I had originally intended to write a post about the back of our allotment after spending a lovely afternoon there a couple of weeks ago. It was a recreational space which kept my daughter entertained – a place to explore when she wanted a break from gardening stuff.
Perhaps there will be an opportunity at some point in the future, depending on what happens with the ground, but I don’t think it is suitable as a playground right now:
The above shot shows the area where the stump behind my half plot used to be. Well, until about lunchtime today. For when I arrived at the allotment to plant a few of the broad bean plants that have been shooting up, the digger had just finished what diggers do.
One of the committee members warned me that there was a bit of a mess but not to worry about it. I’m not quite sure what that means but before doing any digging myself I realised a bit of tidying up was in order:
Looking at the photos now, the site doesn’t look quite as bad, in truth. The grass at the entrance to my plot soon pulled back from where it had ended up on top of the rhubarb and I realised that the digger may have done me a favour: the grass really needed to come out and now I won’t have to do any digging there of my own. Or rather it will take a lot less effort to sort out the entrance than it would have done before.
Because the digger needed to go over my plot (fortunately not the part I was already cultivating), it had in effect rotavated the area worst affected by overgrowth. So again there will be much less digging for me to do henceforth!
Not that I did no digging of any description today. I still had time to plant 12 of my broad bean plants and it will be interesting to see how they develop.
Then it was off to lunch at a friend’s. She has a log burner and had a bag of ash to give away, so in the spring that will do nicely round the apple tree in the back garden 🙂
All in all, not quite the day I had expected but the stump has come out before I had done lots of hard work which might now be unnecessary. I also feel quite virtuous in visiting a friend and
picking up her unwanted ash… Writing this post is giving me itchy feet to get back up to the allotment but I will have to wait till it is at least light now 😉
©Helen Butt, January 2014
Growing out of chaos 
Looks like it turned out alright in the end! you must of been cringing when the digger started working huh
Fortunately, I didn’t get there till it was all over! Yes, over all it is a good thing – as I expected my daughter was a bit dismayed when I told her but I don’t suppose the half plot is going to be cultivated in the next week or so 😉
As long as you get to use it still that’s what counts!
We’ll see if the land is sorted out so a plot holder can take it….
Crossing fingers for you
Thank you, Andy 🙂
My goodness you have been extremely busy so far this year! WOW!
I’m under a bit of time pressure as I have a three month probation on the allotment – about a month to go now. And I’ve still got the garden to get into shape. But the weather has been good (for winter!) in this part of the world, so it has made sense to take advantage of it. Besides, it is all good exercise 😉