[John]

next time i'm working your way john i wouldnt mind a load of that compost can you pick it up yourself from him,is it far from NWF ?
who me lucky? it costs me a fortune to get the soil looking like that  

Not too far from NWF and I'm sure you can collect (prior arrangement as they say)

And, yes, I did mean you've a lovely daughter.

[king cauli]

you do have a lovely daughter shaun and yeah nice bit a dirt there too

[Sadgit]

this is where you need to add lots of manure/compost and sharp sand in the winter use a rotavator to turn it all in in the spring,its a hell of a hard job with hand tools probably impossible when the clods have baked hard in the sun

yeah thats the problem getting a plot mid april and during a damn heatwave. I manured the garden veg plot and that is brilliant this year. Old Gaff near me says he can get me a wagon load of manure for 20 quids, so will get some and get it dug in in the autumn.

I have soaked it with water but it doesn't really help..... Still at least I have a plot

[sladefungus]

One thing this sun has been good for is baking the clay lumps that id left on the surface after digging over a patch with clay about a foot down.  i picked off all the baked lumps and had great fun crushing them underfoot on a board and what can only be described as 'doing the twist' by lil louie on them.  this left a nice orange powder which ive scattered all over the plot to start releasing its lovely minerals into the darker stuff.