Plot 114

Well, I hope yesterday's post left you in suspense.

Well here's the story..

Early last year we applied to join the waiting list for an allotment on any of the local sites. At the time Amy filled out the form and we sent it off dreaming of a smooth process and hopefully in 2012 we would get the call and would be granted a lovely allotment.

Well that day came just under 2 weeks a go when we got the call whilst shopping in Solihull. The town council outlined that they had a plot for us but they had no idea which one! Fantastic. We couldn't wait to see where it was and really get going with it. They were going to let us know within a week and then it would be all spades go! Well on Monday Amy got a letter through the door. We were now the proud tenants of plot number 16! You can see plot number 16 here. We went up to visit with our noses streaming and we were really pleased with our new acquisition.

We got our pencils out and made plans on Monday night. We even popped in to Stratford Upon Avon on Tuesday despite feeling under the weather and bought some raspberry canes and some other essentials that we needed.

It was only when we got home on Tuesday evening that we got a huge shock. At my house was a letter from the town council. We were now the proud tenants of Plot 114. You may be wondering how we managed to be prescribed 2 allotments.

Well when we first applied to join the waiting list we listed Amy's Dad's address on the application form. However, seeing as he has a very long garden which just touches the Parish of Arrow. We were considered to be outsiders and therefore would not be preferred over other people within Alcester parish and would have to pay £5 a year more rent for our allotment.

Being the super scrimper and understanding how much of a demand for an alloment there is I filled in another application form with my address. We told them to withdraw Amy's application and proceed with mine.

Amy was 12th on the waiting list when she joined, and I got an email a few days after my own application saying I was now 12th on the waiting list, so I presumed Amy's application had been dropped as asked.

Well it turns out there was an oversight and both of our applications proceeded. We therefore had a choice of 2 allotments, however they are on completly different sites which meant different soil type, different facilites, structure etc.

We initially thought that Plot 16 was going to be perfect. We thought we were very loyal to it and we liked how I already knew the people either side of us. Well when we visited Plot 114 we didn't think much of it at first but we did quickly fall in love. We did think of having the two of them and then dedicating one to strawberries and pumpkins and doing the majority of our growing on the other. But we decided that this was too much and we wanted to have one 'really good' allotment rather than 2 average ones.

After consideration of the 'really important things' we plumped for Plot 114, our new home.

I will save pictures of Plot 114 tomorrow, so make sure you come back for a look! You won't be disapointed. But here is a small teaser...

Have a good day!!!

Martin

Don't forget to come back tomorrow!!!!

Bye Bye Plot Number 16

It saddens me to say that we are no longer the tenants of plot number 16. There has been a bit of a mix up and basically it is no longer ours.

We were so excited to finally have plot number 16, and to have to give it up almost immediately is a real shame.

We really enjoyed the 1 day we were the tenants of plot number 16.

A more indepth post will follow tomorrow..

Martin

Plot number 16

It's been 10 days since we last posted. We've been agonising during that period because of the wait for the town council to give us a ring and tell us which plot was ours. We had been drawing up fantasy plans in our head and on paper, and today the letter came telling us which plot was ours.

I could not believe it when I saw which plot we had. Plot number 16.

The reason why we could not believe it is because it is directly in fron of my old alloment. Plot number 17. During my 3 years of allotmenteering on the site plot number 16 had never, ever been touched. It was just a weedy patch with a big fruit tree on it.

It was strange going back to the site today, I expected to walk straight past plot number 16 and on to plot number 17. It looks like in the 2 years I have been away from the site, plot number 16 has remained deprived of the sight of a spade the whole time. Something will be changing over the next week or so when we both recover from our winter colds.

Let me introduce you to plot number 16...

The plot starts at where I am standing and goes all the way past the big tree and then back to the greenhouse that used to be mine. It is a good sized plot, very narrow, but a good size. You can see the two plots either side of me are tended to so mark the boundary. There is a very small path (one foot in front of the other) between the plots.

The huge tree, I think if I remember correctly is an apple tree. But which variety, I do not know. It will be interesting to see what fruit starts forming on there this summer. Here is the view of the plot from the tree down to the houses...

Despite feeling ill, we've been drawing up plans and shopping lists so we can get started quickly...

We want to have 6 beds on our allotment and we will rotate the crops grown  in each bed every year to ensure good crop rotation and ensure we care for the soil correctly and avoid diseases building up. The six beds will be for soft fruit (which will be permanently fixed), squash, potatoes, roots and beans, brassicas and alliums. The top 1/5 of the allotment will hopefully be slabbed with the shed and a table positioned there. There will also be a couple of compost bins and a raised bed for growing salad leaves and a few lettuces. The beds will be divided by maintained grass paths to enable easy access around the plot.

We really feel that a shed is an absolute essential for the plot, it is somewhere to store tools, shelter from rain and to do all of the small potting jobs in the summer. We are going to ask for permission to erect a shed from the town council tomorrow when we go to pay the rates for the year. For £25 per year you have to admit this really is a bargain. However, it has gone up £9 since I vacated plot 17 just over 2 years ago, which is quite an inflation!

I've written a comprehensive shopping list and a production target for each vegetable (You can tell I study operations management at university) and I am going to work out how much it will cost us to start up the allotment this year against how much the worth of our veg should be.

We are both completly excited about the project and can't wait to get our hands dirty as soon as we rid of this cold!

Thanks for stopping by and reading. With spring now in the air we hope to bring you lots of interesting updates over the coming weeks about the advances on the plot!

Martin

We're going to need a few more seed potatoes...

We only bought 21 seed potatoes for our small little patch.

But today we had the news that we're getting our own very big patch. The town council called to say they had an allotment with our name on it. It will be ready for us from the end of next week which of course is very, very exciting.

We have a lot of plans running through our head already. We can't wait to put the spade in the ground for the first time very soon!

Martin

Bread of Heaven

Well that certainly tasted good.

The other day I thought I would teach Amy how to bake bread. It is something that I really enjoy doing and the taste and texture of a home made loaf is far grander than a shop bought one. I've really got the knack of it now and would never use a bread machine again.

I realised I give my bread quite a thorough seeing to in the kneading process, but Amy seemed to show a lot more gentle love and affection to the dough. She certainly has the right knack anyway because it tasted absolutely scrumptious and it looked good too...

I look forward to her baking many more loaves for me in the future.

Delicious!

Martin