Grapevine Area

This afternoon I had an inspection to do that was quite frankly just too near the allotment and I managed to get it done in record time, so an hour on the plot was appropriate. 

I took my Spear and Jackson spade to the bottom of the grape vine and started to remove the soil and then have a tug on the protruding couple of feet of vine

It started to come out of the ground, but the roots didn't go down far they had chosen for some reason to travel horizontally under the weed membrane and path heading towards the corner of the path in front of the greenhouse and the bed in front of the greenhouse. 

You can see the folded back membrane and the two roots one thicker and a thinner one disappearing under the membrane,   

On pulling up the vine I had to remove the edging timber, the original 9 year old corrugated plastic edging was so brittle that as I pulled the root up it just shattered   

I removed the slate chippings from around the vine before trying to dig it out, and put them into a square flower pot, but have made the decision to wash all the soil and organic matter from them so that once the bed has been properly dug and weeded as there was a lot of bindweed in there. I chemically treated the bindweed last year. 

Once the new grapevine is installed the weed membrane and decorative slate and timber edging will all be put back in place. 

I can't really believe that the section of vine that was left at the top of the wall over the potting table over six months ago still looks like it's connected to the ground and just as not died off.

Traditional Stainless Planting Spade from Spear & Jackson which is nice and light, and has a traditional hardwood handle. It has the pointed mirror polished stainless steel blade for resisting rust an minimal soil adhesion and is one tool that will not be left on the plot.