Get by with a little help...

We finally found the only tool that works on an allotment as overgrown as ours - help.
Last weekend the mother-in-law gave us a whole day of her expertise and labour and really turned things around.
Not only does she have university-level gardening knowledge, she also has a lifteime of experience and an abundance of enthusiasm.
The potatos are fully weeded and earthed up, and a whole load of new plants are now in place, while a whole bunch of weeds have breathed their last.
This weekend a couple of friends gave up half their Sunday to help us out.
Chris is a professional gardener who usually charges £12 an hour. I think we may get off with a Sunday lunch and a bottle of wine.
Chris and Bev cleared out what was once the flower and herb bed but had rapidly become one of many of our weed beds.
Having a couple of experts on the scene is great news. Not only do they get the job done, they show us how to do it and dole out plenty of advice that will prove useful for years to come.
MIL helped us identify a lot of plants - including those with irriant sap, and those which may produce nice flowers but would only last for a day or two.
She also showed us a whole host of gardening techniques.
Chris let us borrow his petrol strimmer to take down another patch of weeds, while he put in the hard labour turing out that patch at the top of the allotment.
Inspired by the surge forward, I built the compost bin on Sunday and filled it with the assorted vegetation we've pulled up over the last couple of weeks.
We've also managed to clear out all the weeds (mostly grass) from among the well-established raspberries, blackberries and gooseberries.
I've ripped out all the carpet that was laid between the rows. No doubt at first it kept the weeds away but in recent years it seems to have become nothing short of the perfect growing medium.
Now we need to get weed-proof membrane and a fruit cage over the lot asap.
It was also a good weekend on the plot for the young ones, with a lot of wildlife on hand to keep them entertained. Crickets, grasshoppers, ladybirds, butterflies, frogs - they loved the lot.
The fruit harvest is starting to look very impressive, so the priority now is protecting it all from the birds - I'll let you know how that goes (just like The Apprentice you can guess the outcome, the birds will win).