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.

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.

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.