Having walked past the allotments for 4 years it has been an ambition of mine to own one, and now that my eldest is starting school in September and my youngest is happiest outdoors,muddy and running I thought now is the time to take on the challenge. Time for me and basically i feel a skill everyone should learn. Back to basics. By no means self sufficient i am not that deluded but for now learning the basics to survival, probably something i have needed since becoming a mummy.
Little did I know how big a challenge this would be, i knew it would be a slog at times but i had the picture of an allotment that someone had given up recently, something with a little structure or at least some soil that was visible. When Jackie our parish council clerk met me and my 2 boys at the allotments a month ago it was a lovely hot sunny day, peoples plots were really coming to life and I could see all the different ways that people were creating their own little haven. Then she said to me "right well the plot I have for you is down this end of the path, you can probably see the one i mean from here!" Well in fact I could not see a bloody thing, it was covered in 1m high weeds and we had to access it by walking through the neighbouring plot.
It is 30m long and about 6m wide. Don't get me wrong i was blinded by love and all i could think was how was i going to persuade my husband that this is a wonderful idea with so much potential, a life lesson for our boys and a good reason to get outdoors.I took him to see it that night with all the excitement of a 6 yr old going to the toy shop. His first reaction was where is it? Luckily for me he is a wonderful optimist with the need for sunshine as he is always in the office!
Once we had agreed to take it on and i had received the rules and laws of the land we headed down there with a big brush cutter/strimmer and fork number 1!
I have to say that i actually could quite happily have pulled all the weeds up one by one, making sure to get out the roots, but the blisters and numerous splinters from brambles everyday got the better of me and i had to keep Ed happy some how and what better way than to give him an opportunity to use some heavy duty power tools, (even had ear defenders, a helmet and visor!!!woooo!)
This scared my youngest but the grandparents came down to muck in and keep them happy for a while. unfortunately we picked the hottest day of the year so far and so we were all melting under the full sun which is what you want when growing your veg, but maybe not for digging out 1m long bramble and dock roots!We hung up our sweaty socks (and goggles!) and waited for the next day when we could start to see what was there already that we wanted to keep and what needed to come out.
We discovered a large crop of horse radish which we have decided to keep as it apparently keeps away the green fly etc. this is a handy website for companion planting : http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html .
Also handily we found an old table and chair amongst the weeds which the boys have used as a shelter and a camp!
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