April 2008: Less of the growing, more of the digging

We took on half size plot 38A at Elm Grove Allotments in Walton-on-Thames on Friday, 4 April 2008. The allotments are just 5 minutes walk from our house so we are very lucky just to be able to pop over there and can be often seen strolling down the road with our wheelbarrow laden with tools and produce! I hope we don't look too much like ragamuffins in our grubby garb!

When we took over the plot it needed some serious digging over and tidying up.



We spent our first Saturday fixing the shed window, digging the ground (the soil was better than in our own garden!), starting on turning over the grassy paths within the plot to provide a larger growing area and generally tidying up.



We were SO eager to get planting as everyone else seemed to have already started on sowing for the season ahead but... the very next day it snowed!



So we had to wait until the ground had thawed out before we could even continue digging, working manure through the soil and planting!

Potatoes (Anya), red onions, shallots and the rescued and relocated raspberries were the first things we planted in the newly dug-over ground.

We were very lucky that our plot came with a water butt and a shed, invaluable to store tools, seeds etc and just to have somewhere to shelter when the wind blows or the rain falls. Sadly it seemed to do this rather a lot in our first year!

Saturday 12 April

We managed to rescue quite a number of raspberry canes that had been left abandoned to grow underneath a grassy/weedy area and we moved these alongside the strawberry plants we had planted. Eager to get crops into the ground, we also planted white onions, sowed leek seeds and broad beans. Any grassy areas we weren't using straightaway we covered with weed-stop material to minimise those pesky weeds.

Saturday 19 April

We received our very first gifts from fellow plot holders, ... some crowns of rhubarb which we planted right away, dreaming of a nice bowlful of rhubarb crumble as we did so and some pea plants. We also sowed beetroot (Chioggia), radish, fennel (Florence) and mangetout.

Sunday 27 April

Mare's tail EVERYWHERE - at first we had thought they were asparagus shoots which the previous plot holders had planted but sadly we were so wrong. We carefully weeded around the onions and shallots and dug over the empty beds and covered with weed-stop sheeting to deter the weeds.

We also planted some redcurrant, blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes in the fruit bed.