For years allotments were out of favour. No-one wanted them, and patches of mud with a shed at one end and weeds everywhere else went to waste. Then suddenly gardening became the new rock and roll, and everyone who didn't want to dig up their lawn wanted their own council-run patch of mud. The waiting lists grew faster than the cabbages. Now, after more than three years on a waiting list, Neil Shaw has been given his own patch of green and pleasant land.

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Planting and harvesting

All the potatoes are finally in! It was a hard task, digging through the soil for a fourth time to get out as many of the couch grass roots as possible before replacing them with roots of our own.

There are four rows, two of Lady Balfour and two of salads, so we'll give it a few weeks and see what comes up. No doubt lots of grass, but hopefully we'll be able to keep on top of it.

Now we can move on to the patches either side of the potatoes, which are less clogged, and start getting some seeds in.

The one below will be given over to root veg - parsnips, swedes and carrots. The patch above (where the brambles were) will be mostly given over to a compost bin and green house.

Last night also saw us enjoying the fruit of (other people's) work on the allotment. We had a chicken and leek pie with a leek donated by allotment representative Christine, followed by a rhubard crumble with rhubarb someone else planted on our plot several years ago.

A taste of things to come, hopefully.

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