I did it - One more year!

Allotment rent paid. Who's ready to go again? I  certainly am!

The allotment has been a complete no go area over the last couple of weeks. Christmas, New Year, Flood and Snow have made it completly impossible to do anything. I still have a good area of land to dig over and I want to get the shed back up again as soon as possible.

Driving past a local garden centre on the way home from work yesterday, I spotted a big sign saying 'SEED POTATOES NOW IN STOCK', so there is some optimism now that things will be back to normal soon. I suppose it is not unreasonable to start thinking about sowing tomato and chilli seeds over the next couple of weeks despite the bitterly cold snap of weather we are having, with even more snow expected at the weekend. I am going to get some Broad beans under way over the next week or so too. It will be nice to have some green shoots emerging from the plot again. That is all weather providing though of course. Last year, I remember sowing broad beans in an old grow bag by the side of the house and moving them up to the allotment at a later date but the plants weren't as strong as ones sown direct, so I won't be doing that again this year I don't think.

I am going to get a bit of rough paper and a pen out at some point and have a quick sketch of what is going where for the year ahead. I also want to make my plot a little more secure so I am going to remove the paving slab path which leads from the road track to the patioed area. I think they must be using the path to get at our plot. Seeing as the site has been so muddy due to the wet summer and winter, I recon that giving them dry access has made our plot more targetable. I am also going to move the patio over and plant some gooseberry bushes on the side where it can be accessed via a grass path between mine and my neighbours plot. Hopefully these prickly bushes will deter them, but we'll have to wait and see.

On another note, I also seem to have amassed quite a lot of gardening vouchers over my birthday and then the Christmas period. I was adamant that I was going to buy a 3x2m polytunnel for the allotment before the last bout of vandalism. Now I am too scared to put it up there and I don't have room at home. Seeing as my mini greenhouses were also smashed I really need somewhere to keep plants warm come the end of February when I start sowing winter cabbage and the like. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet as such but I am looking forward to spending them when I do.

I've mentioned before that we enjoy regular trips to Disneyland Paris from time to time, and although we are back there in just 27 days time, I have also been planning a couple of more trips away this year. I really want to take Amy down to Jimmy's Farm in Norfolk to see the pigs and also just have a country break. We are really looking in to keeping pigs and are actively searching for a plot of land to buy or rent to do so, I think that is one of my targets for this year. To be a pig keeper. I'm in one of those moods at the moment where I want to do something and I think, why should I let anything or anyone stop me? I'll keep you updated on that anyway...




Pig at Hatton last summer..


But for now it'll be dreaming of Spring, seedlings and salads. Roll on March, that's when the fun really begins.

Thanks for visiting as always,

Martin