It’s the start of the season, and all around the allotment site preparations have begun for this year’s growing season.
With this in mind (and a little peer pressure!) it was time to return to the patch after last year’s initial dabble at clearing up and get serious. First off a little tour of the plot and what we have found.
So, here comes the serious stuff 😉
The site has around 50 plots which are all ‘small’ in size. There is a car park/manure store/wood chipping pile at one end of the site and one big grass path which provides limited vehicle access through the middle of the site. There is no running water to each plot but there are water storage butts throughout.
Our plot was overgrown when we got it late last year (Photo 2017). It had been strimmed over by the council at some point to reduce the weed height but this obviously left the roots behind.
We set about clearing a large number of glass windows from the plot, we need the plot to be as safe as possible for all ages, glass is not an ideal choice for us.
Next up was to inspect some of the timber and remove pieces that contained projecting nails and similar. With this now stored at one end of the plot for removal all was safe for children and in they came! So we set about doing some weeding, yay! We found 9 beds, one of which contained some strawberries!
There were a number of paths that needed some maintenance and we cleared the strawberry bed to ensure what we had was not lost (hopefully it will fruit for us this year).
And the kids biggest achievement this week………. Creating the compost heap. They have proudly chucked, dumped and thrown all number of green weeds and clumps of grass onto a heap which is now taller and wider then they are. Next week, aiming practice so that the whole bottom section doesn’t become taken over by this new addition to plot 37.
With the clean up well underway, the next stop is the seeds, so stay tuned for seed packet action.
