Goodbye Plot10b

 It's New Year's Eve and as always people look back on the year just gone and wonder what lies ahead. The last year has not been a good one for me and I'm glad to see the back of it.

At the allotment though, things have been good. Today we did our final clearing up on Plot 10b getting it ready to hand the keys over to the new tenants. And I find myself looking back, not on the last year but the last three and a half years since we took the allotment on. I think we are glad to see the back of plot 10b too and are looking forward to having just the one allotment to look after now.  But although it's been hard work we have enjoyed making it into a workable allotment, it's been a great challenge and we've learnt such a lot.

Some before pictures:

It was my daughter Helen's plot, but we all mucked in to help when she took it on. It was in a terrible state, it had been used to keep chickens and had not been cultivated.  People told us the soil would be good because of all the chicken poo, but we found no evidence of any soil enriched by chicken poo, just heavy, wet, solid clay.  There were three chicken sheds and a big cabin.  We kept two of the sheds and used the materials from the other two to make compost bins, raised beds and a growhouse. Richard did all the heavy building work, Helen's husband David dug beds over and made bonfires of all the rubbish. Helen and I weeded, dug over and made plans. The grandchildren helped when they felt like it or just had a great time playing in the mud.

About nine months later as Plot 10b was starting to look good, I was offered an allotment myself next door but two to Helen's.  So we started the hard work all over again. It was a different sort of plot, but still another big challenge. In the last year though, Helen's work commitments have increased and she is not able to give as much time to the allotment, so she decided to give it up and help me with mine when she is able to.

Allotments are hard work and we feel pleased that we have transformed such a derelict piece of land into a useful growing space. Because we recycled a lot of materials already on the plot we had very little expenses too. We hope now that the new tenants will have a good start to their growing year. We are looking forward to concentrating our efforts on Plot 8.

Thank you to all who follow and comment on my blog. I wish you all a happy and productive growing year in 2016.

Plot 10b looking transformed:

Resting and waiting

The bad weather continues, I wonder how long it will last, there has been so much rain. There's not much work we can do down at the allotment or in the garden when it's so wet.  The soil is too wet and soggy to do anything. It's really dirty weather.  But I'm not too worried, the garden doesn't look too bad, there's still autumn colour about. I don't cut back the dead plants until late winter.  The seed heads  provide homes for insects and food for the birds and some of them provide winter interest in the garden especially when touched by a bit of frost.

At the allotment we've cleared and manured most of the beds except for the leeks and brassicas, which we will be picking through the winter. The pond has been overflowing with all the rain--I hope the frogs haven't left home! We've had some storm damage, the old plastic growhouse got blown down in the gales, but we were going to pull it down anyway this winter to make way for a new greenhouse. And in the garden we have a fence needs replacing after it got blown down by the wind. All jobs for the new year when hopefully the weather will be better


I love getting the allotment beds all clear of dead plants and weeds and covered in manure or compost.  I think of it as tucking up the beds for the winter, clearing out the old and preparing for the new.   As the plot rests over the winter and waits for the spring we think about what we want to grow next year and we plan  projects. We think about what mistakes we may have made or what improvements we can make.

 So  there is now a sense of resting and waiting on the plot. Resting time for us before all the hard work starts again and  resting time for the soil while the nutrients from the compost and manure do their work. And as we wait  for the weather to improve, we also watch for  new growth to appear, we make plans and we look forward to starting work again.

 

Planting tulips

If the rain ever stops I might get some work done in the garden and at the allotment. I keep sneaking out when there is a brief dry spell to do a few jobs. Last week I managed to plant some tulip bulbs in pots. I've never grown tulips before, but I've been admiring the Sarah Raven Tulip collections and for my birthday this year my daughters bought me some. They came in two lovely hessian sacks--very useful.

I planted one lot at the allotment in a big deep plastic tub which I grew carrots in this year. The tulips  should brighten up the allotment next year.

 

The rest I wanted to plant at home in big pots. I used an old enamel bread bin for one planter and a deep pot for the other.  I planted them in layers. The first layer, near the bottom of the pot but with a two inch depth of compost below them.  Then I added more compost and placed another layer of bulbs on this. I topped with a final layer of compost, making sure that the bulbs were at least eight inches deep.

There are still plenty of bulbs left and I was running out of good sized pots, but on a recent visit to the RHS garden at Harlow Carr we spotted a 'buy one get one free' on some lovely pots which will look great planted up with tulips. The only problem was that they had 'Yorkshire pots' engraved on the side of them and we live in Lancashire! Well I'm sure the engraving will soon be covered in moss and no-one will know. So I'm now waiting for another quick dry spell when I can dash outside and get the rest of my tulips planted up.