A Late Start. 15th April 2020

It’s been a late start to the gardening year, partly because all the rain earlier in the year meant that the soil was sodden and un-workable and partly because our allotment was turned around. The whole allotment site was re-vamped in order to make room for houses to be built on part of the field. It meant that we lost half of our plot and gained half of another.

Our allotment is now a bit bigger but it has taken time to dig it over and get it into some sort of order. We haven’t yet worked out the plots and may spend this year just concentrating on getting plants in the ground. One benefit has been a new fence round all the allotments which will keep out dogs and hopefully rabbits and deer. It has also encouraged everyone to have a good tidy up and so the site is looking much posher.

Covid 19 has also had its effect. The last few years we had taken to buying plants of things like French beans and courgettes to save on work but this year we don’t know if any will be available so we sent off for more seeds. We have a mini plastic greenhouse which is now up and running in the back garden and a good array of seeds growing into plants.

We have planted the potatoes at the allotment and are grateful to be picking rhubarb and last years chard. Chard dies off over the winter but re-appears in spring and is a good crop for bridging the gap when little else is available. It will eventually go to seed but by then we will hopefully have a new crop planted.