Our Allotment

We finally managed to visit our allotment this afternoon. I say “We”; I mean myself, Poppy, Sage and Reuben. Julie was, sadly, at work and Storm had a social life to pursue…

I managed to snap the following shots using Julie’s phone camera. My own phone was with Julie because… Well, it’s a long story. Probably not worth going into at length. The photos:

I measured the plot at 28 paces by 7. Now all I need to do is figure out how big my paces are and we’ll be ready to start planning…

I was heartened to receive my newsletter from gardening.co.uk this morning; its lead article was all about the success which is possible with plantings as late as July. I know that there’s little realistic hope of actually seeing anything much growing in our plot this year, but there’s a chance. That’s something.

The weather’s been something of a drag for the past few days; pleasant enough during the day (when I’m at my desk at work) but drizzly or worse by the time I hop on my bike to cycle home. Needless to say this, combined with the need to attend to the kids, has left me frustratingly unable to contemplate visiting the allotment, let alone start working on it.

On the other hand, the small veg plot in our back garden has been quite productive; yesterday Julie made the most wonderful lasagne, with our very own courgettes and spinach. The courgette was so special that even Storm had some. He even went so far as to declare it palatable! I’m afraid I’ve allowed the weeds to take over a little. There’s no excuse, but it’s just so disheartening to start tracing down the stem of yet another sodding bindweed tendril and find more and more of it wherever you look. Our persistence earlier in the year must have had some impact, surely, but I know some more work is needed now. Maybe this afternoon, weather and kids permitting.

I’ve been thinking about raised beds for the allotment, and was a trifle shocked at the cost of the timber we’d need to set them up. Oddly enough, at almost the same time a colleague told me about an interesting website, or online community, or rather collection of online communities called “Freecycle“. The idea here is that if you have stuff you don’t want (clearing out the attic, say) you can offer it up for anyone who wants it. Similarly, if there’s something you’re looking for you can post a message saying what you’re after.  With any luck, someone else on the site will have been meaning to throw out that buggy / sewing machine / pile of floorboards and will offer them to you instead. It’s two sides of the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” triangle; the idea is to reduce the amount of stuff going into landfill, and make better use of the resources we have. Keeping the networks local also limits the amount of transport involved; unlike eBay, there’s no need to post these items; they tend to be collected en passant. It’s a great idea in principle, and I hope it’s as successful as it deserves to be. I’m also hoping that someone out there in freecycle land has some spare boards they can donate. In the meantime, there’s some plot-planning to be done. But that’s a story for another day…

 Well, it’s hardly a secret that I’m a bit of a geek. However, if there were ever a need for hard evidence, the fact that I’ve set up an allotment blog before we’ve even picked up the allotment key should probably count for something.

In our defence, we simply didn’t have an opportunity to pop round to the council offices during office hours last week, and given the weather this weekend gave us (It only rained once. For two days.) we wouldn’t have gotten much done in any case. Yes, this was definitely a weekend for planning, dreaming and setting up websites. Julie’s getting the key today, and we should have some “Before” shots by the end of the week.

Now the question of exactly why we need a blog for our allotment should probably be addressed. Truth be told, the world would probably survive quite well without yet another contribution to (*shudder*) the blogosphere, but this seemed a handy way to keep interested parties (my Mum, basically) up-to-date with developments chez nous. I’m also hoping that the “log” part of the “weblog” will help us to keep track of things that need doing, stuff we learn and mistakes to avoid next time.

 For example: Since I still have no idea what baby kohl rabi look like, I’m going to mark each station with a lolly stick (or similar) next time, so that I don’t end up with a lovely row of poppies where I was expecting tasty brassicas. Don’t get me wrong; the flowers are pretty and all, but as my old Mum always says “A weed is a plant growing where you don’t want it.” Or something like that anyway…