My first year allotment, then and now
Bit happenstance really but I had the opportunity to lease an allotment plot from the council which I took late last year (2018). I had grand dreams of neat rows of beautiful and bountiful crops but the reality was far from the dream.
I made probably every mistake in the book from digging over seed to letting big patches of the plot go to seed. I couldn’t remember where I had planted what. And the reality is most of the time, all you do in the allotment is dig, and dig and dig.
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The allotment in April 2019
There were successes however as well. The strawberries grew well and late into the season. The potatoes fed us all summer long. I grew a bunch of nice big squashes.
Now I am putting the plot to bed for the winter. That mostly means shoveling a thick layer straw and horse manure all over the place. Then I’ll leave it and start again in the spring.
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The allotment in October 2019
The two pictures are a before and after shot, taken in April and October. Obviously the sunny day in October helps quite a bit for the picture but I’m sure you can see the difference.