November deliberations

GREENHOUSE
Weed clearing and maintenance are ongoing. A pane of glass needs replacing [A]. The ground is dry and full of couch grass and some dock weeds. Instead of forking/digging and risking further damage, we’ll smother the weeds by covering with newspaper and cardboard [T].

SHED
Not having a shed is a bit of a problem. We feel we can’t leave stuff in the greenhouse. In the meantime, we’ll carry on looking for a second-hand one on the Freecycle website [A, T].

COMPOST BINS
Like the greenhouse, they came with the plot. One of them is full of lovely, rich-looking compost, snugly covered by a compost blanket. However, I sat on the lid during a break from digging and it needs mending. The other bin is busy composting its contents.

PLOT
Rubbish has been cleared. There were dozens of slugs and snails and one mouse hiding under the heaps of plastic. Instead of hiring a strimmer, we’re clearing surface growth by hand, using a sickle. So far, we’ve created 12 bonfire heaps and will decide what to do with these later.

Half the plot will be used to cultivate fruit and veg, the rest (on the oak tree’s side) will be left semi-wild to attract wildlife. The fruit and veg plot, roughly 16 by 8 m, will be divided into six areas. Looking towards the morning sun, we’ll have a small “holding plot” on the far left (where we may grow asparagus and rhubarb) and a fruit plot on the far right where we have two composting bins. The area in between will be divided into four annually rotating plots, each divided into four beds of 2.4 by 1.2 m. More about that later.

The soil is clay-y rather than silty or sandy, so we may have problems with drainage. We’ve done some pH testing but need to look at the results a bit more. It’s hard working with the soil when it’s wet. We’ve decided not to dig over the whole plot but to leave paths in between the (dug) beds. In any case, there doesn’t seem to be a huge weed problem – most of the surface growth appeared to be overgrown grass.

FRUIT AND VEG
With regard to choice of food, well, we’ll have a go at everything since there is not much we do not like. We’ll start with onion and garlic, perhaps. Fruit bushes can be planted soon. In the greenhouse we’ll try broad beans, sweet peas and maybe two types of lettuce. It all depends on how we get on with preparing the soil. We’ve decided not to be too pedantic about things but prefer an organic sort of working-with-nature we’ll-see-what-happens approach.

Day 2 at the plot

Did a bit more teak oiling and clearing. Spoke to D about strawberries.

First Tuesday

It rained throughout the morning. We spent most of it in the greenhouse, clearing the weeds, picking up broken glass, tidying stuff. The oak tree was visited by hundreds of starlings. It's also shedding its leaves. The idea is to pick them up and create leafmould!

So much stuff to do ... We had another cup of tea.

First decisions ...

Our allotment contains ten rods. As part of the tenancy agreement, we shall “keep the garden clean, free of weeds and in a good state of cultivation and fertility”. So we had a little meeting on 3 October 2007 and agreed our priorities are:

1. Clear the greenhouse, clean, maintain
2. Basic clearance of plot such as removal of rubbish
3. Strim the plot - T to explore
4. Policy decision - dig, no dig or part-dig?
5. Think about plot soil, size, layout and rotation
6. What are we going to grow?
7. Our weekly slot on the plot: Tuesday mornings from 9 a.m.
8. We like a bench
9. What sort of tools and where do we keep them?
10. T will sort out ringbinder for any paperwork
11. We'll use John Seymour's book on self-sufficiency (ha!)
12. A will investigate winter lettuce, spring cabbage and summer cauliflower
13. T will investigate garlic
14. Pick the verbena b., our first crop!

First impressions ...

This is the greenhouse. And this is the plot:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wPXpTT-qdq0