It's been a few weeks since my last post and much progress has been made. While the will was there to crack on and get allotmenting, the weather really was quite horrifically cold and rendered all attempts at digging pretty impossible. But as luck woud have it, I found myself with a weekend without family and an unexpectedly warm weekend last weekend and up to plot 68 I went to meet up with Oli and aughter Frayer for some digging etc. In the weeks previous I had amassed 40 odd metres of ply cut into 8" high lengths and 50 wood stakes, all for the princely some of £0.00. With this in mind, the raised beds were top priority. That and some hard core digging to get the ground ready for planting. By Sunday afternoon, 2 raised beds built and a similar sized non raised bed section all dug and ready, a large pile of stick and general waste removed from the middle of the plot and cut into handy, useable piles and the place generally tidied up. One thing of interest is the arguement over whether raised beds are any good, so time will tell over the course of the summer which yields a more successful crop.
Next we need something to plant! One wasted hour at work on Monday later and a wide selection of seeds had been ordered, ready for the next visit. I've opted in my first year to go for some simple crops - potatoes, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, tomatoes, beans and some rhubard and yesterday we got the potatoes in. I've gone for Arron Pilats and Pentland Javelin earlies which have gone in the non raised bed. I'll be getting the main crop ones in the raised bed soon. The main blocker to this at the moment is no soil in the raised bed, it is sat in a load of black bags in the garden waiting for transportation.
All in all, given that we were only given this overgrown stretch of clay in November, it's not looking too bad.
