Girl with Allotment

Starting to grow

Archives for June 2016

Compost

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Inheriting compost has been rather unexpected and is certainly one of the more unusual items.

On clearing the garden, we discovered two large compost bins and thought how well they would work on the allotment.

Discovering they were each half-full of compost was a mixed blessing; hard work to empty them, but the reward was the richest, rotted, fine compost.

I think it was time well-spent, digging it out and bagging it up and taking it up to the allotment.

The compost bins are now set up on site and already have a good amount of good rich compost in them, ready for the growing seasons ahead.

 

Fencing the plot

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Last weekend was a mix of hard work and great satisfaction as we spent time fencing the plot.

I am in awe of anyone who can bash in 24 fence posts in an afternoon, but that is exactly what was achieved.  Recognition and immense thanks go to Andy for his hard graft and brute force, and to Barry from the allotment who lent us his auger and post rammer.

I did try, I really did, to turn the auger (nope, it spiralled around and didn’t make much impression on the ground) and then use the rammer (I struggled to lift it above shoulder height), so if it wasn’t for Andy’s strength I think the allotment would remain unfenced forever more!

I did manage to move things into the right place, sort out the string lines, supervise, and saw down the corner bracing fence posts.

Sunday was spent attaching the netting.

Excellent work all round!

Rainy Days…

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The rural location of our plot
The rural location of our plot

It’s not a Monday but there is no excuse, I’m not allowing rainy days to get me down either.

I’m not sure what the rest of the country has been like, but for two days we’ve lived inside a great big grey cloud in Hertfordshire/Cambridgeshire.  Occasionally the cloud has lifted and we’ve had heavy rain, but for the most part it’s been grey drizzle, the kind that makes your hair frizz and your shoes wet, without you even realising at the time.

Enough of flamin’ June.

Despite the bad weather, we headed over to the allotment this evening to measure up.

26 fence posts, 45 metres of wire netting, 90 metres of wire and 2 gates’ worth of measuring up.  That’s an awful lot of kit we need to get started – and that’s with one side fenced already!

I say we; the allotment is very much mine but I have solicited help for these early stages.  Practicality and brute strength are not my forte, but I know a man who can.. in fact, a man who takes great pleasure in turning his hand to practical problem solving.  I’m rather looking forward to us working together on creating something out of nothing, planning the space and giving it its own lease of life.

So tonight we measured up.  The site has now been staked out which will make it easier to fence, it’s next to the path and I do hope that we’re not too much of a nuisance to the other allotment holders as I can see that our plot has been used to access all the other plots as the path is so overgrown!  I will try to cut back some of the weeds with shears when we fence it.