A Whole Plotta Love

It’s been three weeks since we started work on the plot, and dare I say it, it’s beginning to look a little like an allotment. The Russian comfrey has bedded in nicely.

And we’ve also started work on a third bed. Digging the path seemed an endless job and I ran out of weed suppressant fabric with only 7 metres to go. I need not have worried because L was on hand to help me liberate a giant piece of plastic sheeting from the allotment site’s main discard pile (one man’s rubbish and all that). It worked nicely under the last bit of wood chip.

The actions of slice, dig, remove turf for loam pile, weed, remove soil for vegetable bed, place sheeting, cut sheeting, collect wood chip, lay wood chip became rather repetitive and quite meditative after a while. Uncovering an old hawthorn stump made me wonder about how the plot looked in the care of previous owners.

But we got there, and finally, yesterday, we finished the path.

In celebration I started digging over the potato bed ready for planting next week, and I moved the carpet into position to suppress weed growth ready for two more future beds. I left one carpet a little lumpy because a toad’s living in it and I didn’t want to inconvenience him too much.

We’ve still yet to understand the movements of the water table and the goings on in our well. There’s been a lot of rainfall this week, and whilst on the river it usually takes two days to see a rise in levels, the water in the well has confused us by dropping. I’m not sure what’s happening but it’s practically running on empty. We’ll keep an eye on it. Maybe it has something to do with the gravel extraction pits on a site adjacent to the allotment plots. Could they be pumping water away?

In other allotment news, there’s beehives on site and this week saw the waking of them for the season. The honey made is sold at the local farmers’ market in town and this year the bees will be making honey from the pollen from our plants! I find this very exciting. One hive is very close to our plot.