End of an era
I'm sad to report that earlier this month we received written notice to quit our allotment. As you may guess from the neglected state of this blog, we have both been very busy with our day-jobs this summer, and the weeds on our allotment enjoyed the manure we dumped on the beds even more than the vegetables did. The result was that we were unable to keep our plot up to the standards required by the committee, so that's that!
It's a real shame given all the hard work we put in this spring (and that can be clearly seen the photos on this blog) - but the demand for allotments is really high these days so there's a lot of pressure. Fortunately we were able to get up there one last time to harvest what had survived our neglect: one "Uchiki Kuri" squash, some half-dried borlotti beans, a few small celeriac, a surprising haul of onions and carrots (over a kilo of each), plus five of the biggest sunflower heads I've ever seen! We also dug up the strawberry plants, because frankly they weren't cheap, and we have a strawberry planter at home, sitting empty and neglected...
Once I'd got over the shock I realised what a weight of guilt I'd been carrying, because my indifference to gardening magically disappeared. Suddenly I was reading gardening magazines and seed catalogues and excitedly planning what I could squeeze into my tiny back garden! The poor thing has been as sorely neglected as the lottie - because the allotment was a higher priority, so of course neither got done - but luckily I've had two weeks off work and enough fine weather to take advantage of the free time.
Hence, one raised bed is now half planted up with overwintering onions (with the other half covered, ready to sow early spinach next spring); the other bed has some late attempts at winter-hardy salads, and broad beans will go in soon. The lessons I've learnt over the past three years should stand me in good stead and help me to produce a decent crop, even from the tiny space I have left.
I was so upset at first that I deleted this blog. Fortunately I had a backup of most of the site, so I've only had to reconstruct the last couple of entries, though it looks like the categories and tagging have gone AWOL...