Allotment gardening

Top of my Christmas wish list was a wheelbarrow and, thanks to some cash from my parents, I am able to buy one from my local Homebase. It feels good enough and I manage to squeeze it into the back of the car and drive it to the allotment. My eldest boy, Matthew, sits in and I push him up to the plot and we store it in the shed. A quick look round shows that things are continuing to grow - particularly the broad beans.



The peas are now of a size where they are going to need some support. I'll have to look out for some twigs or pea netting.

I nip down today to do a little bit of weeding. I hoe between the peas and the broad beans so the rows look a little tidier. I also try to pull some of the grass that is growing among the onions up. However occasionally I grab an onion by mistake. They don't look like they are growing very well - although they have shoots coming out the top, the bulbs of the ones I actually pull up are still small and squashy. I can't believe they are meant to be like that but I'll wait and see. If they don't work, I'll know to prepare the ground better next time. As I said right at the beginning of this venture, it is all going to be one big learning curve for me and I do intend to learn from my mistakes. At the end of this stint, the plot is looking good and should stand up to my father-in-law's visit over the Christmas period.

Another early start down at the allotment sees me borrowing the rusty old wheelbarrow from a neighbouring plot and loading up barrow after barrowload of fresh horse manure. I dump about eight barrows in a pile down at the bottom of my plot - as a manure heap is said to be a good idea. I then start filling up one of my bins that already has some horse manure in it. A gardener from a few plots down called Graham comes and helps me lift the full barrows into the bin. He is a very nice chap but it makes me feel a bit self-conscious that I have taken too much manure. I settle for 16 barrow loads which leaves me with a big pile of manure and one compost bin nearly full of manure. It's been a good morning's work.

I come down to the allotment with my powerdrill/screwdriver and a plank of wood and a saw. I quickly reattach the doors, although one doesn't fit properly which annoys me. But I can't have another attempt because the battery runs out on the electric screwdriver. I then turn my attention to the bin and saw a piece of wood to shape and nail it in place to replace the broken piece. There has been another delivery of horse manure - I could do with topping up my supplies.
I think to reattach the door properly I will need someone to help. So in the afternoon, I come back down with my wife and children. With my wife's help I get the door to fit more-or-less - at least so it will close anyhow. Then as we leave, I notice an old abandoned wheelbarrow on a neglected plot. That will do nicely when I return at the weekend to get some manure.

I haven't been down to the plot for a while but when I go down I see one of my compost bins has been damaged. It was fairly windy in the night and something has blown against the top of one of them and broken the top plank. I also have a little lean-to type building at the back of the shed and the doors have also blown off this. I decide to reattach the doors and cut a new piece of wood to fix the damage bin.

I nip down today just to keep a check on everything. I will have to weed the peas, beans and onions soon as they beds are full of bits of grass and other persistent weeds. I want everything to look nicely-ordered by the time my parents-in-law come for Christmas.

After a terrible night with a near midnight-dash to the out of hours doctor's and two trips to the late-night chemist, I get up late and everyone is feeling a bit the worse for wear. However my wife feels a bit better and now my son has been prescribed anti-biotics, he is also on the road to recovery. When my wife takes the two boys out for a drive, I see it as my cue to race down to the allotment, borrow a wheelbarrow from a neighbouring plot and start getting rid of the various piles of rubbish all over my plot. This is such a good chance to get rid of a lot of stuff that I am quite thorough. A lawnmower in the shed, a sink, the weed-covered carpet that used to cover the back of my plot - it all goes in along with loads of bramble roots and pieces of the broken up slab of cement. Anything that I think I have no use for goes in the skip - which has almost completely filled up since yesterday. After about an hour, I have dumped it all and I have a very tidy, respectable looking plot. I will need to weed the beds where the peas and beans are growing but it is at least now a tidy-looking plot.

My whole family is struck down by some mystery virus which lays everyone low. I spend most of the day administering medicines to the two children and doing the ironing. However, and this might be a mark of my selfish determination where my allotment is concerned, I still find half-an-hour to drive down and dump the remaining bags of leaves into the end bin. I get a shock when I get to the allotments - there is a huge skip there, waiting to be filled with loads of rubbish - of which I have plenty. I ask another plot holder how long it is going to be there for. He tells me it is only there till Tuesday. As I'm working on Monday and Tuesday, that means I will have to find some time tomorrow to through away some serious piles of crap I have building up in various parts of my plot.

I take a few of the bags of leaves I have bagged up in the back garden down to the allotment and dump them in my new, specially designated, leafmould bin. My newly-repaired bins look pretty smart, if I do say so myself. Still plenty more bags of leaves waiting back at home.

My dad agrees to come down and help me do some work this morning. I want to combine the compost from two bins, leaving one free to make leafmould and also spread the horse manure I got on Sunday over the bed at the back.
When we get there I show dad the progress since he was last here - green manure growing, peas and beans coming through, onions growing and a clean, well-ordered shed. I then fork the manure over the bed at the back and then go to see what dad is up to at the compost bins. One of the bins has a huge lump of concrete in it that we haven't been able to shift. Dad has brought a sledge hammer and together we smash the slab to bits and lift the pieces out. Dad has also brought some planks of wood and we saw them to size and nail them over the holes in the bins where the old wood has rotted away. I then fork all the compost from the bin at the end into the neighbouring one. We then nail some chicken wire over the open side of the last bin and empty four bags of leaves in. This is going to be my bin for leafmould which the HDRA have convinced me is worth doing - even if it takes two to three years to break down effectively. I have loads of leaves bagged up in my back garden waiting to be added to the pile.