They’re in, but now I have to stake and support them. Is this going to be much harder work than I could ever imagine?!?

This weekend, a multitude of jobs WILL get done:

• Planting raspberries (maybe even staking them and rigging wiring for support)
• Planting First Early potatoes
• Planting onion sets
• Digging up remaining Jerusalem artichokes and replanting a new row
• Digging over roots bed
• Weeding
• Hoeing
• Saving the planet and getting the girl

All in a day’s work for New Soilman (it’s like New Labour: full of promises and relaunches, but always the same old bollocks).

Apologies for lack of service of late. I was having so much Yuletide ‘fun’ that doing anything productive became impossible. Harrumph.

Thought I’d look back, as one does in early January, and think about what I’ve achieved – in allotment terms – over the last 12 months. The startling, but not unexpected answer: not a lot.

One thing, I guess, that IS different: the patch of new land I acquired in Jan 2009 has finally been brought fully under cultivation. Got a row of asparagus planted in it (just visible here towards the back), plus the new globe artichokes. Also dug it all over during the Christmas break so it can be properly planted in April.

Just one question: Planted with what? I had planned to bung in some raspberries, but I’m guessing it’s too late for that now… or is it?