Plot 18

Today I attended the allotment full of vigour and enthusiasm and the sky just opened up after 10 minutes of digging, and did not relent for the hour and half it took to drive me away.

I can tolerate a certain amount of drizzling rain, after all I do go to the allotment dressed for the occasion, but as soon as my work gloves and the liners get soaked through then that is pretty much my limit for outdoor work in the wet.

I did this much digging before the back of my neck started getting wet and I had to move on to other, more upright jobs...

I then cut this much hedge before I couldn't safely reach any further due to finding a massive brick mountain...

I then moved this much of the brick mountain (about two thirds of it I think) before my gloves got wet enough to make me contemplate heading home...

And then because my gloves were wet anyway, I moved this many tyres to one pile ready to be offered on Freegle...

And I went home because the dog was also this wet and miserable...

I was genuinely disappointed today that the rain just didn't let up, there was so much to be done and I was enjoying the work. I especially wanted to finish digging the patch I was working on and fork it over, I think I will stick spuds in there next year to help break up the ground more.

But I guess that is the nature of gardening, sometimes the elements will stop play.

Well, I swapped my days at work so that I would have Wednesdays free from both work and child care commitment, and then the little one went and got chickenpox. This excluded her from nursery for two weeks and although I was still off on Wednesdays so was she and she was in no state to go out of doors let alone down the allotment.

Therefore this is the first Wednesday in three weeks that I have been able to get down to the allotment.

However it was a very productive day.

I finished lopping back the long hedge that separates us from plot 19, our longest hedge. This means I can now work on the second longest hedge, the one between us and plot 17. Plot 17 has actually cut the height of most of this down to a few feet, much to my complaint for privacy when it was done, but there are some problem spots at either end where it has gotten very out of control in most directions.

Although I do want to cut back the outside hedge by the gate it is in reasonable condition and therefore takes the lowest priority.

I also cleared behind the shed in order to get to the hedge to lop it back.

Next step in regard to the long hedge is to get some chicken wire in as there are huge gaps between the privet branches at the bottom and it isn't secure with dogs on the allotment site, least of all ours.

All the privet cuttings are now in the hedge cutting bay I made for this very purpose, it does look a lot better than just leaving a big heap of them on the ground.

Last time I was down with Alex we fashioned a new temporary roof covering from a blue tarpaulin as the shed roof is leaking like a sieve. The high winds in the last fortnight had ripped this mostly off so it was down the back of the shed. With careful application of climbing up and roofing nails, I hope I have got it back into position more securely this time.

Also the hosepipe was falling off the shed wall where I had looped it around some big nails. Whacked another few nails in and rewound it up for the winter (water off now until February).

I had resolved to start digging over potato patch to get it ready for cultivation in the spring and to move some earth to our new raised bed near the shed. You may recall we had blight in the summer and due to kitchen related moving out the potatoes got neglected. Apart from the row and a half I lifted in the good times, I had discounted the rest of the crop.

Well I started digging up the first row and by the time I got to the end of the row I had half a bucket of good potatoes. Mostly International Kidney but some Red Duke of York. So they have been brought home and washed and are waiting to be used.

This did put a stop to digging over potato patch until next week when we shall see if any more are just sitting in the ground waiting for me.

This does prove that potatoes are very very hard to get wrong I have to say and a big morale boost as well.

Next steps: dig over the second row of potato patch. Level off the raised bed and see if we can get some broad beans in before Christmas or if we are better waiting for spring. Dig, dig, and more digging. Chickenwire for the long hedge. Start cutting back the next hedge. Did I mention digging?

There is a definite chill in the air today, my fingertips were very cold when we left the plot so I have spent £2 on 2 pairs of red cheap fleece gloves from Asda to wear under my work gloves in future.

We found some hibernating bumblebees last week by basically disturbing their hibernation place. This week I scooped the fluff they were hibernating in into half a plastic bottle, put it behind the shed and half buried it with leaf mulch to try and insulate them a little. Two of the five I counted flew out as it was being moved, I quietly hope they will find the new home or somewhere else suitable to weather out the winter. We will get an apiary for them next year if we can, bumblebees are good. One of them was as big as the first joint of my thumb.

The weather has been wet and the soil was predictably damp, today I didn't feel like digging so worked on lopping down the long adjoining hedge some more and also Alex helped me finish the workbench for inside the shed. Eva's old baby swing has been far too small for her for many months; today I ripped the seat off it so we can use the base to fit an earth sieve on for getting all the glass and root rubbish out of our soil. Also it was upsetting her to see the swing she was too big for.

The shed looks a lot better for having the workbench in and the tools up and organised properly again.

Here are some pictures of Little Miss the last time we were down the allotment with her (last week).

Well, this has been a long and difficult summer to get through.

Sadly we didn't get hardly any time to spend on the allotment since a simple project to put some new cupboards into our old kitchen got a little out of hand and for several months our kitchen looked like this:

We had to move out for what started as one week and slowly became three months.

In hindsight, which is perfect of course, I would have taken more time off work to spend at the allotment but the stress of the project got to me a little bit and I couldn't see that clearly. Also, popping down the allotment is fun when it's a 20 minute stroll there but not when it's over an hour by bus.

So, what happened at the allotment over the summer?

We had potatoes, before the blight took them. It was a very hot and wet summer and apparently there was blight across the whole allotment site.

We also had carrots, which were small and tasty and lovely.

Our eating apple tree also produced tons of apples. Alex now has a wine making kit and is making apple wine; next year we will know about this in advance and will collect the windfalls as well.

We also struggled through the whole plot just taking off in terms of growing; there was grass and mare's tail as far as the eye could see. Lots of good growth, unfortunately we struggled so much for time there that it got a bit out of hand and we got practically no new cultivation done in that time.

But we did remove an entire transit van full of rubbish to the tip!

Here is a medley of photos since May.