We sadly didn't get the plot I wrote about in the last entry, I think we were too late by the time we'd been to look at it and I'd emailed the lady from the Council. Damn those other plot stealing people! The plot we did get is the same size but sadly has neither a tree or a shed. Sad face. However, we can always get a shed if we want to and after three years of waiting I'm just glad to have any plot at all! The one we got (2A if you want to stalk us more efficiently) is nearer the road and in slightly worse condition - the ground is very uneven and the whole quarter of the plot nearest the fence is filled with random rubbish (chairs, bottles, buckets etc) which we will need to clear at some point. For now though, it's fine to just be left there.
Here is the 'before' shot. My BFF Terry - the dude in charge of the allotment association - says it's been unused since October meaning that is has one season of growth on it.
Once we started pulling the weeds up it turned out it was most surface cover, meaning that the plants came up easily leaving the soil more or less bare and ready to plant. This is a huge advantage as it means it'll be much easier to clear and plant. Some of the plots we were offered had five or six seasons of growth meaning they were neck high in brambles and deep rooted well established plants. No thank you! So this is great for our slightly clueless beginnings. We started pulling weeds and clearing the ground. We decided, having taken advice from everyone from Terry Our BFF to my boss, to clear a strip and plant that and then work along the plot like that. To attempt to clear the entire thing before planting would lead to burn out and madness and we don't want that!
We started nearest the path because the other end is filled with the aforementioned rubbish. I also took the advice of my boss who said it's best to start nearest other people so you can get chatting and then they might help you and offer you free stuff. A+ advice. We did borrow a bucket from a nice lady on another plot, I attempted to make her our second allotment BFF but, as she only spoke Portuguese and my use of that language is limited to 'thank you' and 'small', we didn't get very far. We smiled a lot though which is a good start to any relationship and her bucket was very useful. Thank you slightly baffled Maria!
Digging away.
Terry Our BFF came over to chat (he LOVES to chat) and offered to use his strimmer to cut down the surface growth. We said YES PLEASE and he happily strimmed (strummed?) away - he did about half the plot. You can see in the difference between the photo above and the one below this meant the soil was then much easier to work, all we had to do was turn it with a fork and pull out the big clumps of roots. Much much better than starting totally from scratch. WE LOVE TERRY.
Once we'd cleared an area the width of the plot and about five foot long we were ready to plant. I'd made a run to Homebase that morning and got some seedlings. Let me tell you, Homebase at 9am is really the place to be. It was me and three very old very serious gardening type men who were actually all wearing flat caps - one of them even had braces on and tried to talk to me about poly tunnels.
I got carrots and leeks. Mum had grown some broad beans in her garden and brought them. We made a bean frame with poles that Ruth kindly donated.
We put in six bean plants, four rows of carrots and four rows of leeks - I slightly didn't understand how many plants I was buying but it means that if half of them die we still have plenty!
It was a fab morning. I was really impressed at how much we cleared in a relatively short amount of time. It was so lush to be outside working with the earth, I even got a bit sunburnt in the sunshine between the rain. I need to build up my bending stamina though, my legs hurt so much on Sunday that getting out of a chair was really painful! I also forgot how very dirty mud is, my life is normally so sanitised that it was almost a shock to be so grimy when I got home.
We hope to go back next weekend to do more clearing and hopefully some more planting - I've got some perpetual spinach seeds I want to put in and we're going to do potatoes I think. I want to try and do some fruit too but that'll have to wait till Mum returns from her holiday as she is the woman with the canes to prop them up.
