I finished the last post when I had just agreed to take on a new plot challenge. A bigger plot, a better plot, one I'd been eyeing up for a while. It was mid-season - May - it's the time when you should really start planting your seedlings, including anything you may have started indoors, on the windowsill or in a little greenhouse. I thought I'd hang around on my old plot with my little seedlings until at least the autumn and in the meantime work on the new plot as and when. That was not to be. I had to move from my plot to the scrub land of doom as soon as possible. Well fuck me, if that wasn't just the crappiest thing ever? The scrub land hadn't been so bad when it was offered the people before me but they hadn't been for almost a year (no pressure on them then) and now it was horrendous and the pressure was on me to move and quickly at that. All is not fair in love and turf war.
I spent a back breaking few days, killing weeds, strimming and digging some beds on the new plot, deciding that I would try and work only half of it that year. I had to dismantle my metal raised beds, move the soil and replant my little babies where I could. I was not happy. I was exhausted. I think I may have used the original "C" word a lot.
May is near July right? July is my birthday and what better birthday present than things for your new allotment? "Things" being a new bigger she-shed, some scaffolding boards for raised beds and a shit load of compost. The glamour.
Fast forward a few weeks and it's starting to really take shape. I order some plug plants (I love you Rocket Gardens) to catch up on a late start to the season. Even this half worked plot (my old one was a quarter plot) was bigger than I'd ever managed so I had great expectations of growing success. Then it rained.
I had been spoilt in 2018 with a long and glorious summer, hot days and nights from May until the 25th August when after a long hot and dry summer ( I remembered this date as my plot friend and I made a last minute summer get-together party) it rained for the first time in months. Obviously.
It rained continuously the Summer of 2019. Day and night and when it wasn't raining it was cold and cloudy. Things either didn't grow well or at all. I got two courgettes from one plant and nothing but mildew and rot on the others. Vegetation mainly rotted or was eaten by slugs and other pests. I did manage to grow some fennel - thank you allotment god - and some other bits and bobs but it was nothing like my first glorious year. I'm bored of saying it but here goes - if this would have been my first year on the plot, I may have given it up as too much hard work for little reward - but I know that when the sun does shine a bit and it doesn't rain 24/7 then I can grow, I can really grow.
 |
| May to June 2019 - I nearly killed myself doing this |
 |
| Birthday Building |
 |
| She-shed to end all she-sheds |
 |
| Fennels of Joy |
 |
| Not the best haul ever but not bad |