Allotment updates
Categories: stirling
Date: 06 March 2013 21:49:25
I hadn't realised I hadn't updated this for 3 weeks, I wanted to include a week-by-week account of what's happening at the allotment, so will have to go back a bit further in my photos than I thought. So, the week after the last post, I went back to the plot and did an hour or so of weeding. I'm not getting every last weed out, but there are some that are currently small but I know from them taking over the garden last year that they're really rampant, so I definitely want them away from the plot! It was a really lovely sunny day, I had thought when I got there I wouldn't be able to park as the sun definitely brought out a lot of people who'd not been there for a while! Here are my pics from then (17th Feb):
The following weekend (24th Feb) I did the bulk of the weeding from the other half of the plot, it wasn't such a sunny day this time! I also got a closer look at the far end, where it was clear that there was a fair bit of plastic which had been put down to suppress weeds, which is all very well but the worms get suppressed too! So that was the next challenge, for another time ... Here's the photos from this week:
This weekend just gone we started to think properly about planting stuff! We went to the Potato Day held by the Dunblane Allotment Society, and bought half a dozen each of 4 different varieties of spuds (one early, one main crop, one salad crop and one speciality crop), so they are now on the windowsill chitting (I just put them in a tray on the windowsill with the round side up, I keep thinking it should be more complicated than that but that's what the internet says and we all know if it's on the internet then it must be true ...). We also bought some other seeds and bits and bobs, and on Sunday I dug out (pun unintended) all our seeds (we were sent quite a lot from a lovely friend who sadly had to give up her allotment, and had some leftovers from last year too) and worked out what needs planting when and where and typed up a month-by-month table so I can hopefully make sure that we don't miss anything. So that's exciting!
Later on Sunday we both went to the plot and started digging. Before that though we got up the plastic (which wasn't actually as extensive as I'd feared), but the bulk of the time was digging, which was very satisfying, until HD paced the plot out and said he reckoned we'd done around 1/12 of it! So I suspect that it won't all be dug over by the time we need to start planting, but if we just do it bit by bit we can plant the early stuff in the bit we dig to start with, and then keep digging the next bit till we reach the other end.
The guy in the neighbouring plot is going great guns with his digging, he looks like he's doing a real professional job! Ours is nowhere near as well dug as his - it'll be interesting to see who gets the best yields.
Here's the pictures from Sunday of our handiwork:
We're not at the plot this weekend as we're having an adventure, but according to my month-by-month table we're going to need to start sowing some seeds indoors soon. And there's always digging to be thinking about :) I am SO loving having this allotment, it's so exciting!