The Allotment

I’ve loved gardening for years (any excuse to get covered in mud!), but it wasn’t until we moved to The Old Chapel that I’ve been able to spend a number of years on just one plot. After two years of pleasant toil developing a very modest garden from nothing, I decided I needed more space. I wanted to grow fruit and vegetables and have a place where I could make a nursery bed for flowers for the garden and grow cutting flowers for home.  Then one day an opportunity came along that I just couldn’t pass up: an allotment. It was late in the 2010 season when I took up the mantle and it was too late to begin planting for that year’s larder, so I decided to concentrate on digging. It’s a good job I enjoy it because it took me two months to double dig just one border!

Crosslanes allotments were new, born out of a ploughed field. The vast space was covered in weeds and deep furrows and the soil was very heavy clay, compacted by heavy machinery. Just about all I grew in the first year were two courgette plants! I made plans. I wanted a potager garden, a blending of the practical and the beautiful.  But I would take my time; I’d have to, it’s a large plot with only me to work it and little money to invest in it!

In spring 2011 I realised that my ideal of double digging the entire plot in time for planting was futile!  I pulled out as many perennial weeds by hand as I could and hired a cultivator to make quick work of turning the soil over so that I could ensure at least some crops would be planted and harvested later in the year.  The albums on this page show the development of the plot so far, as you can see there’s still lots of work to do!

To find an album you want to look at hover over ‘categories’ (bottom left) and if you click on the ‘i’ in the top right corner you’ll get some info about the individual image.