So we had the Garden from Scratch…and now we have the allotment as well. When the lovely owner of this allotment got in touch through Landshare to say she had more room on her plot than time, I jumped at the chance. This long, wide bed is all mine. It’s not a full allotment: but given we both work full-time, we can’t justify the commitment. But it is a bit of earth, a bit more earth in which to grow more and more food to keep us going, and keep us away from the shops.
We started work on the bed today, and have cleared one eighth of it. It is heavy going: unlike the friendly sandy loam in my own garden, this is heavy, grumpy clay which bizarrely had a maize field growing on it until January. There is also a great deal of horsetail, which is a nasty weed able to regenerate from the smallest fragment. So we dug down to a spade-and-a-half’s depth, and forked our way through the compacted soil, pulling out the weed roots as we went. It is going to be hard work, but it is a new bit of earth, a lovely bit of earth, and now our bit of earth.
on Jun 28th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
I love the promise of a new garden bed, how exciting! I’m working on liberating a bit more of my lawn each year for edible & beneficial plants.
on Jun 30th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
It’s hard work starting a new allotment from an overgrown patch. I detailed the whole process on my website on http://www.glallotments.btik.com/p_Taming_a_derelict_plot.ikml if anyone is interested.
on Jul 7th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Great post!
on Oct 19th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
When I was young I watched and helped as my parents turned a plot of weeds into a garden. It was a profound amount of work, but well worth it. I hope you are having fun!