Allotment

So, a while ago i signed up for the waiting list for an allotment. I’ll never get one, I thought to myself. If I do it will be fun, won’t it? Plant some stuff, let it grow. Easy. Okay, anyone reading this (if anyone is) who has ever had an allotment is laughing at me now, with good reason.

Then I forgot about it. Until, around 8 months later, I got invited to look at some vacant plots. Unfortunately I was working that day, so my wife and my parents went to take a look. They came up with which ones we should go for and, a week later we ended up with plot 48. We paid our rent for the year, waited for the key to arrive and then went to take a look at our new 200 square metre plot.

Yep, that is a big plot. A plot full of weeds. Lots and lots of weeds. I’ve highlighted the part that’s our plot to really show how much there is to do:

Weeds. I know I have already mentioned them but that really is the word that springs to mind. ‘Weeds’ and ’big’.

I live in a flat and don’t have a garden. I have lived in flats since I was 18, I’m 46 now. What do I know about gardening? Nothing. Am I crazy? Probably.

So, what to do? Look at the plot, I guess. See what’s there and what I have taken on. Turns out there was a lot there.

There was Hedge Bindweed, Large Bindweed, Sun Splurge, Lemon Balm, Stinging Nettles – weeds, weeds and more weeds. Then some raspberries, in amongst the weeds admittedly, but still something good. in the back corner some grapes strung on some old fencing and an apple tree a previous plot-holder has tried to train along some wires strung between poles.

Then there’s some raised beds. Some very well hidden raised beds, but they’re under there somewhere.

There are some raised beds under there, honest.

I went away both encouraged and discouraged. Time to look into what to do next, seek some advice from people who know more than I do – considering how little I know that shouldn’t be difficult!