New neighbours

There's been a lot of activity behind plot 8 recently. It's always been a bit of a jungle up there beyond our back hedge. We had often peered through the hedge unable to make out how far it extended and whether anyone was using it. We decided that no one was as it looked so overgrown. But before Christmas the council had some trees cut down on our plot and the surrounding ones. Read more about that here.

The tree cutting work revealed a massive plot behind us and to help get the allotment waiting list down the council had decided to divide it into four smaller ones. We have been observing the work with great interest for a few weeks now as workmen cleared away rubbish and put up the boundary fences.  Whoever takes on these plots will have to be determined  and hard working, because they won't be easy plots to start off with. That's true of most allotments on our site, none of them are flat pieces of land which just need to be dug over and weeded. They all seem to have big bumps in them, tons of rubbish and maybe drainage problems. Which is probably why a lot of people give up with their allotments after the first year.

As we've watched the progress of these plots we've wondered who would want to take on a piece of land in such a bad state.  The trees have been cut down but the tree stumps are still there and probably lots of underground roots too. But having taken on and transformed two very difficult plots ourselves in the last three years we know that it is possible with a lot of hard work.

The workmen have gone now and the allotments are ready for new tenants. We've already seen people on the top plot working hard, we wish them well and we're looking forward to seeing more new neighbours soon.