July 9th

Welcome.
This is the first post on my allotment-blog.
I must acknowledge the inspiration of Peter on the Grow Your Own/Grapevine Forum - his blog illustrated how useful a blog could be as a record of the allotment, and to show others what you're up to.
So, I'll try to keep this going as my own diary of the allotment-year. Whether anyone else is interested, well that remains to be seen.
The picture [left] was taken in mid-April, and shows what the plot looked like when I arrived to start work. The plot had been rotovated by the Council back before Christmas, but I had not had time to do anything over the winter, and by April it was all a bit of a wasteland again.

So much so that I was quite anxious as to whether I was going to get it into any kind of shape in time to grow anything this season. I spent half a day digging and weeding, and managed to clear the strip that you can see on the right of the picture - about 1/6th of the plot... not a very encouraging start. Lots of bindweed, yarrow and other perennials dug up, but just as many seeming to remain in the ground...

Anyhow, my ever-generous father-in-law gave me a couple of weekends of his time, we got a rotovator in for a weekend and gave the whole lot a thorough clear. Yes, I know a fair amount of perennial weed got chopped-up and spread about by the rotovating, but at least it started to look like somewhere that you might get a vegetable or two to grow.
We also built a row of raised beds along the top of the plot (it slopes quite badly downhill right-to-left), and planted a goodly few spuds.
This is what it looks like now - photo taken (on a wet day - the first for ages) in late June, from the door of the shed.
You can see the raised beds on the left, and the paths (bark-chippings on weed-fabric) around them.
In the beds are - swiss chard, green beans, spinach, radish, mooli, rocket, onions, shallots, beetroot, lettuce, pak choi, good king henry, carrots, mangetout, courgettes, marrows
On the right of the path, on the downhill slope, are some sweetcorn, runner beans, squashes, and a load of potatoes beyond.
The little square bed is one I made for my boy to dig around in safety (his and the plants').


There are also some strawberries (refugees from my in-laws' garden) and some leaf beet in 'open ground' just to the left of the path, and rhubarb, rosemary and sage out of sight at the track end of the plot.

All in all it does look like an allotment. Earlier this week I came home with my first box of goodies - some french beans, mangetout, radishes, various salad & spinach leaves, and a bunch of spring onions. Oh what a terrific feeling!

Right, the sun's come out, so I think I will stop writing about the allotment and get up there. It's rained a fair bit overnight, so the weeds should be willing to come quietly.