Yesterday was such a good day for getting things done, in the garden...at the allotment, but I simply, frustratingly, lacked the time. I popped up at lunchtime after a quick google on slug deterrents and armed with a bag of raw oats, scattered them around the plot, lets hope they work!

Later on in the evening I took Callum up to the plot and whilst I wrapped some fleece around the runners, Callum - armed with a miniature watering can and junior shovel..watered the plants and had a go at digging the strawberry bed!! I have a little helper there! Unlike our two ten year old boys who relished it all at first but soon get bored now!

This afternoon I went up to the allotment for an hour and made the most of the dry weather until school beckoned and I went to pick the kiddies up from school ! I partially dug a bed for strawberries and planted the sprouting broccoli which was purchased at the allotment plant sale, and the cucumber plant given to me by John a fellow allotmenter from Frome (a friend).

Was disappointed to find the runners looking a little weedy so plan to take something up to wrap around them next time to protect them, being very new and in the middle of a country park, it makes it extremely open to all weathers and the runners are getting the brunt of it all.

On a good note, I earthed up a lettuce today and look forward to having it in a salad tomorrow! My very first produce from the allotment. I look forward to the seedlings maturing now and then planting some more seeds, the plugs will be finished within the fortnight!

(fresh out of the allotment, as you can tell!)

Here's hoping the bank holiday weekend will give us dry weather and plenty of opportunity for the allotment!

That darned rain!

We had all three children with us this weekend and the plan was to spend a bit of time down at the allotment digging more beds, taking the cooch grass out, replacing the dead runners (just two of them thankfully) and planting the strawberries and cucumber as well as building a bit of protection around the plot to stop the howling wind and rain destroying my climbing plants! (as it is so open up there at the moment)

...Instead, the good old british weather was at it's best and we dragged the boys around the garden centre instead, visited friends, had friends around...and did chores! Bah humbug!

Good bit of the weekend, I purchased this book @ the garden centre to go along with the rest of my growing collection:

Out with ruby.

Taking ruby for a walk in the rain.

Well, hello!

In March 2009 we were kindly given a plot from our local council.

Southwick allotments were already established for many years when the council decided to act on the fact that there were big waiting lists for allotments in the area and added around 60 more plots behind the existing allotments, in the Southwick country park.

The first day of viewing it I was gobsmacked at the amount of work I knew I had ahead!! The council had simply rotavated the field without taking the turf off which gave us new allotmenters the huge job of digging over/rotavating whilst taking out all of the grass!

And so it starts....this journal will follow our progress of our little plot whilst sharing news about the rest of the allotment and it's progress and battles!