Early December, second visit

Glorious sunshine and warm winds - a good day to go to the allotment! I brought Effie - she loves having a nose into everything up there while I'm working, and getting herself under my feet!

I pulled up more carpet, and had to split the really large pieces or they're too heavy for me to move off the plot. I need to remember to bring a Stanley knife next time I go up there.

I found loads of weed roots covering the surface underneath the carpet that I pulled off - so many in fact that the massive water butt is half full! I intend to pour water in that water butt and drown the beggars, and use the water as a feed next year.

I managed to pull up all the carpet all the way down to the next tree. I cleared the weed roots, laid out the two unidentified bushes along the fence to replant them, and moved in the rescued rhubarb into their final locations too.



Good progress I'd say! Then it started drizzling a little, and I didn't mind... but the skies went dark and then it was heaving down! We tried waiting it out in the shed, but it was pretty relentless.



Effie was not impressed with the rain!

Winter prep for next year

It's taken some time to get the paperwork sorted, but the allotment is finally ours! I go up there and decide to tackle the corner around the shed first, as I can't open the door properly due to too much growth in front of it.

I'd been up there a couple of times to drop off shredded paper, coffee grounds, cardboard, paper and anything else I have been able to scrounge up that will work as mulch. I'd had real difficulty getting that door open, so that's why I wanted to start there.

The idea is also that there will be one continuous bed all the way down to the start of the plot, in an E shape, if that makes sense.





The apple tree has so much long grass around it, a tyre around the base and it's never been pruned.


And the path running next to it, up to the shed looked relatively tidy. Suspicous.


I'd removed the little raised bed frame on the right there, and I found some rhubarb roots in there. Poor things had only about ten cm of soil to grow in - underneath the raised bed were carpet AND plastic!




And in the corner at the shed, there was tarpaulin underneath a layer of wood chippings. Lots of tarpaulin.


The tree got a prune



And in another tiny raised bed, I found two little bushes that I can't tell what they are. I realise that I'm going to have to get them out of there, because again, there's carpet underneath the raised bed, so the poor roots have nowhere to go!



And this is as far as I got, before the heavens opened.

New beginnings!

My back garden is tiny and although I grow vegetables and fruit there, there's not enough room for what I want to grow. My only option is to get an allotment. Now I am fortunate that where I live there are plenty of allotments to choose from, and one is sited not far from my house.

I have a partner in crime... err gardening, Melissa is a friend from uni. We decided that a no-dig approach would probably suit us best. We looked at plots and came across one that had a huge chicken shed, a grow tunnel, and plenty of fruit trees and various unidentified bushes.

This is what the plot looked like from the road first time I went there.



The grow tunnel is full of weeds, but the infrastructure is in great shape


Lots of carpets, it seems


Lots of room in the shed


And an enormous chicken shed with rhubarb, garlic and blackcurrant growing outside


There seems to be lots of small raised beds dotted randomly over the whole plot. I prefer large beds with no frames, but some of these will be useful for a small hotbed I reckon!


Exciting times!