Allotment haul 12 September

The allotment was looking okay today, I am reliably told by Himself, not having managed to get there myself!

It wasn’t for want of trying. My first attempt was headed off by the need to drop my files and associated stuff for the committee meeting into the committee room. There I go waylaid in the nicest possible way by an allotment-holder who wanted to talk about butterflies.

Then it was time for the ten o’clock tour and as we only had one person booked, I’d already decided to go round, and then another allotment volunteer decided to go with us, and finally an allotment-holder who’d been browsing our excellently stocked shop joined in too.

We were supposed to have four tours, each lasting an hour and a half, but two thirds of the way round the site, we were accosted by our Site Rep who pointed out that the next group were waiting to start! The next group consisted of two people, and he kindly headed off with them, while we wrapped up our truncated trip which meant we didn't reach the part of the site that contains our plot - actually I was rather glad because as you can see, some plots definitely put 201 to shame! The third tour had nobody booked, which was good, as we had a committee meeting to prepare for our AGM in October, and the fourth was due at 14:30 and consisted of three people and a dog.

So in total we had six actual visitors, although I think each tour gathered up a number of people along the way who wanted to explore the site (or perhaps they just wanted a break from their own plots!) in company with others.

I don’t know how the caterers did – I never actually got to taste or drink anything, but they had tables and chairs and cake which I was miserable to miss out on. All in all it was an experience, although a very mixed one, and if we get involved again next year, we’ll want to handle more of the publicity ourselves and perhaps not to have online booking systems.

Rather worryingly, somebody told somebody (you know how these things go) who told the catering lady, who told a section rep, that lots of people think the tours are tomorrow …

On a more horticultural footing, Himself picked a trug of beans, four cucumbers, a large handful of alpine strawberries and an errant leek. So dinner tonight will be lentil, leek and lamb casserole, followed by alpine strawberries, vanilla ice-cream and strawberry coulis from this summer’s frozen harvest.

Labels: allotment-beans, allotment-cucumbers, allotment-leeks, allotment-tours