It has been a while…. from sunflowers to square foot gardening… a new house..  an allotment.   Over the last five years it has all been pretty quiet until I thought why not apply for an allotment and after the 12 month wait it will suddenly come out of the blue.     In the end, we only had to wait 4 weeks.

This is the second time, we had an allotment before but no-one used to blog about such things back then, in a world without smart phones the world was able to function fine without having to post their actions to the world.

Second time around, if it isn’t posted somewhere then it hasn’t really happened, it makes it a lot easier to see what other allotment owners are up to.  Before it was all about reading books, now it is all about reading facebook posts in groups.

We had the option to choose from four plots, all half size which was a bit to get used to having never worried about space previously:

• plot 1 – overgrown but only a year’s worth, some fruit bushes and a couple of compost bins.  Right next to the entrance gate though.
• plot 2 – overgrown but only a year’s worth, lots of fruit bushes, right at the top of the plot/hill.  A bit thin and long
• plot 3 – very overgrown, nice small size, right a the bottom of the plot/hill and surrounded by trees
• plot 4 – very very overgrown, nice size, small poly tunnel, really at the bottom of the plot/hill and lots of trees

We opted for plot 2.  It’s on the small side, thin and long.  A small section for compost and tools, a bit for fruit, and the rest mostly overgrown with a small bed.  Because of the fruit we are restricted a lot on size, but at the same time it looks small at the moment because it is just really one small bed and a lot of grass.  The grass can go, we can use all the space we have for growing – and we have a whole load of fruit bushes which is what we had last time (although we never got to see the results).   It has chairs and being right at the top of the plot/hill, you get a good view of all the plots and further the town, airport, and sea.  In the distance, we will see the wind turbines out at sea.   All I need is a flask of coffee, sit and watch things going on – and a bit of gardening too.

We picked up the key and so this weekend will be the first chance to take a closer look and decide what to do.  The first bits are to identify the fruit bushes (raspberry, blackberry, gooseberry) and work out what to do with them having not been touched for a year.   A lot of general tidying up, seeing what we have.

It’s going to be cold this weekend they say.