I took over my allotment in 2011. The brown part looked like the green I had to get a man with a rotovator to get it started for me.
3 years and a lot of hard work (me, but mostly a man what does) later, this is what I have now - ta da! I plan to extend it further, but I've finally got to a stage where I can concentrate on cultivating and maintaining and let my man do the hard digging work!
I was there on Sunday to see how it was. It was a glorious morning, I
needed some exercise so I did a bit of digging. 2 hours and an aching back later this is all I had done! which is why I prefer to pay my man
to do it! I was surprised to see these purple broccolli looking quite good,they were eaten to shreds by caterpillars last summer.
The leeks are still going strong
but the strawberries and raspberries are looking a bit sad. I'm sure they will perk up. I had a bumper crop of wonderful delicious strawberries last year. I'm going to weigh them as I pick them this year to see how much I get.
Like me you might be wondering why I do it. As one quite endearing but crotchety old boy keeps telling me "It's cheaper to shop at Harrods than keep an allotment" and I think he's right! Well I get tremendous satisfaction from eating something I have grown, and I do actually enjoy sowing the seeds and watching them grow; it's nice to be out in the fresh air chatting to the other allotmenteers; it helps keep me fit, but, and I think this is the sticky point, I have come so far with it and put so much effort into it that I don't want to leave it and see it return to the overgrown expanse of weed and rough grass that it was. And my new mantra is "while I can do it I will do it" !!..........
I am advised that our small, and somewhat mucky, patch is being entered in an open garden event. The number of 'blue jobs' (as opposed to pink) this will involve terrifies me... You are right about growing your own produce - though we haven't been organised enough to get on with it before, I suspect that it may be part of a Great Plan that will gradually be revealed to me...
ReplyDeleteha ha, yes I'm sure it will be on an "as and when" and "need to know" basis!! :-) Perhaps you could do some posts about it so that we can follow your progress.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to have an allotment. I have a tiny courtyard garden but I do grow my own tomatoes in a large old belfast sink. I'm also lucky enough to have access to SD's parents farm where we pick the lovely Bramley apples, the plums and the damsons as well as the raspberries and hedgerows full of blackberries in the autumn. Raspberries are notorious for looking half dead and then suddenly bursting into life so don't worry too much about them. Looks like you've been doing a great job!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to have an allotment. I have a tiny courtyard garden but I do grow my own tomatoes in a large old belfast sink. I'm also lucky enough to have access to SD's parents farm where we pick the lovely Bramley apples, the plums and the damsons as well as the raspberries and hedgerows full of blackberries in the autumn. Raspberries are notorious for looking half dead and then suddenly bursting into life so don't worry too much about them. Looks like you've been doing a great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah, my long term plan was to create an orchard but I think that's a bit ambitious! and since I now have blackberries in my garden and neighbours share their rhubarb and apples (mmm blackberry and apple pies - my favourites) I don't need one :-)
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