Spring Cleaning the Allotment

Well, not really spring cleaning, but trying to get it looking organised and tidy – if you take photos from just the right angle, so that you miss out the huge top area of rough scrub, thistles and dock, it almost looks as if our plot is going great guns.

Stand in the wrong place, of course, and you can see the heap of rubbish still waiting to be collected by the council, the mouldering heap of compost, threaded with bindweed and nettles, that we’re trying to level, and the mound of holly branches, old pallets and general tat that isn’t going to be collected by the council, or be of any use to us, but is too green or wet to be burnt in the incinerator. Oh well!

So we put up some bunting around the raspberry canes, just because we could, and set a couple more raised beds in place, so that even though there’s nothing in most of them, it looks as if we’re productive - six beds down so far (does that make me sound like Henry VIII or something?). Then, hurrah! The council lorry turned up without warning (as it always does) and dropped off a huge load of wood mulch made from Christmas trees. So now, between our raised beds, we have a lovely fragrant carpet of pine chippings. And because John and Anita on the plot next to hours wanted some chippings too, I was busy with my barrow, wheeling heaps of chippings around the site. Quite the little paragon.

It was committee meeting weekend too, so I’ve been busy typing minutes and drafting letters – it’s a funny thing, but when I took on an allotment I had this mad idea that it would involve LESS sitting at the computer, not more …

Labels: allotment-appearance, allotment-cleaning, allotment-raised-beds, allotment-raspberries