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:

A busy bank holiday weekend

Whilst we have been digging and clearing rubbish over on plot8, there has also been a lot of work going on over on plot10b. We were very busy over the bank holiday weekend.

We now have two cold frames, one is a cheap one from Aldi and the other a quick build made by Richard with some bricks which were lying around the plot and an old shower screen which we had been storing in our garage for a time when we might want to build a cold frame.  It's only temporary but at the moment we are needing somewhere to harden off our plants.

In the roots bed we have sown parsnips, carrots, beetroot and radish and planted more beetroot and some  spring onion.  We have planted all our onions, garlic and shallots which were started off in cell trays. The peas and broad beans which were started off in the polytunnel have now been planted in the raised beds outside.  We also sowed another row of peas, a purple podded variety.

peas supported with twiggy sticks

Cabbage, brussels sprouts and cauliflower were planted in one of  the brassica beds and these were covered with some netting frames to keep the pigeons and cabbage white butterflies off for the time being. We have a plan in mind for a better system of netting them as they get taller.

One of allotment neighbours gave us some little gem lettuce plants which we planted in between the peas and broad beans as catch crops.

Plot 10b is not a big allotment and we are carefully planning our crop rotation scheme.  There is so much to plant and sow at this time of year that we are in danger of running out of space. We are glad we took on plot 8 . Even though it's not finished yet it will help us with any overflow of plants.