Progress on Plot 8

Our days down at the allotment  at the moment are divided between digging and clearing up plot8 and doing ‘proper’ allotment gardening on plot 10b.  I love working on our new plot 8 and am longing to get it reasonably straight and looking good, but there is still lots of sowing and planting and weeding to be done on plot 10b.

On plot8 we have recently cleared out the ramshackle sheds and pulled one of them down, what a mess of stuff there was in those sheds. Bags of glass, plastic, metal and general rubbish  were taken to the local recycling centre. We found quite a collection of metal tubing and connectors to make up mini greenhouses.  We have kept all these as they might be useful but they could be quite a puzzle to assemble.
We had a bonfire to burn all the rotten wood

One shed demolished and a bed dug over

Helen dug over one of the areas of ground whilst I weeded the temporary raised beds. Then we put some soil improver on the beds.  We thought we might grow some carrots and salad crops in one and peas and beans in the others.

At the front of the plot next to the gate were two big heaps which were originally compost bins, but they have had all sorts of stuff dumped on them. Richard and Helen started clearing these bins out over the bank holiday weekend.  There was a large amount of rubbish to remove first which resulted in another pile of stuff to take to the recycling centre. There seems to be no end to the rubbish we keep finding on this plot. However once the top of the bins were cleared of the rubbish, there appeared to be lots of good compost underneath.  Very useful! That will go on the newly dug over areas. Richard will probably build new compost bins in the same place when we have weeded the area.

 

clearing out the old compost bins

Although the plot is still very untidy, as areas are cleared of rubbish, we can see the paths which show the original layout of the plot. Helen and I are planning how we want our allotment to look and we now feel we are getting somewhere.

Next jobs are more rubbish clearing, more tidying and more digging.