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.