Dodging the showers

"Add some photos" people keep saying. "It hasn't been the weather" has been our response.

Today was to be the day. Here are the first of hopefully many pictures to document progress on the allotment. We should have taken one or two on the day we took over the plot (or at least before we started work) but unfortunately we didn't.

So here we are. After lugging 6 pallets (thanks Kim!), two water butts (both acquired from men named Mark - nice butts boys!), and five or six buckets full of rock released from the Lincoln Grove quarry after some good freeze/thaw action over the winter, we built a couple of paths between the beds and took a few photos.

Welcome to our allotment!

Photo 1: The Allotment, a work in progress.

Photo 2: First path completed. Stones gathered from Lincoln Grove quarry and the allotment.

Photo 3: Hard at work. Emily building the second path.

As the day was continually interrupted by heavy rainfall we took the opportunity to go and buy a few bits and pieces for next weekends building project - the water catcher. The previous tenant of the allotment left behind a basic structure which I intend to strengthen and extend using the pallets to give us a 'deluxe' water catcher.

A trip to Wickes and a £35 spend later resulted in the purchase of 4 corrugated plastic roofing panels, one length of guttering and some downpipes and a selection of screws. Power tools, sledge hammer and the like will make an appearance next week.

Weather permitting there'll be more photos next week, hopefully of some rather impressive DIY!

Beware, Spines!

Our fruit bushes have arrived. They were delivered on Wednesday, but as we weren't home our neighbour took them in for us. The package had a label saying URGENT - PLANTS so Charlotte opened the bag, put her hand in to remove them and was attacked by our gooseberry! It has the most vicious spines. We owe Charlotte lots of fruit come summer.

We have just dug them into the garden temporarily while we prepare their home on the allotment - depending on the weather either tomorrow or next weekend.

Photos next time, I promise (not that there's much to show at the moment!).

Exam Day

Today was Exam Day. Unfortunately it didn't go as well as I had hoped, the new exams are really time-critical and I was still writing at the end of all four. I think I did enough to pass three, but I didn't come close to finishing the plant propagation exam. It was the one I had worried about the most and revised the hardest so not finishing it was incredibly frustrating.

I remember having time to read through the questions and review your answers in exams at school/university - in was all part of the technique. It seems these days you scribble as if your life depends on it and if the answer doesn't come to mind immediately, tough luck!

It was a lovely sunny evening when I got home so I went to the allotment to take my frustration out on the weeds. Well, parsnips to be precise. Who knew they were so persistent? Or perhaps it's because ours have developed into such misshapen monsters that they are so difficult.

The foliage had died over winter and we had pulled many out, but hidden in the depths were more contorted giants and along with each splinter we had inadvertently carved with our spades, they were proudly sporting their new spring leaves.

An hour later and a sackful of parsnips, rotten onions, failed garlic and weeds are now on the compost heap. It was a beautiful evening. The allotment is so quiet and the church bells are a lovely way to be told the time. I love to see how things are changing. Each week one or two allotments have been cleared a little more, or manure spread a little further. In the last week someone (or two) has cultivated almost an entire plot, digging in plenty of manure along the way. An amazing effort.

Our corner isn't looking too bad. The beds we dug at the beginning of the year have broken down much more than I thought they would, but the one Rob dug last weekend has a way to go yet. The paths are doing their job as I wandered up and down them today without compacting the areas that we are going to plant.

The bottom end of our plot still looks a little messy, but the good news is we have a stack of materials to get building with. We are the (very) proud owners of 6 pallets and 2 large plastic-bins-turned-water-butts. All without spending a penny! We treated ourselves to dinner in Woodstock on Friday evening and bumped into a particularly fine pallet leaning against a shop wall. It was very tempting, but we didn't think the taxi driver could be bought and we were too tipsy to return in the middle of the night. Pity, I think it would have liked the allotment life...

Dig 3 - A windy one

Emily's exam is looming so she stayed in the house today to revise for her RHS level 2 qualification. Propagation techniques and soil nutrition were the order of the day.

To keep out of the way (no distractions needed from me when learning how to spell Latin plant names) I headed up to the allotment to dig the third bed.

A blustery wind on the allotment made for a refreshing dig. A few dry weeks had resulted in a much less claggy soil to contend with. Having left the new spade in the shed the old faithful Yeoman cut through the ground like a warm knife through butter and within an hour the job was done.

The cold and dry weather of recent weeks has resulted in the clods of soil on the other two beds breaking down into a fine till (Emily tells me 'tilth' is the technical term for this). Things are looking up on the soil front.

During the past week the bulk of our seed order arrived from the Organic Gardening Company. We are now just waiting on the fruit bushes. These should be with us over the coming weeks but the delay is welcomed as we haven't yet prepared the allotment for their arrival.

Today we also added to our selection of seed potatoes with the purchase of 'Sharpes Express' and 'Pentland Javelin' varieties. These are earlies which will compliment our main crop potatoes nicely. We tried to grow Sharpes Express last year in the garden with limited success so fingers crossed for a bumper crop in July.